PoE sells 500K units

[Eisenheinrich]

So, we got numbers after all:

http://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2015-23-10-500k-units-of-pillars-of-eternity-have-now-been-sold

 

Obsidian Entertainment's Kickstarter-funded roleplaying game, Pillars of Eternity, has passed the 500,000 mark in sales, which includes the original backers.

 

 

 

Well then, good for them!

[AndreaColombo]

I honestly thought they had passed the 500,000 mark a while ago. Steam Spy puts the game at about 545,000 owners, and the Hero Edition was ahead of Divinity: Original Sin in overall number of copies sold on GoG.com for a time, which would put it over the 150,000 mark. Plus there's origin. So, about 700,000 minus backer copies; can the latter be as many as 200,000? Even then, they say they're at 500,000 including backer copies.

 

Oh well. Whatever the case, I sure hope they keep selling well and keep making isometric, party-based RPGs with RTwP combat

 

Also,

 

 

On top of that, there are multiple eBooks in the works from writers who worked on the game itself.

 

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-10-23-pillars-of-eternity-sells-500-000

 

Oh, yes. YES, I tell you!

 

EDIT: Just spotted in Eisenheinrich's link

 

 

A sequel is also in the works.

 

F**K YEAH!

Edited October 23, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[Infinitron]

The sequel remark sounds like conjecture to me.

Edited October 23, 2015 by Infinitron

[AndreaColombo]

You know you want it.

[Volourn]

500k. For a company whose other games have sold millions. FAILURE.

[wanderon]

500k. For a company whose other games have sold millions. FAILURE.

 

But what were the budgets of those millions selling games? What are the profit margins? How well did Obs itself do for time and resources expended? Bigger is not always as better as it might appear.

[Leferd]

According to SteamSpy, Shadowrun sold more units (863,000). Add another 450,000 to Dragonfall, and 93,000 to Hong Kong.

 

These games cost far less to make combined than PoE.

[MunoValente]

How many of those people that bought SRS paid like $2 for it? I know that's how much I paid for it. Price of the game matters too. This game's sells should continue to go up once sees price drops.

[Bill Gates' Son]

According to SteamSpy, Shadowrun sold more units (863,000). Add another 450,000 to Dragonfall, and 93,000 to Hong Kong.

 

These games cost far less to make combined than PoE.

 

Shadowrun returns has been on sale for how many times now since its release a 2 years and a half ago?  We're also talking about a game that costed less than half of Pillars of Eternity during its release.

Edited October 24, 2015 by Bill Gates' Son

[Leferd]

After PoE was funded, somebody associated with Obsidian --maybe it was Feargus, was quoted as stating that the trend was that pre-orders generate about 10% of initial unit sales. In this case, replace Kickstarter backers with pre-orders, which added up to roughly 73,000. 

 

I'm sure Obsidian is doing financially well with their current sales numbers, but it has fallen short of desired expectation. Let's not spin this into something that it's not and break out the champagne for 500k Steam units sold. 

Edited October 24, 2015 by Leferd

[AndreaColombo]

500k. For a company whose other games have sold millions. FAILURE.

 

Let us not forget, on top of what others already mentioned, that PoE is a PC-only game in a console-driven era and it belongs to a genre long considered obsolete and dead. Nowadays console-kids prefer shooters with swords action RPGs with awesomesauce buttons, copious amounts of hand holding, and voice acting that ensures they don't need to strain their eyes and minds on longer text than a line or two tops. Selling 500,000 copies in seven months is not bad, imo.

Edited October 24, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[TheisEjsing]

Let's remember to consider that PoE had next to no marketing. BAdler said several times, that all marketing was left to the development team at game shows and interviews. Besides, games like PoE sells for years to come, since for many people, it's a "when I got time I will pick it up on sale game". The numbers might be abit lower than some here would have expected, but it's in no way a failure.

[Flouride]

Aye, 500k sold units for a fully priced indie cRPG is great numbers and those numbers with just keep climbing once they release 2nd part of White March and with all the future Steam sales. 4 million from the Kickstarter campaign and with those numbers those numbers they have probably tripled that initial 4 million in sales.

Edited October 24, 2015 by Flouride

[Rosveen]

500k. For a company whose other games have sold millions. FAILURE.

Most of their other games are sequels to critically acclaimed titles. PoE is a new IP and a PC exclusive inspired by RPGs that the mass market audience generally considers outdated. 500k is fine. This number will only grow with every future Steam sale.

[vraseth]

Congratulation Obsidian, I hope the sales will continue growing like this, so that I could see the sequel, the sequel of sequel and so on and so on.

[Elerond]

 

500k. For a company whose other games have sold millions. FAILURE.

Most of their other games are sequels to critically acclaimed titles. PoE is a new IP and a PC exclusive inspired by RPGs that the mass market audience generally considers outdated. 500k is fine. This number will only grow with every future Steam sale.

 

 

Alpha Protocol (new ip and not that stellar reviews, although it come out to consoles also) sold 700k copies in its first month and SEGA called it failure and decided that there will not be any sequels for it. 

 

But success is not only in sale numbers, but also how profitable product is and how good it is for company's image and in both of this meters PoE has been one of the most successful tittles in Obsidian's history. 

[KDubya]

Those numbers also don't include GOG sales. I bought GOG and I'm sure many others did as well.

 

They've made enough to keep the Forums on, patches rolling out and continue work on White March part II.

 

No epic failure like Flagship had with Hellgate London   which in its defense, I thought was pretty fun with an interesting lore.

[AndreaColombo]

'sides, whether a specific sale figure makes a success or a failure largely depends on how much was spent to develop, market, and distribute the game. Those expenses determine the break-even point, past which a game is profitable for its stakeholders; therefore, companies can easily calculate the minimum sale figure needed for the game to be a success. A very expensive game can be a failure if it sells 2 million copies, and an indie game can be successful just selling 500,000.

 

Wasteland 2 sold 485K units on Steam according to Steam Spy, so slightly less than Pillars of Eternity. IIRC, Brian Fargo called it a success, and said sales like WL2's would enable inXile to keep doing these games indefinitely.

 

Of course inXile's much smaller than Obsidian and has different expense patterns, but as far as PoE is concerned when considered on its own, I'd say it was successful. Obsidian can't probably sustain itself just making games like PoE, but they can certainly make a profit from them while they keep working on other projects as well.

Edited October 24, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[Elerond]

Those numbers also don't include GOG sales. I bought GOG and I'm sure many others did as well.

 

They've made enough to keep the Forums on, patches rolling out and continue work on White March part II.

 

No epic failure like Flagship had with Hellgate London   which in its defense, I thought was pretty fun with an interesting lore.

In my understanding that 500k sales figures includes every copy that they have sold including copies they gave as rewards for Kickstarter and paypal backers. Which would mean that it includes Steam, GOG and Origin copies of the game.

 

Whole White March expansion was part their Kickstarter promises, so they probably would continue their work with part II even if PoE had sold much less copies.

 

Obsidian has also other sources of income than PoE, like for example their contract to develop Armored Warfare (which is tripe A tittle with triple A money behind it), meaning that this forums aren't necessary run with funds from PoE.

[Elerond]

'sides, whether a specific sale figure makes a success or a failure largely depends on how much was spent to develop, market, and distribute the game. Those expenses determine the break-even point, past which a game is profitable for its stakeholders; therefore, companies can easily calculate the minimum sale figure needed for the game to be a success. A very expensive game can be a failure if it sells 2 million copies, and an indie game can be successful just selling 500,000.

 

Wasteland 2 sold 485K units on Steam according to Steam Spy, so slightly less than Pillars of Eternity. IIRC, Brian Fargo called it a success, and said sales like WL2's would enable inXile to keep doing these games indefinitely.

 

Of course inXile's much smaller than Obsidian and has different expense patterns, but as far as PoE is concerned when considered on its own, I'd say it was successful. Obsidian can't probably sustain itself just making games like PoE, but they can certainly make a profit from them while they keep working on other projects as well.

 

inXile also has two other multi million dollar Kickstarter campaigns (Torment: Tides of Numenera and Bard's Tale IV) which gives them quite lot leeway how they use money they got and will get from Wasteland 2.

[pmp10]

If Pillars sales are in the same range as Wasteland 2 then that's not a good news for Obsidian.

But this sounds more like a off-hand remark.

[Jayngo]

I can't pretend to be an analytics/accountant person-but to me this news sounds wonderful!

 

It's great to see Obsidian being rewarded for their hard work and choice of using Kickstarter (sorry to the suit-ran large publishers, you're out). Best news is Obsidian owns the IP and does not have to answer to a big publisher like many developers do.

 

I fully expect a PoE 2. And if they go the Kickstarter route again, I will proudly fund. Missed the boat the first time around.

[Jarmo]

So... about 10 million new money on top of kickstarter stuff.

Should easily be enough to fund another much larger game, assuming White March breaks even.

[Volourn]

"Let's remember to consider that PoE had next to no marketing."

 

It migth have no tv spots, but this game was hyped it. It was all over every major gaming site.

 

Bottom line is 500k is a failure for a company that has had games sell 5mil+.

 

 The problem with Obsidian is they are largely irrlevant. In roder to be relevant they need to rely on others.   FO:NV sold 6mil+ easily. This game sells 500k. And, people are celebrating it. Niope. Not good enough.

 

Obsidian is a company that has a lot of history - so much so people give them credit for games they don't deserve it for (ie. all the BIO games lol) - yet when it coems to living on their own  people just won't buy it. Other KS - by lesser known devs - sell as much if not more than Obsidian. EPIC FAIL.

 

1 million or bust.

 

PERIOD.

[Quillon]

It sold 500k cos max demand for this type of game was around 500k. How much more can you sell this type of game with heavy marketing? If it was an 3d action rpg with same characters/story it would have sold much much more.

 

You like the company, you want their games(the games you like) to sell more, you wanted to micro manage the 6 men party on 2d backgrounds with lots of area transitioning but you forget that you are part of a niche audience and you call failure to normal or relatively good(PoE's price vs other indie RPGs' price) results.

Edited October 24, 2015 by Quillon