PoE sells 500K units

[Volourn]

"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."

 

DOS has sold a million +. YOU FAIL AGAIN.

[Quillon]

If I failed, I failed only ONCE : p

 

DoS is different; it's 3d, has co-op multiplayer to the core of the game and interactive environment etc makes it an easier pitch to modern gamers. It's also turn based which is not related to my point but just to say I prefer RTwP.

[Aoha]

They didnt see money from sales of New Vegas (Bethesda did) while PoE money goes straight to them so this is definitely a huge success for them.

 

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116343-Obsidian-Lost-Bonus-for-Fallout-New-Vegas-by-One-Metacritic-Point

Edited October 25, 2015 by Aoha

[Ohioastro]

Rather than scoring gotcha points on some old argument, it's more interesting to me to look at the numbers globally.  It looks as if 500 K  - 1 million in sales is about the range for well-executed games of this genre, which is about 10 times smaller than the Skyrim et al. audience.   That's good news for us, because it means that there is an audience for games of this sort.  But it also means that there is a real limit - the market doesn't support 100 million dollar game budgets.

 

Ironically, the people complaining that PoE wasn't hardcore enough probably don't realize that the game would have sold more copies if it was less "hardcore", not more.  We have plenty of data at this point, and it tells you exactly what you would have predicted: mass appeal games have mass appeal, and popular features are popular.

[Aoha]

 

 

Ironically, the people complaining that PoE wasn't hardcore enough probably don't realize that the game would have sold more copies if it was less "hardcore", not more.  We have plenty of data at this point, and it tells you exactly what you would have predicted: mass appeal games have mass appeal, and popular features are popular.

 

 

Not argueing for game to be more hardcore, I played it on hard and was sattisfied with difficulty, but Dark Souls 1/2 did sell 8 million copies.

[TheisEjsing]

"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.

PERIOD? :D It might have been hyped in the circles you traverse Volourn, but the major sites has hundreds of titles in their feed every week. To the mainstream gamer, PoE is an unknown, and most people are unaware of OE, and their involvement in other titles.

 

That said, you're right that other devs have managed to be very succesful with their KS campaigns and small budget games. But don't throw random numbers around like that as ultimate criteria of succes. 

 

 

[Guest 4ward]

my sincere congratulations to the people at Obsidian for creating a succesfull game which enables them to carry on doing what they like doing.

[Zoraptor]

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.

 

The Paradox statement does imply it's Steam only, but doesn't state it outright:

 

"..over half a million players have purchased the game worldwide, making it one of the best-selling games on Steam this year."

 

Though it certainly also says it includes kickstarter backers. Though given it is Paradox I wouldn't put it past them to have forgotten that alternatives to steam exist.

 

They didnt see money from sales of New Vegas (Bethesda did) while PoE money goes straight to them so this is definitely a huge success for them.

 

The money from PoE almost certainly goes to Paradox first, as they are the publisher. That would exclude KS and backer site sales but would include everything GOG/ Steam/ Origin and non backer site pre orders.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Zoraptor

[junk11]

 

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.

 

The Paradox statement does imply it's Steam only, but doesn't state it outright:

 

"..over half a million players have purchased the game worldwide, making it one of the best-selling games on Steam this year."

 

Though it certainly also says it includes kickstarter backers. Though given it is Paradox I wouldn't put it past them to have forgotten that alternatives to steam exist.

 

They didnt see money from sales of New Vegas (Bethesda did) while PoE money goes straight to them so this is definitely a huge success for them.

 

The money from PoE almost certainly goes to Paradox first, as they are the publisher. That would exclude KS and backer site sales but would include everything GOG/ Steam/ Origin and non backer site pre orders.

 

 

Well..I'm not a indsider, but I would say Paradox & Obsidian are in partnership rather than the New Vegas contract model with a straight payment plus possible bouns.

If the above is true, then Obsidian should get much more $$ from Pillars and continue to recieve $$ as sale number goes up.

I'm glad Pillars got over 500k sales, but I thought the number would be higher..

[AndreaColombo]

^ If Steam Spy is anywhere near accurate, they passed the 500K mark a while ago when factoring in GoG and Origin sales.

[Zoraptor]

Well..I'm not a indsider, but I would say Paradox & Obsidian are in partnership rather than the New Vegas contract model with a straight payment plus possible bouns.

If the above is true, then Obsidian should get much more $$ from Pillars and continue to recieve $$ as sale number goes up.

It's definitely not the FONV model, that requires the publisher to own the IP and pay someone to make the game under contract; Obsidian owns the IP and Paradox was involved late when development was well underway and largely funded. But as the publisher the money should first go to Paradox, they would then take their cut and send the balance to Obsidian under whatever terms their agreement specifies. Obsidian would get per sale money, but it would have to go through Paradox to get to them.

[Fenixp]

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.

I'm... Pretty sure it's up to Obsidian to decide whether their product has been a success or not ;-)

[Aoha]

"The money from PoE almost certainly goes to Paradox first, as they are the publisher. That would exclude KS and backer site sales but would include everything GOG/ Steam/ Origin and non backer site pre orders."

 

 

 

 

Wrong, this isnt typical publisher/developer relationship that you have in video game development, where publisher finances the project and owns the rights to the franchise and therefore takes the money. Paradox is more of a distributor in this case and Obsidian is the one calling the shots.

[bjon045]

Great news. Hope it continues to sell well and looking forward to WM p2 and the sequel

[Elerond]

 

"The money from PoE almost certainly goes to Paradox first, as they are the publisher. That would exclude KS and backer site sales but would include everything GOG/ Steam/ Origin and non backer site pre orders."

 

 

 

 

Wrong, this isnt typical publisher/developer relationship that you have in video game development, where publisher finances the project and owns the rights to the franchise and therefore takes the money. Paradox is more of a distributor in this case and Obsidian is the one calling the shots.

 

 

That is true, but as distributor they get money first and then they pay for those whose products they distribute, that is just what distributors do, in other words it is distributor's job to sell product for stores that sell it to actual customers and handle money transactions so that producers of products and focus on their job, which is to make the products, distributors take cut from sale price to fund their operation, but it also cost for product maker to hire people do the job that distributor does and distributors can usually offer their services cheaper than what hiring people would cost as they usually serve multiple companies same time, which gives them ability to offer cheaper services for singular companies and additionally they usually can also offer already established connections with sellers, international connections to services needed (like translations, multi language customer services, storage spaces for physical goods, established delivery contracts, etc.).

 

So in short, Paradox is mostly distributor for PoE, but they take cut from sale price, but there is also reasons why Obsidian made deal with them.

[Flouride]

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.

 

You can sell a lot more but it takes time. I'm pretty sure Steam christmas sales will push that number up quite a lot as will the next steam sale and the next and the next... What Volourn seems to miss is that Obsidian gets to keep portion of each sold copy. While they might have sold 6 million copies of F:NV not a single dollar from those 6 million sold copies was given to OE.

 

With heavy marketing you could have sold even more copies initially, but marketing costs might just end up costing the company more money that it would generate.

 

And to our hockey crazed kanadian halfwit. DOS might have sold million copies so far, but the game been on the market since summer 2014. You can't compare present numbers when the other game has been on the market for nearly a year longer. Or if you are going to do such comparisons, then they should be copies sold in the 1st 6 months or something similar.

[bjon045]

A whole lot of speculation in this thread. Let's just be honest, none of us really know exactly what the deal is. Who pays who, and who gets what cut.

[Zoraptor]

We do have a pretty good idea of how it would likely be set up from previous similar situations. But yeah, there's a lot of 'likely's and 'typically's necessary and nothing is definitive.
 

Wrong, this isnt typical publisher/developer relationship that you have in video game development, where publisher finances the project and owns the rights to the franchise and therefore takes the money. Paradox is more of a distributor in this case and Obsidian is the one calling the shots.

 
To illustrate, Steam actually is a distributor, and they definitely collect their cut before passing the money along. It's most likely the same will happen with Paradox, it's also what happened with boxed copies of Valve games that were distributed by EA, the retail money went to EA then was passed along to Valve. The relationship is not typical publisher/ developer in the FONV mould but that is not the only alternative.
 
Ironically and also to illustrate, Paradox became a publisher because they were originally relying on a distributor themselves, and they believed they were getting diddled out of money by them since the distributor was getting both sales figures and money and they weren't. That's why they/ their owners originally created Gamersgate too.

[Volourn]

"I'm... Pretty sure it's up to Obsidian to decide whether their product has been a success or not ;-)"

 

L0L Not quite true. They can claim it is a success doesn't make it so.

[Tigranes]

That's true. Only Volourn can declare a game a success.

[Cantousent]

 

That's true. Only Volourn can declare a game a success.

 

Not to bright pun aimed ad personam. There are clear standards to decide objectively if the game was successful. 

Taking budget in to consideration 500.000 units sold is not a success for PoE.

 

How do you know that? I don't have much stake in the *argument.* Of course, I *want* PoE to have done well in terms of sales and sustainability, but the argument of whether it has or not isn't particularly important to me. I figure if it has, we'll know by what Obsidian *does.* However, from the point of view of folks saying 500k is a success or a failure in light of budgeting, how do people know? I expect I'll get typical short, terse, and usually flippant answers, but it seems to me that people are stating things as fact that are backed only by conjecture. Hey, this is the internet, so that's fair enough. Plus, Vol is our beloved resident curmudgeon, so I don't want to insult or belittle him (or really anyone else).

 

EDIT: hehehe "put down him" Classic Cant silly language.

[Fenixp]

Not to bright pun aimed ad personam. There are clear standards to decide objectively if the game was successful. 

Taking budget in to consideration 500.000 units sold is not a success for PoE.

Even when a project starts development, most larger companies already have budget for it and some form of projected income. Without knowing this information, we can't possibly know whether this project has been successful or not - all we can do is guess and compare it to other projects. That other projects are more successful does not make a project unsuccessful - it just makes it less successful than project it is being compared to, which doesn't really say much.

[Elerond]

It is easy for PoE to be successful project for Obsidian as their minimum goal was to get so much sales that they can fund expansion from their own pockets. Of course I can't say for sure that it has already achieved that point, but I would bet on that option if such was possible.

 

But otherwise everybody is free to determine when the think something is successful or not, as success for one is failure to another that is just life and different perspectives and aspirations that people have. Like for example one thinks they are successful if they finish a marathon and another thinks that they have failed when they win the race but failed to make record time. 

[jsaving]

Selling half a million units for a genre widely regarded as dead and buried is a solid accomplishment.  More than that, though, Josh and the rest of the PoE team seemed genuinely gratified at PAX by how the game has been received by the marketplace.  This doesn't mean PoE was the best-selling game of the year (it wasn't) or that it outperformed some of the games that were thought to be its main competitors (the jury is out), but it seems to have done well enough to get the devs thinking about future projects in the PoE world -- which is what's most important from the point of view of those of us who enjoyed the game.

[danielkx]

PoE has absolutely been a financial success. Based on sales figures and factoring in that OE pretty much without question made 40% or more of the gross revenue, there is no other conclusion to make other than the game being successful.

 

You have to remember that the game was already funded before going on sale. No doubt OE spent money from their own pocket, maybe a million or so, but nearly the entire game was funded. Therefore whatever money OE receives from the sales goes straight to their pocket minus what they spend on patches and the expansion.

 

Therefore, simple math, 500,000 * $45 = $22,500,000 * 40% = $9,000,000. Now that is assuming Paradox gets 30% (30% goes to steam/gog). I would think they got less than that but lets assume that is what they got.

 

So $9,00,000 goes to OE as of now, minus $1million out of pocket before release (random guess) and minus another $1million for patches and expansion up through now (another random guess). So they have somewhere in the range of $7,000,000 after all of that.

 

Seeing as how the base game costed probably around $5,000,000 give or take that leaves them with more than enough money to fund a sequel on their own without kickstarter. Also the sequel would be cheaper to make seeing as how they have all the assets from the original plus all the experience they gained from making this game which will make them more efficient for the sequel.

 

Remember this was a kickstarter game, not some AAA funded game, the expectations are much different. Saying that, yes the game was a success but not a huge one. Also, the game will continue to make them money so that is just profit up until this point, that number will increase over the next 6 months.

Edited October 26, 2015 by danielkx