Deadfire isn't going to be a "dumbed down" pillars like tyranny is it?

[firkraag888]

 

looks like torment flopped hard. Only been 3 weeks since release but you would think more sales then this

 

And tyranny you would think wouldn't be very profitable sitting at 112,000 after this long they would be lucky to break even

 

Divinity OS did 1,300,000 on steam.....interesting

 

Skyrim did 12,000,000 !!!

 

Tyranny isn't sitting at 112,000. It's at 160K. You got your numbers mixed up. Remember, Tyranny was 1) A short game with a small team 2) Made using the engine technology developed for Pillars. Both of these things make Tyranny a much cheaper game to produce than something like Pillars or Torment; I wouldn't be surprised to find Tyranny had a budget of, say, 1.5 million.

I wouldnt be surprised to find that tyranny had a budget of $500 Edited March 19, 2017 by firkraag888

[firkraag888]

It's interesting how first person shooters with swords like witcher and skyrim (cough cough I'm mean rpgs) make that many sales with there huge budgets.

 

Imagine if deadfire had a budget in the 10's of millions.

 

Pillars of eternity 3 I'm looking at you

[Boeroer]

The target group for CRPGs is a lot smaller - while those people also tend to buy Witcher- and Skyrim-like games. Some of them even buy Dark Souls.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Boeroer

[Katarack21]

It's true. I know at least three people who exclusively play Call of Duty games....and Skyrim. No ****ing joke.

[firkraag888]

I thought skyrim is a call of duty game

Edited March 19, 2017 by firkraag888

[Hertzila]

As much as I like boarding hate trains and bashing people for their preferences, can we stop? I hate Call of Duty as much as the next non-military shooter guy, but I don't think that is the point here. Whether Skyrim or Witcher are RPGs (hint: they absolutely are and suggesting they aren't is an extremely stupid idea) shouldn't really matter for Deadfire, should it?

 

Steamspy, from which I assume the Steam sales numbers are from, does count backers. Strictly speaking, it measures owners, not buyers. Valve doesn't release sales numbers and GOG doesn't either to my knowledge. GOG also doesn't have a Steamspy equivalent.

Adding to that, since backers can choose to use GOG rather than Steam (like I did), it's hard to deduct the actual number of buyers vs. backers.

[Katarack21]

As much as I like boarding hate trains and bashing people for their preferences, can we stop? I hate Call of Duty as much as the next non-military shooter guy, but I don't think that is the point here. Whether Skyrim or Witcher are RPGs (hint: they absolutely are and suggesting they aren't is an extremely stupid idea) shouldn't really matter for Deadfire, should it?

 

Steamspy, from which I assume the Steam sales numbers are from, does count backers. Strictly speaking, it measures owners, not buyers. Valve doesn't release sales numbers and GOG doesn't either to my knowledge. GOG also doesn't have a Steamspy equivalent.

Adding to that, since backers can choose to use GOG rather than Steam (like I did), it's hard to deduct the actual number of buyers vs. backers.

Of *course* they're RPG's. That's plainly obvious. You know what else is plainly obvious? That they're RPG's with a very different targeted demographic then PoE and that such things influence sales.

 

I wasn't saying anything positive or negative about CoD or Skyrim. I love Skyrim, and I don't play FPS games but have nothing against CoD. I was simply noting a distinction in targeted audiences vs CRPG's like Pillars and stating an anecdotal account of my personal observations about demographic overlap between CoD and Skyrim.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Katarack21

[Hertzila]

I wasn't saying anything positive or negative about CoD or Skyrim. I love Skyrim, and I don't play FPS games but have nothing against CoD. I was simply noting a distinction in targeted audiences vs CRPG's like Pillars and stating an anecdotal account of my personal observations about demographic overlap between CoD and Skyrim.

 

I suppose I should have clearly directed my complaint at firkraag888 rather than the people here generally. Apologies.

[firkraag888]

 

I wasn't saying anything positive or negative about CoD or Skyrim. I love Skyrim, and I don't play FPS games but have nothing against CoD. I was simply noting a distinction in targeted audiences vs CRPG's like Pillars and stating an anecdotal account of my personal observations about demographic overlap between CoD and Skyrim.

 

 

I suppose I should have clearly directed my complaint at firkraag888 rather than the people here generally. Apologies.

Chill out dude. No need to get Argo. This is a forum where people have differing opinions. I don't get angry at you when you have a different opinion then me and vice versa.

[Hertzila]

Chill out dude. No need to get Argo. This is a forum where people have differing opinions. I don't get angry at you when you have a different opinion then me and vice versa.

 

Yes? We all have different opinions and the ability to voice those here. In my opinion, considering Skyrim and Witcher to not be RPGs is silly.

[Tigranes]

Tyranny was always made by a different team to Pillars and always designed as a kind of spinoff. I think it was pretty crap, but even if I thought it was wonderful, I wouldn't necessarily expect it to be an indication of where POE2 is going.

 

I have no idea what the sales discussion is leading at, but some simple facts:

>There's no point comparing Witcher 3 or Skyrim sales with POE or Tyranny, especially if you want to figure out how much profit they made

>POE will never ever have a budget of 50 million or whatever goes for an AAA RPG these days

>POE1 at ~1mil lifetime sales, we know, was a profitable venture safely meeting if not exceeding expectations.

[Hynkel]

If you wonder what Pillars of Eternity would be with a 8-digits budget the answer is simple : it would be Mass Effect.

 

Not a bad game, but not the experience the PoE backers are looking for.

[firkraag888]

Pillars of eternity (like baldurs gate 2) is a complex game. With a target audience probably consisting of ex infinity engine players, ex D&D players and people in the age bracket of 16-40 year olds.

 

Im assuming that the bulk of video games sales goes to a target audience of 8-18 year olds.

 

Of course I'm concerned that obsidian would dumb the game down to target this bigger market. I was simply comparing sales of skyrim and witcher because in my opinion both skyrim and witcher are dumbed down RPGs

Edited March 19, 2017 by firkraag888

[Katarack21]

Im assuming that the bulk of video games sales goes to a target audience of 8-18 year olds.

You would be assuming wrong. The average video game buyer is in his early 30's and has been playing video games since he was 8-15 years old.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Katarack21

[firkraag888]

^^^^^

 

I don't no about that

[Katarack21]

^^^^^

 

I don't no about that

Fortunately for you, there's about a dozen research studies from various organizations discussing and confirming this. Whether or not *you* know about it, *they* do.

[firkraag888]

You reckon that there are more 30year olds playing video games then teenagers?

[Katarack21]

You reckon that there are more 30year olds playing video games then teenagers?

Yes. I'll bet you that 29% of people who play video games are under the age of 18, in fact. Now, a higher percentage of 15 year olds are gamers than 30 year olds, but that's a different statistic entirely.

 

The people who where born in the late 70's through early 90's make up the majority of video game players today. Sheer math makes it so.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Katarack21

[Hynkel]

Pillars of eternity (like baldurs gate 2) is a complex game. With a target audience probably consisting of ex infinity engine players, ex D&D players and people in the age bracket of 16-40 year olds.

 

Im assuming that the bulk of video games sales goes to a target audience of 8-18 year olds.

 

Of course I'm concerned that obsidian would dumb the game down to target this bigger market. I was simply comparing sales of skyrim and witcher because in my opinion both skyrim and witcher are dumbed down RPGs

Gameplay complexity has nothing to do with the players' age.

 

Complexity has something to do with willingness to invest time and effort into understanding something. A lot of people here got into IE games when they were younger and had much more free time. Now they are older, have a job, kids maybe ; but they play PoE for the nostalgia factor, and since they beat Baldu'rs Gate a million times, playing something like PoE doesn't require the same amount of intellectual investment and "risk taking" (as in, putting money in a game you might not like) as the average player.

 

But the very same BG Veterans demographic probably wouldn't play other complex games they're less familiar with (say, Guilty Gear). Because they don't have anymore the amount of free time they had when they knew every single spell from the DnD rulebooks. 

 

That's the niche game curse. You just don't suddenly become invested in a demanding genre at 40. It takes decades of investment and passion to build such a demographic.

[Sedrefilos]

Bulk of people playing games is 20-35 years, male; statistic-wise. It makes sense as they are more financially (at least) independent than teenagers and less probable of having families.

[IamNOOB]

If someone is stupid or does not like RPGs he might hate RPGs or have bad experience with them even if he is 39, age is not so important. Ofc 4 year olds will not enjoy PoE. I am 30 myself. Truth is most people believe gaming is for kids up to 17-18. My wife also asks why I play games at this age and does not like it.
I showed my amazing wife what The Witcher is and then she understood why I love RPGs. ))

[firkraag888]

Skyrim and witcher remind me of console.

 

When I think of console I think dumbed down

[Hertzila]

Going by Industry Facts: The average age of the American video game buyer is 35, and 73% are 18 or older. Of course, who knows how they count video game buyers. They might count a person who once bought an Angry Birds microtransaction as a video game buyer.

 

Still, it would point towards the vast majority of video game players, including those that play the big AAA stuff, to be adults.

[Varana]

I wouldn't put too much hope in GOG sales, honestly. The only number I've seen for some game was 90% Steam, with GOG and others in the remaining 10%.

That certainly depends on genre and individual game, but I'd be extremely surprised if GOG had a share of more than 15-20%. Except probably for the Witcher games as GOG and CDProjekt are related.

 

Not even bothering with this "dumbing down" nonsense.

[Tigranes]

There are very clear, repeated, well-documented things that happen when a game designed for a smaller PC-only audience starts becoming built for consoles and larger audiences. And yes, a lot of those changes do involve, or risk, dumbing down the game when it comes to old-school CRPGs.

 

E.g.

• The UI has to become simpler, which sometimes translates into simplifying the kinds of control and fiddling expected of the gamer, and sometimes just means UI that is crappy for the PC from aesthetic and usability perspective. Compare BG2 or Morrowind UI to the endless scrolling through tiny windows of lists in Skyrim.
• Party sizes become smaller; although I've consistently said I don't think 6->5 is a big problem for POE2, if it was done for consoles rather than systems overhaul then it is a classic case of 'dumbing down'.
• Area zones become smaller, because in the last decade or so smaller console memory sizes compared to their contemporary PC generations meant they couldn't handle it. Thief 3, IIRC, suffered from this. 
• Other small changes where it's not so much a straightforward "consoles => x", but console audiences and console requirements becomes a big factor in how decisions are made - e.g. higher expectation of voice acting and/or considerations for reading text in TVs, leading to artificial limits on word count (instead of, say, writers deciding what is too verbose and what is not).

 

That's obviously a very specific thing, not "consoles = dumb always". But many fans of old-school CRPGs have become extremely suspicious of consolisation, and with good reason.