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Iron Tower Studio Business Diary

Goral

Arcane
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The Real Fanboy
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Vault Dweller has published newest sales figures for AoD and DR in an interesting article about the way he conducts business and wants to conduct it: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7530.0.html

Vault Dweller said:
[Age of Decadence]
We released it in Oct 2015 and I’m happy to report it’s still selling and still being mentioned favorably here and there (which is why it’s still selling, I assume). We’ve sold 126,295 copies to-date at an average rate of $13.51 per copy. The price reflects not just the discounts during the sale events but the regional pricing as well, which is an equally strong factor.

Year by year it goes something like this:

  • 2013-2014 (Early Access & Direct Pre-Orders): 13,124 copies – $320,157 – $24.39 avg.
  • 2015: 20,771 – $472,869 – $22.76
  • 2016 48,798 – $620,914 – $12.72 (50% discount is introduced in March)
  • 2017 43,808 – $293,714 – $6.70 (75% off on sale events throughout the year)
(...)
[Dungeon Rats]
We hit goals #2 and 3, but it’s too early to say about goal #1. I hoped that Dungeon Rats would sell 100,000 copies in the first year on the strength of the combat system and the low price ($8.99, under $5 during sale events), but in the first 14 months it sold only 33,027 copies at $5.55 avg. Of course, without proper statistics it’s hard to say whether DR did as well as it could under the circumstances or failed miserably.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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California
Vince is the master of my favorite kind of salesmanship, the straight-shooting, take-it-or-leave-it-but-isn't-it-pretty-nifty style. I'm a sucker for it every time, and it's especially nice to see it in service of a company making great games.
 

VentilatorOfDoom

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If you want to sell more in Germany you must have the localisation ready when the game is released. There is a market for hardcore RPGs (certainly way bigger than those numbers indicate) but a lot of people will dismiss the game when it's only in English.
 
Repressed Homosexual
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I'm not surprised that Dungeon Rats didn't do well. It is only for the extremely, extremely dedicated. Due to its linear nature, it's too easy to be stumped on the 2nd or 3rd fight and hit a wall, get discouraged, and ask for a refund. At least in AoD when you hit a wall there's lots of other things you can do. In Dungeon Rats you have to reload an older save and pray that you will use up a bit less resources this time.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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28,024
That's the thing, with the lack of info it's impossible to say whether it did well or fail. The difference is this: if it did as well as it could being an obscure indie tactical game, then there is nothing we can do here. If it failed then we can do better.

All we have are the Steamspy stats:

Telepath Tactics: 4,687 ± 2,161
Voidspire Tactics: 4,166 ± 2,037
Dark Ages: 13,801 ± 3,708
All Walls Must Fall: 6,249 ± 2,495
Panzer Tactics: 33,069 ± 5,740
Heroes Tactics: 86,709 ± 9,294 - free to play

Shadow Tactics is the only exception: 421,828 ± 20,493 but that's a AAA quality title that almost bankrupted the developer (meaning very high budget).
 

Eyestabber

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
The part about DR makes me sad. It's a full on admission that the game vastly underperformed commercially. At least it served to provide the team with experience in regards to Charisma balancing and party based gaming. I remember taking a part in that discussion by arguing that Roxana was a bit "too good" for a "free" companion while Yngvar was not that great considering he was locked at fucking 9 charisma. Eventually Roxy got some nerfs and Yng got some buffs and the gods of :littlemissfun: were appeased.

From what I gather of the dev diaries, TNW will have yet another layer of balancing: faction locking. We'll have to wait and see how that's gonna turn out. I assume more competent NPCS will also be more loyal to their respective factions, with charisma providing many opportunities to bend loyalties. However, this being VD and all, I imagine some lines simply won't be crossed, no matter how high your CHA is.

I may be biased, but I remember DR releasing in a bug free state, with patches only doing small QoL improvements and minor balancing. Such experience will probably help TNW sales, since review bombing due to bugs seem very unlikely.

P.S: pls no more campfire garbage companions! It's a waste of slots.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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P.S: pls no more campfire garbage companions! It's a waste of slots.
We planned to set the game during the mutiny. You're an inexperienced lieutenant tasked with fortifying an area and holding it until relieved. Hint: you won't get relieved so it's going to end up Alamo-style. You need supplies and local reinforcements, you need to fortify the base, weaken the gathering enemies, deal with the local sympathizers, etc. So:

- mission structure with pros and cons, can't do all missions, so you'd have to prioritize toward some strategy, make tough decisions, all building up for the grand finale.
- base fortifications and defense playing a vital role as that's what the story revolves around.
- resource management, from medical supplies and boosters to ammo and gas masks.

Any suggestions within this framework are welcome.
 

AbounI

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If you want to sell more in Germany you must have the localisation ready when the game is released. There is a market for hardcore RPGs (certainly way bigger than those numbers indicate) but a lot of people will dismiss the game when it's only in English.
I would add this works for every languages since AoD is a very text based cRPG. Not playing this kind of game in our own native language is like asking quite an effort. I know lots of guys who wait for a French localization too, and when it will be done, I really hope it will also serve to increase the sales of AoD, even if it comes four years after the release while the pricing is greatly lowered. Better late than never. Moreover, it could also boost the French/German/ insertanycountry community behind ITS. And that can only be positive for ITS futur.
 

Eyestabber

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P.S: pls no more campfire garbage companions! It's a waste of slots.
- base fortifications and defense playing a vital role as that's what the story revolves around.
- resource management, from medical supplies and boosters to ammo and gas masks.

Any suggestions within this framework are welcome.

Yeah, one suggestion: play Dungeon of the Endless. 80% of what you're saying is VERY well implemented there. Ofc your game won't have RT combat and research mechanics, but Dungeon of the Endless is an amazing game that shares SOME similarities with what you're proposing. A top notch source of inspiration IMHO.

Still, that's AFTER TNW, right? We still have no ETA on that...
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
BONUS Feargus Interview:

But wait, there is more!

Feargus Urquhart requires no introduction but I'm going to introduce him anyway. He's been managing Obsidian Entertainment for the last 15 years and he's the reason the company is still around, which is a no small feat. Under his stewardship, Obsidian prevailed where so many other studios either have failed or were absorbed by various gelatinous cubes preying on the weak, so I have nothing but the highest respect for the man and his uncanny ability to manage business.

Anyway, he did like the article and was kind enough to answer a few questions relevant to to the topic at hand:

1. What's your take on sequels and expansions? Obviously, Pillars of Eternity 2 and three planned DLCs suggest you're a strong believer. At the same time, its new 'nautical-leaning setting' and ship combat offer something very different to entice players to come back and try something new. Is this the best way to go then?

I’m a big believer in sequels, but I’m both a maker and player of RPGs. I think RPGs are great to sequelize due to their focus on story, characters, and growth. When I finish a RPG, I usually want to play with that character again, or play in that world again. Now, not everyone is like me, but I think there are quite a few of us. For all games, but particularly, for RPGs, we create these complex engines and design methods, and we can give players an even grander experience when we can use as much of that as possible from game to game. Of course, we can’t just make the same game again, and sequels need to be more than a big expansion pack. But, so much of our time goes into what players play (quests, areas, companions, dialogs), and when we create all of those again for a sequel with a different, or continuing, story - that’s a new game.

The challenge sequels are fighting with non-sequels is for attention. It is easier to get someone’s attention with things that feel new, so a sequel does need something new and interesting. This could be a big feature like the world map and ship combat in Pillars 2, but it could also be an incredible story; the core of which grabs your attention, and anyone else’s when they hear about it. I don’t know where the line is, but I think we all get a feeling for it. One of the things we did on Icewind Dale 2 at Black Isle Studios was to re-do the HUD. It looks and feels entirely different than all the other Infinity Engine games, and allowed us to also add in some tweaks, but it was not an entire re-write. One could argue that what we did was “skin” the UI, which isn’t really a benefit to players. I think it gave the game a fresh look, gave players more of the world to see, and created an easier way to interact with the characters and game controls at the same time. Either way IWD2 felt new and different because of it.

2. Pillars of Eternity sold more than Wasteland 2 and new Torment combined. At the same time Tyranny sold about a quarter of what PoE did, despite being a unique and innovative RPG. What made one game a hit and the other "a largely underappreciated gem", as Paradox put it?

I don’t know.
icon_smile.gif
After 27 years in the industry, you would think that I would have a better answer. It probably seems odd for me to say that, however what we do is creative and can have a lot to do with timing – sometimes that means ideas catch on, and sometimes they don’t. It is very possible that the idea of Tyranny was interesting to people, and made them stop and take a look, but at a deeper level it just wasn’t interesting or compelling. While Planescape: Torment (the original) is now a very successful game, it was not as successful and Baldur’s Gate, or Icewind Dale, early on. That doesn’t meant it wasn’t successful, I think there are some urban myths about how Torment wasn’t a financial success early on. It was.

3. What business advice would you give to indie developers?

Funnily enough I was part of a panel talking about game funding yesterday, and I was the person there to talk from the perspective of independent developers. Not that your question, I’m guessing, is entirely about funding. To answer, I’m probably going to throw out a bunch of random advice.
icon_smile.gif


  • Get known for making a type of game. Some developers, including us, try to be a one sized fits all developer. They can make any kind of genre of game. By doing that they don’t grow an audience, and publishers (if they want to go that route) just put them in a pile with every other developer. They become a commodity, and not a specialty tool. After our first couple years, we focused entirely on being an RPG maker, and didn’t try to sell ourselves as something else. That means we turned down products that might have made us some money, or even helped us keep people rather than laying them off – but it would have been the wrong decision to take a game that diluted who we were.

  • Find, then protect, your fans. Everyone needs people who love their games, want to play them, and want to talk about them. They are also the people who we learn from when it comes to whether our new ideas are fun, or not. Having a great relationship with your fans means engaging with them, being honest with them, and truly considering their feedback. We luckily have fans who have been with us for over twenty years – if we didn’t do the above most of the time, they probably wouldn’t still be with us.

  • Play your game more than most of your players. We even have a hard time with this sometimes, but the more we play our games, and play them early, the better decisions we make about what to add, what to take out, what to tweak, and what to re-design.

  • Understand your costs. I was asked what our man-month rate was in the panel, and I could answer it. By knowing that number, I can always be going calculations in my head as to what it takes to make a game, if we’ll have enough money in two months, or is a feature worth it. 9 man-months for a throw away NPC that’s not interesting to players is probably not worth $117K. Not saying our NPCs take 9 months, but just an example.

  • When talking to anyone about your game, be able to convey the concept in a few words – no more than a sentence. This helps core your game down for yourself to what it really is at a high level, and it helps you grab someone’s attention so that they will stay to listen to your more detailed information.

  • Video and GIFs are better than screenshots, which are better than text.
    icon_smile.gif
    However, 30 screenshots of the same level, showing the same stuff, with everyone in the shot standing around – probably not better than text.

  • Figure out which hats you can wear, and which ones you can’t. Running a developer means having to be involved in HR, Legal, Accounting, Business Development, and Operations. When we are small, someone has to probably wear almost every one of those hats. But, as humans, there are things we are individually not good at. Be honest about identifying those, and then finding people, or even contractors, that can do those things.

  • Don’t dwell or hold grudges. I see developers at all ends of the spectrum start making bad decisions (me included) and get burned out. This, of course, can be due to long hours and too much crunch time. But, it can also be due the bad decisions or mistakes they have made, or that they have been subject to. If I dwelled on every bad decision I’ve made, I would probably be in the corner whimpering right now. I screwed up, I’m going to screw up again. The thing to focus on is how to do what I do better and let the milk that has been spilled be forgotten. However, it is not to have the attitude “I’m going to show them, and not let them screw me again”. That leads to decisions made for the wrong reasons.

  • Love games, and love making them. If you don’t have both, don’t do this – it’s hard. When you love what you do it is infectious. When you love games, you want to talk about them. When you love making games, you are always thinking about how to make them better. If you can’t love what you do, and what you’ve done, why will anyone else?
 

Goral

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
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Messages
3,552
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Poland
This is pure gold:

I thought I'd put this in here with the others... a slightly altered re-post from the AOD propaganda thread. Taken from a comic book bodybuilding advertisement touting the "Dynaflex Method". Imgur didn't badly alter it which is nice.
mUtpg.jpg
:salute:
Replacing AoD logo with TNW logo will be rather easy and fitting.
 

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