Game News Stoic's John Watson reveals that The Banner Saga 2 was a commercial disappointment

[Vault Dweller]

In what ways? Combat? After DR we have the template and experience. Party members affecting quests? Relatively easy to script and write. Much easier than the parallel questlines in AoD which was a scripting nightmare.

 

[Aenra]

In what ways? Combat?

No. He means complexity. Reactions, different paths, how the game/PCs react to your party (rather than just the one character), how the other party members react to you reacting to the environment etc.

I quit skoming so i can't think real well. Fuck you if this doesn't make sense. Thanks, lol

 

[AMG]

First game was shit, so no surprise here.
Turns out that chaining yourself to deliver a trilogy of games, before you even knew whether there would be any audience, is not that smart. Who knew.

 

[Infinitron]

What Aenra said, basically. Developers like Obsidian talk about companions as being a large investment, so you may be underestimating this.

First game was shit, so no surprise here.
Turns out that chaining yourself to deliver a trilogy of games, before you even knew whether there would be any audience, is not that smart. Who knew.

But the first game had an audience.

 

[Lurker King]

I'm not saying that's a good attitude, but it does seem to be a pretty accurate one. Look at the ambition of CSG vs. AOD, and Vault Dweller is a pretty grounded and realistic guy.

VD was already talking about a party based CSG and a dungeon crawler more than ten years ago. Therefore, I doubt that he somehow got more ambitious in the past years. The only additional investment was hiring one more artist and using a better engine, and that’s it. The game as a whole is more conventional and less ambitious than AoD in design and scope. Thus, it's a counter-example to your point, not confirming evidence.

This is what always happens, and one way or another it always means the end of the games we love -- either the ambition fails and the company is ruined (say, Troika), or the ambition succeeds and the company never again makes the kind of games that attracted its original audience (say, Bioware).

I think you can be ignoring another motivation here. If you made the terrible decision of developing a sequel, you need to add news bells and whistles to keep people interested in the same title. I think the idea of developing sequels is good in theory: you can improve sales, since you take for granted your present costumers, and you need to spend considerable less, for you already have the engine, most of the code, the assets, it takes less time, etc. Thus, what ruined them was investing on a sequel. A decision that is not ambitious, but conservative. Of course, it is also deeply misguided. You just need to check the numbers on the thread about the sales of incline to be convinced. I’m also glad that VD dismissed right away fans that wanted an AoD 2.

 

[Lurker King]

What Aenra said, basically. Developers like Obsidian talk about companions as being a large investment, you may be underestimating this.

And since they are the best in what they do, we should just take for granted their expertise, right? Go fuck yourself, Infinitron. First, it should be no surprise that they could think in these lines if you consider the ungodly amount of Wikipedia dumps in NPCs of their past games. This just shows how they have no clue how to write properly or succinctly. Second, AoD has more words than “Lord of the Rings” and was written by the same guy. But apparently this is not good enough since Obsidian developers are saying otherwise.

 

[AMG]

But the first game had an audience.

No Man's Sky also had an audience. You think people who bought that will be around for the hypothetical sequel?

The lukewarm reception of BS (fitting abbreviation) made it obvious that nobody wants to play more of this shit. Not to mention that most of the interest was drummed up by the whole kickstarter craze.
"We thought that audience would still just be there". Because Banner Saga is a beloved and popular title, lmao.
Every customer is a repeat customer, is not a correct assumption.

 

[Lurker King]

What can we learn from this?

• Sequels are a bad idea.

• Kickstarter is a bad idea.

• Investors eat your profits.

So, is it fair to say that Obsidian, InXile and Larian are making some of the same mistakes?

 

[Thane Solus]

The Banner Saga, Stoic's debut, was supposed to be "a one year game on our own savings," but a breakout Kickstarter campaign forced them to raise their ambitions; Stoic asked the crowd for $100,000, and was duly handed $720,000.

The Banner Saga 3 is probably gonna cost about $2 million to make

Sorry, this is just stupidity. "Forced them to raise their ambitions", lol poor devs...

By SteamSpy, BS1 sold 576k, while BS2 sold only 60k. With each game at $19 (plus sales and Steam's cut), BS2 most certainly didn't break $1M in profit, yet they are doubling down on making a $2M game knowing it will likely sell even less than BS2.

This is Double Fine-level of incompetence and megalomania, but at least Tim Schafer has other profit sources and a horde of fanboys that think he can do no wrong.

Also, Banner Saga came out in Jan 2014. 2013 was a shit year, but between BS1 and BS2 we got Blackguards 1 & 2, Invisible Inc, Legends of Eisenwald, Expeditions: Conquistador, Transistor, Voidspire Tactics, Disgaea PC, Renowned Explorers, Conquest of Elysium 4, X-COM 2, Hard West, etc... they were just blind to all that was happening around them and arrogantly thought they were big names now, with a captive audience.

It was in a humble bundle monthly and humble bundle standard so you can cut around 200-300k sales at 1-3$.

At the same time i think they sold 100k to 200k at full price, the rest with discounts. So its far from 2 millions, 1 mil its more close to reality.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What Aenra said, basically. Developers like Obsidian talk about companions as being a large investment, so you may be underestimating this.

The single, most time consuming, complex aspect of AoD was the parallel questlines. Compared to it, writing and scripting party members is a walk in the park. It's still a relatively complex task but a very manageable one.

As for Obsidian, their remark should be seen in the context of the overall design of their games. While they like reactivity, it's usually a welcome bonus not the focus. They make combat-focused RPG where killing enemies is about 60-80% of the game. From this perspective, writing and scripting something as reactive as party members (i.e. not a single case of reactivity) is a great investment compared to populating a map with enemies to kill. Additionally, Obsidian usually operates under strict time constraints, which means they really have to pick their battles wisely, whereas we can easily add another year if needed.

 

[Infinitron]

It seems to me that depending on their complexity, companions can be a lot like "parallel questlines". They have their own independent states that evolve in "parallel" with the rest of the game. Basically every companion is like a sort of questline that can touch anything in the game where you take that companion (including other companions).

It all depends on how much you invest in them.

whereas we can easily add another year if needed

Can you now? Interesting to know.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It seems to me that depending on their complexity, companions can be a lot like "parallel questlines".

I assure you they can't. Not even close.

They have their own independent states that evolve in "parallel" with the rest of the game. Basically every companion is like a sort of questline that can touch anything in the game where you take that companion (including other companions).

Meaning multiple quest solutions at most (i.e. sometimes they provide a new solution, sometimes they alter your options), which will be done by default even if we had no party members. The party members are merely another layer. Plus reactivity and comments. Plus unique content, which too would be done by default. We'll do as many quests as we can say, let's say a hundred which is less than what AoD had. So 10 quests/events would be gated by the party members.

whereas we can easily add another year if needed

Can you now? Interesting to know.

I think that goes without saying. I have a certain game in mind. I think we can do it in 4 years but if we can't and it takes 6 years then that's what it's going to take. Simple as that.

 

[MRY]

tightening up the overall design. The CSG will have 16 locations (AoD had 22 but many had a single point of interest), 21 skills (AoD had 23), 3 main factions and 3 smaller groups instead of 7 factions with parallell questlines in AoD.

New specious meme for me to circulate: "VD is dumbing down CSG, just like every other developer."

:D

 

[Mozg]

Did no one ever master saying, "If we get more than X for our crowdfunding, we're just going to treat it as regular profit and not as a contract to increase scope."

Wait, wasn't it Harebrained that eventually did that? Really advanced crowdfunding tech there.

 

[Mustawd]

I just don't get why they have to force a third game. There's no rule saying they HAVE to make it. It really just seems like their egos are getting in the way of making sound financial decisions.

 

[Volrath]

But the first game had an audience.

An audience who played the game and found it shit not worth their time.

It's not rocket science.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think it's that simple. What are you going to say if D:OS 2 sells less than the first game? It could happen.

There's an area between "didn't sell because it was shit" and "sold a lot because it was good". With these games it seems more like "This was an interesting and new experience for me, but not enough to D1P a sequel". How do you avoid falling into that area is a question a lot of RPG developers need to start asking themselves.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I just don't get why they have to force a third game. There's no rule saying they HAVE to make it. It really just seems like their egos are getting in the way of making sound financial decisions.

I think they are stuck on that "trilogy" mentality. They are ex-Bioware, aren't they? So they want to be like the big boys, make critically acclaimed trilogies and shit. In a sense that's easier and even tempting as you have an established setting, combat system, art assets and animations, built-in audience even, whereas making a new game in a new setting with different rules is always risky. However, selling more of the same is even riskier as people have already played it at least once. It's easier to entice them to try something different.

 

[Lurker King]

I think that some developers can have the momentary delusion that they deserve a bonus pay for their profit like CEOs, ignoring for a moment they are beggars. Maybe this happened here, I don’t know. Developers can be divided in the following types:

(1) Rock star developers that are well paid to do what they like (Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, etc.)

(2) Well paid developers that work in shitty games (Avellone, etc.).

(3) Poorly paid developers that work in shitty games (Most medium studio developers).

(4) Homeless indies that work in great games (ITS, Stygian, Overhyped, etc.).

(5) Homeless indies that get lucky (Phil Fish, Toby Fox, Markus Persson, etc.).

(6) Homeless indies that release shitty games (most indies).

 

[MRY]

But the first game had an audience.

An audience who played the game and found it shit not worth their time.

It's not rocket science.

I don't think that's quite right. The first game has a 90% rating on Steam with 8552 reviews. (Note that this doesn't include bundle reviews, and in fact there seem to be very few bundle reviews.) PoE has 88% with 7983 reviews. Grimrock has 95% with 4010 reviews. About 16% of players complete the game, which is low but not abysmal. (It's 12% for PoE, for example.) I think it's more that people played it, liked it, but didn't need to play the same kind of game again -- much of its appeal was its novelty (visuals, design, even narrative), and those things aren't novel anymore.

 

[Lurker King]

I just don't get why they have to force a third game. There's no rule saying they HAVE to make it. It really just seems like their egos are getting in the way of making sound financial decisions.

The only sound financial decision is working for a big studio in a triple-A game. Anything else is a gamble and the odds are against you. Either you do what you want with a financial loss, or you work for somebody else doing shit. There is no middle ground here.

 

[MRY]

The only sound financial decision is working for a big studio in a triple-A game outside the game industry.

FTFY.

Basically every job in the game industry is underpaid because it's "fun" to work on games. An artist would make much more doing trial graphics for a law firm, a writer would make much more writing software documentation, a coder would make more programming ATMs, etc. I tend to agree with you, though, that if you are just going to chase the market with your games, you might as well work for whatever makes you the most money, which may be a studio.

 

[Mustawd]

I just don't get why they have to force a third game. There's no rule saying they HAVE to make it. It really just seems like their egos are getting in the way of making sound financial decisions.

The only sound financial decision is working for a big studio in a triple-A game. Anything else is a gamble and the odds are against you. Either you do what you want with a financial loss, or you work for somebody else doing shit. There is no middle ground here.

You can't just hand wave it away by saying "games is risky bizness". There are decisions where you roll the dice, where you play it safe, and where you're being stubborn and unnecessarily risking the viability of your company as well as your personal fortunes.

Larian rolled the dice and made a lot of risky moves in order to finance their company enough to make D:OS. However, these were calculated moves with a well thought strategy in place (one that ofc could have blown up in their face).

The point is not that they should not be in a risky industry, but more so that there's ample evidence there is no commercial market for a BS3; at least as long as there are no huge changes made to the formula. This is probably when most publishers would say, "you know what? There's no market, so I think I'll pass". There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

 

[Infinitron]

They promised a trilogy to their Kickstarter backers, it would be bad to go back on that now.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

It may be a better investment to start a new IP and come back to the third installment later if at all, but I'd like to see the story to the end.

Exactly! They should just leave it. Do something else and then return to TBS if the fans demands it.