Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2003
- Messages
- 28,024
In case that wasn't clear, they took money from their future sales. That's rarely a good business decision.But they took a deal that already secured funding of their next game! What a scammers, how dare they making money So, to summarise the last two pages:
Allegedly, they got 2.2 mil which roughly corresponds to 50,000 copies at $40-50, which is nothing. In comparison XCOM2 sold 500,000 copies within the first week. It would be hardly unreasonable to expect PP to sell 500,000 copies in the first few months, which would have earned them 20+ mil in gross sales, 14+ mil net. That's what at stake here. They took 2 mil now to defer 14+ mil for a year.
Ideally, they'd sell well on Epic, make a few millions, iron out some bugs and flaws, release on Steam a year later and claim their 14 mil or more. That's your best case scenario. The worst case scenario is that the game breaks even on Epic, so Epic gets their money back but Gollop earns nothing or very little in the first year, which can cripple a studio. What's worse (potentially) is that the game would be heavily pirated (remember Arcanum? Sierra was sitting on it for 6 months doing localization while the game was on every warez site, which resulted in a very weak release), which would affect future sales as well. Not to mention the backlash and all.
Then there's a question of the release price. Selling on Steam at full price on release is one thing, at a discounted rate is another. Many players would expect 30-40% off for a year old game. It would probably land somewhere in between (best and worst case scenario) but I doubt that things would go as smoothly as Gollop expects or hopes for. His decision WILL cost him sales, one way or another. The only question is how much.