Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

That's so... sad.

 

Depends if Eternity is actually good or not. If it's good I expect between 500 thousand to 2 million sales.

 

Fixed. Actual quality matters little.

What drove Grimrock sales were the sudden surge of oldschool voices and hipsters that jumped on that surge. The actual game itself wasn't that fantastic, unless you really get hard-ons from Dungeon Master and that kind of stuff.

 

Eternity shouldn't need to sell a million copies. DS3 / AP numbers would probably turn the team a healthy profit and more than justify sequels.

 

Also they make more with each copy sold than the traditional model with $60 price because they don't have a publisher. Only distribution platforms are taking a cut from their sales. They can make a lot more money with lower prices because of that. It all depends whether they are going to spend their money on the game and if so how much. They could choose to spend their money on marketing if they spend kickstarter money only on development, also if they mismanage the budget and/or there are a lot of problems during development they could spend their money for additional development time. If they manage not to invest a lot of their own money they could earn enough for an expansion even with moderately low price and sales numbers. I think that this is one of the biggest reasons why they promised expansion during kickstarter. They are confident that they are going to manage everything on time, and that is probably because of their experience with developing this kind of games with relatively low budget during BIS days. Here is hopping that their confidence isn't misplaced.

Edit:
I just remembered that Fargo said that he would be very happy with 100k-200k copies sold implying that it would be enough to fund a sequel (or at least make it possible with some more investments), I assume that Obsidian is in the same boat because they have similarly sized teams working on this games. I think that it is a very achievable number, I would go so far to say that it is certain as long they don't seriously fuck up like for example making intolerably buggy games. 200k isn't all that big number for an average successful indie game and InExile and Obsidian have a big advantage that their games are already recognizable. Because of their reputation and because their record breaking kickstarter successes mainstream media is reporting on their games regularly, every major gaming site and community is covering big updates of this games and if they have the same coverage during release they can do a lot more than 100k-200k (if they don't fuck up).

 

Actually that's why I have that huge range in potential sales. I think if it's a solid IE clone no matter what RPS has to say it will do at least 500k in sales, or if it's a solid IE clone the hipsters will say they like it.

Also, it's going to have very pretty art, that will help a lot.

I believe both those games sold over a million copies. Probably not on PC alone though.

 

There are hipsters for RPG games?

What's the point of liking it When we probably have the worst reputation among gamers? They generally choose arts "adventure games".

 

Hipsters love PS:T.

 

That is the point. We are plagued by like irony. They pretend to understand like irony.

 

Are you sure? Mortuary and Wall of texts should discourage average player from going far. And i don't i can call anyone that finished PS:T a hipster. He would definitely level up to Codexian halfway through the game.

 

This is on the button. If you check the list of bestselling PC games, you see that BG, BG2 and NWN weigh in at 2 million copies over a decade+. That can be taken to be the size of the market, and more those are sales largely independent of marketing. If PE isn't a pile of wank, I wouldn't be surprised to see it hit a million within 2-3 years.

 

AP never broke a million (and bombed) and DS3 sold 820k during its first three months (though still made money since it cost significantly less).

 

Everyone I know who loves PS:T played through it and honest-to-God loved it. Popamolers and non-popamolers. Not sure there's much hipster-love for PS:T.

 

I wouldn't put those games in the same category as PE. (Or at least i hope PE wouldn't turn out like them)
That was a different era so i hope that market still remains.(15 years for first BG)
I believe these are the games(W2,PE,Torment...) that should reach out to that level and prove that this audience is still alive and kicking and deserves big games.

 

The market is bigger than it was in 1998. Crysis sold 3 million copies on pc, and I'm pretty sure games like hl2 sold even more. The market for rpgs is most likely smaller than shooters though.

 

Rise in PC sales was thanks to steam though and i wouldn't trust total numbers as it counts steam sales too.(5-10 dollars)

 

Wouldn't the Witcher 1 be a solid point of comparison in regards to sales? I don't know the circumstances surrounding its release and how relevant the brand name was (so if someone does, please enlighten me) but it was also PC exclusive, and the relative less-than-oldschool nature of it isn't something that would impact sales numbers when compared to PE (I could be mistaken though, can never underestimate the panic in "modern" gamers' eyes when they heard 6 characters to directly control).

 

Plus this game will be isometric. Most people probably thought witcher as a ARPG after seeing the screenshots. Just like me.

 

Um, but The Witcher is an ARPG, so where's the mislead?

 

The Witcher 1 had the most 'wilderness' exploration in a non-popamole open world game like Oblivion or whatever since Baldur's Gate 1 IMO. Even though you were on the same map wandering around the Swamp Forest, Lakeside and Old Manor etc was pretty fun.

 

Not exactly, you have a timing minigame that boosts your attacks but rest of the gameplay doesn't require reflexes at all.
Combat is actually have more roleplay game feeling to it than fallout.
They've gone full way to action in second though.

 

Not exactly what? Not exactly 'action'? How much action would it need to be an ARPG in Your opinion?

The vast majority of ARPGs focus their action on combat only, because it is hard to 'actionize' anything else.

But yeah, not all ARPGs are equally 'actiony'. Some are too 'actiony' to be called RPGs anymore and become hybrid games (Mass Effect). The Witcher may not have the most "A" in ARPG (praise the devs), but it still is an action-RPG.

No, just no.
EDIT: just realized You probably mean Fallout 3, You poor thing.

 

Lately it's been difficult to categorize these games, especially games that are 3D. They use some action mechanics for dodging and moving and we see the combat in action. But there was difference in Witcher, Witcher combat used reflex based actions to dodge/parry but it had many options that allow you to build your character to different styles and it was not geared towards your reflexes. Hell you could complete game with reflexes of a mule.

And yes i was talking about Fallout's. Witcher compared to fallout 1-2 it had many skill paths one could take, 3 different combat forms, 5-6 different magic forms, 21 potions. You had so many options for your character specialization and combat wasn't based around how fast you can dodge but it depends on how you built your character, your preparation for the battle, your decisions.
In fallout series only thing you did was clicking on enemy and choosing which part of the body you wanted to hit.(Hitting leg's and arm's were generally useless so most aimed for eyes)
No option to hide behind cover, no option protect yourself, no tactical variety between battles hence no difference between fighting raiders and mutants. No preparation required for battles. You only choose perks collected items and clicked on enemies hoping for criticals.

Don't get me wrong(Drop your torches please), i don't categorise Fallout's combat as an action game combat but Witcher combat is better than fallout combat when it comes to rpg combat.

Though as i said modern games are always open to discussion and there are no scrict rules that defines genres.

 

I wouldn't classify the Witcher 1 or 2 as ARPGs like Diablo/TQ etc but the combat is very 3rd person action game-y in The Witcher 2.