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There will be Age of Decadence 2?

S.torch

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
938
I know that Vault Dweller and his team are probably very, very busy in the making of Colony Ship, yet I can't but ask myself is there will be a second part to the good game that was Age of Decadence. The setting and the general atmosphere caught me. And maybe the idea is floating somewhere.
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,525
Pretty sure they dismissed the possibility at some point. They were only able to justify the cost of Dungeon Rats because it's more focused and linear.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,764
Kalarion it wasn’t a joke. I find correctly stylized pseudo 2D graphics much superior to 3D. Fallout still excels at its animations and art all these years later.
 

Marat

Arcane
Wumao
Joined
Jan 6, 2017
Messages
2,585
I recall him once mentioning that sequels are not financially viable.
He said that, even though sequels can be superior in every way, they will sell worse (iirc Legend of Grimrock 2 was the example given).

As for AoD2, there was a mention of an idea for a sequel: player would be part of HA expedition to Qantari lands that left before or during events of AoD. You would choose whether you are a praetor assigned to this mission, a merchant, thief chained to the galley etc. There was supposed to be magic, demigods and city states vying for supremacy.

Goddammit, why did you make me bring this up. Imma go cry a manly tear over what could have been.
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,259
They could do a prequel with some strategy parts, in those times the three Houses were balanced so:
Daratan - Atreides
Crassus - Ordos
Aurelian - Harkonnen
Legion - Sardaukar
Qantari - Fremen
 

Drowed

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
1,676
Location
Core City
I recall him once mentioning that sequels are not financially viable.

Yeah, I remember him quoting this several times. Which is funny, because at the same time it goes against all current practice, both in the movie industry and in games. I don't have a strong opinion about it because I've never really got into this, but I know that at least when we talk about movies, sequels often perform better - and it is not something unusual either. I know that big gaming companies also think in a similar way (that sequels are a better investment), but maybe VD's argument is more focused on a specific audience. In this case, that indie or small-DEVs sequels in general sell less, maybe this audience has a different spending habit than those who buy theirs Call of Duty 20s, Final Fantasy 40s or Assassin's Creed 15s.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Movies are of a different industry, so not touch it.

But yeah, in games sequels are plentiful and very common. Even if you discount Japanese tittles (Dynasty Warriors series, FF series, ROTK series...) Western devs do it lots of times:
Call of Duty, of course.
Mech Warrior series.
Assassin series.
Witcher
BG/IWD
UFO/XCOM series
Fallout 1.2.Tactics (3 and FNV is of a different engine so I dont count as same series as them)
Monkey Island series
GTA series.
Lara Croft.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
I recall him once mentioning that sequels are not financially viable.
Maybe I'm misremembering though, anyone have the quote?

He did say this. His argument was something like: of the people that buy your game, ~60% will enjoy it enough to buy a sequel for sure, 30% will think it's okay and maybe buy a sequel, and 10% will hate the game, hate you, and never buy anything from you again.

So in the best case scenario a sequel game makes 90% of the sales of the previous title, but often closer to 60%. He was talking about niche indie games and not big AAA titles.

But then the question is raised, how do some games snowball with sequels exponentially increasing sales? Changing platforms? Modifying the gameplay significantly? More marketing? It is a mystery.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Game sequels (the movie industry is different) work best when you have a massive blockbuster like Skyrim or Witcher or BG back in the day. They don't work well for smaller games (XCOM 2, Legend of Grimrock 2, Banner Saga 2-3, Eschalon 2-3, Shadowrun games all sold less than the first game even though some sequels were of higher quality; Deadfire sold less than the first game too) and back then AoD 2 would have sold 60% of what AoD sold at best. 10-15 years later (counting from 2015), running on Unreal 4 - that's a different story.

When we had to make a decision about the next game, we sold 30-40k copies, iirc. Now it's 240k copies. The audience has grown over the years and the rating didn't drop below 81%, which is a good sign. While we don't have any specific plans at this point, we certainly would like to revisit the AoD world one day.
 

Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
I wonder: What would happen if you made AoD2, but named it differently? Maybe it could even be called Age of SomethingElse or SomethingElse of Decadence. If some people are put off by the "2" in a title (and I can see how the "2" can be frustrating to people who haven't played the 1st game), could this solve it? It could also be called something else entirely, of course.
 

Drowed

Arcane
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Messages
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Core City
I kinda agree that they are different industries, but I do think the parallels between the movies and games are very strong nowadays, now that both have become mainstream. I think it's acceptable to say that they're not necessarily identical and don't work in the exact same way, but there's a strong indicator that they resemble each other in the fact that game publishers also seem to think the same way about AAA/blockbuster sequels - in short, that it is a good investment to continue to do more of the same.

Sounds like a "go big or go home" scenario. Looking superficially at the data of the biggest game franchises (and accepting wikipedia numbers without further investigation, which I agree is not necessarily reliable), the results seem quite inconsistent: franchises like GTA, Witcher, Pokémon, The Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty, Borderlands and others don't seem to follow any simple pattern that I can notice, with numbers all over the place. Many of the sequels appear as bigger success than the predecessor games, but franchises with many games have also very big fluctuations on sales. Many sequels were also released many years later, which obviously changes the whole scenario and number of gamers / possible buyers. Anyway, the only consistent thing is that you only really see several sequels in "big" games/names, which is quite analogous to what we see in the cinema. Whether it's movies or games, either you invest tens or hundreds of millions, or don't think about franchises/sequels at all.

Which in essence I think is the argument VD is making: for indie groups and small or medium sized games, and perhaps especially RPGs, success cases of sequels are exceptions. Divinity: Original Sin 2 seems to be one of the few, but at the same time it is also one of the games with the highest production values of recent RPGs, which makes it a game closer to AAA group than to indie group.
 

vazha

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
2,063
Game sequels (the movie industry is different) work best when you have a massive blockbuster like Skyrim or Witcher or BG back in the day. They don't work well for smaller games (XCOM 2, Legend of Grimrock 2, Banner Saga 2-3, Eschalon 2-3, Shadowrun games all sold less than the first game even though some sequels were of higher quality; Deadfire sold less than the first game too) and back then AoD 2 would have sold 60% of what AoD sold at best. 10-15 years later (counting from 2015), running on Unreal 4 - that's a different story.

When we had to make a decision about the next game, we sold 30-40k copies, iirc. Now it's 240k copies. The audience has grown over the years and the rating didn't drop below 81%, which is a good sign. While we don't have any specific plans at this point, we certainly would like to revisit the AoD world one day.
Please, sirrah, if Battle Brothers can pull it off, you can do so too.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
But then the question is raised, how do some games snowball with sequels exponentially increasing sales? Changing platforms? Modifying the gameplay significantly? More marketing? It is a mystery.
I think these are the exception rather than the rule, especially with indie games. But I'm just guessing, I don't have any concrete data to back this up.

However,
If the game has been out for a long period of time and had wide enough exposure with a positive reception it might end up being more profitable to make a sequel. If a lot of the sales of your first game are heavily discounted and they translate into full price(or even half) sales of your sequel, you may end up making far more even if you sell less.
A new IP OTOH might have a smaller audience such that a portion of the audience of the original game is larger than the new IP's potential audience. The new IP in this scenario may be riskier than the sequel.

So, would it be a good idea to release a sequel to AoD in 5-10 years? Maybe. Who knows?

I really wish there was more readily available sales data for video games.
 

NwNgger

Educated
Joined
Sep 27, 2020
Messages
79
I liked AoD and completed it but I don't see how a sequel could be made. The world is fucked. You fuck it up more or become a god by the end. The end. Unless it's a sequel in mechanics only. But isn't that what Colony Ship is?
 

Technomancer

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 24, 2018
Messages
1,417
Doubt we will see it anytime soon, next will be that gothic medieval rpg, after that colony ship sequel (marketed as a separate game) and maybe then AoD sequel.
 

Riddler

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 5, 2009
Messages
2,353
Bubbles In Memoria
Could a salient difference be between the sequel of a "hypetrain hit" and a "sleeper hit"?

A hypetrain hit will have sold to a bunch of people that didn't like it and consequently won't buy the sequel. A sleeper hit (selling a lot over a longer period of time) is probably a better bet for a sequel. Seeing as many of the sales were probably discounted and there weren't a hypetrain tricking people who probably weren't all that interested in the game into buying it (inflating expectations for sequel sales), you can probably translate a ton of these sales into full price sales and use the fans of the original game to hype the sequel, translating it to a hypetrain hit.

IE. Hype distorts the perception of real market interest, leading to a high risk of disappointing sequel sales. If there wasn't significant hype for the original release then a sequel is probably a good idea.

This goes doubly for indie releases that people buy for a low price.
 

commie

The Last Marxist
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Joined
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Where one can weep in peace
Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
I think a lot of the decline between original and sequels is based on the fact that many extra people buy the first game 'blind' as something to try. A lot of these players will find that maybe the game is not for them and ignore the second one, leaving the hardcore base. It usually happens when there's either a lot of hype for a game so that it piques the interest of casuals or even the opposite where the game is a bit under the radar but gets a lot of 'nibbles' from the curious.

If a game is pretty focused on a hardcore set from the beginning you will get a situation like with Gothic 1 and 2 where the core audience makes up the bulk of sales and through good reception keeps these and adds even more for the next one.

I think AoD fits this type as it was never really marketed for casuals, and so this game is a steady slow burner. I can see an AoD 2 doing well if if addresses the limitations of the first.
 

The Wall

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 19, 2017
Messages
3,027
Location
SERPGIA
Vault Dweller Ever thought about leasing Age of Decadence IP to other studio worthy of such honor? Or even been approached by other studio/publisher*


*Phil Spencer got Bill Gates' credit card and is shopping around. Paradox has excess of money and looks to establish presence on RPG market. I even have weirdly strong feelin that you have couple of emails from Paradox in your inbox
 

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