Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Thread

[herpenis]

Google search sez the game cost $40 million, which is remarkably cheap for an AAA game. There was an old article written by Vavra himself kvetching about the unnecessarily bloated costs of AAA development.

Assuming doubled for marketing, if the game sold 2 million copies, $70 each, minus 30% store costs, that means $92 million, then the game has recouped its costs and made a profit already. Not too bad, esp. once you convert it into frogs or tracksuits or whatever Czechs use for money.

this isn't entirely accurate; as the game's gross income increases steam's cut will eventually fall down to 20% (it already has passed that threshold, really), but the overall amount of money per each sale can on average per my experience be multiplied by 0.5, since there's:
- steam's cut
- refunds
- US withholding tax (different on a per-country basis, tho in most EU cases it's 10%, in some it's 0%, but i don't know about czech republic so let's assume 10%)
- VAT

after that there's also corporate taxation in CZ (or wherever the fuck embracer is established), but let's assume another 20% tax on top

it'll take the game $200M in gross revenue to break even, which amounts to 3.333 million sales (which isn't realistic, the more realistic figure is therefore 4 million sales), assuming all of them are made at full price for $59.99, assuming marketing cost the same amount of money as the development
basically the moment the game hit 2 million sales it was already halfway there (if not more than that due to taxation specifics and the reduction of steam's cut percentage as the game's gross revenue increased) to recouping the dev + marketing costs

I'm sure Embracer cares if the games were bought on Steam or a 3rd party site, keep coping retardo.

keys to key reseller websites are sold for far less than what the game is sold for on steam
and i dont get what your point is - if you're saying the game has made more money than i calculated then ok, lol? isn't your point that it's a flop? retard

 

[PlayerEmers]

https://www.eurogamer.net/kingdom-c...roubled-publisher-embracer-celebrates-success

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 nears 2m sold, as troubled publisher Embracer celebrates success​

"A strong foundation for future value creation."

Embattled publisher Embracer finally has something to celebrate - the launch of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which it says is "fast approaching" 2m sales.

As part of the company's latest financial results, Embracer heaped praise on the medieval role-playing game for launching to over 1m copies sold in 24 hours, and a peak Steam concurrent count of 250,000 players.

"It is our strong belief that the game will continue to generate substantial revenues over the coming years, highlighting the exceptional quality, immersion and appeal of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2," Embracer noted.

It's been an exceptionally rocky few years for Embracer, which has seen its empire of studios shrink considerably after a loss of funding and a string of flops - including, notably, the failure of the Saints Row reboot.

"The success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a reminder of our core - to bring great products to the market," Embracer co-founder Lars Wingefors wrote.

"High-quality teams need to have the resources and the time to execute their visions. When you have the right teams, this trust benefits everyone, including gamers, employees and shareholders. I am convinced that we will remain among the industry leaders in our core business verticals in the future."

"This gorgeous medieval RPG continues to be just as divisive, prickly and abrasive as its predecessor," we wrote in Eurogamer's Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 review.

A 3 platform AAA game in 2025 "nears 2 million copies sold", a success.
LMAO
Yeah, I guess if you define success as "not a complete flop" then it's a success.

By the way, it has 35K reviews on Steam, but if it's only "nearing" 2 million total, that means it has an insanely inflated number of reviews (or 90% of all sales are on PC).

-Game was made by czechs. Lower budget because their salaries are lower than your average europoor country. They dont need to sell like other AAA games because they dont have the same bloated costs.
-There's plenty of documented evidence and articles that try to estimate numbers of copies sold based on review count, known as the "Boxleiter method". From the looks of it, KCD 2 fits on the method nicely. Multiply the number of reviews by a number between 25-70 and you will get a close estimate that works the majority of time (multiply with lower numbers for obscure/nice/shovelware, big numbers for abnormal surprise hits).

They probably sold close to 1 million on Steam alone if you multiply by the lowest number in the boxleiter range.

 

[Thalstarion]

It's likely going to be a lot like The Last of Us 2 which sold very well and then became overwhelmingly loathed due to its terrible treatment of major characters. A lot of people are oblivious to the leaks and aren't that far into the game yet so there will be a steady stream of players speaking out and then being further radicalised when the regular discussion sites ban them for criticising tokenism and pointless retcons to the sexuality of the two major protagonists.

 

[herpenis]

It's likely going to be a lot like The Last of Us 2 which sold very well and then became overwhelmingly loathed due to its terrible treatment of major characters. A lot of people are oblivious to the leaks and aren't that far into the game yet so there will be a steady stream of players speaking out and then being further radicalised when the regular discussion sites ban them for criticising tokenism and pointless retcons to the sexuality of the two major protagonists.

kcd2 doesnt pull an abby on joel situation so i don't think so, if there was any chance for an outrage like that it would've happened already (plenty of positive reviews with 50+ hours on record, with that playtime you would've already seen all the things that could get people to shit on the game hard), as iirc the tlou2 shit went down mere days after launch, not weeks

 

[Mortmal]

https://www.eurogamer.net/kingdom-c...roubled-publisher-embracer-celebrates-success

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 nears 2m sold, as troubled publisher Embracer celebrates success​

"A strong foundation for future value creation."

Embattled publisher Embracer finally has something to celebrate - the launch of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, which it says is "fast approaching" 2m sales.

As part of the company's latest financial results, Embracer heaped praise on the medieval role-playing game for launching to over 1m copies sold in 24 hours, and a peak Steam concurrent count of 250,000 players.

"It is our strong belief that the game will continue to generate substantial revenues over the coming years, highlighting the exceptional quality, immersion and appeal of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2," Embracer noted.

It's been an exceptionally rocky few years for Embracer, which has seen its empire of studios shrink considerably after a loss of funding and a string of flops - including, notably, the failure of the Saints Row reboot.

"The success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a reminder of our core - to bring great products to the market," Embracer co-founder Lars Wingefors wrote.

"High-quality teams need to have the resources and the time to execute their visions. When you have the right teams, this trust benefits everyone, including gamers, employees and shareholders. I am convinced that we will remain among the industry leaders in our core business verticals in the future."

"This gorgeous medieval RPG continues to be just as divisive, prickly and abrasive as its predecessor," we wrote in Eurogamer's Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 review.

A 3 platform AAA game in 2025 "nears 2 million copies sold", a success.
LMAO
Yeah, I guess if you define success as "not a complete flop" then it's a success.

By the way, it has 35K reviews on Steam, but if it's only "nearing" 2 million total, that means it has an insanely inflated number of reviews (or 90% of all sales are on PC).

It’s hardly a success indeed. There’s even a massive ad campaign for this game, and it’s only selling 2 million, probably half of that on consoles.

A game like Elden Ring has 23 million sales, and it’s not even that mainstream. Then BG3, a tactical turn-based RPG which by default doesn’t reach every audience, has 15 million sales.

I’m sure they lost some due to the controversies.

 

[Konjad]

Strolling around Kuttenberg now

Thanks,
Sherry
This post is pending Infinitron's approval

 

[Ascetic]

No one is saying the game is a financial failure. The media is just overhyping a "success story" that isn't shown by the numbers.

It had a nice day 1 but has quickly lost momentum, behind Civ 7 on the Steam charts and only 1 and 2 spots ahead of MH Wilds and Avowed. Yes, Avowed, the game that looks like generic shit, is on Gamepass, and has its own controversies. Yakuza is also releasing a new, highly-anticipated title this month.

For reference, Elder Ring did 5 million week one and sold even more in the second week. The Witcher 3 did 1.7 million ten years ago and sold more in the second week. Momentum is a real thing, and as we've seen with games like Starfield, Redditors and gaming journalists can only carry you so far.

KCD1 slow burned its way to 8 million, but that's because it had a dedicated fanbase who constantly recommended it and kept it alive with word of mouth. This was supposed to be bigger, better, higher-budget sequel with a ton of hype behind it. But will normies even remember this game in a year? That's the risk of trading a dedicated, serious fanbase for social media influence and IGN accolades.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

If anyone thinks the first game had better combat, this was 30 seconds of me running up to town guards and clicking nothing but RMB.

Spoiler

 

[Mark Richard]

Speaking of KC:D1: over the last week the active Steam player count has almost doubled. That's pretty cool. Lots of people experiencing Czech Kofola instead of the westernized Coca-Cola sequel. And that's not even an insult to Coca-Cola mind you, I just like foreign products to be foreign and am not one of those people who travels on vacation halfway around the world to end up at a local McDonalds.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't think it's as bad as you portray it.

I didn't mean the game as a whole but I was too slow to amend the post.

 

[lukaszek]

If anyone thinks the first game had better combat, this was 30 seconds of me running up to town guards and clicking nothing but RMB.

i think 99% of npc got super low stats. Then you get surprised when you encounter that 1%. It quite visible when you decide to try different weapon, for example switch to axes after already lvling up sword to 15.

my first encounter in this game was naked henry finding plate armor clad bandit duo in nearby woods. And I somehow won(granted I did ambush them)

 

[AwesomeButton]

some actions progresses wedding, some do not

For every stage there is a quest mark on whoever will progress it.

Stealth archer can keep firing arrows and enemies will be running around trying to find you. Granted im good with stealth now but I dont recall having such problems in kcd1. In fact I dont remember maxing my skills.

That's new. In KCD1 they know where the arrow came from and if you don't switch position they will find you.
er on whoever progresses it.

 

[lukaszek]

That's new. In KCD1 they know where the arrow came from and if you don't switch position they will find you.
er on whoever progresses it.

sometimes they go to where arrow landed(if you missed).
Sometimes they go in your general direction. I moved few steps tops in between.

However arrows are quite weak when compared to first game. Its faster to sword+dodge in crowd

For every stage there is a quest mark on whoever will progress it.

but which mark? 1/4 of the guests got markers of sort

 

[cvv]

It still makes no sense they would be so welcoming of outside people, being deserters, or that they would go to the village inn to eat.
I'll just copy what I wrote a few pages ago:

Whichever way we twist it, the deserters will have to be living off of banditry.

Well would you look at that, you've actually convinced someone on the internet.

Yes, agreed, they would most likely be bandits. I still don't think it's completely out of the question people like them would just stroll in a village pub and ordered a beer and sausages but it's definitely very unlikely, yeah.

This could be a quest - a shepherd hires Henry to find who is fucking his sheep. Henry discovers a group of Albanians camping in the forest. He can kill them all or be tolerant and they teach him their hidden perk.

Yes, very good. The ability to fuck sheep, to get the Time Well Spent buff basically at will.

 

[cvv]

PSA: there's a perk in the horsemanship tree called Head Start (with 2 ranks), where double-pressing shift is supposed to make your horse go really fast for 10 seconds. All this time I've just been double-shifting normally and thinking it worked I just couldn't notice the difference. Just discovered that for it to work you need to be staying still (not pressing W) and then you double-shift. If you do it right, you can't miss it - the horse goes to plaid.

Jesus fucking christ, for 70+ hours I've been racking my brains about what I'm doing wrong with this fucking perk. FFS.

 

[herpenis]

in kcd1 that speed was regular galloping speed, not 10-second bullshit perk speed

 

[cvv]

It's only been a week. The question now is whether KCD2 is "merely" a success or can it become closer to a Witcher 3-sized hit with word of mouth.

No complex, deep, involved, simulationist, realistic RPG can ever be the same kind of megahit that streamlined fantasy action adventures with light RPG elements like Witcher 3 or Skyrim can be.

That said, KCD1 sold 8 million, so far, could be 10 million lifetime. This game could sell up to twice that. It'd still be niche but a large one. But TW3 sold 50 mil., so yeah.

 

[cvv]

A Warhorse dev rn - there's a hidden ending that nobody discovered so far. At least nobody reported it on the webz yet.

 

[whocares]

Then there are issues of gaym being easier than kcd1 and your progress being faster. At some point I stopped having fun.

Some of you were writing about stealth being skyrim tier and I agree. A number of times I was wanted in trosky village even though I am invisible. Which is easy to prove as I stopped to care and can sneak through main street in medium armor without anyone bothering me.
Stealth archer can keep firing arrows and enemies will be running around trying to find you. Granted im good with stealth now but I dont recall having such problems in kcd1. In fact I dont remember maxing my skills.

I've had the opposite experience. The progression in 2 is much slower compared to 1 where after a few Bernard sessions you could go and win the tournament. Here it takes way longer to reach OP status, and even when you do, the game throws enemies who are no pushovers at you - not blindly attacking, feinting, master strike baiting. And in the story missions it throws assorted curveballs to make things trickier regardless of your skills. Like the dungeon escape mission in Trosky after you get tortured and get -6 to all stats.

Though I think moving into Kuttenberg would be way more fun if the torture debuff was permanent. You break and talk? Here, some crayons and ez mode. You stay silent and get tortured - C&C bitch - deal with a weaker Henry and have more fun the rest of the game.

 

[Haba]

A Warhorse dev rn - there's a hidden ending that nobody discovered so far. At least nobody reported it on the webz yet.

"Henry wakes up. It was all just a dream. The jews, the nigger, the cocks he was forced to suck... just a bad dream."

 

[shimadamada]

What agenda? To show that ethnic groups are not amorphous, homogenous blobs? Yes, that's a good agenda. If you see an issue with this, it speaks more about how infantile and incurious your mind is than it does about the game.

It's touted as a historically accurate game during a time period where outsiders were extremely distrusted, especially when they torched settlements, slaughtered innocents and sexually assaulted them. All things we saw play out in the first game at that. Henry is written for conform to modern day progressive ideals which, realistically, would get him and everyone around him killed or enslaved.

You watched too much Game of Thrones dude. This has nothing to do with real history. It is generally accepted that prior to Thirty Years' War, the level of destruction you speak of was very rare. Religion is really the only thing in the period that can supply the justification for treatment of people as abstractions which is a necessary condition for indiscriminate killing of entire groups.

Forgiveness as a concept predates "modern day progressive ideals" by at least several millenia considering it features prominently in many of the world's religious traditions.

 

[Turrul]

Then why was there no wokeshit in Mafia 2 either?

Never played Mafia 2, but looking at the character list, he was considerate of the melting pot nature of the US: you have Italian- Irish- Chinese- Jewish- African- and Latin Americans.

Well, it's almost always 2nd generation immigrants who get involved with organized crime so, historically accurate?

 

[herpenis]

A Warhorse dev rn - there's a hidden ending that nobody discovered so far. At least nobody reported it on the webz yet.

what are your bets on, people? some secret pacifist ending or some secret "kill everyone" ending?

 

[Shaki]

A Warhorse dev rn - there's a hidden ending that nobody discovered so far. At least nobody reported it on the webz yet.

what are your bets on, people? some secret pacifist ending or some secret "kill everyone" ending?

Probably some joke easter egg ending, that isn't really an ending, just a funny unique game over screen somewhere in the middle of the game.

 

[Ryzer]

"Ahaha my le funny reddit joke hasn't been found yet, would you look at that."