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

[Infinitron]

Anyway, Obsidian should count themselves lucky if their game sells more than 100k copies at full release price.

That's way too small.

Do you see more than 100k people buying it at $40? I sure don't. Especially considering that more than 70k of the people who are interested in the game already preordered it through KS.

Edited my post.

 

[catfood]

Anyway, Obsidian should count themselves lucky if their game sells more than 100k copies at full release price.

That's way too small.

Do you see more than 100k people buying it at $40? I sure don't. Especially considering that more than 70k of the people who are interested in the game already preordered it through KS.

Edited my post.

Ok, yes I know about Grimrock, but that game not only sold at $15 initially, but if I remember right it was also present in some massive sales, where it was bundled with other games for very very low prices. Plus it was first person and it looked good, so the average joe blow who knows nothing of the genre maybe thought it was like Skyrim or something.

 

[Infinitron]

Ok, yes I know about Grimrock, but that game not only sold at $15 initially, but if I remember right it was also present in some massive sales, where it was bundled with other games for very very low prices. Plus it was first person and it looked good, so the average joe blow who knows nothing of the genre maybe thought it was like Skyrim or something.

What about the rest of my post? You're ignoring the fact that this game is going to be heavily targeted towards disappointed Dragon Age and Bioware fans. That game sold three million copies at 60 dollars.

In total, it should sell at least one million copies, although what percentage of those will be discounted I don't know.

 

[Gakkone]

These first big Kickstarter games to come out will (once again) have huge media coverage. That will account for a lot in terms of sales potential even if they can't compete with AAA marketing budgets.

 

[Infinitron]

These first big Kickstarter games to come out will (once again) have huge media coverage. That will account for a lot in terms of sales potential even if they can't compete with AAA marketing budgets.

Yes. I would add that if Wasteland 2 is a critical success, Obsidian will gain a lot of new customers from that, people who want to see what awesome game Kickstarter will bring up next.

 

[tuluse]

Good games on Steam sell a lot. The PC market is very diverse and isn't as hype driven as the console market.

Also I remain convinced that the number of people willing to pay full--or above full--price for a game based on vague promises before a company has even started working on it has to be a small fraction of the total number of people willing to buy it.

All of this ignores the fact that kickstarted indie games are the "in" thing right now and PE will have plenty of hype.

 

[Rake]

Like he said, Dragon Age. It sold very well. Witcher 1. Sold very well. None of these games had perfect graphics, in fact PE looks better. Dragon Age was marketed like BG2 spiritual successor, and Witcher was marketed as a PC only ,semi hardcore, "real" RPG, and it was made from a complete unknown developer. There is a market of 2-3 millions for RPGs that are no cinematic and no hiking simulators.
Not all of them would buy a 2D game at full price, but i don't believe it will sell only 100000-300.000 copies.

 

[Space Satan]

Shadowrun will matter as well, mostly as one of the first Good Old RPGs to be kickstarted and released before 2014.

 

[catfood]

Ok, yes I know about Grimrock, but that game not only sold at $15 initially, but if I remember right it was also present in some massive sales, where it was bundled with other games for very very low prices. Plus it was first person and it looked good, so the average joe blow who knows nothing of the genre maybe thought it was like Skyrim or something.

What about the rest of my post? You're ignoring the fact that this game is going to be heavily targeted towards disappointed Dragon Age and Bioware fans. That game sold three million copies at 60 dollars.

In total, it should sell at least one million copies, although what percentage of those will be discounted I don't know.

Not really comparable the way I see it because:

Dragon Age also benefited from a huge and grotesque (anyone remember all that blood being splashed on the screen while Marlin Manson squealed in the background?) marketing campaign, which has a huge appeal to the mass market composed of easily impressionable individuals. Hell, I bet it had banners on every major gaming site

It was multi-platform and it was released on all 3 major platforms simultaneously. inb4 PE is also ported on Linux and Mac that means ITZ multiplatform lol.

It was present as a physical product in retail stores. here is some graph found on some random site that I found. As you can see retail sales are also important. Admitedly the market is slowly shifting towards digital.

It had big names behind it. Bioware is one of the big RPG developers with lots of fans. And believe it or not there are hardcore EA fanboys out there that will buy everything with an EA logo on it.

So even though the two games are similar, there are other factors that need to be considered when attempting to draw a comparison between them

 

[catfood]

Shadowrun will matter as well, mostly as one of the first Good Old RPGs to be kickstarted and released before 2014.

I'd say yeah. The success of SRR will give us a good indication of how big a market is out there for isometric party based RPGs.

 

[Space Satan]

It was multi-platform and it was released on all 3 major platforms simultaneously. inb4 PE is also ported on Linux and Mac that means ITZ multiplatform lol.

i remember Gabe Nawell spoke about one of the most important agendas in gamemaking is expansion to Linux.

It had big names behind it. Bioware is one of the big RPG developers with lots of fans. And believe it or not there are hardcore EA fanboys out there that will buy everything with an EA logo on it.
So even though the two games are similar, there are other factors that need to be considered when attempting to draw a comparison between them

And now try to go on BSN and see that even after two years after release people are still bashing on Faggot Age 2. There's a LOT of people BioWare alienated by transforming DA into animu hack'n'slash. A lot of people Obsidian can catch.

 

[Infinitron]

So even though the two games are similar, there are other factors that need to be considered when attempting to draw a comparison between them

Sure. And that's why I'm not saying PE will sell as much as DA:O. I just think "100,000 full price sales" is too low of an estimate. That number just doesn't make much sense in age when games like CK2 are Steam best-sellers.

My conservative, lower-boundish estimate would be at around 250-300k.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

And believe it or not there are hardcore EA fanboys out there that will buy everything with an EA logo on it.

I'm going to go ahead and choose (b) not believe it, if only for my own mental health.

 

[catfood]

And believe it or not there are hardcore EA fanboys out there that will buy everything with an EA logo on it.

I'm going to go ahead and choose (b) not believe it, if only for my own mental health.

You don't even know what you don't know.

 

[coffeetable]

You don't even know what you don't know.

Pot, meet kettle. I'll use "PC" as shorthand for "PC/Mac/Linux" in the following. Here're some of the sales figures I came across in a quick search.

Bastion: ~300,000 PC sales in it's first year. Total sales were 5/3rds of this, which we'll use to calibrate other XBLA/PC titles. ~1.1 million PC sales over two years (3/5ths of 1.7 million total)
Super Meat Boy: ~1,200,000 PC sales over three years (3/5ths of 2 million total)
Amnesia: ~1,400,000 PC sales over three years.
Grimrock: ~600,000 PC sales over six months.
Binding of Isaac: ~1,000,000 PC sales over a year
Hotline Miami: 130,000 PC sales in two months

Yeah, these aren't $40 games, but y'know what? If PE/W2/SR/etc are critical darlings but hit this million-strong audience only when reduced to $20, $15, $10, they'd still be roaring successes. A million sales at the $15 price point for PE would still yield ~$10 million profit for Obsidian.

You seriously misjudge the size of the PC market. Personally I'm expecting ~500k at $30 and another ~million at $10.

 

[Jedi Exile]

A million sales at the $15 price point for PE would still yield ~$10 million profit for Obsidian.

This is probably irrelevant to the discussion, but I think that PE will be sold at much higher price than $15 ($29 or more?).

 

[coffeetable]

A million sales at the $15 price point for PE would still yield ~$10 million profit for Obsidian.

This is probably irrelevant to the discussion, but I think that PE will be sold at much higher price than $15 ($29 or more?).

Yeah, sorry: my meaning there was that while PE might not sell particularly well at it's initial $30/$40 price point, if it then does well when slashed to $10-$20 it'll still be a great success for the studio.

Personally though I think it'll do well at both points.

 

[Rake]

http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/472473360853395375

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer

 

[Starym]

I wonder how much they'll put into marketing the game (and I think that has to come from Obsidian's own money and not the KS funds, but I'm not sure) and if it would even affect sales much. They will definitely get good press coverage at release, regardless of whether it's good or bad, but getting some more awareness of the game out there wouldn't be such a bad thing. If they managed the 1 mil mark at launch it would significantly change the way Obsidian works and we may even get a dedicated group of devs (or two) on these kinds of games - I doubt they could ever really back away from the console side of the business (or perhaps wouldn't even want to). If the Witcher 1 sales managed to set up CDP as a pretty solid AAA dev there's no reason not to assume it could do the same for this part of Obsidian. Maybe they could even get a separate name going for the mini-studio. Any names come to mind?

 

[Horus]

Obshit?

 

[Sensuki]

There's a lot of F:NV fans to consider as well.

Even if the combat isn't great (I am expecting it to be at least ok) the story/questing etc hopefully will be really good.

 

[Sensuki]

Link for the stream of P:E tonight btw

http://www.youtube.com/eurogamer

ETA ~14 hours. There's other stuff on before that though.

 

[Infinitron]

WATCH THIS SPACE

 

[DraQ]

Obshit?

It's spelled "Coprolite", you philistine.