Pathfinder: Kingmaker sales and the single-player real-time-with-pause ceiling

[Roguey]

Another Steam Chart Sunday has gone by, and Kingmaker peaked at 22,536 concurrent players by their numbers and 22,664 by Steam's. Deadfire's was 22,639 and 22,723 by Steam's count. This is pretty good news for Owlcat, who were as "Who?" as Bioware was when they released Baldur's Gate, and a testament to the strength of the Pathfinder setting and ruleset, as well as Owlcat's particular implementation of the module even with their mishaps.

However, given Kingmaker's easier-to-understand and grog-friendlier rules, and its unpretentious, less-verbose writing, it's concerning that it didn't leave Deadfire in the dust. At this point I'd say that the original Pillars of Eternity was a fluke, and this is it as far as single-player real-time-with-pause RPGs go. Oh, sure, Kingmaker may very well have a longer tail than both Deadfire and Tyranny (and I hope it does; anything that puts Obsidian out of business is all right with me), but I doubt we're ever going to see Divinity: Original Sin II or even Pillars of Eternity levels of success from any near-future rtwp RPG without some big changes (whether that be co-op, a user friendly toolset, a combination of the two, or some other innovation). Without those big changes, this particular RPG subgenre should be considered dead as far as triple-I goes (lower-budget indies can make do with this level of player interest of course).

 

[Cross]

I'll repeat what I said in the Kingmaker thread:

Comparing concurrent users peaks is pointless because Kingmaker didn't have release hype and reviews to generate a peak. While still not perfect, the amount of Steam reviews would be a better metric. Deadfire has 2472 reviews, while Kingmaker already has 1710. If we assume owners of both games are equally inclined to leave a review, that means it will only be a matter of days before Kingmaker sales exceed Deadfire's lifetime sales.

anything that puts Obsidian out of business is all right with me

What about your one true love Sawyer?

 

[razvedchiki]

the numbers of players only tell me that there are as much people that enjoy old style dnd crpgs than new balanced MMO rpgs.

 

[Jarpie]

Given that Pathfinder: Kingmaker didn't have really any push from the gaming media, much less marketing money and power than Obsidian, I'd say based on the number of reviews and concurrent players, it seems to be doing very well. It's almost as if when you create a game which makes people to talk about it, in Pathfinder's case, it being hard, it'll create "grassroots" buzz, and people will become curious. If you create something which is kinda bland, by-the-numbers, doesn't have really any memorable traits to it, players will move on, as the case seems to be with PoE 2.

 

[Roguey]

Comparing concurrent users peaks is pointless because Kingmaker didn't have release hype and reviews to generate a peak.

Reviews from game journalists don't sell games, if they ever did. They're only good for raising awareness and a Pathfinder game doesn't really need their help in raising awareness.

While still not perfect, the amount of Steam reviews would be a better metric. Deadfire has 2472 reviews, while Kingmaker already has 1710. If we assume owners of both games are equally inclined to leave a review, that means it will only be a matter of days before Kingmaker sales exceed Deadfire's lifetime sales.

More of Kingmaker's Steam reviews are negative though. The Deadfire audience was far more pleased with what they received.

What about your one true love Sawyer?

He's an idiot who might as well be retired as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Shadenuat]

What is happening with Roguey did I miss something

 

[Agame]

He's an idiot who might as well be retired as far as I'm concerned.

Et tu, Roguey?

 

[Jenkem]

you are forgetting that the sales of pathfinder kingmaker will likely go up through word of mouth while the word of mouth surrounding the dumpsterfire will cause it to merely plateau

 

[Morkar Left]

This is the closest to BG people will ever get and the closest of a BG with 3rd edition rules people dreamed about since 3rd edition came out. Plus basically every pen&paper D&D or Pathfinder player will be interested in the game, too.
There are indeed only 2 - 3 things holding the game back: bugs, no multiplayer and maybe a timelimit.

 

[Sentinel]

I don't care about the genre making it big. It doesn't need $300 million budgets.

And 22k is pretty big for a completely unknown studio and a game that has virtually 0 marketing and pretty much no professional reviews or paid streamers. They need to ditch RTwP though and have the UI give useful info (for example, in Kingmaker during scripted interactions it is possible for your party to take damage and even die - the game never tells you about any of this though. You may go through an entire scripted interaction thinking you're doing well only for you to reach the map and notice that half your party's fucking dead.)

 

[Infinitron]

Kingmaker might have passed Deadfire in concurrent players if it wasn't buggy, so kudos to the Russians for that (and also to the Pathfinder brand).

But yes it's kind of funny to use number of reviews as the metric for a game's commercial popularity when so many of those reviews are negative.

 

[Shadenuat]

It's day 1 ragers etc.

and even they probably raged, raged, then chilled off and went for their 100 hours playtime because of lingering curiosity of what is this strange difficult d&d is all about, because their wounded pride, because game is huge and character development is something else for today's era.

the last d&d game was what, NWN2? and it was easy. people forgot how these games play and got a cultural shock.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

and a testament to the strength of the Pathfinder setting and ruleset, .

I'd be willing to bet money that less than 5% of the people playing the game bought it based on any sort of brand recognition

 

[Roguey]

I'd be willing to bet money that less than 5% of the people playing the game bought it based on any sort of brand recognition

Pool of Radiance and Baldur's Gate certainly had brand recognition in their favor even if many of those people had never played D&D in their life. They've heard about it, and that piques the interest.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'd be willing to bet money that less than 5% of the people playing the game bought it based on any sort of brand recognition

Pool of Radiance and Baldur's Gate certainly had brand recognition in their favor even if many of those people had never played D&D in their life. They've heard about it, and that piques the interest.

Now do a poll on people who play video games asking if they know what pathfinder is.

 

[Azarkon]

They could've easily had twice the success, had they been more competent developers. User reviews measure word of mouth and games like the first Divine Divinity: Original Sin exceeded expectations because of it.

As for Pillars of Eternity, now there's a game that sold mostly off of hype and name recognition, and then failed to measure up, leading to the sequel's relative lack of success despite excellent reviews from loyal followers.

You can't strictly compare the two, though. A game from a new company is measured more by its quality and marketing, than a game from an established company, due to the lack of loyal followers. What the sales up to now show is that initial market interest is on the order of 300,000 for a game with Dungeons and Dragons like rules and what seemed to be solid production qualities; to reach 2 million, which is probably the maximum for this genre at the present, you need to actually deliver or be established.

 

[Mexi]

It would've done less with turnbased. Look at that pile of aids, AoD.

 

[Vorark]

It's a nice change of pace to see people here so satisfied with an RPG!

Is Pathfinder: Kingmaker more like BG1 or BG2?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

honestly I think a big part of their success (and I have harped on this point for years and met a lot of skepticism) is that there is a very large and hungry and fairly well off financially group of people who will absolutely support any well implemented and grognardy implementation of D&D into a computer game. I think D&D is way more popular than some people realize. I also think Obsidian made an enormous blunder not using D20 for PoE and if they had they would have perhaps doubled their sales (I have nothing but a wild guess on my part to say doubled, but believe it to be close to true). I think if somebody does one of these games with a ToEE type combat combined with a easy to use toolset and with graphic quality matching Kingmaker or PoE that they may very well challenge DoS II or AAA type numbers.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Comparing concurrent users peaks is pointless because Kingmaker didn't have release hype and reviews to generate a peak.

Reviews from game journalists don't sell games, if they ever did. They're only good for raising awareness and a Pathfinder game doesn't really need their help in raising awareness.

While still not perfect, the amount of Steam reviews would be a better metric. Deadfire has 2472 reviews, while Kingmaker already has 1710. If we assume owners of both games are equally inclined to leave a review, that means it will only be a matter of days before Kingmaker sales exceed Deadfire's lifetime sales.

More of Kingmaker's Steam reviews are negative though. The Deadfire audience was far more pleased with what they received.

What about your one true love Sawyer?

He's an idiot who might as well be retired as far as I'm concerned.

Lol, what made you change your mind about Josh, if you feel like answering?

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It's a nice change of pace to see people here so satisfied with an RPG!

Is Pathfinder: Kingmaker more like BG1 or BG2?

No one's finished it yet so who knows?

BG2 had a much better late game than most AAA RPGs of any era. It remains to be seen if kingmaker has good late content or not.

 

[LESS T_T]

Extremely rough estimation of sales on Steam: ~100K copies

Based on last week's Steam top revenue list.

#3 - Pathfinder: Kingmaker
#2 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#1 - 太吾绘卷 (The Scroll of Taiwu)

The developer of The Scroll of Taiwu revealed the game has sold over 300K copies in a week, and it's only available in Chiense language so likely the majority of copies are sold at Chinese Yuan price, which is about $8.29 with the launch discount. So you can do very rough estimation there, assuming a ratio of USD and Ruble sales.

 

[Safav Hamon]

We also have to take into account that the price is cheaper than Deadfire. I'm surprised it didn't outsell Deadfire.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

It is still at the #1 position of best sellers (US Domestic) as far as I can tell using my Steam account. It dropped to #2 for a short time (hours?) when Shadows of Mordor went on sale for 66% off, but its back to #1 it looks like. I am surprised it is there after a week, and it actually was #1 for 2-3 days before it released, so for about 10 days it has been at #1. It has to be doing well it seems, I am guessing it is doing better than they could have ever hoped for?? I thought it would do well, but I actually thought it was going to be more like it would have a long and steady success due to word of mouth. I did not think it would be #1 on steam for 10+ days. I never would have guessed that.

 

[cruelio]

you are forgetting that the sales of pathfinder kingmaker will likely go up through word of mouth while the word of mouth surrounding the dumpsterfire will cause it to merely plateau

That's funny since all I hear about the game is what a buggy piece of shit it is. It probably helps that I read forums other than this echo chamber.