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

[aweigh]

I still like pretending roguey is female.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

I still like pretending roguey is female.

yeah I always picture Roguey as female even though I think 'she' is probably not

 

[Urthor]

Are you retarded.

The fact that a game from a studio that is as famous with casuals as Obsidian for Fallout New Vegas and Kotor II has the same numbers as Kingmaker is a ridiculous success for the Russkies. It speaks to the power of the tabletop brand that it has been carried this much but saying Kingmaker should have had more when there is literally 0 metacritic reviews and still no marketing for Kingmaker is outlandish.

Deadfire was a fairly high budget game, much higher production values than PoE1 with a far higher headcount if you look at the credits page, and employees were paid a western game developer salary. Kingmaker on the other hand was made in Russia. Kingmaker is a success.

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.

I mean I'm bug free 20 hours in so yeah. My biggest trip up was figuring out why my undead's constitution stat modifiers were stuck at +0

 

[Ranarama]

Waiting for some patches so it won't crash on launch.

 

[AwesomeButton]

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.

Exactly. The audience for an adapted PnP game isn't people who have played PnP so much as people who haven't, but wish they had, and seeing the game they go "aha, now is my chance to see what this is about".

This probably had a strong effect during the KS campaign as well. You hear about Deadfire and ask "A sequel to... what game?", "A spiritual what to which games?" But with PK, it's much easier.

Don't get me started on Kickstarter vs this DoA Fig platform...

 

[Fairfax]

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).

I think that's confirmation bias. Regardless of what one thinks of the subgenre's potential, Kingmaker was never going to prove its death or not, and it should be clear by now that PoE wasn't good enough to give it a boost. If anything, Kingmaker shows an easier, potentially more profitable approach to this sort of game, which is always a net positive.

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).

Using the official 3.5E ruleset and a published adventure would've been much better and more successful, yes. However, OGL d20 would've been ruined by Sawyer (a 4E zealot) anyway.

 

[Ladonna]

I haven't bothered buying it yet due to the talk about more content to come and bugs. These days I wait for the inevitable 'super awesome edition' to roll around. Otherwise I am there, playing through a game, and suddenly DLC pack one arrives and everyone is talking about all the great stuff you can do, but you need to start a new game...meanwhile I am halfway through. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Grunker]

What about your one true love Sawyer?

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

who broke roguey

 

[AwesomeButton]

Maybe it's a little too early to sing praises for P:K, but the strong start is obviously there.

It's amazing what you can achieve with an established ruleset name, a light-hearted style, romances, and a promise of power fantasy - become king, etc.

Meanwhile Deadfire is a very solid RPG but you have to get into it in order to appreciate it.

Conclusion - once a nerd, always a nerd.

 

[Ladonna]

I don't think its too early to praise it. From what I hear, the game itself is very well done. The problems are all bugs and balance, which can be fixed. You cannot fix a shit game system, but you can finish/add to a decent one.

 

[Elex]

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.

yes the success of pathfinder go behind the pure appearance.
the game is a success, and i’m pretty sure extremely profittable for the investment.
bugs and problems are all fixable stuff (stat numbers, roll tables and quest bug)

 

[ArchAngel]

Maybe it's a little too early to sing praises for P:K, but the strong start is obviously there.

It's amazing what you can achieve with an established ruleset name, a light-hearted style, romances, and a promise of power fantasy - become king, etc.

Meanwhile Deadfire is a very solid RPG but you have to get into it in order to appreciate it.

Conclusion - once a nerd, always a nerd.

It is not too early, just as it was not too early to sing praises for Underrail even after doing only 20% of the game. Even if the last 10-15h suck (like they did in Underrail) the first 100h are going to be awesome and the game will be worth the GotY awards.

 

[Elex]

Maybe it's a little too early to sing praises for P:K, but the strong start is obviously there.

It's amazing what you can achieve with an established ruleset name, a light-hearted style, romances, and a promise of power fantasy - become king, etc.

Meanwhile Deadfire is a very solid RPG but you have to get into it in order to appreciate it.

Conclusion - once a nerd, always a nerd.

It is not too early, just as it was not too early to sing praises for Underrail even after doing only 20% of the game. Even if the last 10-15h suck (like they did in Underrail) the first 100h are going to be awesome and the game will be worth the GotY awards.

15h of undercaves??

 

[AwesomeButton]

It is not too early, just as it was not too early to sing praises for Underrail even after doing only 20% of the game.

I meant strong start in sales terms. I am an optimist about the game remaining fun.

 

[ArchAngel]

Maybe it's a little too early to sing praises for P:K, but the strong start is obviously there.

It's amazing what you can achieve with an established ruleset name, a light-hearted style, romances, and a promise of power fantasy - become king, etc.

Meanwhile Deadfire is a very solid RPG but you have to get into it in order to appreciate it.

Conclusion - once a nerd, always a nerd.

It is not too early, just as it was not too early to sing praises for Underrail even after doing only 20% of the game. Even if the last 10-15h suck (like they did in Underrail) the first 100h are going to be awesome and the game will be worth the GotY awards.

15h of undercaves??

Deep Caverns. I played a stealth Crossbow guy.

 

[Kz3r0]

What about your one true love Sawyer?

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

who broke roguey

He managed to troll the Codex for hundreds of pages and thousands of posts championing a game he correctly called Dullsville, why he should waste time playing it?
As you can see after such a great success he can't even keep up the act anymore

The troll admits that duped y'all.
The tards still don't get it.

 

[Grunker]

Of course Roguey is a troll. And of course Roguey's support of Sawyer and Pillars development was genuine.

 

[FreeKaner]

IE games are a cargo cult.

 

[aweigh]

Every time someone brings up the fact that Sawyer is a 4E zealot I am reminded of why I've never liked him. *shudder*

 

[octavius]

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?

Unless I learn otherwise I will assume a restraining order.

 

[Sentinel]

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.

makes me wonder exatly what the FUCK WotC is doing. D&D is so fucking popular and they just completely removed themselves from videogames. 5E is pretty fun too.

 

[J_C]

Guys were talking about the D20 open game license ruleset. Is there a way I can download that ruleset, because all I have found so far is some broken links.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Given that Pathfinder: Kingmaker didn't have really any push from the gaming media, much less marketing money and power than Obsidian.

I've seen it mentioned a few times that Kingmaker hasn't had much marketing relative to XYZ. I'd just like to clarify that for a few weeks before its release practically every YouTube video I watched had a Pathfinder: Kingmaker trailer before it. It also had a Kickstarter during the peak of the Kickstarter fashion. Considering there's an element of targeted advertising with things like YouTube it's safe'ish to assume that the core audience for this game have been given ample marketing & this could help explain why P:K has remarkably similar opening sales to that of Deadfire. The 22,000 are those of us who are cocooned within the algorithm of our recent viewing agenda.

 

[Grunker]

Roguey could you give me the rundown on your progress? Last I saw you posting general sentiments about PoE and Sawyer you were disillusioned but not outright aggressive and hateful

 

[Shadenuat]

Betrayer of Sawyerity