Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread

[LESS T_T]

I think it's actually CBS DAN, probably a new game studio founded by CBS, the American TV network. It's probably named after Dan Rather, former CBS news anchor. A very apt name since his career in CBS practically ended with a controversy over alleged fake documents.

 

[fantadomat]

Oh, come on, you know that's not real.

This is the apparent source:



Nobody in the replies even noticed the Obsidian logo.

Yup,the obsidian logo is even getting out of the monitor. It is obvious paint cut off.

 

[Xeon]

CRT as well for the nostalgia or something I guess.

 

[AwesomeButton]

As could be expected, the first big patch, the news of Free DLC, and probably the discounts on related games, brought a boost to Deadfire's sales.

SteamSpy is currently showing 145k owners, though the actual number is probably somewhere around 170k on Steam (+20% of reported by the algorithm).

The concurrent players numbers are constant in the last week, including immediately after the patch, but this will hardly change until the first Expansion DLC is released.

I suppose at this pace, we can safely consider Deadfire to be turning profit already, and expect it to reach a SteamSpy 200k by the end of the month, before the first DLC comes out.

 

[Flou]

As could be expected, the first big patch, the news of Free DLC, and probably the discounts on related games, brought a boost to Deadfire's sales.

SteamSpy is currently showing 145k owners, though the actual number is probably somewhere around 170k on Steam (+20% of reported by the algorithm).

The concurrent players numbers are constant in the last week, including immediately after the patch, but this will hardly change until the first Expansion DLC is released.

I suppose at this pace, we can safely consider Deadfire to be turning profit already, and expect it to reach a SteamSpy 200k by the end of the month, before the first DLC comes out.

On GoG it's still climbing. Page 35 now and it passed Deluxe Edition of BG: Siege of Dragonspear.

Obsidian Edition is on page 42 and the Season Pass is still stuck on page 46.

Does anyone have the numbers for Tyranny during the 1st month? Would be neat to compare the numbers to Tyranny even if Steamspy is in it's current state unreliable.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Types of contracts for development studios:

1. Fixed price: they get a fixed amount of money for reaching each project goal.
2. Fixed plus: like above, plus a percentage of the profit.
3. Percentage: just the percentage of the profit.
4. Everything: all the revenue.

All of those require subtraction of the development costs, and 4 requires subtraction of the marketing budget as well.

Obsidian has 3 for Deadfire. The revenue goes to the distributors, publisher and Fig investors first. If there is revenue left after that, they get a percentage. And they have to subtract their development costs from that.

If there is anything left after that, they make a profit which they can invest in the production of their next game.

 

[Roguey]

Does anyone have the numbers for Tyranny during the 1st month? Would be neat to compare the numbers to Tyranny even if Steamspy is in it's current state unreliable.

It had 76,000 after five days and had around 90,000 after nearly two weeks.

 

[AwesomeButton]

How funny, butthurt ppl are rating me optimistic, when my expectations were proven true, and I'm actually giving the most conservative estimate for 200k (50k raise) for the next three weeks.

Sales can only go in one direction really, the only question is how fast this will be.

 

[Lhynn]

Sales can only go in one direction really

If numanuma taught us something, its that this isnt true.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

There was 33000 backers, many with multiple copies. Let's round that up to 35000. 200,000 by the time new DLC comes out would move the sales up to 165,000.

165,000 x 49$ = $ 8 million.

Gaben takes his 30% cut.

$5.5 million.

50% goes to Fig.

$2.75 million.

They had 4.5 million from Fig, but worked on a game for a year before Fig campaign and then added additional funds for VO. Final budget probably ended up being almost 2x over Fig resources. So they have a long way to go out of red zone.

Then there's a case of sales on GoG, but there's also a matter of paying Versus Evil for publishing and marketing so for the sake of simplicity assume those even each other out.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

There was 33000 backers, many with multiple copies. Let's round that up to 35000. 200,000 by the time new DLC comes out would move the sales up to 165,000.

165,000 x 49$ = $ 8 million.

Gaben takes his 30% cut.

$5.5 million.

50% goes to Fig.

$2.75 million.

They had 4.5 million from Fig, but worked on a game for a year before Fig campaign and then added additional funds for VO. Final budget probably ended up being almost 2x over Fig resources. So they have a long way to go out of red zone.

Then there's a case of sales on GoG, but there's also a matter of paying Versus Evil for publishing and marketing so for the sake of simplicity assume those even each other out.

I thought Fig gets 1/14th based on the prospectus.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

There was 33000 backers, many with multiple copies. Let's round that up to 35000. 200,000 by the time new DLC comes out would move the sales up to 165,000.

165,000 x 49$ = $ 8 million.

Gaben takes his 30% cut.

$5.5 million.

50% goes to Fig.

$2.75 million.

They had 4.5 million from Fig, but worked on a game for a year before Fig campaign and then added additional funds for VO. Final budget probably ended up being almost 2x over Fig resources. So they have a long way to go out of red zone.

Then there's a case of sales on GoG, but there's also a matter of paying Versus Evil for publishing and marketing so for the sake of simplicity assume those even each other out.

I thought Fig gets 1/14th based on the prospectus.

I think Fig gets a half until investors break even, after that their dividend is shrinking as the sales continue rise. Quite possible that I'm wrong though. Tried checking it on Fig but they're not showing how Deadfire payouts are structured anymore, unless I'm missing it on the website.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Many people backed on GoG.

 

[DalekFlay]

My 75 buck-a-roos went to GOG. I think GOG is generally an invisible platform for the most part, but with the classic style RPGs it does seem to have a larger sales base. PoE and PoE2 have been high in the charts a good bit there.

 

[Abu Antar]

Don't worry, consoles will save it.

 

[Flou]

There was 33000 backers, many with multiple copies. Let's round that up to 35000. 200,000 by the time new DLC comes out would move the sales up to 165,000.

165,000 x 49$ = $ 8 million.

Gaben takes his 30% cut.

$5.5 million.

50% goes to Fig.

$2.75 million.

They had 4.5 million from Fig, but worked on a game for a year before Fig campaign and then added additional funds for VO. Final budget probably ended up being almost 2x over Fig resources. So they have a long way to go out of red zone.

Then there's a case of sales on GoG, but there's also a matter of paying Versus Evil for publishing and marketing so for the sake of simplicity assume those even each other out.

Does Valve really take 30%? Fucking greedy bastards. No wonder they never ended up releasing the last entry to Half-Life games. That's a huge fucking amount of money they get by having the most used and popular marketplace for games.

50 % to Fig? Investors? Not actual Fig as a company?

Versus Evil hardly did any marketing, so that percentage shouldn't be very high. Did they even end up doing a boxed version of the game like Paradox?

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've got many great friends, and they all told me. You know what, they all told me they did. On GoG.

 

[Fairfax]

There was 33000 backers, many with multiple copies. Let's round that up to 35000. 200,000 by the time new DLC comes out would move the sales up to 165,000.

165,000 x 49$ = $ 8 million.

Gaben takes his 30% cut.

$5.5 million.

50% goes to Fig.

$2.75 million.

They had 4.5 million from Fig, but worked on a game for a year before Fig campaign and then added additional funds for VO. Final budget probably ended up being almost 2x over Fig resources. So they have a long way to go out of red zone.

Then there's a case of sales on GoG, but there's also a matter of paying Versus Evil for publishing and marketing so for the sake of simplicity assume those even each other out.

I thought Fig gets 1/14th based on the prospectus.

I think Fig gets a half until investors break even, after that their dividend is shrinking as the sales continue rise. Quite possible that I'm wrong though. Tried checking it on Fig but they're not showing how Deadfire payouts are structured anymore, unless I'm missing it on the website.

Here. Fig takes 16.07% of the revenue (after Valve's cut) until 1.13x Fig Funds ($2,542,500) are returned, which would happen at around 450k copies sold at $50. After that point. they take 8.035%.

The budget was at least $9-10 million:

Deadfire's budget was expected to be 40%-50% higher than Pillars of Eternity's even before later unexpected expenses.
Pillars of Eternity's budget was at least 5m.
Source:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/118557-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire-interview/page-3.html

From Blood, Sweat, and Pixels:

With additional backing they received on PayPal and the Obsidian backer website, their final budget was around $5.3 million.*
*Fulfilling and shipping Kickstarter rewards like T-shirts and portraits would drain hundreds of thousands from that sum, so the actual budget was closer to $4.5 million.

Delaying the game to March 2015 would ultimately gobble up an extra $1.5 million of the studio’s money, according to Urquhart, but it was the right move.

PoE1's budget was at least $6 million. That means PoE2 was expected to cost ~$8.5-9 million before the delay, doubled word count, full VO, etc. The final budget must be in the $9-10 million range. It raised $4,407,598 via Fig, which left roughly $4.5-5 million for Obsidian to pay, although it's likely Versus Evil shared some of the costs.

And the team is still working on the game and DLCs, so the budget is still going up. PoE1's delay cost $1.5 million, and that was without paying the Tyranny folks, so they should be spending more than that on PoE2 until the end of the year, plus VO and marketing costs for the DLC.

 

[Flou]

On GoG it's still climbing. Page 35 now and it passed Deluxe Edition of BG: Siege of Dragonspear.

Obsidian Edition is on page 42 and the Season Pass is still stuck on page 46.

Does anyone have the numbers for Tyranny during the 1st month? Would be neat to compare the numbers to Tyranny even if Steamspy is in it's current state unreliable.

Page 33. It passed Banner Saga 2 - Deluxe Edition, another game that sold badly under Versus Evil.

Obsidian Edition is on page 40 now and the season pass is still stuck on page 46. Season Pass should pick up some pace once the 1st DLC actually gets released.

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Mustawd]

Figuring in Fig backers and investment as part of sales isnt quite accurate though. That’s more financing costs instead of sales revenue. It helps boost the budget, sure, but aside from that it shouldnt be factored in imo.

Either that or make sure your budget numbers are not including fig amounts.

 

[Mustawd]

Figuring in Fig backers and investment as part of sales isnt quite accurate though. That’s more financing costs instead of sales revenue. It helps boost the budget, sure, but aside from that it shouldnt be factored in imo.

Either that or make sure your budget numbers are not including fig amounts.

Nevermind.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Is obsidian bankrupt yet?

 

[unfairlight]

No but I hope they will be.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

are the investors given information about sales? did anyone here invest on fig?