Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread

[imweasel]

Nostalgia-based games seem to have not sold as well when releasing sequels. The shadowrun games as well as XCOM2 come to mind.

I think a lot of it has to do with tons of hype surrounding a game’s initial release, and then once fans realize you can’t recreate those old games, they just lose interest or are dissapointed.

Nostalgia and developers failing to fulfill huge expectations certainly play a huge roll.

X-Com is just not a very good example IMO, because X-Com 2 was outselling X-Com 1 in its first week. The sequel has tons of problems and a lackluster reception, which is probably why it didn't sell as well.

 

[Parabalus]

Nostalgia-based games seem to have not sold as well when releasing sequels. The shadowrun games as well as XCOM2 come to mind.

I think a lot of it has to do with tons of hype surrounding a game’s initial release, and then once fans realize you can’t recreate those old games, they just lose interest or are dissapointed.

The sequel has tons of problems and a lackluster reception, which is probably why it didn't sell as well.

Where do you get that from?

It's 1% less on metacritic, had more DLC, an expansion with apparently another one in the works.

To me it's the same boat as Dumpsterfire, objectively better game but losing in sales because of laciking hype.

 

[Sentinel]

Where do you get that from?

tons of technical problems at release

 

[Parabalus]

Where do you get that from?

tons of technical problems at release

I don't remember any technical problems, except something weird - pressing Caps Lock lowering load times by half. The loading times were long but I didn't have an SSD then. Can't say I recall any game breaking bugs though.

 

[Mustawd]

Nostalgia-based games seem to have not sold as well when releasing sequels. The shadowrun games as well as XCOM2 come to mind.

I think a lot of it has to do with tons of hype surrounding a game’s initial release, and then once fans realize you can’t recreate those old games, they just lose interest or are dissapointed.

Nostalgia and developers failing to fulfill huge expectations certainly play a huge roll.

X-Com is just not a very good example IMO, because X-Com 2 was outselling X-Com 1 in its first week. The sequel has tons of problems and a lackluster reception, which is probably why it didn't sell as well.

My understanding, and I’d have to find sources for this, is that Xcom sold a lot better overall than xcom2. Seeing that it was released across multiple platforms, including mobile, it makes sense to me. But part of that success was luck with mobile (as it’s currently a dumpster fire) as well as being a first mover in bringing back turn-based games in general. The other part was nostalgia, and it was a pretty good game.

XCOM2 did very well for PC but it was always more PC centric than XCom was.

EDIT: But you’re right that it’s an imperfect example. For one it was an enjoyable game in its own right, which is why it helped launch so many clones. SRR is a much better example imo.

 

[imweasel]

Steam ratings:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/200510/XCOM_Enemy_Unknown/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/268500/XCOM_2/

Sales figures:
XCOM 2 Sells Over 500,000 Copies in Its First Week
Rise of the Tomb Raider and XCOM 2 Are Selling Extremely Well on PC

My understanding, and I’d have to find sources for this, is that Xcom sold a lot better overall than xcom2.

Correct, but X-Com 2 was selling extremely well on release. I was just pointing it out because you probably missed that.

 

[Sentinel]

Where do you get that from?

tons of technical problems at release

I don't remember any technical problems, except something weird - pressing Caps Lock lowering load times by half. The loading times were long but I didn't have an SSD then. Can't say I recall any game breaking bugs though.

I remember people complaining about performance a lot, and crashes. Even TB with his monster rig made a video complaining about it.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Officially below DOS2 in the global top sellers. Took a week. DOS2 was released in September 2017.

 

[Morality Games]

D:OS2 is a multiplayer game. On those grounds I was able to convince 3 friends who would never even have considered it to buy it so we could play P&P-like games on PC together.

 

[imweasel]

Shouldn't be too long until House Party is outselling Deadfire as well.

 

[Morality Games]

I mean, there's a reason why multiplayer overtook the RPG industry.

 

[Hellion]

Is there any even marginally accurate way to find out how much the game has sold on GoG, other than waiting for official announcements with the numbers?

Both versions of Deadfire (plain or "Obsidian Edition") are at the top 2 spots of the "most popular" list over there, but I don't know if this list is formed by taking sales numbers into account.

 

[Mustawd]

Is there any even marginally accurate way to find out how much the game has sold on GoG, other than waiting for official announcements with the numbers?

Both versions of Deadfire (plain or "Obsidian Edition") are at the top 2 spots of the "most popular" list over there, but I don't know if this list is formed by taking sales numbers into account.

Not that I'm aware of. And why would there be? It's not really public information, so it's up to the particular companies to release that if they want.

 

[Parabalus]

Steam ratings:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/200510/XCOM_Enemy_Unknown/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/268500/XCOM_2/

Is that really a "lackluster" reception?
It's at 80% vs 94%, but most of it is whining about the price and recent expansion. I was going by the 88 vs 89 metacritic when I clicked the citation needed. My impression of it was also that it was all round superior to xcom 1.

 

[razvedchiki]

They will give it for free with the twitcher 3,thats how good it sold.

 

[frajaq]

I hope making the game much more casual was worth it, sales-wise

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

I kinda agree, except most people did not play IWD. It was a flop.

It's not so much that IWD was a flop (being of smaller scale anyhow). It's that BG had exceeded expectations.

 

[Morkar Left]

I kinda agree, except most people did not play IWD. It was a flop.

It's not so much that IWD was a flop (being of smaller scale anyhow). It's just that BG exceeded all expectations everybod had involved.

IWD was just the more action-oriented filler game between bg1 and bg2.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Hey this ship stuff looks good. I just need to wait for two DLC's for the game to be finished these days. Could I just skip the first one and enjoy this shit?

 

[Morkar Left]

TorontRayne If you have to wait for dlc and fixes you might as well play PoE in that time?

 

[Bigg Boss]

TorontRayne If you have to wait for dlc and fixes you might as well play PoE in that time?

I hate the setting in the first one even more but I dig the nautical pirate stuff.

 

[Elex]

Officially below DOS2 in the global top sellers. Took a week. DOS2 was released in September 2017.

look someone that don't have gta V

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I kinda agree, except most people did not play IWD. It was a flop.

It's not so much that IWD was a flop (being of smaller scale anyhow). It's that BG had exceeded expectations.

I think you meant to quote Kit Walker here:

I kinda agree, except most people did not play IWD. It was a flop.

I want to be on record that IWD was quite financially successful because it was so cheap to make, hence why Black Isle quickly churned out IWD2.

Hey this ship stuff looks good. I just need to wait for two DLC's for the game to be finished these days. Could I just skip the first one and enjoy this shit?

You can absolutely skip the first game. You really don't need to have played the original and the intro to Deadfire will catch you up on the relevant plot points.

By the way, I agree with everyone who says the direct sequel thing is Deadfire's biggest problem. Every time I saw some Obsidianite getting interviewed, they'd always be asked this question and their answer was usually something like, "you don't absolutely NEED to play the first one to get into Deadfire, but you really should." That's the height of stupidity. Why the hell would they limit their audience to the 120,000 odd people who finished PoE?

If they'd just said, "you absolutely do NOT need to play the first one, but there are some returning characters who long-time fans will get a big kick out of," I bet it would be selling substantially better, although still nowhere near as well as PoE.

 

[Keith Brown]

Those Critical Role guys seem extremely expensive.

On the contrary, I wouldn't be surprised if they worked for peanuts, seeing how enthusiastic they were about this game and the first one.

What was the total budget for PoE1 anyway? 4 mil from Kickstarter, how much did Obs give out of their own pocket?

Didn't they say that they had to put 1 million into the game from their own pockets?

They are actors, no? Enthusiasm is part of the contract I'd say.

So if PoE1 is $5 mil, Deadfire is at the very least also 5 mil, likely on the tune of 7-8 mil, they sold 100k copies for 50$, Steam + Uncle Sam take 40%, Feargus pockets 10% etc. - looks like several millions lost, they for sure haven't broken even yet. I doubt the excluded Fig shenanigans would be favourable.

Looks like a pretty Dumpsterfire to me.

100k? Whats the point of being so purposefully disingenuous? Id be willing to bet it sold almost 100k just on GOG.

250k would be my bet.

 

[DemonKing]

I've enjoyed what I've played so far of POE2, but there are definitely some missteps:

* Direct sequel - players will either be confused by the introductory choices if they never played the original or won't remember what they chose to do if they did play it anyway (even if they did finish it).
* Character options are really too complicated. I've been playing CRPGs since the 80s and it took me over 30 minutes of going back and forth trying to decide if I was happy with my choices during character generation. Good luck to your average punter working it out.
* Full VO - I don't mind but completely unnecessary.
* Setting is appealing to me but possibly not to your average Joe hoping to "hunt some orc" in a quasi-medieval fantasy setting. I think they would have been better off going either full on FR-like (elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards etc) or completely in another direction (with the firearms, Godlike race, Chanter class etc). Instead they try to keep a foot in both courts and it's really satisfying to no one.

D:OS and its sequel are really the exception that prove the rule here. Recent evidence has shown that CRPG sequels without substantial evolution of the core gameplay (eg. Grimrock 2, Banner Sage 2, Blackguards 2 and now POE 2) are going to result in a retention rate of <50% of the original titles. The Witcher series has evolved a lot since the original which is why it's sales have consistently improved.