PoE Sales Analysis Thread

[Arkeus]

I must say, I am a bit surprised the sales are so low on Pillars.

 

[Jasede]

Why? There's no market for these games. Why do you think they're not being made?

 

[Jarakka]

as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

Beware what you wish for.

What should I beware? Fans of RTwP combat and nice 2D backgrounds? The game doesn't even have romances, its potential for true decline is lower than that of BG2 by this measure alone.

No doubt at the end of the 1990's people thought the same way, I sure know I did.

What new fans want could deviate a lot from what you want. They most likely are much younger than you are and could be that have never even played BG2 or anything else done previously to that and probably sees different values in mechanics and gameworld than you do.

So what if the fanbase changes a lot due to success and Obsidian suddenly notice there are clearly two sets of fans that they need to appease? The older ones who draw what they want from their previous experiences, most likely from older IE-games, Fallouts etc. and the newer set of fans who draw from probably games that might not even have nothing to do with RTWP and even more so, TB. It puts a lot of pressure on the devs when it comes to design decisions.

The change happens with success, gradually the people who want the same things as you become fewer in the fanbase. At some point you're in the minority and then when a game design happens that you are outraged at, you notice the rest of the fanbase looks at you incredulously and honestly doesn't understand your point. It always happens, only thing is how quickly.

So too much success and suddenly you notice the devs aren't making the game for you anymore. The devs listen to the largest segment of the fan demography.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

Beware what you wish for.

What should I beware? Fans of RTwP combat and nice 2D backgrounds? The game doesn't even have romances, its potential for true decline is lower than that of BG2 by this measure alone.

No doubt at the end of the 1990's people thought the same way, I sure know I did.

What new fans want could deviate a lot from what you want. They most likely are much younger than you are and could be that have never even played BG2 or anything else done previously to that and probably sees different values in mechanics and gameworld than you do.

So what if the fanbase changes a lot due to success and Obsidian suddenly notice there are clearly two sets of fans that they need to appease? The older ones who draw what they want from their previous experiences, most likely from older IE-games, Fallouts etc. and the newer set of fans who draw from probably games that might not even have nothing to do with RTWP and even more so, TB. It puts a lot of pressure on the devs when it comes to design decisions.

The change happens with success, gradually the people who want the same things as you become fewer in the fanbase. At some point you're in the minority and then when a game design happens that you are outraged at, you notice the rest of the fanbase looks at you incredulously and honestly doesn't understand your point. It always happens, only thing is how quickly.

So too much success and suddenly you notice the devs aren't making the game for you anymore. The devs listen to the largest segment of the fan demography.

That's a nice story, would you care to provide an example of this? Because practically every incidence of decline from the late 90s/early 00s that I can think of, was a result of the developer's own decision, usually with the intent of entering the console market. Only exception is, maybe, Bioware, whose dumb fans told them that they were master storytellers and should focus on that after the release of BG2. But that aside, did anyone ask for all the dumbing down in Oblivion relative to Morrowind? The smaller maps, glowy loot, and annoying hub in Thief 3? The incredible metamorphosis SS2 had to undertake in order to become Bioshock? Deus Ex Invisible War?

In practice, I think this works the other way around. Developer releases streamlined game with wider appeal, community is flooded by new players with different sensibilities, and slowly morphs to mirror the new shit. That's certainly what happened at Bethesda's forums over the years. I don't think this is a very likely scenario with PoE - I seriously doubt the "completely new" players will be numerous enough to affect any kind of change in Obsidian's disposition. Besides, the only ones I've seen, say, in the PoE NeoGAF thread, self-identified "my first CRPG ever" people, were asking where they can buy the IE games. I think that's a more likely progression than them demanding real-time combat and romances.

 

[Lord Carlos Wafflebum]

I think we can all agree that we have no idea what the fuck we're talking about

 

[Jaesun]

Since there has not been any official sales numbers released yet it's kind of bring to speculate.

 

[tuluse]

Since there has not been any official sales numbers released yet it's kind of bring to speculate.

The backer achievement gives pretty good info though with just the assumption of how many backers you think redeemed on steam.

 

[Jaesun]

I'm more interested in NON backer sales.

 

[tuluse]

I'm more interested in NON backer sales.

Right, so if you know the number of people who redeemed a backer copy on steam, you know the number of steam sales they've gotten.

 

[Athelas]

Well, I think we can safely assume the Steam backers comprise the majority of the total amount of backers. Perhaps if we knew what the GOG/Steam split was for other Kickstarted RPG's, we could make an educated guess.

Of course, we still don't know the total amount of backers.

 

[Grape_You_In_the_Mouth]

Can we stop filling up this thread with idiotic nonsense? We've already mentioned how to find sales via KS backers. Everyone with half a brain knows Steam is more popular. Get some fucking brains for your own good if not for ours, and stop wasting everyone's time.

I do not want this to be some horrible gutter RPG Codex thread with 100 pages of mindless dreck by a bunch of desperate neckbeards. Get some fucking numbers or shut the fuck up.

 

[Jarakka]

as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

Beware what you wish for.

What should I beware? Fans of RTwP combat and nice 2D backgrounds? The game doesn't even have romances, its potential for true decline is lower than that of BG2 by this measure alone.

No doubt at the end of the 1990's people thought the same way, I sure know I did.

What new fans want could deviate a lot from what you want. They most likely are much younger than you are and could be that have never even played BG2 or anything else done previously to that and probably sees different values in mechanics and gameworld than you do.

So what if the fanbase changes a lot due to success and Obsidian suddenly notice there are clearly two sets of fans that they need to appease? The older ones who draw what they want from their previous experiences, most likely from older IE-games, Fallouts etc. and the newer set of fans who draw from probably games that might not even have nothing to do with RTWP and even more so, TB. It puts a lot of pressure on the devs when it comes to design decisions.

The change happens with success, gradually the people who want the same things as you become fewer in the fanbase. At some point you're in the minority and then when a game design happens that you are outraged at, you notice the rest of the fanbase looks at you incredulously and honestly doesn't understand your point. It always happens, only thing is how quickly.

So too much success and suddenly you notice the devs aren't making the game for you anymore. The devs listen to the largest segment of the fan demography.

That's a nice story, would you care to provide an example of this? Because practically every incidence of decline from the late 90s/early 00s that I can think of, was a result of the developer's own decision, usually with the intent of entering the console market. Only exception is, maybe, Bioware, whose dumb fans told them that they were master storytellers and should focus on that after the release of BG2. But that aside, did anyone ask for all the dumbing down in Oblivion relative to Morrowind? The smaller maps, glowy loot, and annoying hub in Thief 3? The incredible metamorphosis SS2 had to undertake in order to become Bioshock? Deus Ex Invisible War?

In practice, I think this works the other way around. Developer releases streamlined game with wider appeal, community is flooded by new players with different sensibilities, and slowly morphs to mirror the new shit. That's certainly what happened at Bethesda's forums over the years. I don't think this is a very likely scenario with PoE - I seriously doubt the "completely new" players will be numerous enough to affect any kind of change in Obsidian's disposition. Besides, the only ones I've seen, say, in the PoE NeoGAF thread, self-identified "my first CRPG ever" people, were asking where they can buy the IE games. I think that's a more likely progression than them demanding real-time combat and romances.

Well there you have it yourself, Bioware.

But look, this isn't about romances or fans really demanding things to be changed, it's more about the gradual change in the fanbase and how it's going to reflect the design decisions in the end. I mean you even said it yourself with your Bethesda example. If PoE would become as successful as Morrowind was, then there would be a lot more influx of fans with different expectations. If Morrowind had only been a modest success, do you think Oblivion had turned out different than it did? As a lot of their new fans were consolegamers, then it seemed like that was the direction to go to. If the fan base had kept their core fan base as a majority, then the design direction could've been different.

Also you forget that there's a over 10 year old gap between BG2 and PoE, there's a bigger generational gap difference between the fans than previously.

And I don't think the majority of the newcomers are going to go back and play all of the IE-games. Once they hit vanilla BG, I'm pretty certain it's too much of a culture shock if you've never played anything older than that. So no, there's probably not going to be any shift. However, if there was a huge influx of fans, it would definitely affect future games made by Obsidian and not only in a good way as you describe.

 

[Spectacle]

Who are these "new fans" you imagine and where will they come from? When Bethesda brought Morrowind to the xbox that opened up a huge new market, nothing like that had been available on console before. So it made sense to simplify the oblivion so it would sell to the largest number of customers.

On the other hand, the market for popamole 3rd person rpgs is already covered by dragon age etc. It would not be a good business decision to attempt to compete with games that have much higher production values. Better to cultivate your own niche and grow it by making good games that will draw in younger gamers who didn't realise what they have been missing.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

Beware what you wish for.

What should I beware? Fans of RTwP combat and nice 2D backgrounds? The game doesn't even have romances, its potential for true decline is lower than that of BG2 by this measure alone.

No doubt at the end of the 1990's people thought the same way, I sure know I did.

What new fans want could deviate a lot from what you want. They most likely are much younger than you are and could be that have never even played BG2 or anything else done previously to that and probably sees different values in mechanics and gameworld than you do.

So what if the fanbase changes a lot due to success and Obsidian suddenly notice there are clearly two sets of fans that they need to appease? The older ones who draw what they want from their previous experiences, most likely from older IE-games, Fallouts etc. and the newer set of fans who draw from probably games that might not even have nothing to do with RTWP and even more so, TB. It puts a lot of pressure on the devs when it comes to design decisions.

The change happens with success, gradually the people who want the same things as you become fewer in the fanbase. At some point you're in the minority and then when a game design happens that you are outraged at, you notice the rest of the fanbase looks at you incredulously and honestly doesn't understand your point. It always happens, only thing is how quickly.

So too much success and suddenly you notice the devs aren't making the game for you anymore. The devs listen to the largest segment of the fan demography.

That's a nice story, would you care to provide an example of this? Because practically every incidence of decline from the late 90s/early 00s that I can think of, was a result of the developer's own decision, usually with the intent of entering the console market. Only exception is, maybe, Bioware, whose dumb fans told them that they were master storytellers and should focus on that after the release of BG2. But that aside, did anyone ask for all the dumbing down in Oblivion relative to Morrowind? The smaller maps, glowy loot, and annoying hub in Thief 3? The incredible metamorphosis SS2 had to undertake in order to become Bioshock? Deus Ex Invisible War?

In practice, I think this works the other way around. Developer releases streamlined game with wider appeal, community is flooded by new players with different sensibilities, and slowly morphs to mirror the new shit. That's certainly what happened at Bethesda's forums over the years. I don't think this is a very likely scenario with PoE - I seriously doubt the "completely new" players will be numerous enough to affect any kind of change in Obsidian's disposition. Besides, the only ones I've seen, say, in the PoE NeoGAF thread, self-identified "my first CRPG ever" people, were asking where they can buy the IE games. I think that's a more likely progression than them demanding real-time combat and romances.

Well there you have it yourself, Bioware.

But look, this isn't about romances or fans really demanding things to be changed, it's more about the gradual change in the fanbase and how it's going to reflect the design decisions in the end. I mean you even said it yourself with your Bethesda example. If PoE would become as successful as Morrowind was, then there would be a lot more influx of fans with different expectations. If Morrowind had only been a modest success, do you think Oblivion had turned out different than it did? As a lot of their new fans were consolegamers, then it seemed like that was the direction to go to. If the fan base had kept their core fan base as a majority, then the design direction could've been different.

Also you forget that there's a over 10 year old gap between BG2 and PoE, there's a bigger generational gap difference between the fans than previously.

And I don't think the majority of the newcomers are going to go back and play all of the IE-games. Once they hit vanilla BG, I'm pretty certain it's too much of a culture shock if you've never played anything older than that. So no, there's probably not going to be any shift. However, if there was a huge influx of fans, it would definitely affect future games made by Obsidian and not only in a good way as you describe.

Are we talking about actual "fan expectations" here, or sales figures divided in terms of platforms? Because, honestly, I doubt Bethesda gives two shits about the former. If Morrowind had sold worse, there either wouldn't have been an Oblivion at all, or it would've been even more dumbed down. This kind of thinking was very prevalent at the time, partially because of increasing "AAA" budget requirements necessitating a wider audience, and partially because of your average executive stupidity in chasing greener grass. And I really do think this is mostly a problem with business decision-making rather than any kind of "fandom takeover".

I don't really think it's likely for PoE to be as successful as to fall prey to this kind of nonsense. I mean, you can never underestimate human stupidity, but I struggle to even imagine a chain of events that would cause any potential sequels to strongly diverge from the IE blueprint. What do you have in mind when you warn me about new players?

And honestly, I wouldn't expect them to play BG1 because that game is honestly not very good. BG2 or IWD though? Why not? Gameplay is pretty similar to PoE, interfaces hold up quite well, production values are good. Only possible barrier is DnD, really, but you don't need to understand a lot in order to finish BG2, so I don't foresee many problems.

 

[Dexter]

I must say, I am a bit surprised the sales are so low on Pillars.

What the fuck is going on in this thread? We know based on player numbers, KickStarter backers and Paradox: http://gamingbolt.com/pillars-of-eternity-cities-skylines-earn-18-5-million-in-three-weeks that the sales so far lie somewhere between 200-400k for a new IP and it's been out for a week.

Paradox Interactive has announced that Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity and Colossal Order’s Cities: Skylines have collectively generated $18.5 million in revenue within the past three weeks. Earlier, it was Cities: Skylines that held the honour of being Paradox’s fastest selling game but Pillars of Eternity very nearly topped it.

Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester stated that, “It’s great fun. Hadn’t Cities: Skylines already broken all our records, then Pillars of Eternity certainly would have. One can certainly say this has been a crazy March. For us the deal with Obsidian is about a long-term commitment. It’s a prestigious assignment with a studio we’ve long wanted to work with.

These kind of products usually have a long tail and there's going to be a "Summer Sale" with 33% Off where an awful lot of people buy it, an Expansion that is going to drive more Sales, a "Christmas Sale" with 50% Off and at some point likely a sequel that will all drive sales possibly pushing it over a million and most of this will be pure profit for Obsidian, unlike say their deal for Fallout: New Vegas where it was a standard fee to make the game and they didn't even get their Bonus despite 5+ million sales: http://www.gamesradar.com/fallout-n...nerates-300-million-in-revenue-says-bethesda/

Are people really surprised that it didn't outsell GTA V, the game that sold bazillion copies for long? Like, really?
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com...ft-auto-breaks-six-sales-world-records-51900/
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/03/rockstar-has-sold-45-million-copies-of-gta-v

 

[Duraframe300]

I must say, I am a bit surprised the sales are so low on Pillars.

What the fuck is going on in this thread? We know based on player numbers, KickStarter backers and Paradox: http://gamingbolt.com/pillars-of-eternity-cities-skylines-earn-18-5-million-in-three-weeks that the sales so far lie somewhere between 200-400k for a new IP and it's been out for a week.

Paradox Interactive has announced that Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity and Colossal Order’s Cities: Skylines have collectively generated $18.5 million in revenue within the past three weeks. Earlier, it was Cities: Skylines that held the honour of being Paradox’s fastest selling game but Pillars of Eternity very nearly topped it.

Paradox CEO Fredrik Wester stated that, “It’s great fun. Hadn’t Cities: Skylines already broken all our records, then Pillars of Eternity certainly would have. One can certainly say this has been a crazy March. For us the deal with Obsidian is about a long-term commitment. It’s a prestigious assignment with a studio we’ve long wanted to work with.

These kind of products usually have a long tail and there's going to be a "Summer Sale" with 33% Off where an awful lot of people buy it, an Expansion that is going to drive more Sales, a "Christmas Sale" with 50% Off and at some point likely a sequel that will all drive sales possibly pushing it over a million and most of this will be pure profit for Obsidian, unlike say their deal for Fallout: New Vegas where it was a standard fee to make the game and they didn't even get their Bonus despite 5+ million sales: http://www.gamesradar.com/fallout-n...nerates-300-million-in-revenue-says-bethesda/

Are people really surprised that it didn't outsell GTA V, the game that sold bazillion copies for long? Like, really?
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com...ft-auto-breaks-six-sales-world-records-51900/
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/03/rockstar-has-sold-45-million-copies-of-gta-v

So, did they really count everything till yesterday? Or just last week? If so was the weekend counted?

Just illustrating that people need to calm down and wait for actual hard numbers by Obsidian.
That definite talk and those conclusions you guys make are on shakier ground than my stalking.

 

[Jarakka]

Spoiler

as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

Beware what you wish for.

What should I beware? Fans of RTwP combat and nice 2D backgrounds? The game doesn't even have romances, its potential for true decline is lower than that of BG2 by this measure alone.

No doubt at the end of the 1990's people thought the same way, I sure know I did.

What new fans want could deviate a lot from what you want. They most likely are much younger than you are and could be that have never even played BG2 or anything else done previously to that and probably sees different values in mechanics and gameworld than you do.

So what if the fanbase changes a lot due to success and Obsidian suddenly notice there are clearly two sets of fans that they need to appease? The older ones who draw what they want from their previous experiences, most likely from older IE-games, Fallouts etc. and the newer set of fans who draw from probably games that might not even have nothing to do with RTWP and even more so, TB. It puts a lot of pressure on the devs when it comes to design decisions.

The change happens with success, gradually the people who want the same things as you become fewer in the fanbase. At some point you're in the minority and then when a game design happens that you are outraged at, you notice the rest of the fanbase looks at you incredulously and honestly doesn't understand your point. It always happens, only thing is how quickly.

So too much success and suddenly you notice the devs aren't making the game for you anymore. The devs listen to the largest segment of the fan demography.

That's a nice story, would you care to provide an example of this? Because practically every incidence of decline from the late 90s/early 00s that I can think of, was a result of the developer's own decision, usually with the intent of entering the console market. Only exception is, maybe, Bioware, whose dumb fans told them that they were master storytellers and should focus on that after the release of BG2. But that aside, did anyone ask for all the dumbing down in Oblivion relative to Morrowind? The smaller maps, glowy loot, and annoying hub in Thief 3? The incredible metamorphosis SS2 had to undertake in order to become Bioshock? Deus Ex Invisible War?

In practice, I think this works the other way around. Developer releases streamlined game with wider appeal, community is flooded by new players with different sensibilities, and slowly morphs to mirror the new shit. That's certainly what happened at Bethesda's forums over the years. I don't think this is a very likely scenario with PoE - I seriously doubt the "completely new" players will be numerous enough to affect any kind of change in Obsidian's disposition. Besides, the only ones I've seen, say, in the PoE NeoGAF thread, self-identified "my first CRPG ever" people, were asking where they can buy the IE games. I think that's a more likely progression than them demanding real-time combat and romances.

Well there you have it yourself, Bioware.

But look, this isn't about romances or fans really demanding things to be changed, it's more about the gradual change in the fanbase and how it's going to reflect the design decisions in the end. I mean you even said it yourself with your Bethesda example. If PoE would become as successful as Morrowind was, then there would be a lot more influx of fans with different expectations. If Morrowind had only been a modest success, do you think Oblivion had turned out different than it did? As a lot of their new fans were consolegamers, then it seemed like that was the direction to go to. If the fan base had kept their core fan base as a majority, then the design direction could've been different.

Also you forget that there's a over 10 year old gap between BG2 and PoE, there's a bigger generational gap difference between the fans than previously.

And I don't think the majority of the newcomers are going to go back and play all of the IE-games. Once they hit vanilla BG, I'm pretty certain it's too much of a culture shock if you've never played anything older than that. So no, there's probably not going to be any shift. However, if there was a huge influx of fans, it would definitely affect future games made by Obsidian and not only in a good way as you describe.

Are we talking about actual "fan expectations" here, or sales figures divided in terms of platforms? Because, honestly, I doubt Bethesda gives two shits about the former. If Morrowind had sold worse, there either wouldn't have been an Oblivion at all, or it would've been even more dumbed down. This kind of thinking was very prevalent at the time, partially because of increasing "AAA" budget requirements necessitating a wider audience, and partially because of your average executive stupidity in chasing greener grass. And I really do think this is mostly a problem with business decision-making rather than any kind of "fandom takeover".

I don't really think it's likely for PoE to be as successful as to fall prey to this kind of nonsense. I mean, you can never underestimate human stupidity, but I struggle to even imagine a chain of events that would cause any potential sequels to strongly diverge from the IE blueprint. What do you have in mind when you warn me about new players?

And honestly, I wouldn't expect them to play BG1 because that game is honestly not very good. BG2 or IWD though? Why not? Gameplay is pretty similar to PoE, interfaces hold up quite well, production values are good. Only possible barrier is DnD, really, but you don't need to understand a lot in order to finish BG2, so I don't foresee many problems.

I think if Bethesda hadn't reached their consoleaudience/sold less, they would've been forced to consider what their core fanbase wanted. And I also think Bethesda does think a bit what their fans want, after all they've stuck with "hiking simulators" even to this day, just more suited for casual players, which is their audience now. So fandom takeover is a bit strongly put, it's rather that the target audience gradually changes and the fan community and feedback emphasizes it. They don't have to be in contact with fans ala Obsidian, they can only observe what the fans like when they play and what features are popular and take it from there.

I don't think either that it's likely, but it is not out of this realm imho. So let's say you are 13-15 year old and play PoE, what are the games you've most likely played? WoW, Dota, LoL I can definitely think about. So I wouldn't say it would be a stretch of imagination the new audience would be more familiar with more cooldowns, mana pool, something else than Vancian magic system, maybe Diablo-like randomized loot. They won't ask for it, no, but people at Obsidian could consider implementing them regardless if it would make things easier for newer players. So even if they don't get rid of the IE-style, they could still implement things you don't agree with.

To be honest though, I could be very wrong. It could be that they don't want any of the stuff I just mentioned and want something completely else, which is actually my main point. You can't know why people are really attracted to these games and you can't predict that they like exactly the same things as you like. They might like the combat, but think the adventurebook segments are a bit gay. Or the combat is lame, but the plot is good. Or killing should give you xp etc.

If you think the introduction of new fans with no connections to the DnD-roots is a good thing, alright. But expecting them to have same vision as you as a player? That's my issue.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't know how much trustworthy this site is:
http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.619261/paradox-galna-mars---tjanat-160-miljoner-efter-dubbla-spelsuccér
According to Google translator:

For Paradox does the happy days on the way to the bank. So far, the two games[PoE and C:S] generated revenue of at least 160 million .

It began with the premiere of urban game Cities : Skylines three weeks ago . The game sold half a million in two days, and since then has remained as one of the best selling games on the site Steam. In just nine days took the game into 100 million to Paradox.r .

160kk-100kk= 60kk
1 Swedish korona=0.115453 usd
60 multi played by 0.115453 =6.92718 usd
So according to this site PoE has brought about 7 million dollars in revenue. Still the only trustworthy thing about this site is that is in Swedish. It's written by someone called Thomas Arnroth.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I'm down with a flu so my mind is a bit hazy but I'm not getting it. Why are these articles saying Paradox (and not Obsidian) is getting this revenue? You'd think Obsidian wouldn't share their digital profits with anyone, at least. However, Paradox getting 7 million in revenue already must mean they're getting a lion's (or at least a large) share on Steam, too.

I'm gonna laugh (through tears) if Obsidian's profits from their KSed game are going to the publisher again.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm down with a flu so my mind is a bit hazy but I'm not getting it. Why are these articles saying Paradox (and not Obsidian) is getting this revenue? You'd think Obsidian wouldn't share their digital profits with anyone, at least. However, Paradox getting 7 million in revenue already must mean they're getting a lion's (or at least a large) share on Steam, too.

I'm gonna laugh (through tears) if Obsidian's profits from their KSed game are going to the publisher again.

They're not. Paradox's CEO has admitted he's getting little actual profit from PoE, as somebody in this thread has already mentioned

 

[LESS T_T]

We were actually contacted by some publishers over the last few months that wanted to use us to do a Kickstarter. I said to them "So, you want us to do a Kickstarter for, using our name, we then get the Kickstarter money to make the game, you then publish the game, but we then don't get to keep the brand we make and we only get a portion of the profits" They said, "Yes".

Seriously though, the article looks primarily focused on Paradox's success.

 

[dukeofwhales]

I'm down with a flu so my mind is a bit hazy but I'm not getting it. Why are these articles saying Paradox (and not Obsidian) is getting this revenue? You'd think Obsidian wouldn't share their digital profits with anyone, at least. However, Paradox getting 7 million in revenue already must mean they're getting a lion's (or at least a large) share on Steam, too.

I'm gonna laugh (through tears) if Obsidian's profits from their KSed game are going to the publisher again.

Paradox is the publiser, therefore sales count as Paradox revenue & are paid into the Paradox bank account, from which they then subtract their costs (including Obsidian's hefty cut) before calculating profits. This is a non story; there is no way the maths can work out to Paradox earning $7M profit off PoE. You're stressing about something that just isn't happening.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Good to know!

 

[dukeofwhales]

Good to know!

Yup. For me, the press release just reads "Paradox publishes games with great sales; we're a real publisher now mum!"

For the record although sales probably will not beat D:OS records, I think it's doing great and is on track to make conservatively $10M+ for Obsidian in sweet, sweet profits. That's full post release support as well as full funding for expansions and a sequel most likely (which will make more money because there are no KS backers who purchased for a half price or less).

Hopefullly our KS backing proves to be a wise investment beyond the delivery of just the one title.

Though I think they should have priced it at $39.95. It's a psychological thing.

 

[Perkel]

I feel bad for people thinking it won't sell better than D:OS.
Retardation doesn't hurt huh ?

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Anyways game is in steam top 3 along with motherfucking juggenaught of all gaming called GTA which will be released in few days + recent success story called Cities Skylines.

If you fuckers would go back to D:OS release you would see that only really game that was releasing at that time was Wolfenstein New Order which D:OS beat for weeks.

Game is week old and still in top 3 which is based on money not coppies sold. It is pretty safe to say that:



Also remember two things:

- All profit from game goes to Obsidian. In fact this game could be game that will earn the most money for Obsidian since founding. They will also hold IP which in case of money problems they could sell and fund Tim Cain TB game with that.
- CRPGs have fucking long legs. I don't know how it is on West but here in Poland you can still buy every CRPG from 90 to now for a cheap price and stores sell it because it sells. I personally bought like 6 times BG2. Original release, then imported english, then some 3 cheap ones and GOG one. Oh and two times "BG saga"
- Expansions, rereleases. If they will bug fix game, add something to it and release it with good expansion they can also sell "complete" edition.

I think they will be stupid if they will go to steam sales early.
Overall in 5 years i expect something like 3-4mln and they should reach 1mln in more or less 3-4 months still at full price.

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So with that slamdunk they should now do 2 things.

Tim Cain TB party dungeon crawler kickstarter possibly with new setting. (space post apo game ? scavenging derelict stations and ships ? )
Avellone story based cRPG kickstarter with PoE setting and rules. Doesn't need to be TB since fighting won't be critical.

Naturally let loose Sawyer to create more lore for Eora world. Because honestly his lore is interesting. Bit safe but spin on things is definitely worth it and it is not like world in this state is "finished"