PoE Sales Analysis Thread

[Infinitron]

Actually some of the profit goes to Paradox

 

[Perkel]

Actually some of the profit goes to Paradox

Yes but they are only publishing and doing some PR. Either way this may be best profitable title for Obsidian considering for example they worked for wages in their FNV contract. And don't forget they got payed wages before even they started working on a game so it is not like they need to recup ton of money to be profiteable.

IDK South Park deal. But considering at that time Obsidian wasn't in happy position they probably didn't have good leverage.

 

[tuluse]

I would be very surprised if this wasn't Obsidian's most profitable title even if it didn't sell another copy. The only other game they get royalties for is NWN2 I believe and even that was "in theory we're owed them" making it sound like they don't actually see the money.

 

[Perkel]

yeah and don't forget IP.

IP these days worth a lot. Especially if their first game got 90+ reviews.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I think the revenue will easily be enough for expansion(s), PoE 2, some other RPG and a big chocolate cake for Tim Cain everyday from now on. After PoE success, PoE 2 should sell well and it can be used for marketing purposes for the new RPG. If Obsidian will not fuck this up (which seems unlikely), they will have a safe future.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity?ref=nav_search

73,986 backes

On steam, 18.7% of the players have the "thank you for your KS backing" achievement.

Let us assume that a) this ratio is the same across the other platforms (GoG and...?). I feel like this is a fair enough assumption. Then assume that b) that all KS backers have received, downloaded and started PoE at least once. We'll discuss this assumption in a little.

That would bring the total sales to 73,986/0.187=390k sales.

Of course, not all of the 73,986 backers have activated their game... If it turns out that, say, only 80% of the backers have activated their game, the above formula would be (73,986*0.8)/0.187=312k sales.

So we have the formula Backernumber/KS achievement%*percentage of backers who've actually downloaded and played the game at least once. So two out of three numbers are known, but we have to guess at the last one unless we can jew that answer out of them somehow. However, if we approach them with the question "how many of the backers have activated their copies of PoE", we get the last number and can calculate the answer. Might be they don't realize that and give us the answer @@

 

[Volourn]

Million or bust.

 

[Perkel]

I think the revenue will easily be enough for expansion(s), PoE 2, some other RPG and a big chocolate cake for Tim Cain everyday from now on. After PoE success, PoE 2 should sell well and it can be used for marketing purposes for the new RPG. If Obsidian will not fuck this up (which seems unlikely), they will have a safe future.

Frankly at their size they are perfect to reproduce proper streak of titles.
I mean they can work on side projects, AAA game and kickstarter at the same time currently.

With some management they could focus exclusively on proper games and make RPGs one after another. So when one group is done with pre production other production stuff takes stage. Meanwhile tech side works non stop since the improve/fefit and maintain one engine.

Obviously they will need new IPs so this is where Tim Cain and Avellone comes in. They do kickstarters for their projects. They get shitload of money and everyone is happy.

Obsidian because they can refit whole studio and no longer watch themselves in mirror after drinking whole night because they had to do some mmo shit. Steady money and work on something they love.
Fans because they will be getting few different games from them.


Above is already plan Fargo laid down for InXile. Focus completely on RPGs build several IPs and as times goes experiment with stuff and new ideas.

 

[Athelas]

It would be cool if they could have several isometric RPG's in development simultaneously.

Plus this would ensure Sawyer could not be the lead on all of them.

 

[Perkel]

Bigger question is: Should New IP = New Lore/Rules ?

I mean i would love to see poliferation of PoE lore to other games but at the same time there are other interesting things they could pursue post apo scifigame.

imagine: Every year new game from Obsidian....

For now imo it would be wise for them to slam dunk on PoE2 after expansion and at the same time do Avellone kickstarter where he will be lead. With PoE2 release in end of 2016 and Avellone game end of 2017

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Feargus seems not interested in going Fargos route It looks he wants to make new kickstarter projects after shipping previous ones. This way of doing things will only postpone the simultaneous cRPGs production. We will have Po2 and nRPG in production. Then PoE 3, nRPG 2 and n2RPG in production and so on.

 

[AN4RCHID]

eh, respect to Feargus for not going back to the Kickstarter well imo. If they can make PoE a successful franchise, they'll be able to self-fund new series and not be beholdin to either publishers or KS backers.

 

[tuluse]

Feargus seems not interested in going Fargos route It looks he wants to make new kickstarter projects after shipping previous ones. This way of doing things will only postpone the simultaneous cRPGs production. We will have Po2 and nRPG in production. Then PoE 3, nRPG 2 and n2RPG in production and so on.

Obsidian has a lot more going on. They have contractual obligations and stuff they can't just walk away from.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity?ref=nav_search

73,986 backes

On steam, 18.7% of the players have the "thank you for your KS backing" achievement.

Let us assume that a) this ratio is the same across the other platforms (GoG and...?). I feel like this is a fair enough assumption. Then assume that b) that all KS backers have received, downloaded and started PoE at least once. We'll discuss this assumption in a little.

That would bring the total sales to 73,986/0.187=390k sales.

In order to get the achievement, you have to create a character. Lots of backers may have activated the game and never gotten around to actually play it.

 

[Bubbles]

Or not even activated the game.

The average risk of death in the US and the UK is 0.83% per year, so you can expect about 1.2k backers to never redeem their keys at all.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

To go further, I'd say 30% of the backers created a character, others are just people who "can't find time to play between the job, wife and children, but I'll get to it the next weekend, I promise.".

So if that assumption is more or less correct, out of 74k backers, only 22k got the achievement. That means 18% of total steam players are 22k people. That means 120k people own the game, out of which 22 are backers, so the steam sales are at ~100k copies. Let's add another 20-30k from GoG? We're at meager 130k. That's pretty low.

 

[Athelas]

Those aren't the total amount of backers though. We don't know how much ended up backing through their own portal.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Those aren't the total amount of backers though. We don't know how much ended up backing through their own portal.

Yeah, but it's like 2-4k give or take, so whatever.

 

[Athelas]

Those aren't the total amount of backers though. We don't know how much ended up backing through their own portal.

Yeah, but it's like 2-4k give or take, so whatever.

From April last year:

Urquhart: I think, obviously, it's money; they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They also get to involve themselves with a little product that's high profile. I mean, it's not Titanfall, but it's a game a lot of people are really looking forward to. We've got 100,000, or 120,000 backers now. They get to be involved in this, and that's cool for them. And, if they do a great job, they do financially too.

 

[Bubbles]

Wait, are you assuming that the people who backed after the Kickstarter was over still got the "Kickstarter Backer" achievement? That seems borderline fraudulent to me.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Urquhart: I think, obviously, it's money; they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They also get to involve themselves with a little product that's high profile. I mean, it's not Titanfall, but it's a game a lot of people are really looking forward to. We've got 100,000, or 120,000 backers now. They get to be involved in this, and that's cool for them. And, if they do a great job, they do financially too.

If that's the case, then the sale figures are even lower than 130k.

So to go even further, can we roughly assume that they make more or less $15-20 per sale? Can we assume that they spent an additional million out of their pockets to finish the game?

That would mean that they broke even and then got around 1 mill before taxes. Which is... fucking ridiculous.

 

[Trodat]

Wait, are you assuming that the people who backed after the Kickstarter was over still got the "Kickstarter Backer" achievement? That seems borderline fraudulent to me.

I was a slacker backer and still got that sweet achievement.

 

[dukeofwhales]

If there are more backers who get the KS achievement, then there are also more purchases to ensure the ~19% ratio stays the same. I imagine that everyone who got the Kickstarter SKU (i.e. basically everyone who backed/bought it before the preorders went up on Steam) gets the Kickstarter achievement.

I also think you are being too conservative. I wouldn't be surprised if the proportion of KS backers who have at least started the game is closer to 70%.

 

[Bubbles]

I was a slacker backer and got that sweet achievement.

liberals

 

[tuluse]

If there are more backers who get the KS achievement, then there are also more purchases to ensure the ~19% ratio stays the same. I imagine that everyone who got the Kickstarter SKU (i.e. basically everyone who backerd/bought it before the preorders went up on Steam) gets the Kickstarter achievement.

I also think you are being too conservative. I wouldn't be surprised if the proportion of KS backers who have activated the game is closer to 70%.

I would expect Obsidian/Paradox to be closer to $30 too. Non-first world sales should be offset with people buying the higher tiers.