Editorial Swen Vincke reflects on the development of Div:OS, reveals that it's sold over half a million copies

[Abu Antar]

Vincke and Barnson are boasting a bit prematurely, half-a-mil isn't going to make most publishers turn their heads, do a double-take, and give their best impression of the Tex Avery wolf in Red Hot Riding Hood. The return of the mid-budget single-A is welcome of course.

Who gives a shit about publishers anymore ? What matters is if game is created or not. Also 5mln€ is not even A game now. Middle budget is something more like 25-40mln now where AAA games can be at 40-50mln+. And that is not even counting marketing which is often many times bigger than dev cost.
Developers thanks to DD finally can cut middleman and eat all profits creating portfolio of games that can sustain them even if they will take 2-3 bad games.

DOS

they sold in two months 500k coppies. Game costed around 5mln€ to make.
If you can count:

500k * 30€ = 15 000 000 € - 30% steam cut = 10 500 000€ probably some taxes (if they are profitable).
In two months they got whole game dev budget + ton of money to devide it for them-self and investors.

And that is just two months without any sale. RPGs have very strong legs and most of them are still bought well over decade (especially if game is good). With few more months they could easily fund not one game but even two games that cost 5mln€. And that is funding game alone without investors or KS. If they would again reach to KS and investors to partially fund their next game they could as well do 3-4 games.

Next up is team experience in DOS creation and tools/toolset they created and have experience in. Cost of creating DOS2 should be a way lower than DOS due to team getting experience in creation of that game, better workflow and so on. That is naturally if game will be same content wise but i bet they will make it even bigger.

So they are boasting because they should. They secured their future on market creating RPG for almost next decade with, they build actually community around their game and with glowing reviews from users DOS2 should be smash hit.

All of that with measly 500k on steam.

PoE

On other hand DOS experience and Vinke post tells us much about what is coming to Obsidian in near future. Because they got 4mln$ they have bigger fanbase and game is much more talked about (same with W2). Later part about experience and toolset also does count for Obsidian so making PoE2 should be faster/better/cheaper same content wise. If they sell 1mln in 2 months it will secure PoE2 and 3 and could be enough to set whole Obsidian on self funded RPGs without Armored warfare bullshit or sucking publishers money making dick.

Obisdian with 2-3 ind. RPGs like PoE should be profitable enough for their size.

W2

And finally Wasteland 2 which also generated money and backers + more media coverage. After DOS it is pretty safe to say that they will also secure their nearest future and that future will be full of RPGs. Even if W2 will be good to mediacore they can always improve and i don't see problems with their team trying to for example put in cinematics at cost of gameplay.

Don't forget that while DOS cost €5 million, a fifth of that was crowdfunded.

 

[TheGreatOne]

I wonder if not having reviews done by "professionals" before the official release actually helped them selling their game.

Funny thing is that once the meta critic response was so positive, the professional reviews started rolling out and they were positive as well. IGN gave the game 9/10 and high praise.

 

[J_C]

I'm happy for them, but I really expected more than 500K sold, maybe 1million. Just because they were the Steam top sellers for months.

 

[felipepepe]

It's a game that will keep selling in the long run. And they'll probably have a big sales boost on Winter Sale. Might reach 1M after a year of so.

 

[ZoddGuts]

You have to be naive if thought it was going to hit 1 million in just two months. It came out during a slow month with no big releases during the summer, it sold well for a game that had no marketing whatsoever. It's going to continue to sell steadily in the long run, it might not hit 1 million by the end of the year, but I'll still continue to sell well before they'll do the winter steam sales, which will really help pick up sales, till then no need for a price drop/steam sale. With how well it's been received, would not surprise me that I'll do well whenever it does a steam sale due to good word of mouth.

 

[J_C]

I get it, it is just that being a Steam top seller for a long time fooled me.

 

[Roguey]

Who gives a shit about publishers anymore ? What matters is if game is created or not.

I believe publishers are more likely to fund RPGs that don't have grogshit in them. Other than Obsidian, can't trust self-funding indies to move away from that.

Also 5mln€ is not even A game now. Middle budget is something more like 25-40mln now where AAA games can be at 40-50mln+. And that is not even counting marketing which is often many times bigger than dev cost.

There's another A between single-A and triple-A. I'm not going to call it low-budget because there's a huge gap between a single-digit team making a game by collaborating through the internet and dozens of people making something that costs millions.

 

[TheGreatOne]

I believe publishers are more likely to fund RPGs that don't have grogshit in them.

Publishers prefer popamole and refuse to touch anything that's even slightly challenging or complex? Stunning insight.

 

[pakoito]

From Software are now owned by Kadokawa Corporation as of May 2014 and Atlus are owned by SEGA Corporation as of April 2014.

That's some fucking sad news

 

[Roguey]

Bullshit complexity = bad.

Amount of challenge can be proportional to budget. Games with lower budgets can be more demanding, which is what I want, but without vestigial elements of the past.

 

[TheGreatOne]

Who said anything about bullshit complexity? Complexity for complexity's sake is bad, removing depth and meaningful choices from a game is dumbing down.

 

[pakoito]

I wonder if not having reviews done by "professionals" before the official release actually helped them selling their game.

Funny thing is that once the meta critic response was so positive, the professional reviews started rolling out and they were positive as well. IGN gave the game 9/10 and high praise.

The game is sitting on the late 80s, wait for Dragon Age 3 to be in the top 4 RPGs of all time in Metacritic. EA needs it and they'll sure get it.

 

[Saark]

While that may be true and absolutely retarded, it still doesn't change the fact that I would've never imagined a turn-based RPG to get even remotely close to a 90+ rating two years ago. I'm still convinced that if the first reviews wouldn't have come from biased people who actually like turn-based games but the objective "professionals" instead this game wouldn't have gotten close to the ratings it now has. In my book that still is a good thing, and a well deserved one at that.

 

[Perkel]

Don't forget that while DOS cost €5 million, a fifth of that was crowdfunded.

I used low ball estimation without going into details. Same as i didn't use something like 550k (because Swen said a lot more than 500 but not 600. Point is even going by low estimates situation for them is awesome.

 

[Perkel]

While that may be true and absolutely retarded, it still doesn't change the fact that I would've never imagined a turn-based RPG to get even remotely close to a 90+ rating two years ago. I'm still convinced that if the first reviews wouldn't have come from biased people who actually like turn-based games but the objective "professionals" instead this game wouldn't have gotten close to the ratings it now has. In my book that still is a good thing, and a well deserved one at that.

To be fair it is only for PC games. Fire emblem usually gets good reviews. If you think about it NEVER really was any problem about games being turn based. I don't even remember any review that pointed turn based being bad.

It was more about units sold than TB. TB games simply doesn't sell as much as real time action games thus people don't make them. Independence of devs, free from pubs shackles, opportunity like crowdfunding made those games possible again. And since DD grew so fast to such scale on PC, devs don't need anymore to put their games in publisher hands to sell anything.

I think many people don't get that publishers even 6 years ago were needed. 5 years ago if you would want to sell your game you had to ship game to retail channels. Without that you wouldn't move many units. So publisher was needed.

But now devs don't need them and working for pizza two years to get few milion on his account is definetely worth more than 9-5 job working under some suit.

 

[Athelas]

Turn-based jRPG's have always been succesful.

Elder Scrolls and Final Fantasy games have always been hugely succesful despite having terrible combat (and the latter being turn-based to boot).

I would argue that the success of an RPG has less to do with turn-based vs. real-time and more to do with presentation, marketing and invoking the right 'feels'.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I get it, it is just that being a Steam top seller for a long time fooled me.

There wasn't many new games around when Div:OS released, that mostly left them without real competition. This summer was a really slow summer for gaming.
Still an old school turn based RPG sold nearly 600K in 3 months in this AAA era, quite an achiviment.

 

[Sensuki]

My guess woulda been in the 600-700 range, so if it's 500 that's not as much as I expected and if it's over 500 that sounds about right. Will probs get 1M eventually like BG did.

 

[Darkzone]

Perkel
The 500k assumption is quite possible, but not necessary true. People tend to use in such cases certain numbers for psychological reasons.
If DOS would sell 528k units then narutally he would state the they sold well over 500k. And it they would sell 548k or 568k he would do the same. Psychologically the prime numbers or well known numbers are prefered, like to use only one digit.
But a lower end estimation is always better as to aim too high.

 

[Roguey]

removing depth and meaningful choices from a game is dumbing down.

I don't consider grogshit to be these things at all.

 

[TheGreatOne]

removing depth and meaningful choices from a game is dumbing down.

I don't consider grogshit to be these things at all.

You can play Mass Effect, Witcher, Dragon Age 2, Diablo 3 and Skyrim all you want but you're factually incorrect if you claim that they are more deep and offer more choices than old CRPGs.

 

[Roguey]

You can play Mass Effect, Witcher, Dragon Age 2, Diablo 3 and Skyrim all you want but you're factually incorrect if you claim that they are more deep and offer more choices than old CRPGs.

I've never made the claim that AAA garbage offers more depth and choice. They have removed things I consider to be unfun bullshit and unviable options.

 

[TheGreatOne]

But you made the claim that AAA garbage isn't any less deep than CRPGs, because all the depth and choices that were removed were unfun grognard things and not dumbing down.

 

[Nihiliste]

500k in a couple of months is way more than I ever expected a year ago. While I'm sure these things go in cycles, its a nice prospect to have a couple of years respite from the decline. Now that they have their engine and tools developed they'll be able to put out future products at a lower cost for the likely life cycle of the engine (an expansion and a sequel or two). I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Volourn]

"it sold well for a game that had no marketing whatsoever."

It had lots of marketing. FFS


"You can play Mass Effect, Witcher, Dragon Age 2, Diablo 3 and Skyrim all you want but you're factually incorrect if you claim that they are more deep and offer more choices than old CRPGs."

Actually, factually, by and alrge those games DO have more depth and offer more choice than most 'old skool' rpgs.



Not a million sold? STILL A BUST.