Game News The Banner Saga 3 suddenly on Kickstarter

[pippin]

I think the potential for sequels was hurt for the ending of the first game, which feels way too conclusive and doesn't have enough of a hook to keep you motivated. It's like it's enough with what you got from the first one.

 

[Mustawd]

So the only explanation for money troubles is that they are giving themselves huge salaries.

The Banner Saga 3 is probably gonna cost about $2 million to make

Seeing that it's gonna be a carbon copy of the other ones, I'd say 50k in sales for BS2 was a huge commercial flop. Sometimes I wonder if you even read what you write.

think the potential for sequels was hurt for the ending of the first game, which feels way too conclusive and doesn't have enough of a hook to keep you motivated. It's like it's enough with what you got from the first one.

I don't why people are making this so complicated. Why just not admit that BS1 wasn't that good of a game, but people got excited due to the presentation (art and music)? Assuming that's true then it makes sense that BS2 would sell relatively poorly. Making a BS3 with little to no changes just means it'll be another BS2.

 

[Lurker King]

If you take the sales of the first game, plus the short development cycle for the second game, plus the less spending for making a sequel, plus the 50k, they shouldn't be in financial trouble. They should be worried because the second was a floop in comparison to the first game, but they shouldn't be with money problems. If they are, that's because something is not right. The fact that they shouldn't be with financial problems has nothing to do with the reasons why their second game sold shit. I suspect they have huge payrolls.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I think the potential for sequels was hurt for the ending of the first game, which feels way too conclusive and doesn't have enough of a hook to keep you motivated. It's like it's enough with what you got from the first one.

To be fair, if the ending didn't feel at least somewhat conclusive, people would've complained about sequel-bait, particularly with how short it was. So the ending is to my mind not really an issue with the game.

 

[Infinitron]

A lot of people hated that ending, although BS2's seems to have gotten even more hate.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

But didn't they hate it cause it was too open rather than too conclusive?

 

[CyberWhale]

So the only explanation for money troubles is that they are giving themselves huge salaries.

Anyone who finances his projects with crowdfunding and gives a salary to anyone (including himself) above the countries average salary (US $58,714) should get a death penalty without a trial. I don't have anything against companies constantly returning back to Kickstarter either, as long as they don't cash out profits made from selling the game to non-backers and use that money for bad times and/or marketing campaign for the games that were already financed by your fans.

To all the greedy capitalist psychopaths - no, the goal of companies (especially the kind that goes to crowdfunding) shouldn't be to earn as much money as possible, the goal is to earn a decent living while doing what you love.

 

[Lurker King]

Vault Dweller mentioned these numbers about his games:

AoD: 82,529, $1,412,614, avg.price $17.12
DR: 14,998, $94,981, avg.price $6.33

So you only need to consider the avg.price of Banner Saga to have an approximate idea. They probably net a lot in the first game, but I don't how they are using their money.

 

[MRY]

Using VD's figures is misleading because AOD hasn't been bundled yet. Once you throw bundles into the mix, you can really drop the average price considerably. For example, SteamSpy shows Primordia at ~120k, but ~40k of that came from bundles. The average revenue from a non-bundled copy of Primordia is ten times the average revenue of a bundled copy. (Incidentally, higher prestige games seem to sell even more disproportionately in bundles. For example, Gemini Rue sold ~230k copies in bundles, though many of those were in a Humble Bundle, which seems to have a better revenue rate than the bundles that Primordia was in.) So Banner Saga's average price might much smaller than what you would guess.

 

[Zed]

NOTE TO EDITORS: Please use the information provided here to ammend your articles with corrrect information where necessary

Dear Editors,

Please note that the final release date for Banner Saga 3 has not been announced.

• Kickstarter pledges will be fulfilled by December 2018 - the Banner Saga 3 launch date has yet to be confirmed.
• Tier Pledges - You ONLY get BS1 & BS2 for $20 IF you pledge another tier - it's not possible to just pledge $20 and get both those games, you have to pledge a tier and then for an EXTRA $20 you can add on BS1 and BS2.

If you could update your news and features items to reflect this clarification (where necessary) it would be extremely appreciated to avoid confusion.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Using VD's figures is misleading because AOD hasn't been bundled yet. Once you throw bundles into the mix, you can really drop the average price considerably. For example, SteamSpy shows Primordia at ~120k, but ~40k of that came from bundles. The average revenue from a non-bundled copy of Primordia is ten times the average revenue of a bundled copy. (Incidentally, higher prestige games seem to sell even more disproportionately in bundles. For example, Gemini Rue sold ~230k copies in bundles, though many of those were in a Humble Bundle, which seems to have a better revenue rate than the bundles that Primordia was in.) So Banner Saga's average price might much smaller than what you would guess.

What's you opinion on bundles for the average indie game? Does it hurt the long tail more than it benefits in the short term? I think, and I repeat myself, it's interesting, that Sven keeps D:OS really high priced. The deepest discount was 50% over two years after launch (I admit that it was the EE not the original game though).

 

[Lurker King]

Using VD's figures is misleading because AOD hasn't been bundled yet. Once you throw bundles into the mix, you can really drop the average price considerably.

I thought about that, but even if you assume that they only sold half of it at full price, the profit margins are great. We know these games sell considerably more on three occasions: release, summer sales and bundles. The numbers on release are probably nonnegligible. Besides, John Watson said this on his presentation:

Arnie [Jorgensen] and I... all of our personal fortunes, all of our finances, are buried in The Banner Saga. We've been doing this for four years, we spent all of our retirement money, and we haven't replenished that yet. We both have kids, they have to go to college, and we can't just keep betting it all every time, because making entertainment is the riskiest thing."

So they spent all the money already. I don't know these guys are spending so much fucking money. Maybe because they spent so much money on art, voice acting, etc? How many people they have on payroll? I think that some people can't be their own bosses because they have zero business sense.

 

[MRY]

vonAchdorf It's really hard for me to judge. I mean, in one sense, if >=10% of the people who bought Primordia in bundles had bought it through Steam, that would justify getting rid of the bundles altogether, and it seems reasonable to suppose that at least 10% would've. But things aren't that simple. Presumably some fraction of those extra 36k players mentioned Primordia to a friend, or tweeted about it, or wrote a review, or in some way contributed to the positive word of mouth that has been the key sustaining force for Primordia. God knows it hasn't been gaming journalism or marketing. :D Moreover, if you told me that I could either have a million people play Primordia, and I get paid $50k or a hundred thousand people play Primordia and I get paid $100k, I'd probably go with the million -- ultimately I make games because I want people to play them, and in theory at least you can get repeat business if people like it.

Lurker King They had a symphony orchestra, lots of voice actors, lots of animators. Stuff adds up. I assume that in BS1, they outrageously underpaid people, probably compensating with a mix of back-end compensation (which ate into profits) and blandishments about its being a labor of love. When BS1 did so well, I assume they signifiicantly increased the pay of the team for the next project, raising it up to something like industry standard. Still, the thing that throws me is that once you had the engine and pipeline from BS1, it seems like it shouldn't be that hard to make sequels, especially if you're paying your team a real salary and can expect real diligence in exchange.

 

[Infinitron]

NOTE TO EDITORS: Please use the information provided here to ammend your articles with corrrect information where necessary

Dear Editors,

Please note that the final release date for Banner Saga 3 has not been announced.

• Kickstarter pledges will be fulfilled by December 2018 - the Banner Saga 3 launch date has yet to be confirmed.
• Tier Pledges - You ONLY get BS1 & BS2 for $20 IF you pledge another tier - it's not possible to just pledge $20 and get both those games, you have to pledge a tier and then for an EXTRA $20 you can add on BS1 and BS2.

If you could update your news and features items to reflect this clarification (where necessary) it would be extremely appreciated to avoid confusion.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoic/banner-saga-3/comments?cursor=15751311#comment-15751310

Please note that the Kickstarter Fulfillment date of December 2018 refers to our intent to deliver all the rewards by that date, and it is not a specific release date for Banner Saga 3, which has not yet been announced. Since one of the rewards is a download of the game, you could make valid assumptions about the upper bound of the launch window, but not the actual launch date.

Weird.

 

[Severian Silk]

First BS #1 was okay. Not buying #2 until price drops to $10. Ditto for #3.

 

[Lurker King]

Lurker King They had a symphony orchestra, lots of voice actors, lots of animators. Stuff adds up. I assume that in BS1, they outrageously underpaid people, probably compensating with a mix of back-end compensation (which ate into profits) and blandishments about its being a labor of love. When BS1 did so well, I assume they signifiicantly increased the pay of the team for the next project, raising it up to something like industry standard. Still, the thing that throws me is that once you had the engine and pipeline from BS1, it seems like it shouldn't be that hard to make sequels, especially if you're paying your team a real salary and can expect real diligence in exchange.

It reminds me of how the Mitsodas got in debt with Dead State even without all these bells and whistles. More and more I realize the importance of art in budget, sells, etc. for better or worse. Makes me wonder if most cRPG developers wouldn't be better of with pure texts without any graphics.

Still, the thing that throws me is that once you had the engine and pipeline from BS1, it seems like it shouldn't be that hard to make sequels, especially if you're paying your team a real salary and can expect real diligence in exchange.

They spent last than two years to release Banner Saga 2 and port the first game to PS4 and Xbox. It's not as if more than 50k weren't money too.

 

[MRY]

Infinitron I assume it means that they may push the game out much faster than then if they don't get a 3x multiplier of the asking price or something?

Lurker King Without its audiovisuals, Banner Saga would've been totally uninteresting. Graphics have always mattered a lot, even in RPGs, and certainly in adventure games. A somewhat trickier question is why there aren't sufficient low-cost assets that people can license, but I think the answer is that RPGs depend a lot on having unique settings or at least unique areas, and seeing stock material is a turn off.

 

[Infinitron]

Infinitron I assume it means that they may push the game out much faster than then if they don't get a 3x multiplier of the asking price or something?

That's what it seems to be, but it's the first time I've seen anything like that in any Kickstarter.

 

[Lurker King]

Without its audiovisuals, Banner Saga would've been totally uninteresting. Graphics have always mattered a lot, even in RPGs, and certainly in adventure games. A somewhat trickier question is why there aren't sufficient low-cost assets that people can license, but I think the answer is that RPGs depend a lot on having unique settings or at least unique areas, and seeing stock material is a turn off.

Yeah. I'm playing Darklands right now and a big part of the immersion comes from the art in the text-adventures. How much it would cost to make a similar game today, I wonder. Probably a lot.

 

[almondblight]

Also keep in mind that they did the F2P game Banner Saga Factions. So it was 3 games using the same art/engine in 4 years. There was also a (third-party?) Banner Saga miniatures game that got Kickstarted for $158,000.

Without its audiovisuals, Banner Saga would've been totally uninteresting.

This might be part of the reason why people didn't buy the second one.

 

[MRY]

Infinitron I assume they made the determination that a release date that was two years off was killing excitement about the project, particularly given the history of untimeliness that KS projects have.

Lurker King King of Dragon Pass cost $500k, and my recollection is the the overwhelming majority of that cost was art. Arnold Hendricks has said that to make a proper Darklands today would cost $10M, but that seems improbable to me. Fallen Gods is somewhat similar to Darklands and is probably going to be in the $30k range all said and done, but that has required asking people to work for very little, and of course I pay myself nothing.

almondblight But the audiovisuals were still there -- just not novel. Their novelty was a big part of the draw, I think.

 

[Sensuki]

Nah the combat system was pretty good. Encounter/enemy design could have been better though. Human vs human fights were the most fun.

 

[MRY]

Nah the combat system was pretty good. Encounter/enemy design could have been better though. Human vs human fights were the most fun.

It doesn't matter. Without the audiovisuals no one would even have tried the combat system. I mean, maybe 1,000 players. Or 500. Or 5,000. But probably no more than that.

 

[Kem0sabe]

The game had gorgeous art, the second one had gorgeous animations and cinematics, it's a really great game in terms of aesthetics, but thats mostly the only positive i can take away from the experience.

It´s designed from the ground up for simplicity and mobiles, and has zero depth.

Wish these guys went to work with some gifted designers and build a great looking and playing rpg.

 

[Lurker King]

Nah the combat system was pretty good. Encounter/enemy design could have been better though. Human vs human fights were the most fun.

You need to consider that the main attraction for games like Banner Saga is the “choose your own adventure” style - like KoDP, Darklands, etc. If the game has other good parts in it, they are a bonus.