Tyranny Pre-Release Thread

[Roguey]

Fargo can always spring for full voice-acting (complete with narration) again.

 

[Immortal]

I am pretty sure any company planning their budget for their next project takes all revenue into account.

Then I'm sure they take into account that the majority of BGEE sales were made at $5 on sale, fuelled by nostalgia and popamole players who have heard that it's the "best RPG ever". I'd bet good money that PoE has been far more profitable for Obsidian than either of the BGEEs were for Beamdog, plus IWDEE's sales have been dismal. I think SoD's attach rate will be lower than anyone here is expecting because the vast majority of people who bought the game have amassed <1h playtime, it's just sat in their Steam library.

Pillars' production budget must've been way higher than *EE's though. I've no doubt they were profitable as fuck. It's often that way if somebody else had already done the hard part. If I had to guess, I'd expect the break-even point to be in the tens of thousands of copies, if for Pillars it's in the hundreds of thousands.

That said, this is all 20-20 hindsight. When Beamdog started on this, they had no way of knowing if it was going to sell 1000, 10,000, 100,000, or a million copies at any price. I suspect they were surprised at the success too.

Depends how you look at it.

With BG:EE they had to foot the bill or at least a publisher did. I would assume the dev costs were not free.

WIth PoE the first ~4 million was a free loan from Kickstarter. I mean granted those are technically lost sales and kickstarter takes their cut.. but any success on steam / gog is Net Plus for them - I bet they broke even after a 1000 sales and everything else was profit.

They don't have to pay back that 4 million dollars of dev time to anyone.

Spoiler

Unless you count moral integrity as a currency.. the price of all those pipe smoking death god touched npcs hanging around might be a cost we never fully understand.

 

[AwesomeButton]

lost sales

Divide 4 million dollars between 77 000 backers, and even after KS get their cut, this is not a bad price per unit

 

[ArchAngel]

lost sales

Divide 4 million dollars between 77 000 backers, and even after KS get their cut, this is not a bad price per unit

Reduce that by multiple copies and cost of making extra merchandise for most of those.

 

[Immortal]

Is it free ride on the gravy train? Probably not.

At the end of the day though Obsidian got a cut check for a huge amount of money that they made almost an entire game from and they don't ever have to worry about paying that back.
If you subtract that from their operating costs (For just the PoE Team) for the last 2.5 years, I have to imagine they broke even extremely quickly.

Also PoE sold for much higher then BG:EE. I believe the price was almost double?

I'm sure Beamdog is laughing all the way to the bank.. but saying they sold a million and PoE only sold X amount less then that is disingenuous without looking at other factors.
Obsidian orchestrated a situation where they basically couldn't fail.. There were just varying degrees of winning.

 

[Morality Games]

Torment's going on consoles so Torment's going to win.

Didn't Wasteland 2 and Original Sin bomb on consoles?

They didn't do bad. Especially D:OS didn't.

On consoles, Divinity: Original Sin sold 270,000 physical copies which at minimum entails 50,000 digital copies.

Wasteland 2 clocks in at a more modest 120,000 physical copies, which would entail about 30,000 digital copies.

In both cases you got about 25-33% of what they sold on PC.

 

[Infinitron]

They didn't do bad. Especially D:OS didn't.

On consoles, Divinity: Original Sin sold 270,000 physical copies which at minimum entails 50,000 digital copies. Not sure over 300,000 copies

Wasteland 2 clocks in at a more modest 120,000 physical copies, which would entail about 30,000 digital copies.

In both cases you got about 25-33% of what they sold on PC.

Where are you getting those numbers?

 

[Morality Games]

They didn't do bad. Especially D:OS didn't.

On consoles, Divinity: Original Sin sold 270,000 physical copies which at minimum entails 50,000 digital copies. Not sure over 300,000 copies

Wasteland 2 clocks in at a more modest 120,000 physical copies, which would entail about 30,000 digital copies.

In both cases you got about 25-33% of what they sold on PC.

Where are you getting those numbers

On physical copies, the usual place. VGChartz. Also from personal observation. D:OS and WL2 are still on the shelves on Walmarts, Targets, and Gamestops across the country. D:OS is still selling at or near its full price tag, WL2 has been discounted.

Digital copies derives from the industry figure floating around two or three years ago that 20% of console games are sold digitally, with growth projections placing the figure at 50% by 2018. I am somewhat skeptical of that last figure but I'm estimating that by now it should be hovering at around 30% of physical sales.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh, how about that. The VGChartz figures have gone up since the last time I looked.

 

[Duraframe300]

Yes there has never been a more accurate site than vgcha.....



vgch



vg



VGCHARTZ?

 

[Duraframe300]

Are you people fucking serious with this. You're using the site notorious for making their numbers out of (nearly) thin air as a serious discussion point?

 

[Dwarvophile]

The real test here is going to be Torment versus Pillars.

Yes !

 

[Immortal]

Are you people fucking serious with this. You're using the site notorious for making their numbers out of (nearly) thin air as a serious discussion point?

Did you just meltdown over literally one post nobody important even responded to?

 

[Duraframe300]

Are you people fucking serious with this. You're using the site notorious for making their numbers out of (nearly) thin air as a serious discussion point?

Did you just meltdown over literally one post nobody important even responded to?

VGchartz and I have butthurt inducing history.

Also technically 3 posts.

 

[Morality Games]

Are you people fucking serious with this. You're using the site notorious for making their numbers out of (nearly) thin air as a serious discussion point?

When their numbers make sense in the broader context then sure, I believe them.

I stress again that D:OS is still widely available at physical retail and is still selling for $40. The VGChartz numbers would fall into place with that fact alone.

 

[Duraframe300]

Are you people fucking serious with this. You're using the site notorious for making their numbers out of (nearly) thin air as a serious discussion point?

When their numbers make sense in the broader context then sure, I believe them.

I stress again that D:OS is still widely available at physical retail and is still selling for $40. The VGChartz numbers would fall into place with that fact alone.

So, when their numbers support my argument they are totally right!

Nevermind all the shady shit! Or the reason that they're numbers are remotly accurate at times because they retroactivly adjust based on others numbers.

 

[l3loodAngel]

I don't know why anyone thinks Feargus would be opposed to turn-based.

http://web.archive.org/web/200409100631 ... p9_01.html
GS: Are games that feature only turn-based combat "dead"? Do you think any RPG you produce will need some form of real-time combat, at least as an option (in spite of the fact that a lot of fans of the Fallout series loved the turn-based combat)?

FU: Dead? I think that has to do with the available time people have, more than any other reason. People need to get through combat quickly, and turn-based combat can drag things along. Turn-based combat is fine if there are three turns. I get frustrated in Wizardry 8, spending four turns just to get to the creatures I want to fight and then spending a long time in battle--sad to say, I just don't feel like I have time for all that, and I think a lot of gamers feel the same way.

aint nobody got time for TB

RTw/P where 90% of the game's total playtime is in trash combats though

That's bullshit and urban legend. Yes its trash combat but only in shitty games. In games like BG/BG2, which are one of the greatest there is just a little amount of trash combat.

 

[Trashos]

That's bullshit and urban legend. Yes its trash combat but only in shitty games. In games like BG/BG2, which are one of the greatest there is just a little amount of trash combat.

BG1 is full of trash combat (respawns!). You are right about BG2.

 

[LESS T_T]

A late preview: http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2016/04/04/obsidian-reinvents-rpgs-with-newest-ip-tyranny/200779/

Nothing particularly new, but it also mentions 20-something hour play time:

Keeping a reputation doesn’t mean anything in this game. In some cases, upsetting someone could actually help you more in the long run rather than being their friend. Considering that Obsidian said that the game would run for about twenty some odd hours, the likelihood of replaying the game is actually high. So, if you happen to regret one of your decisions, you have the option to go back and delve into the game and find out the answers to all of your ‘what if’ questions. Obsidian is dealing with a whole lot of experimental concepts that will keep players returning for more; making it so that players aren’t constrained by the notion of following certain arc or making the game look a certain way regardless of what you do. They want the player to be in control and by the looks of it, they’ve delivered.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm okay with that. I think it might be easier for them if they really want to focus on C&C. I don't care how long/short the game is. I just want it to be good.

 

[Mozg]

Spoiler: They will make it a similar RTwP slog to stretch out 7 hours to 20 instead of concentrating what would be a 60 hour slogger to 20 clean, validating the opinions of message board hour pinchers forever.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

20h with high replayability is completely fine. Full playthrough of AoD isn't that long either, but you have to do several of them.

The only problem is, I don't think I'd be able to suffer to multiple playthroughs of RTwP combat, so one 20h playthrough it is.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Wasteland 2 is probably a complete fail though.

I doubt that. Making a console version was a clever move, they managed to tap into Fallout 4 hype and in the X-Com audience. It's not a huge hit but I'm sure they turned up a decent profit.

 

[Saxon1974]

Will this game include tranny's?

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Will this game include tranny's?

T(y)ranny?