PoE Sales Analysis Thread

[tuluse]

Yeah. We can bitch about Pillars being appealing to newcomers all we want, but the reality is, the genre can't sustain itself forever just on the vets from the 80s and 90s. Fuck, the old school audience not being able to sustain it, is why the genre died in a first place.

Wrong try again. Black Isle and Troika were profitable ventures.

 

[prodigydancer]

Wrong try again. Black Isle and Troika were profitable ventures.

Black Isle probably was profitable (not sure about IWD2 and Lionheart) but Troika certainly wasn't.

 

[ArchAngel]

Wrong try again. Black Isle and Troika were profitable ventures.

Black Isle probably was profitable (not sure about IWD2 and Lionheart) but Troika certainly wasn't.

Black Isle was very profitable, it was Interplay that fucked things up.

 

[tuluse]

Black Isle probably was profitable (not sure about IWD2 and Lionheart) but Troika certainly wasn't.

You're calling Tim Cain a liar then.

They also had enough money to give their employees a year's salary as severance when they closed down.

 

[prodigydancer]

They also had enough money to give their employees a year's salary as severance when they closed down.

After being unable to secure funding for future projects, they were forced to lay off their staff in late 2004 and later close their doors on February 24, 2005.

Of course formally you're profitable when (income - expenses) > 0 but that's not exactly what people usually mean when they say a company is profitable.

 

[tuluse]

Of course formally you're profitable when (income - expenses) > 0 but that's not exactly what people usually mean when they say a company is profitable.

According to Tim Cain, every Troika game was profitable, but they could only get a shovelware contract after Bloodlines. Since they didn't want to make shovelware, they closed down giving every employee a year's severance.

Which was the original post I was responding to, the RPGs were profitable, but they couldn't get a contract anyways. It didn't have to do with RPGs being not being commercially viable.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Wrong try again. Black Isle and Troika were profitable ventures.

Profitable and profitable enough to keep publisher interest is a different thing entirely. The big 3 isn't looking to make make back 5 bucks on their 20 mil investement.

 

[prodigydancer]

the RPGs were profitable, but they couldn't get a contract anyways. It didn't have to do with RPGs being not being commercially viable.

urban_myths_of_the_codex.txt

 

[tuluse]

Profitable and profitable enough to keep publisher interest is a different thing entirely. The big 3 isn't looking to make make back 5 bucks on their 20 mil investement.

I never said otherwise. The question is "can old school style RPGs be commercially viable?" and the answer is yes, we've seen it in the past. They made more money than they cost to make. Honestly, we're seeing it again. Even mediocre efforts like WL2 and Shadowrun are profitable, and would have been *without* kickstarter if the companies could have secured funding for them.

 

[tuluse]

urban_myths_of_the_codex.txt

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/surpr...company-closed-due-to-developing-niche-games/

 

[Ninjerk]

Will someone sign for these and tell me where to put them?

Spoiler

 

[tuluse]

It's not enough to be profitable, it has to be more profitable than other potential uses of that money. Classic CRPGs have never really been able to break out of being a niche products with low sales ceilings. Money could be made with lower budget classic CRPGs, but it wasn't enough money to make publishers interested. It still probably isn't although some publishers seem to be experimenting with doing more mid-budget games instead of focusing entirely on the big budget games.

Not if the people involved would rather make rpgs than more money

 

[tuluse]

You're ignoring a lot of factors like risk and goodwill.

Almost like a company that has a lot of goodwill could ask their fans for money upfront.

Edit: I'm not even sure return on investment is what big publishers look at. All the KS RPGs have generate d2-3x their initial investment in revenue the first year. That has to be an outrageously good ROI in any industry. I think it's more corporate culture and ease of managing a fewer large projects compared to many small ones that lead to the AAA or nothing mindset of the mid 00s.

 

[uaciaut]

Yeah. We can bitch about Pillars being appealing to newcomers all we want, but the reality is, the genre can't sustain itself forever just on the vets from the 80s and 90s. Fuck, the old school audience not being able to sustain it, is why the genre died in a first place.

I kind of agree with this but i also think we've not come to the point where it's not sustainable by old-schoolers yet (kickstarter generating that much money kind of proves it), though we probably will quite soon.

It's hard to actually assess how much a big rpg in the style of the old games would do since people have been sticking as close as they can to safe bets based on previous success (mostly bethesda and bioware's recipes here unfortunately). I mean maybe if we got a BG2-like game with a better system 3 years ago it would have also had some success, but who the fuck hat the balls to touch that shit until kickstarter hit.


Anyway that PoE generated so much attention and sales AFTER being paid for by fans (so pretty much no fucking investment and really low risk on Obsidian's part) i'd say they should have enough cash to start putting out more stuff like PoE (outside the sequels of to PoE).
I personally wouldn't mind if Obsidian tried to pull off what Harebrained did with Hong Kong as well where you pretty much pre-order the game in good faith of what the company will do with it.

Just hope Obisdian hires some good people who have imagination and drive and learn from their mistakes with PoE so they can actually put out stuff that rivals the classics.

I wonder how many people at the 'dex would be fronting up cash to OE in the future. They lost a few different groups of peoples goodwill with PoE. Its metacritic user score is substantially lower than DO:S managed so OE have definitely lost some good will.

8.5 vs 8.7 user score
9.0 vs 8.7 critic score
pretty big(?) difference of sales in PoE's favor.

Also i don't think they lost that much goodwill tbh, PoE has its flaws but it seems like a game to base your others upon.

 

[Hatred]

I wonder how many people at the 'dex would be fronting up cash to OE in the future. They lost a few different groups of peoples goodwill with PoE. Its metacritic user score is substantially lower than DO:S managed so OE have definitely lost some good will.

 

[tuluse]

I wonder how many people at the 'dex would be fronting up cash to OE in the future. They lost a few different groups of peoples goodwill with PoE. Its metacritic user score is substantially lower than DO:S managed so OE have definitely lost some good will.

8.5 is "substantially" lower than 8.7?

 

[Hatred]

No. But 8.0 is a fair bit lower than 8.7. DO:S was 8.8 last time id looked too.
Time will tell but I would be surprised if the gap doesn't continue to widen.
Actually nm it is doing fine I was looking at the other poe. >.< Makes more sense than PoE dropping so quickly.

 

[AN4RCHID]

lol, are there people who take MC user score seriously?

 

[J_C]

I wonder how many people at the 'dex would be fronting up cash to OE in the future.

I'm a fanboy, so my opinion is hardly surprising, but PoE makes me giving them even more money at their next kickstarter, because it proved me that they can make a great RPG in the vein of the IE games. Not as good as them, but good enough to be a great RPG.

 

[Sensuki]

I on the other hand will give either nothing, or the bare minimum, and I'm going to sell my $250 CE.

If they make a PC only TB game with an interesting setting and different leads, I might be interested.

 

[Athelas]

Hell hath no fury like a Sensuki scorned.

 

[Lhynn]

Tbh i wasnt expecting sawyer to fail to deliver so hard. But i do hope they get good money out of it and make an actual fun game to play in the future.

 

[Seari]

If Sawyer isn't lead, then maybe.

 

[Sensuki]

At least the 2D isometric art style came back. I'm glad about that.

 

[Hatred]

If only it was isometric.