PoE Sales Analysis Thread

[Perkel]

Blah blah blah.

What I'm interested in is how Obsidian's expansion pack strategy will compare with inXile and Larian's Enhanced Edition strategy of "brand relaunching". Which will bring in more new sales?

well i didn't buy expansion part 1 because frankly i don't care if something is not complete so you have your answer (at least from my POV)

 

[Perkel]

so 20$ (min value) * 400 000 = 8mln

so counting there are more expensive versions probably something like 8-9mln$ from base game without expansion.

Considering they had their developement almost completely funded by fans 8-9mln is pretty much good money for Obsidian. Still there is christmass season which will increase sales and generally RPGs have loooong legs. So it is not that hard to believe game overall will generate something like 16-20mln over its lifetime (decade or more). With expansions this may also be something like 20mln+ at minimum.

 

[Infinitron]

This would have been big news before Steamspy.

 

[Irenaeus II]

 

[Lhynn]

Theres an extra dude in that picture that shouldnt be there.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Theres an extra dude in that picture that shouldnt be there.

You mean the guy who wrote 2 of the best companions in the best cRPG of the last 11 years?

 

[The Bishop]

This would have been big news before Steamspy.

Steamspy doesn't separate kickstarter keys from purchased keys, which makes assessment of actual sales very difficult, so it's pretty useful info. Personally I thought they already passed 500000 actual sales with GOG and physical but apparently they're still nearly 100000 short.

 

[Zeriel]

Name the better rpg blobbers with quests and shops, npcs released this century besides Wiz8. I think MMX is far better than Wizards & Warriors. But name one besides those two?

FO:BOS is a pure console game, not even a console port travesty. When people buy console games it hurts crpgs, so I'm glad it didn't sell. And the FO3 info I saw didn't really make me sad BIS didn't finish it. They were console game developers by then and I'm glad they closed. I'm would be absolutely ecstatic with joy if Bioware and Bethesda closed too. I would have thrown inXile in with that too but they proved they can make a crpg with WL2, and now we can only hope Bard's Tale is at least as good as MMX was.

And Lionheart wasn't made by BIS.

MMX was by far the best rpg blobber released in the last decade by leaps and bounds - nothing even came close. If you like rpg blobbers you would have to be retarded to shit on the only one to come out that wasn't super indy in over a decade and you wanted more. Wait, that does sum up most "crpg" fans. Console loving, crpg ruining pieces of shit.

And I don't care about the budget, I care about the end product. A MMXI could have less of a budget since the had the engine and assets done. How much less of a budget is Star Crawler being made on? I would much rather have MMXI than not have MMXI because people are being short sighted dicks. I think what killed it was the survey that was sent out and a bunch fucking retards saying they wouldn't buy it unless it had free view and no grids and they could shoot arrows at the flying butterflies because if you can't shoot arrows at the flying butterflies the game is shit.

I really hope to God terrorists blow up Bethesda and fake FO4 is never released so you fucking console loving monkeys can feel my pain for once.

And I would absolutely love for Grimoire to be released.

It still blows my mind there are people here who think MMX was a bad game. Not as good as it could have been, sure, but bad? The twain never shall meet. Thanks for fighting the good fight, though. Too bad it feels so futile.

 

[Lhynn]

You mean the guy who wrote 2 of the best companions in the best cRPG of the last 11 years?

I mean the guy who refuses to take credit for them, because his vision got butchered.

 

[Irenaeus II]

He sounds like a drama queen.

 

[Roguey]

In addition, several digital books (“eBooks”) are slated to release this year featuring the characters and lore of Pillars of Eternity, authored by members of the game’s core writing team, including Carrie Patel, Eric Fenstermaker, and Paul Kirsch.

Hmm, I notice Avellone isn't on this list. 2017, maybe. 2016 is for the Wasteland novel, maybe (probably not).

 

[Fairfax]

Pillars of Eternity is a CRPG inspired by classic titles such asBaldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment,

In addition, several digital books (“eBooks”) are slated to release this year featuring the characters and lore of Pillars of Eternity, authored by members of the game’s core writing team, including Carrie Patel, Eric Fenstermaker, and Paul Kirsch.

From the writer who brought you Sagani and the Devil of Caroc.

 

[Fairfax]

Steamspy says the game has 510k and ~545k owners. There's a couple of ways to use that and achievement stats to try and find how roughly how many people bought the first DLC.
45.4% of players finished Act I, 8.8% finished the game. That's 231,540 and 44,880 respectively.
That means 42.4% of the people who bought the game finished the first act, while 8.2% completed it.

1.1% of players recruited Zahua and the Devil of Caroc, which doesn't really take long in the DLC. That's 5,610 players.
Some bought it but never played it, of course, and if we use the same percentage from Act I and assume 42.4% of owners played the DLC up to that point, that's 13,231 copies sold. Roughly 2.4% of owners, which is very low.

There are many ways one can try to explain this, but I'd say it's clear that, contrary to Paradox's belief, splitting the expansion in two parts didn't help one bit.

 

[Rake]

Sometimes i realy think listening to the marketing department is money pissed away. Half the time their ideas are terrible, or even if they are semi good, the excecution is horrible.
Even if we accept that they were right to want to release the first DLC within 6 months after the main game's release, they should never had named it Part 1-2.
The White March and The White Forge, marketed as standalones would have worked better, because they wouldn't hit you in the face with the fact that they are incomplete pieces of the same expansion.

 

[Infinitron]

Some bought it but never played it, of course, and if we use the same percentage from Act I and assume 42.4% of owners played the DLC up to that point

This is a poor assumption as the DLC is not stand-alone and includes mid and late-game content. What about all the people who bought the entire game including DLC for the first time?

There are many ways one can try to explain this, but I'd say it's clear that, contrary to Paradox's belief, splitting the expansion in two parts didn't help one bit.

You can't make that claim without having a counter-example of a similar game with an expansion that came out a entire year after its release and sold more.

As I said earlier ITT, the real utility of the expansion release is driving sales of the base game (with our without included DLC). In a month we'll be able to get a good measure of how significant that is compared to releasing Enhanced Editions. Right now it looks like Wasteland 2 DC has sold 20-25,000 additional copies of the game. Less than PoE got after the expansion release.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The White March and The White Forge, marketed as standalones would have worked better, because they wouldn't hit you in the face with the fact that they are incomplete pieces of the same expansion.

Plus, The White Forge would have been abbreviated as TWF, and we would all call it "WTF" :D

I don't know which of team is responsible for the heavy handed writing but I'm really not looking forward to any literary experiments from these guys. However I wish I could read a resume of the novels in due time, I'm interested in the politics of the world.

Based on what you've seen in PoE, do you expect their novels to suck more or less than Gaider's Dragon Age novels? I have to warn you that I've endured two of those and they are at a fanfic-level of cheesy, which isn't a compliment for someone who styles himself a writer.

 

[Fairfax]

Sometimes i realy think listening to the marketing department is money pissed away. Half the time their ideas are terrible, or even if they are semi good, the excecution is horrible.
Even if we accept that they were right to want to release the first DLC within 6 months after the main game's release, they should never had named it Part 1-2.
The White March and The White Forge, marketed as standalones would have worked better, because they wouldn't hit you in the face with the fact that they are incomplete pieces of the same expansion.

The PC crowd, specially RPG fans, are very much "buy it now, play it [much] later", and by splitting the expansion like that, they gave everyone the perfect excuse not to bother. Chances are they won't bother by the time Part II is out either.

You can't make that claim without having a counter-example of a similar game with an expansion that came out a entire year after its release and sold more.

As I said earlier ITT, the real utility of the expansion release is driving sales of the base game (with our without included DLC). In a month we'll be able to get a good measure of how significant that is compared to releasing Enhanced Editions. Right now it looks like Wasteland 2 DC has sold 20-25,000 additional copies of the game. Less than PoE got after the expansion release.

~2% attach rate is extremely low by any standard, and there's no lack of counter-examples. A "similar game" is completely subjective, but any recent, well-received (on Steam reviews) RPG with major DLC or expansions had more success than that. The whole idea behind splitting the expansion in two parts was to keep people interested and playing the game. It didn't work. Even if I'm way off and it's 5%, it's still very low.

I actually liked the game, but that doesn't mean I can't see how the numbers don't paint a pretty picture.
45.4% finished the first act and 8.8% finished the game. That means 4 out of 5 players who finished the first act abandoned the game. It's something other KS CRPGs of similar length, like Wasteland 2 and Divinity: Original Sin (the worst in this regard, for some reason), have been struggling with as well, but it's still a problem. It obviously hurts the expansion's sales too.

And you can't pretend the boost to PoE's sales was solely due to the expansion when it also had the first major discount since launch at the same time.

 

[Infinitron]

The idea behind splitting the expansion in two parts was to get more money.

Until we get a high profile oldschool RPG with a MotB-like "mega-expansion" (which might never happen because it's simply not how DLC is done these days), the Director's Cuts and Enhanced Editions of other RPGs coming out a year or more after their original releases are the closest thing you have, and so far the results for those are not that encouraging.

EDIT: OK, fuck this, emailed Sergey Galyonkin asking him if he can enable tracking for ownership stats on selected DLC. It's probably impossible though.

 

[Duraframe300]

45.4% finished the first act and 8.8% finished the game. That means 4 out of 5 players who finished the first act abandoned the game. It's something other KS CRPGs of similar length, like Wasteland 2 and Divinity: Original Sin (the worst in this regard, for some reason), have been struggling with as well, but it's still a problem.

Nearly EVERY rpg suffers from that and theres no real way to redeem that. The longer game campaigns are the less likely players finish them. Thats just common sense.

It's a problem yes. But not enough of one to be a serious indicator of anything.

From everything I've seen 8.8% isn't too bad. Its comparativly a bit below the average yes, but not enough.

Even super popular cinematic games like The Last of Us often do not or barely reach a 50% completion (as in playthroughs w/o additional content) by the way.

The only thing this kind of thinking has led to is decline in game design (One remember all the dev interviews a few years back where even 12 hour games needed to be shorter and less complex/less additional content).

So, please people. Don't keep repeating that shit as if its some secret miracle stat.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Wasn't in the KS pitch the promise to do old style expansion?

 

[Dorateen]

On August 11, 2015

By the way, in light of this information, a better name for the expansion would have been "The White Forge".

 

[Irenaeus II]

Wasn't in the KS pitch the promise to do old style expansion?

Yes.

 

[Fairfax]

Nearly EVERY rpg suffers from that and theres no real way to redeem that. The longer game campaigns are the less likely players finish them. Thats just common sense.

It's a problem yes. But not enough of one to be a serious indicator of anything.

From everything I've seen 8.8% isn't too bad. Its comparativly a bit below the average yes, but not enough.

Even super popular cinematic games like The Last of Us often do not or barely reach a 50% completion (as in playthroughs w/o additional content) by the way.

The only thing this kind of thinking has led to is decline in game design (One remember all the dev interviews a few years back where even 12 hour games needed to be shorter and less complex/less additional content).

So, please people. Don't keep repeating that shit as if its some secret miracle stat.

You're right that even the most successful games barely reach 50%, if at all, but for games funded by publishers and longer cycles it's not really a problem. Even though it's not a "miracle stat", I do believe it hurts crowdfunded games. It's the reason D:OS2 didn't make more money on KS, if you ask me. ~6% finished the game and a lot of people weree waiting for the EE.

(Just in case anyone's interested in other examples: The Witcher 3 is at 25.8%, Deus Ex HR at 36.6%, Skyrim at 28.2%)

 

[Doktor Best]

About 70-80% of all gym subscribers dont visit the gym at all or very rarely. That doesnt mean that the service of those gyms is lacking, it only means that most people are lazy fucks that cant endure commitment to a challenge.

 

[Fairfax]

About 70-80% of all gym subscribers dont visit the gym at all or very rarely. That doesnt mean that the service of those gyms is lacking, it only means that most people are lazy fucks that cant endure commitment to a challenge.

Not a good comparison. Gym & fitness equipment has different levels of quality, but each type of exercise is still the same. Not to mention it's not exactly meant to be entertaining, while games depend on players having fun while they're playing.
Still, you're right, people are lazy fucks who like to waste money on games they'll never play, but some RPGs are more successful than others in this regard. My point here is that devs should be worried about it and try to find out why people abandoned their games.
Most importantly, they shouldn't give people a good reason to delay it even further. In PoE's case, I'd say it's because the middle of the game is pretty boring, but it's more complicated than that, and -in my opinion- it's something that will hurt crowdfunded sequels to KS CRPGs in the future. I just think Obsidian should be looking into that instead of splitting an expansion in two pieces of DLC half a year apart.