PoE Sales Analysis Thread

[Jaesun]

http://gamingbolt.com/pillars-of-eternity-cities-skylines-earn-18-5-million-in-three-weeks

Paradox Interactive has announced that Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity and Colossal Order’s Cities: Skylines have collectively generated $18.5 million in revenue within the past three weeks. Earlier, it was Cities: Skylines that held the honour of being Paradox’s fastest selling game but Pillars of Eternity very nearly topped it.

Most of that probably coming from cities. Still, the game seem to be selling well. Pillars boxed copys were sold out at several german online retailers including amazon (at least for a while).

Yeah I wonder how much of that is PoE.

 

[Infinitron]

Generated revenue for Paradox, or generated revenue in general?

 

[Ninjerk]

Generated revenue for Paradox, or generated revenue in general?

Looks like gross revenue. CEO Wester clarifies that they don't make as much profit off of PoE.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

It seems to be selling like shit in comparaison to divinity.

Already off the top 3 and under a game that's been released longer. They choose a stupid price, at least in euros, and a dumb time to release it.

 

[CyberWhale]

It seems to be selling like shit in comparaison to divinity.

Already off the top 3 and under a game that's been released longer. They choose a stupid price, at least in euros, and a dumb time to release it.

The time is probably of more essence in this case - when Divinity came out it almost didn't have any serious competition.
If anything, I'm sad that Larian didn't make a console port at launch - the next-gen consoles were fucking starving for any kind of game, let alone a good one.

 

[Delterius]

Real time games can never hope to sell as much as turn based ones

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Real time games can never hope to sell as much as turn based ones

RTwP has never been mainstream.

 

[Spectacle]

Generated revenue for Paradox, or generated revenue in general?

Looks like gross revenue. CEO Wester clarifies that they don't make as much profit off of PoE.

He specifically says that the money Paradox makes from PoE is nowhere even close to their profits from C:S

If we look at the facts and some reasonable estimats we've got from Paradox as one we can analyze a bit:

1. C:S and PoE have generated $18.5M for Paradox, mainly from C:S. let's say 16M from C:S and 1.5 from PoE. That's more likely overestimating PoE than not.
2. PoE has sold almost as fast as C:S
3. Obsidian gets the vast majority of the profits from PoE
4. PoE is more expensive than C:S. We don't know if Paradox calculates "sales speed" by units sold or revenue though, so we don't know if the price point is significant or not.

Conclusion: Feargus is laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[Infinitron]

It's back in the Top 3.

May have peaked early, though.

 

[Blackstaff]

PoE (the hero edition) is currently on the tenth page of all time best sellers on GOG ( http://www.gog.com/games##sort=bestselling&page=10?as=1649904300 ), already ahead of wasteland 2 and shadowrun dragonfall (respectively page 12, and page 11), and only two pages behind D:OS. This list is worth only for the last year of sales, and is counted by units sold, contrary to the main page list which count by revenue generated. I'm looking at that from time to time, and PoE is getting ahead of around fifteen games by day.

So they are doing pretty great on GOG too

 

[Ninjerk]

PoE (the hero edition) is currently on the tenth page of all time best sellers on GOG ( http://www.gog.com/games##sort=bestselling&page=10?as=1649904300 ), already ahead of wasteland 2 and shadowrun dragonfall (respectively page 12, and page 11), and only two pages behind D:OS. This list is worth only for the last year of sales, and is counted by units sold, contrary to the main page list which count by revenue generated. I'm looking at that from time to time, and PoE is getting ahead of around fifteen games by day.

So they are doing pretty great on GOG too

I wonder how GOG cut vs. Steam cut is.

 

[Blackguard]

It seems to be selling like shit in comparaison to divinity.

Already off the top 3 and under a game that's been released longer. They choose a stupid price, at least in euros, and a dumb time to release it.

You can't really compare game sales by just looking at how they do on Steam charts. The main reason D:OS stayed up there for so long was because it was released 30th of June, ie. when almost nothing else was coming out. PoE is in top3 with probably biggest franchise in gaming, and first proper city building game in over 10 years. I'm not saying PoE is necessarily selling better than D:OS, but just looking at how long game x held number 1 spot can be very deceptive.

PoE (the hero edition) is currently on the tenth page of all time best sellers on GOG ( http://www.gog.com/games##sort=bestselling&page=10?as=1649904300 ), already ahead of wasteland 2 and shadowrun dragonfall (respectively page 12, and page 11), and only two pages behind D:OS. This list is worth only for the last year of sales, and is counted by units sold, contrary to the main page list which count by revenue generated. I'm looking at that from time to time, and PoE is getting ahead of around fifteen games by day.

So they are doing pretty great on GOG too

I wonder how GOG cut vs. Steam cut is.

I remember seeing some pretty reliable source claiming Steam's market share is about 70-75% of the digital PC gaming market, purely guessing Origin is 15-20%, and the rest is GOG, et al.

Edit: I can't read.

 

[Bubbles]

I wonder how GOG cut vs. Steam cut is.

From what I've heard, identical.

 

[Loriac]

Its amusing that whilst D:OS was #1 in the Steam top sellers chart for a long time, PoE I don't think has been higher than #2 so far (currently #4 in the UK, maybe its different elsewhere).

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I expect it to sell about as well as D:OS initially, and then continue selling at a steady pace as word gets out that it's essentially Baldur's Gate 3. I mean, Larian ended up selling over 800k in 2014 alone, and the highest discount they had was 33% during the Winter Sale. PoE, in my opinion, has the ability to sell even better in the long-term, because, while BG2 sold over 2 million back in the day, that audience has likely since drifted apart and either lost interest in the genre or followed Bioware into the land of consoles. Reassembling them (metaphorically speaking, as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I could be wrong but BG2 was priced higher. I think. And that's not counting inflation today. I don't know about that one.

And then it seems it wasn't enough to devellop a new BG3, to completion. Did Bioware get most of the profits back then or was it a publisher?

 

[Tjaron]

I could be wrong but BG2 was priced higher. I think. And that's not counting inflation today. I don't know about that one.

I recently found an old okaysoft (retailer) flyer from 2002 with a price list of games.
Baldurs Gate 2 - 23,50 €
Neverwinter Nights - 45,90 €
Morrowind - 39,90 €
BG2 might have been priced higher on release, but most new games were in the 40-45€ range back then.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

So after reading this thread, bottom line is - isometric rpgs are still not popular and not worth investing in, because even the best of them barely break even. Good to know. The incline was actually just the last spasm. Fargo will continue releasing mediocre rpgs though, so there's that.

 

[Jarakka]

as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

Beware what you wish for.

 

[Bubbles]

So after reading this thread, bottom line is - isometric rpgs are still not popular and not worth investing in, because even the best of them barely break even. Good to know.

I believe Neo Scavenger did pretty well. Blackguards also made enough money for a sequel.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

So after reading this thread, bottom line is - isometric rpgs are still not popular and not worth investing in, because even the best of them barely break even. Good to know. The incline was actually just the last spasm. Fargo will continue releasing mediocre rpgs though, so there's that.

How do you figure that? D:OS, at the very least, did fantastically well for Larian and basically secured funding for their next project, allowing them to be completely independent. They're feeling so secure, in fact, that they're opening a satellite studio in Montreal. Wasteland 2, which sold half of what D:OS did, would've been profitable even without KS money at this point. HBS derped a bit with Dragonfall initially by not releasing it as standalone, but they've since regained their sanity, and the success of their newest KS is testament to the fact that people have recognized the improvement from SRR, which bodes well for the sales of the new expansion.

Overall, things are going very well. I would be very surprised if PoE doesn't end up being wildly profitable for Obsidian, as well.

as we're likely to get a whole bunch of new people in as well) will take some time. Thankfully, PoE seems like a high enough quality product to be able to achieve this.

Beware what you wish for.

What should I beware? Fans of RTwP combat and nice 2D backgrounds? The game doesn't even have romances, its potential for true decline is lower than that of BG2 by this measure alone.

 

[Infinitron]

Bester's doing some weird selective reading ITT.

(btw Larian's satellite studio is actually not in Montreal, it's in Quebec City)

 

[Grape_You_In_the_Mouth]

I think we can all agree that we have no idea what the fuck we're talking about

 

[Spectacle]

Its amusing that whilst D:OS was #1 in the Steam top sellers chart for a long time, PoE I don't think has been higher than #2 so far (currently #4 in the UK, maybe its different elsewhere).

It was the number 1 seller on steam just around the release time.

(It's crazy that so many people are prebuying GTA5 that it's maintained the top slot for so long with only minor dips)

 

[tuluse]

I think while Dragonfall sales were disappointing, it was still profitable and they were going to make Hong Kong with it's profits. The KS was just to make it better.