PoE Sales Analysis Thread

[Country_Gravy]

What about people that just get the GoG version? They won't get the steam achievement.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Non-first world sales should be offset with people buying the higher tiers.

Not really.
I know for a fact that 25% of PoE players are from the piss poor countries, by the way, so you can make more precise calculations if you want. I would assume only 5% of players got higher tiers.

 

[Hegel]

Maybe I should hire a gang of russians to mod the game the way I want. Bester, can new items/spells/talents/quests/areas be added the way the BGII modding scene did? What is hardcoded?

 

[AN4RCHID]

To go further, I'd say 30% of the backers created a character, others are just people who "can't find time to play between the job, wife and children, but I'll get to it the next weekend, I promise.".

There's no way it's that low. Maybe for little Kickstarters that people forgot or never really cared about, but not for a hyped release like PoE.

 

[Lord Carlos Wafflebum]

What about people that just get the GoG version? They won't get the steam achievement.

No shit

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

I was a slacker backer and still got that sweet achievement.

I was a slacker backer but didn't get the achievement, for what it's worth.

 

[Arkeus]

What about people that just get the GoG version? They won't get the steam achievement.

There are also those who got both the GoG and Steam version as there were tiers for multiple version of the game.

 

[tuluse]

Not really.
I know for a fact that 25% of PoE players are from the piss poor countries, by the way, so you can make more precise calculations if you want. I would assume only 5% of players got higher tiers.

How do you get halving ($15 per copy) of revenue from 25% non-first world? That means 22.5 minimum, if they literally gave 3rd worlders copies for free.

 

[Country_Gravy]

So essentially everyone is talking out of their asses. Explains the smell.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Not really.
I know for a fact that 25% of PoE players are from the piss poor countries, by the way, so you can make more precise calculations if you want. I would assume only 5% of players got higher tiers.

How do you get halving ($15 per copy) of revenue from 25% non-first world? That means 22.5 minimum, if they literally gave 3rd worlders copies for free.

I said 15-20 and it was a quick assumption. Ok, so turns out it's 22.5 per copy instead (presumably, as we don't know what Paradox's cut is, it may very well be that I was right with my initial 15-20 assumption).

Still, it doesn't change much. Even if it's 22.5, they still only made around 1.25 mil instead of 1.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Anyway, if we factor in physical sales, some future steam weekend deals and whatnot, some bundles and shit, they may reach 2.5 mil eventually..? But that's still ridiculous.

And let's assume that the game hasn't been kickstarted, but has been made conventionally. Because of kickstarter, they basically sold the game for $50 of pure profit for each sold copy to backers. While in reality, they can only get 22 per copy. That's -2 mil right there.

That means if it hadn't been kickstarted, it would've been unprofitable to make this game. It would've broken even, and that'd be it, zero profit. And this is the sad part of it all - publishers were right all along, it's absolutely unprofitable.

 

[Kel]

Anyway, if we factor in physical sales, some future steam weekend deals and whatnot, some bundles and shit, they may reach 2.5 mil eventually..? But that's still ridiculous.

And let's assume that the game hasn't been kickstarted, but has been made conventionally. Because of kickstarter, they basically sold the game for $50 of pure profit for each sold copy to backers. While in reality, they can only get 22 per copy. That's -2 mil right there.

That means if it hadn't been kickstarted, it would've been unprofitable to make this game. It would've broken even, and that'd be it, zero profit. And this is the sad part of it all - publishers were right all along, it's absolutely unprofitable.

AAA RPGs are slow burners.

BG2 was still having sales long into December 2001, 1.5 years after its release. Pillars breaking even in the first week is ridiculously good, if that were confirmed.

I am more or less certain that 6 months from now Pillars will have made 150-200% profit (with kickstarter funding out of the equation), which makes around 6-8 million dollars of pure money flowing in.

They've struck the motherlode with the model, and hopefully they will milk the franchise and IP dry (if they are smart and we lucky).

 

[WalkinDude]

Are you saying this game is what, going to sell max 100k copies or so? How are you getting only 2.5 mil in revenue that's ridiculous.

You're falling for a typical potatoman fallacy, if you're from Poland then I guess that's ok continue worrying about obsidians money problems and scary russians. otherwise cut it out

 

[dukeofwhales]

That means if it hadn't been kickstarted, it would've been unprofitable to make this game. It would've broken even, and that'd be it, zero profit. And this is the sad part of it all - publishers were right all along, it's absolutely unprofitable.

Okay, so in Bester's magical worst case scenario land, where we make the following assumptions:

• Only 30% of backers have activated their copy on Steam (ludicrously low)
• Obsidian make no money off sales in countries with a below-US RRP
• Sales of the $70 and $90 editions of the game are non existent
• Paradox somehow takes 50% of post-Steam revenue for a marketing, QA and physical fulfilment
• Sales through GOG don't count

The game is will still make back its costs (including the $4M from Kickstarter) and in the long run make some extra profit on the side.

Awesome.

 

[Whiran]

The number of 18.5 million in revenue generated announced by Paradox would be, in my view, just that - total revenue. Not for Paradox but overall revenue (revenue before Valve's cut as well.)

That's still an impressive number. We know, from clarification from Paradox, that the lion's share of that 18.5 million is from Cities: Skylines.

That still leaves a sizeable amount generated by Pillars of Eternity. Regardless we know that Pillars of Eternity as of the 31st of March had generated less than 9.25 million in revenue (half of the 18.5).

At $45 USD a pop that's around 200k units sold - (9.25 million / 45) 205,000 units to be precise.

However in different regions the game sells at a different price point. Plus there are collector's editions. I'm not sure what the spread of sales are across the world but I'd guess that around 200k units sold is reasonable. There are also physical copies and GoG copies. Still, Paradox would probably be counting all revenue sources for their number so this is still the high end of the spectrum for Pillars of Eternity.

As to how much does Obsidian get per copy sold?

Well, Steam (valve) takes 30%.
Paradox will take another X% (I'd guess 15% for Pillars just 'cause it seems about right - probably 10%-25%)
That leaves Obsidian getting 55% of the total price per copy sold on Steam. 55% of $45 USD = $24.75 USD per copy.

200k * 24.75 = ~5 million in revenue for Obsidian. That's a decent amount of coin considering that it appears that development for Pillars of Eternity was basically covered via backers.

With ~5 million banked, plus whatever more they are still getting, plus a probable yet another kickstarter Obsidian is in a good position to be independent and able to self-fund another project of Pillars of Eternity's scope.

At the end of the day, the game is a success for Obsidian assuming that the numbers are somewhat reasonable. Even if Cities: Skylines was accounting for 66% of the 18.5 million, Pillars is doing just fine for Obsidian (around 3.4 million for Obsidian.)

 

[Perkel]

I think people should stop using that Paradox number because we don't know their deal:

- % of royalties they will get
- If publishing deal covers all channels and in what proportions from which channel they will get different %
other things.

And most of all their number was after 2-3 days of sales. It is a week after release.

 

[ZoddGuts]

http://steamspy.com/app/291650

About the site data accurancy: http://steamspy.com/about

 

[Arkeus]

So, discounting backers it's almost 190 000 buyers on steam alone. That's... very decent.

 

[Zeronet]

Almost topping Cities Skylines fastest selling paradox title means a heft amount of sales, that game sold 250,000 in the first 24 hours and quickly reached 500,000 later. That's 200-240,000 probable sales in the first 24 hours for Pillars of eternity.

I wouldn't discount GoG, a fair amount of people prefer the non-DRM option.

 

[Kel]

So, discounting backers it's almost 190 000 buyers on steam alone. That's... very decent.

I know people in the industry on the finance wing. Let me sum things up mathematically:

At the moment 190,000 non-backer people = 190K x 15 dollars (thats the net profit of Obsidian makes with Paradox/overhead/steam cut/international taxes factored out per sale) = 2,85M for the first week. Standard slow burning RPG's make around 150% - 200% of their first week total throughout the subsequent 6 months, in the worst case. Bur since Pillars has a huge hype and with a cult 77K people who keep making it relevant, we can say it will eventually make 250% before sales dip to shitty levels. That makes a very accurate guesstimation of 7,125,000 dollars net profit for Obsidian as a company.

That is splendid. That keeps them afloat for another 2-3 years even if they fucked up everthing else. But we all know that Pillars 2 will sell even more if they can put "This is our BG2" spin on it with a huge playtime.

Now you know.

 

[mutonizer]

[..]I wouldn't discount GoG, a fair amount of people prefer the non-DRM option.

non-DRM is one thing
non-autopatch is another. Been a fervent steam user for years but not being able to prevent auto patching drives me crazy enough to give GoG a try.

 

[Arkeus]

I know people in the industry on the finance wing. Let me sum things up mathematically:

At the moment 190,000 non-backer people = 190K x 15 dollars (thats the net profit of Obsidian makes with Paradox/overhead/steam cut/international taxes factored out per sale) = 2,85M for the first week.

Huh, didn't know that the cut was so steep, especially as the international sales are often more expensive than US ones.

Standard slow burning RPG's make around 150% - 200% of their first week total throughout the subsequent 6 months, in the worst case. Bur since Pillars has a huge hype and with a cult 77K people who keep making it relevant, we can say it will eventually make 250% before sales dip to shitty levels. That makes a very accurate guesstimation of 7,125,000 dollars net profit for Obsidian as a company.

That is splendid. That keeps them afloat for another 2-3 years even if they fucked up everthing else. But we all know that Pillars 2 will sell even more if they can put "This is our BG2" spin on it with a huge playtime.

Now you know.

This is good, especially as it assumes 100% of their sales are on steam.

 

[LESS T_T]

According to sales reports by several indie devs, 5~20% of sales are happening on GOG (depending on the type of games).

Given that D:OS has sold almost 1 million copies, we can assume that it has sold almost 200K copies on GOG.

edit: I'm drunk.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

x 15 dollars.

How did you get to that number from 50$ base price?It's known Valve take 30% and California's sales tax is what 8%?

 

[Kel]

x 15 dollars.

How did you get to that number from 50$ base price?It's known Valve take 30% and California's sales tax is what 8%?

They give around 10% to paradox, international taxes are far higher, and vanilla pillars is 40-45 dollars average worldwide.

But yes they may even go as high as 20-25 dollars depending on America sales, but I was calculating the worst case scenario net profit, which still makes them very happy.