I've put money into a kickstarter for the Steam version, so I'd be pretty disappointed if we didn't get it!
SteamSpy - Approximate LTD sales for every game on Steam (Updated Daily)
- Thread starter MUnited83
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oh! that changes things, then we are getting steam version, thanks to you
Unknown Soldier
Member
Meanwhile in the land of milk, honey, and crowdfunding:
Wasteland 2 - 440k
There's no way inXile isn't pleased with this result and it bodes well for Torment 2. Also it's a fun game.
Pillars of Eternity - 260k
A strong showing out of the gate for PoE, this is one which I expect will have long legs so I expect it's lifetime showing to be much higher.
Wasteland 2 - 440k
There's no way inXile isn't pleased with this result and it bodes well for Torment 2. Also it's a fun game.
Pillars of Eternity - 260k
A strong showing out of the gate for PoE, this is one which I expect will have long legs so I expect it's lifetime showing to be much higher.
Heh, I bought the first 4 Blackwell episodes for $3 and Resonance for $2 on GOG, then I bought a bundle on Groupees comprising pretty much all WJE games at the time for $5, then I went on to buy Epiphany on release day on the dev's site, same with Golden Wake. So yeah, not every sale is equal. Happy to see that the small-ish group of dedicated fans is enough to keep them afloat. I'll definitely buy Shardlight and Technobabylon when they come out.
Hi all. Dave from Wadjet Eye here. I've been lurking on this forum for AGES and never popped in to say hi. So... hi!
Szaromir: That's exactly the point of bundles. Most of the games on those bundles/sales were very old by that point and not earning much money anyway, so there was no harm in strip-mining them for easy cash. The additional hope is that, in the process, you convert a decent percentage to loyal fans who will purchase your next game at launch/full price. Obviously, it worked on you.
As I wrote in that blog post, I am still very conflicted about this Steam Spy thing. More and more indies are being transparent about giving their data away but I was never one of them. Maybe one day that will change, but I'm not quite there yet. I decided to "charge ahead" and talk about it publicly to head off the speculation that we were going out of business or that our games were flopping. I was getting lots of concerned emails and even some angry ones calling me a liar.
Since the data was public anyway, I figured what the heck. I wasn't terribly happy about doing it, but if you can't beat 'em join'em, etc. Ignoring it won't make it go away. Unless of course it does. In which case I'll feel incredibly silly.HiAs I wrote in that blog post, I am still very conflicted about this Steam Spy thing. More and more indies are being transparent about giving their data away but I was never one of them. Maybe one day that will change, but I'm not quite there yet. I decided to "charge ahead" and talk about it publicly to head off the speculation that we were going out of business or that our games were flopping. I was getting lots of concerned emails and even some angry ones calling me a liar.
It was never my intention to hurt someone's business or to force to reveal his financials.
Sorry if I harmed or wronged you, I never meant to do so.
Steam Spy is meant as a tool to research market, so I'm not actively pursuing tracking local pricing or gross revenue.
Does SteamSpy archive the top sellers list? More than any specific game, I'd be interested in seeing what the typical volume is for the top sellers list during different periods. Some games come out during 'dead zones' and top the list, but you don't know if it's selling 6000 or 60,000 or 600,000 copies.
Also, big fan here, you make awesome games.Hi all. Dave from Wadjet Eye here. I've been lurking on this forum for AGES and never popped in to say hi. So... hi!
Szaromir: That's exactly the point of bundles. Most of the games on those bundles/sales were very old by that point and not earning much money anyway, so there was no harm in strip-mining them for easy cash. The additional hope is that, in the process, you convert a decent percentage to loyal fans who will purchase your next game at launch/full price. Obviously, it worked on you.
As I wrote in that blog post, I am still very conflicted about this Steam Spy thing. More and more indies are being transparent about giving their data away but I was never one of them. Maybe one day that will change, but I'm not quite there yet. I decided to "charge ahead" and talk about it publicly to head off the speculation that we were going out of business or that our games were flopping. I was getting lots of concerned emails and even some angry ones calling me a liar.
One change I'd like to see (maybe it's already implemented?) is having disclaimers next to owners data with recently released games, like there is with free weekend games. There's going to be a LOT of people using this tool for launch games who won't know about the imprecise data for launch games.
I got a request from a researcher to check if people playing specific games own some other games and if their habits in those games are different from your average gamer.
I've created a personalized report for him, but I thought you might want to have this information as well, so here it is. Check for a new tab "Also Own" on any game's page.
Of course, games from free weekends are messing up results here as well.
I've created a personalized report for him, but I thought you might want to have this information as well, so here it is. Check for a new tab "Also Own" on any game's page.
Of course, games from free weekends are messing up results here as well.
Oh lord don't worry about it. Nobody forced me to do anything. Ironically, I've probably brought MORE attention to my Steam Spy stats by blogging about them.
*swoon*
I'm glad Epiphany worked out for you. It's my favorite adventure game in years and I'm actually playing through the commentary mode now!
I'm looking forward to Technobabylon as well.
That is really, really useful for me and other developers. Thank you!
EDIT: Though it's quite obvious that DOTA2, TF2, Skyrim and other super popular games will make it a bit harder to distinguish the core audience, but still really useful. It'd be nice to expand that to Top20 or something because of those kinds of games though.
Awesome, much appreciated. Looking at some reference for hard-core strategy games others and seeing DOTA2, Skyrim, TF2 and others constantly topping the lists doesn't exactly make it easyI made it top20 originally, but it really messes up the designI'll try again now
Pellegri Testament
Member
Ehh I wouldn't really say that shows much. WEE was a humble bundle game for Valentines, and Nekopara...well, let's just say the fact that it's really easy to patch probably has something to do with it's sales (the screenshots likely aren't hurting it either). I'd say there's a market for a certain kind of VN, time will tell if the same can be said for the more normal ones that don't end up as throw aways in bundles.
I think for a VN to do well on Steam it has to have high enough quality art (at least in terms of your typical VN) or appropriate hype to set it apart from the competition.
Just dropping it on the platform won't do it... I browsed through some VNs yesterday, and while I don't mind the anime aesthetic, you'd have to hold a gun to my head to pay the price after seeing what those games looked like in terms of presentation. Regardless of the content of Nekopara (cough) at least the game looks good.
Totally missed this thread. Quite honestly, I see the information in Steamspy being more valuable than even Metacritic (for PC market).
Developers/Marketing now have more realistic information on what kind of gamers to target (by looking into their preferred genres), in which countries they should spend their marketing budget the most, anticipate what titles would be worthwhile to port, tendencies, etc.
Gamers from several 3rd world/low income countries owns quite a decent amount of titles. Which does not necessarily means that they purchase at full price, but still something worth to notice.
Developers/Marketing now have more realistic information on what kind of gamers to target (by looking into their preferred genres), in which countries they should spend their marketing budget the most, anticipate what titles would be worthwhile to port, tendencies, etc.
Gamers from several 3rd world/low income countries owns quite a decent amount of titles. Which does not necessarily means that they purchase at full price, but still something worth to notice.
Pellegri Testament
Member
Price is definitely key with them. Sure, you could argue that including paths, some of those VNs go for 30-50 hours. People don't look at that though when deciding on if it's worth it to get or not. It's the problem with opening them up to a wider audience that doesn't value the medium for it's stories, the same way they value the gameplay aspect.
I personally am fairly new to VNs, even though I've known about them for years. It's hard for me to look at them and think "yeah, that is worth the $25-35 they are asking for it" no matter how good the art is or how long it may be. Now put a $5-15 tag on them and they start to look far more appealing to me. I'd assume it's the same with most people in the West, it's a new type of game to them and they aren't about to experiment with the same amount of money that they could get something they're used to with.
There's an article at gamesindustry.biz about SteamSpy.
Not too much new information, but even more confirmations by some developers that owners data is pretty accurate.
Not too much new information, but even more confirmations by some developers that owners data is pretty accurate.
Denton
Member
Well multiplying it by $40 might be a tad misleading. Firstly it was available half that on Nuuvem. In addition during the Kickstarter campaign copies were available for $20-$25 to the about 75k backers they gathered. Still an awesome showing for Obsidian.
Yeah, not to mention that they would get close to 30$ per copy from Steam
bluecapsule
Member
This is exactly the type of extrapolation that the creator of Steamspy warned against
. You have to remember that Steam takes a 30% cut, so Obsidian only gets ~$30 for each $45 purchase. Additionally, 50k copies were sold on Kickstarter at $20 or $25, and KS gets a cut of those sales as well. Still, hopefully Obsidian is making money off this game, especially since the GoG version is probably selling decently.This is exactly the type of extrapolation that the creator of Steamspy warned against
There ARE also higher priced SKU's though. I purchased two of the $80 ones for friends and fmaily, for example. Doubt theya re the majority, btu still, it's hard to decide how much money they've made between who gets a cut fo what and what version was sold and where.
Basileus777
Member
This is exactly the type of extrapolation that the creator of Steamspy warned against
And you're not even favoring in Paradox's cut.
This is terrible. Grimrock 2 is so much better than the first, I hope they were all full price sales at least.
This is exactly the type of extrapolation that the creator of Steamspy warned against
This distinction is meaningless. It's like going to NPD threads to always remind readers of the retailer and platform holder cuts. That's the nature of this and doesn't make NPD's reporting look inadequate or something. Even when in the console retail side the gap between the 60$ and the portion that goes to the pub\dev is larger than your typical Steam release.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the PoE kickstarter had the average backer price at around $45 I believe, due to all the high spenders. Though I definitely forgot about the Nuuvem copies. Even so accounting for all the people buying the Champion and Hero editions, and the fact that the game is actually $45 not $40 I'd say it'll be around that ballpark (not including Valves cut).
Paradox's cut would be pretty low, Obsidian went into this keeping the PoE brand very close to their chest.
Paradox's cut would be pretty low, Obsidian went into this keeping the PoE brand very close to their chest.
A typical retail sale see's 29% of a $60 purchase going to the publisher/developer.
Basileus777
Member
You're making assumptions that I'm not sure we have have the knowledge to make. And keeping the brand close to their chest doesn't really have much to do with this, no one said they signed the IP rights away.
Turin Turambar
Member
Just remember to substract the 70k ?? people who obtained a Steam key in the Kickstarter/Obsidian funding system (they paid money for the game, but that money is already spent in the development), and then subtract the 30%.
Still it's almost $6.5M of profits, so not bad at all!
IIRC paradox was mostly needed for (physical) distribution since Obsidian doesn't have the infrastructure for that. I think assuming that Paradoxes cut being lower than usual is a safe assumption. It's not like they had to fund development either.
Paradox did say that they were getting far less off POE than they would with a normal game they funded like Cities: Skylines.
That's also excluding GOG (and the four folk who might have bought it on Origin) and the physical copies in Poland and Germany. It's sold well enough physically in Poland for a second run of manufacturing to be needed.
I would be very surprised if even 5% of digital sales for any game are coming from Nuuvem.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Good to see Pillars selling alright. Hope it can break the million mark at some point. Fantastic game.
JoeyJungle
Banned
Wow, did Blackguards 2 flop compared to the first one or do free weekends REALLY SUPER DUPER HEAVILY inflate sales numbers?
Blackguards: 319,777 ± 17,831 *(free weekend recently)
Blackguards 2 : 12,489 ± 3,526
Blackguards: 319,777 ± 17,831 *(free weekend recently)
Blackguards 2 : 12,489 ± 3,526
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Because the majority of that revenue has to come from the initial fiscal its launched in. Otherwise companies will re prioritize content releases for the next year or two to maintain revenue.
Long tale successes aren't something a company will see or turn back around into new product for awhile. And that's usually when there is a new hook or market shift that makes that investment worth it if it didn't hit goals the first few months.
Yes, and Blackguards 1 was also in Humble Bundle.
Crimsonclaw111
Member
The crazy thing is that there are still all of the other storefronts selling it that won't be accounted for.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Assuming worst case scenario:
267,006 rounded down to 267,000. Backer Achievement is 16% but will assume 20% for achievements that havent activated. That makes 213,600 Steam keys sold. Assuming all purchases are at the lowest price with Hero edition of $45 that means $9,612,000, Take away 30% for Valves cut and assuming that Paradox also takes 30% would leave Obsidian with $3,844,800. Assuming worst case scenario and only counting Steam copies sold would put them at an amount $100k shy of what they raised from the Kickstarter. Even at its worst its a great scenario thats only going to get better as time goes on.
edit:
Looks like its even better than that cause i used the total players numbers (284,238 ± 17,232) to base my calculation off of and not owner numbers of 300,909.
Denton
Member
AFAIK Paradox only takes cut from retail box copies, not copies sold on Steam or digitally.
Are the retail copies using Steamworks ?
I don't think it'll be close to that, especially given that the only place to get a Steam copy is via Steam itself.
I don't think anyone outside Paradox and Obsidian knows it, but I imagine Paradox takes a cut of every sale - they provided marketing dollars after all and that affected sales of digital copies as well.
Denton
Member
But Kickstarter money was used for development itself. That's not profit after the release.