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Torment Was Planescape: Torment really a commercial failure? Fallout sold fewer copies but got a sequel

Fairfax

Arcane
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Reasons why PS:T didn't get a sequel:

1. Planescape was dead. In fact, WOTC killed it in early 1998, more than year before PS:T was released.
2. The most important one: MCA wasn't that passionate about making a sequel, though he did write design docs for 2 potential sequels:
Chris Avellone: A long time ago, I did kick around the idea of two sequels. One was "Lost Souls," an adventure that allowed the player to experience the events surrounding Torment (both past and future) but the Nameless One wouldn't be in it - it would, however, feature Deionarra, some of the members of the player's first party (Xachariah), Fall-From-Grace, Ravel, Trias, and other major characters and see the Planescape universe from a different perspective. This didn't go much beyond a one-page vision statement, though, and I never submitted it for serious consideration.

One I felt less strongly about (but still liked) was "Planescape: Pariah", which allowed the player to take on the role of Dak'kon and try to unify the githzerai and githyanki, but again, that never went past the vision doc stage.

The reason I never submitted either one was because a direct sequel somehow feels wrong (I feel the game stands on its own, and I don't want to drag a rake through the first game).

I'd be up for another game in the Planescape setting, though. Some of the Planescape mods I've seen for Neverwinter Nights 2 would probably put any ideas I had to shame, though - they're pretty amazing. I know there’s a few guys at work who would also like to do a Planescape game.
3. In 2000, with no Torment sequel pitched, most of the Torment team moved on and created TORN.
4. In 2001, TORN was cancelled, but in that same year Hasbro sold all digital rights to D&D to Infogrames. Interplay managed to keep their FR license, but their old deal was dead. The old contract was what granted Interplay exclusive rights to Forgotten Realms and Planescape games, so at this point they didn't even have the Planescape license anymore.
 

Vault Dweller

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English isn't my main language but I think one the dev is telling us that the company made enough money on it.
I believe him when he says it sold 400k copies woldwide. Everything else should be taken with a grain of salt. First, would he admit that the game wasn't profitable? There aren't many employees, former or otherwise, who'd make such a statement and there are good, legal reasons for that. Second, did he have he access to the financial statements or was he merely guessing?

t's like how BioShock just went away when Ken Levine got tired of it.
It went away after it was milked to death with 3 games, the final game taking too long and costing a fortune ($200 mil with marketing, which made it one of the most expensive games of all time).
 

Infinitron

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In general, it's possible to overestimate the determining power of sales. If you made a blockbuster, you're probably going to be forced to make a sequel. If you made a complete bomb, you won't get to make a sequel. But for those titles that fall somewhere in the middle, other factors can predominate. Sometimes there's just not a lot of inertia inside a company in favor of making a game. Why did Loom never get a sequel? Or hell, the big one, Half-Life 3? Basically because people just felt like doing other things.
 

ga♥

Arcane
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I believe him when he says it sold 400k copies woldwide. Everything else should be taken with a grain of salt. First, would he admit that the game wasn't profitable? There aren't many employees, former or otherwise, who'd make such a statement and there are good, legal reasons for that. Second, did he have he access to the financial statements or was he merely guessing?

Ok let's assume that for mysterious imperscrutrable reasons, Warner, without having any certain info about it, would publish that statement on a public forum.

He just guessed.

Now, do you have any information that back ups that Torment sold so poorly they decided to not have a sequel?
Because if you don't I will, and everybody should too, stick with what the Dev said and not what it has been repeated ad nauseam since 2002 without any tangible proof.
 
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MRY

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At some point in some thread, I swear I dug up the relevant Desslock posts on this. I'll try to find it.

--EDIT--

Found it!

The "PS:T sold well" thing is now accepted wisdom, but my understanding is that while it may have been profitable, it underperformed hopes and expectations. BG and BG2 were both like 2 million copies, the expansions were both close to a million[1], and what I can find suggests that Icewind Dale also did better[2].

Here is one useful-ish data point from Desslock in 2000:
But PC Data's statistics are still useful for revealing trends – and the PC Data sales statistics for recent RPGs are extremely interesting. While the genre has been extremely popular over the past few years, very few titles have actually been overwhelming commercial successes. Only Diablo and Baldur's Gate are undisputed commercial blockbusters, with Diablo selling over 1.3 million copies and Baldur's Gate selling over 500,000 copies. Sources within the industry that would prefer not to be named have informed me that those sales statistics are off by around 50%. If that's the case, the actual overall sales of Diablo and Baldur's Gate are likely as high as 2.6 million and 1 million, respectively.


The sales statistics for a variety of other titles may surprise you. Fallout and Fallout 2, which are considered to be two of the best RPGs released in recent years, sold approximately 140,000 and 120,000 copies, respectively, in PC Data's tracked data. Very good sales, especially since the overall figures are likely double those amounts, but considerably below the sales volumes for true blockbuster titles.

Even more interesting are the sales statistics for other RPGs. Diablo-clones such as Revenant and Darkstone have sold quite poorly, according to PC Data, in spite of decent critical praise and word of mouth, selling only 35,000 and 75,000 copies, respectively. But the most interesting sales statistics involve Ultima IX: Ascension and Planescape: Torment. Planescape: Torment received fantastic critical acclaim (almost universally receiving the 1999 RPG of the Year Awards) and great word of mouth, has to date sold only about half of the number of units that the Fallout games have sold. Ultima IX: Ascension, on the other hand, was a major release from a major company, and perhaps due to poor word of mouth and its negative reception from game reviewers, similarly achieved a mere 73,000 unit sales in the markets tracked by PC Data. While the sales numbers are almost the same for Planescape: Torment and Ultima IX: Ascension, it's worthwhile to note that most of Torment's sales have been in the year 2000, while Ascension's sales were predominently in 1999, even though Ascension was released later in 1999 than Torment. Again, word of mouth and critical praise obviously bolstered Torment's sales and negatively affected Ascension's potential sales.

Here's a summary of sales statistics for a variety of recent RPGs in the markets PC Data tracks, based upon data current to the end of March, 2000:

Title Units
Baldur's Gate (all formats) 500,000
BG expansion pack 156,000
Fallout 144,000
Fallout 2 123,000
Diablo 1,300,000
Revenant 37,000
Darkstone 75,000
Ultima IX: Ascension 73,000
Planescape: Torment 73,000
How meaningful are these statistics, especially considering the fact that I'm dubious of the utility of PC Data's statistics for the reasons set out above? Well, rather than rely solely on those statistics (and the anecdotal evidence I've garnered from industry sources that suggest that PC Data's numbers are generally off by about 50%), I also tracked information from a dedicated PC gaming store. The store I selected is called Mediascape, and it's located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Mediascape also has a PC lab for multiplayer gaming and it attracts a lot of hardcore gamers. Interestingly, the sales statistics were as follows:

Title Units
Baldur's Gate 775
BG: Tales of the Sword Coast 160
Fallout 318
Fallout 2 209
Diablo 835
Diablo Hellfire 190
Revenant (discount priced) 49
Darkstone 68
Ultima IX: Ascension 66
Planescape: Torment 172
Note that at this hardcore gaming store, Baldur's Gate is even more of a commercial success, and while Diablo's figures are still very impressive, they are not as out of the ballpark as PC Data's numbers suggest. Ultima IX: Ascension was killed in sales by Planescape: Torment at the dedicated gaming store, and sales of Torment are actually closer to the sales of the Fallout games than PC Data's numbers suggest. Most of the other trends noted by PC Data are duplicated at the dedicated gaming store. Interesting.

What do these statistics reveal? That very few RPGs actually sell blockbuster numbers, even though the genre has been extremely popular over the past few years. Even the most critically acclaimed games, such as Planescape: Torment, are not guaranteed overwhelming commercial success, but games that generate negative word of mouth and critical reviews understandably don't do well either, in spite of being published by large companies and being the recipients of huge advertising campaigns. Those factors seem to be more important at dedicated gaming stores than in the markets PC Data tracks (suggesting that PC Data's figures can be very misleading for titles that receive strongly positive, or negative, word of mouth and reviews).

Not surprisingly, in order to generate good commercial success, games have to establish good buzz prior to release (suggesting that previews are far more valuable than reviews) in addition to establishing good word of mouth and critical reception upon release. Perhaps the majority of that information was intuitive, but I found it interesting to sort through it. Let me know what you think....

--EDIT2--

By the way, the footnote re: Icewind Dale is to the following, also from Desslock:
But man, in spite of the differences between this title [Icewind Dale] and Diablo 2, Interplay's decision to release it at almost the exact same time seemed commercially foolhardy (although likely motivated by a desire to release it at least a couple of months prior to Baldur's Gate 2). But the game debuted in the number 4 spot in PC Data's top 10 list – a far better initial reception than Planescape: Torment received....and it's not a coincidence that we gave it a higher rating at GameSpot than we gave Diablo 2.
 
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Vault Dweller

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In general, it's possible to overestimate the determining power of sales. If you made a blockbuster, you're probably going to be forced to make a sequel. If you made a complete bomb, you won't get to make a sequel. But for those titles that fall somewhere in the middle, other factors can predominate. Sometimes there's just not a lot of inertia inside a company in favor of making a game. Why did Loom never get a sequel? Or hell, the big one, Half-Life 3? Basically because people just felt like doing other things.
Half-Life 3 is easy - Valve is swimming in money so they have zero pressure to release games to stay in business. Unlike everyone else, they can take their time simply because money isn't a factor at all.

Back in 2000 PST was never presented as a successful game. Instead there was a lot of blame going around - was it the marketing? the cover? the focus on dialogues? the weirdness? Naturally all these articles and interviews are long gone but anyone who followed games back then would remember them. There would be no reason for that if the game did well.

Ok let's assume that for mysterious imperscrutrable reasons, Warner, without having any certain info about it, would publish that statement on a public forum.
Scott Warner was a "new designer/scriptor" on PST, designer on IWD. I doubt that he would have access to the financial statements because such things are usually very confidential for obvious reasons. So if I have guess he posted what he was told and what he believed to be true, which doesn't mean it's actually true.
 

Fairfax

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At some point in some thread, I swear I dug up the relevant Desslock posts on this. I'll try to find it.

--EDIT--

Found it!
:M
I don't know if IWD sold more, but it was cheap and quick to develop, and Sawyer said it had a better ROI than PS:T because of it. The PC Data numbers are the main reason the game got the "cult classic, commercial failure" status.
Sources within the industry that would prefer not to be named have informed me that those sales statistics are off by around 50%. If that's the case, the actual overall sales of Diablo and Baldur's Gate are likely as high as 2.6 million and 1 million, respectively.
Their BG numbers were wrong by a lot, for example. According to BioWare, Tales of the Sword Coast sold 600k at launch, but the list above gives it 156k up to March 2000. No doubt PS:T was off by a lot as well.
 

ga♥

Arcane
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Anyway I re-checked and that quote from Warner seems from August 2003.
PS:T was released in December 1999.
 

Vault Dweller

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Their BG numbers were wrong by a lot, for example. According to BioWare, Tales of the Sword Coast sold 600k at launch, but the list above gives it 156k up to March 2000. No doubt PS:T was off by a lot as well.
I don't recall Bioware ever claiming it. It did sell around 500k copies but not on release but over the next few years. They may have shipped 600k copies but that's a different story.
 

MRY

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Bioware said it sold 600k total, not at launch ("In 1999, BioWare released Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, a Baldur's Gate expansion pack. It debuted at #1 worldwide and sold over 600,000 units").

Anyway, catching the ever-moving target that ga[heart] is holding up is getting tedious. "Is there any evidence?" (Evidence provided.) "But what if hypothetically MCA said something different?" :M As Vault Dweller said, anyone who lived through PS:T's release knows that conventional wisdom was that it hadn't sold well at release, that conventional wisdom is supported by (1) the PC Data statistics which, even if off by 50% or 100% would still indicate a fairly tepid start; (2) the low-cost bundling of PS:T with Soul Bringer not long after the game's release; and (3) the fact that no one at Interplay debunked the "selling poorly" meme at the time it was current, as you would expect a major developer to do if the meme were, in fact, wrong.

PS:T is a great example IMO of how great games have long legs because they aren't beholden to the tech of a given instant and can reach an ever wider audience by word of mouth. I'm sure that if PS:T had come out in a period of digital distribution it would've ramped up faster, as is proven by its being the best-selling game on GOG.com. But a revisionist theory that PS:T was a commercial hit just seems kind of silly, and isn't supported by the statement that it was "clearly profitable" in the long haul.
 

ga♥

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(Evidence provided.)

Since you dimiss the Dev statement about how much his company sold, and you take for the bible that thing, just because you thought you sold bad for so many years that now you just can't accept you were wrong so long.
Let me laugh at that evidence you provided.
Even assuming that those numbers are correct (laughable). When was that posted? End of 2000? Mid 2000? Beginning?
Also what's PC-DATA? what were their methods?

And do you have proofs that PS:T wouldn't be profitable with 73000 copies sold? The engine was licensed, from the interview you see not many people worked on it.

anyone who lived through PS:T's release knows that conventional wisdom was that it hadn't sold well at release

rofl.
I still have my original box, bought in 1999 on my shelf, let me go ask about it.

As Fairfax stated those numbers are most likely bogus.

P.S being bundled 2 years after release means nothing.
 
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MRY

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(Evidence provided.)

Since you dimiss the Dev statement about how much his company sold, and you take for the bible that thing.
Let me laugh at that evidence.
Even assuming that those numbers are correct (laughable). When was that posted? End of 2000? Mid 2000? Beginning?
Also what's PC-DATA? what were their methods?
This is what I mean by target/goalpost shifting.

You: All that matters is whether your revenue exceeds your cost!
Us: Actually, it also matters by how much, and by what date, that happens.
You: But the 400k figure is obviously straight of out of the box!
Us: Actually, it's from years after the game's release.
VD: Also, the figures might not be right.
You: How could they possible wrong? And "do you have any information that back up that Torment sold poorly"?
VD: The guy saying it had no reason to know the sales figure first hand.
Me: Here is "information that backs up" that it sold poorly.
You: But that information isn't good enough!

In any event, you can do the research yourself about PC Data's methods, the date it was posted is in the text I quoted, etc. If you think a game that was selling like gangbusters would be bundled with Soul Bringer three years after its release, it's gonna be hard to persuade you of anything. [EDIT: Scratch that: was combo packed at $10 by no later than Christmas 2001, i.e., two years after release.]

No one is saying that PS:T didn't more than break even -- there isn't any basis to doubt that. But there is good reason to doubt that PS:T was adequately successful to justify a sequel. I can ask Fargo next time I see him, I guess, but short of that, I don't really see any way to get beyond "it did not lose money" or to doubt the narrative that it underperformed relative to other titles.

[EDIT:

Here's another data point for you: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3068/interview_with_black_isle_studios_.php?print=1

To me, the salient features are: (1) a pretty lukewarm statement of PS:T's success ("it was commercially successful") and (2) the acknowledgment that the game was not a "home run" ("If we could hit a home run with a product, it would certainly give Black Isle and Interplay some financial breathing room."). Still, it suggests that 1 million was not the expectation on PS:T (300k to 400k worldwide is what he says). To me, the takeaway is that they moderated their expectations and performed adequately under them, but it certainly doesn't sound like a hit.]

Also:

from the interview you see not many people worked on it.
??

Lead Programmer Dan Spitzley
Programmers Yuki Furumi, Jim Gardner, Robert Holloway
Additional Programming Darren L. Monahan
Scripters Jacob Devore, Adam Heine, Nick Kesting, Scott Warner
Movie Technology Paul Allen Edelstein
Lead Artist Timothy Donley
Artists Eric Campanella, Scott Everts, Derek Johnson, Christopher Jones, Brian Menze, Aaron Meyers, Dennis Presnell
Additional Art Aaron Brown, Samuel Fung, James Lim, Gary Platner, Eddie Rainwater
Lead Designer Chris Avellone
Designers Stephen Bokkes, John Deiley, Kenneth Lee, David Maldonado, Colin McComb, Jason G. Suinn, Scott Warner
Technical Designers Scott Everts, David Hendee, Jason G. Suinn
Additional Design Reginald J. Arnedo, Kihan Pak
Production Division Director Feargus Urquhart
Producers Guido Henkel, Kenneth Lee
Line Producer Kenneth Lee
Director of Quality Assurance Jeremy S. Barnes
Assistant Directors of QA Greg Baumeister, Michael Motoda
QA Project Supervisors Damien Evans, Darrell Jones, David L. Simon
Senior Testers Eric Fong, Robert Giampa, Scot Humphreys, Edward Hyland, Danny Martinez
Testers Donnie Cornwell, Greg Didieu, Kristopher Giampa, Matthew Golembiewski, Savina Greene, Billy Iturzaeta, Henry C. Lee, Rafael López, Asher Luisi, John Palmero, Tony Piccoli, Lawrence Smith, Gary Tesdall
Compatibility Manager Darrell Jones
Compatibility Technicians Derek Gibbs, Jack Parker, David Parkyn, Joshua Walters
Audio Director Charles Deenen
Music Mark Morgan
Additional Music Richard Band
Sound Supervisors Charles Deenen, Craig Duman
Sound Design Charles Deenen, David Farmer, Ann Scibelli
Additional Sound Design Harry Cohen, Elisabeth Flaum, Rebecca L. Hanck, Shannon Mills, Al Nelson
Sound Editing, Mastering and Scripting Craig Duman
Sound Mastering and Scripting Assistance Frank Szick
VO Editors Chris Borders, Stephen Miller, Frank Szick
VO Director Jamie Thomason
VO Supervision Chris Borders
VO Producer Fred Hatch
VO Coordinator David Hendee
Cast Charles Adler, Rodger Bumpass, Dan Castellaneta, Keith David, John de Lancie, Flo Di Re, Sheena Easton, Jennifer Hale, Tony Jay, Rob Paulsen, Mitch Pileggi, Michael T. Weiss, Walla Group
Voice Casting Barbara Harris
Walla Cast Steve Alterman, Judi Durand, Greg Finley, Anneliese Goldman, Gary Schwartz, Vernon Scott
Audio Administration Gloria Soto
Re‑Recording Mixer Charles Deenen
Video Services David Cravens, Bill Stoudt, Dan L. Williams
Senior Marketing Manager Greg Peterson
Associate Marketing Manager Greg Bauman
PR Manager Lisa Bucek-Jensen
Associate PR Manager Krys Card
Web Master Joshua Eric Sawyer
Manager Creative Services Kathy Helgason
Production Manager Tom Donner
Traffic Manager Paul Naftalis
Localisation Advice for the German version Alexander Koenig, Peter Verdi
Manual Matthew J. Norton
Manual Design & Layout Michael L. Quintos, A Creative Experience - London
 
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ga♥

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This is what I mean by target/goalpost shifting.

You: All that matters is whether your revenue exceeds your cost!
Us: Actually, it also matters by how much, and by what date, that happens.
You: But the 400k figure is obviously straight of out of the box!
Us: Actually, it's from years after the game's release.
VD: Also, the figures might not be right.
You: How could they possible wrong? And "do you have any information that back up that Torment sold poorly"?
VD: The guy saying it had no reason to know the sales figure first hand.
Me: Here is "information that backs up" that it sold poorly.
You: But that information isn't good enough!

This isn't how the discussion went, but oh well, I don't care enough to copy and paste what you or VD said, ppl can see last 2 pages for themselves.
I suspect you believed for so many years about that idea that now you find it too hard to let it go.
I will just say that logic wise, you have no IDEA on how good did PS:T went salewise, exept that quote from a Dev of the game and an obscure blogpost that was wrong anyway with other games posted in it, but somehow you manage to jump to the conclusion that the reason we don't have PS:T2 is because it was bundled 2 years after the release.

In any event, you can do the research yourself about PC Data's methods, the date it was posted is in the text I quoted, etc.

If you can't back up what you post why ever post it? Just to win the discussion? Geez here your award, you-were-right-on-the-internet (exept you weren't, but everything for a smile).
As far as we know, with 73K units sold from 1999-2017 it could still be an amazing success.

But there is good reason to doubt that PS:T was adequately successful to justify a sequel.

And that good reason is something like that:

a pretty lukewarm statement of PS:T's success ("it was commercially successful")
Which pretty much indicate the opposite.

Still, it suggests that 1 million was not the expectation on PS:T (300k to 400k worldwide is what he says). To me, the takeaway is that they moderated their expectations and performed adequately under them, but it certainly doesn't sound like a hit.]

It wasn't even refering to Torment, but games as whole.

But sure ask Fargo next time you see it.
 
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MRY

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You asked for data, I provided data from the leading PC game sales tracker. There is literally no other data that could be provided, short of Interplay's internal financials. It is exceedingly rare for a developer to admit that a game did not sell well, so

Can you explain why PS:T would be bundled with Soulbringer for $10 within two years of release if it were selling well?

Honestly, if you're throwing out claims like "as far as we know, with 73k units sold from 1999-017 it could still be an amazing success" I don't really know what could persuade you.
 
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Self-Ejected

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MCA wasn't that passionate about making a sequel, though he did write design docs for 2 potential sequels:


Chris Avellone: A long time ago, I did kick around the idea of two sequels. One was "Lost Souls," an adventure that allowed the player to experience the events surrounding Torment (both past and future) but the Nameless One wouldn't be in it - it would, however, feature Deionarra, some of the members of the player's first party (Xachariah), Fall-From-Grace, Ravel, Trias, and other major characters and see the Planescape universe from a different perspective. This didn't go much beyond a one-page vision statement, though, and I never submitted it for serious consideration.

One I felt less strongly about (but still liked) was "Planescape: Pariah", which allowed the player to take on the role of Dak'kon and try to unify the githzerai and githyanki, but again, that never went past the vision doc stage.

Thanks a lot, asshole! Now I'm going to bed knowing that Avellone's draft was better than the whole ToN.

:negative:
 
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Fairfax

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Bioware said it sold 600k total, not at launch ("In 1999, BioWare released Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, a Baldur's Gate expansion pack. It debuted at #1 worldwide and sold over 600,000 units").
Not at launch, but still within a year. It surely didn't sell only 156k in the US in that period, because in mid 2000 they re-released the original game as "Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga", with the expansion included. And if BG1 was off by 50%, I don't see why Tales wouldn't be off by a lot as well.

that conventional wisdom is supported by (1) the PC Data statistics which, even if off by 50% or 100% would still indicate a fairly tepid start;
Tepid =/= commercial failure. It was successful, just didn't make BG numbers.

(3) the fact that no one at Interplay debunked the "selling poorly" meme at the time it was current, as you would expect a major developer to do if the meme were, in fact, wrong.
If "commercially successful" doesn't debunk rumours of commercial failure, what does?

Interplay didn't share specific figures most of the time, and they weren't particularly forthcoming with their own employees. The loss of the D&D license is a good example. Interplay told employees it was an "accounting error", but in reality they failed to pay royalties.

But there is good reason to doubt that PS:T was adequately successful to justify a sequel.
The fact MCA worked on two pitches for a sequel suggests it was never off the table, otherwise he wouldn't have wasted his time on them.

Also, Fallout 3, which was much more important to Black Isle and Interplay, was put on hold for years in favour of other projects. That doesn't mean FO2 wasn't successful, there was a whole context for it.
 

ga♥

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You asked for data, I provided data from the leading PC game sales tracker. There is literally no other data that could be provided, short of Interplay's internal financials.

Cool, then claiming it sold poorly is bonker.
Can you explain why PS:T would be bundled with Soulbringer for $10 within two years of release if it were selling well?

I don't know... why the witcher 2 was bundled in 2013 just 2 years after release for 4 pounds hurr durr maybe this means it barely broke even herp derp.

http://www.dealspwn.com/witcher-1-2-bundle-4-gamefly-pc-139031

Honestly, if you're throwing out claims like "as far as we know, with 73k units sold from 1999-017 it could still be an amazing success" I don't really know what could persuade you.

The most compelling number is 400k, and that is directly from a Dev, but if you chose to believe a blogpost posted "somewhere in time" since you don't even know when it was posted, what methods were used and uses sentences like "sources that prefer to be anonymous" and on top of that was proven wrong on the other games listed on it, well yeah hard ad hell to convince me when you are just discussing for discussing sake and nothing more.

Let's say Sawyer comes here and says PoE sold 1 million copies but then MRY.myspace.com says that he went to all the game stores and checked with his eyes, plus he has some "anonymous sources" and he has come to the conclusion that PoE sold 100k. What would you say?
 

MRY

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Bioware said it sold 600k total, not at launch ("In 1999, BioWare released Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, a Baldur's Gate expansion pack. It debuted at #1 worldwide and sold over 600,000 units").
Not at launch, but still within a year.
Where are you getting within a year?

It surely didn't sell only 156k in the US in that period, because in mid 2000 they re-released the original game as "Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga", with the expansion included. And if BG1 was off by 50%, I don't see why Tales wouldn't be off by a lot as well.
Not following, sorry.

If "commercially successful" doesn't debunk rumours of commercial failure, what does?
Err, something like, "Contrary to what people have said, Planescape: Torment more than doubled its production costs and exceeded our projections by 50%." I just find it very weird that you, who are generally apt to turn a sharp, skeptical eye toward corporate talk, wouldn't see that here. "People say my game was a failure, but actually it was commercially successful" without more is corporate speak for "it didn't put us out of business." At least, that's how I hear it.

Interplay didn't share specific figures most of the time, and they weren't particularly forthcoming with their own employees.
Except with entry-level scripters, apparently. :D

I don't know... why the witcher 2 was bundled in 2013 just 2 years after release for 4 pounds hurr durr maybe this means it barely broke even herp derp.
It's like digital distribution changed the game industry or something.

if you chose to believe a blogpost posted "somewhere in time" since you don't even know when it was posted, what methods were used and uses sentences like "sources that prefer to be anonymous" and on top of that was proven wrong on the other games listed on it.
I know you struggle with English, but you do know that the blog post's date is in the link I provided and that the blog post provides the date of the sales data, right? I mean, you don't know what PC Data was, who Desslock was, why not bother reading and learning a little?

If you look at any discussion of PS:T's sales figures from its release until present, none ever describe the game as a commercial success other than the odd "debunking" interview where the corporate rep will say something like "it wasn't a failure." Every major source covering the industry routinely called it a commercial failure -- for example, here's Gamespy listing it among its most underrated games of all time "because of poor sales": "We've reviewed hundreds of games, some that should have been instant classics, or at least successful titles but just never seemed to get their due," said Dave "Fargo" Kosak, executive editor of GameSpy. "We wanted to set the record straight by giving these games the credit they deserve."

To believe that PS:T was a commercial hit, you have to believe:

(1) A commercial hit would've been put in a bargain-bin bundle with a shovelware title within two years of release prior to digital distribution.
(2) Every source covering the game industry was wrong about its being a failure, yet neither Interplay nor BIS sought to correct the record at the time.
(3) Every RPG nerd following the industry was wrong about its being a failure, and yet no Interplay or BIS employee posted to correct the record.
(4) PC Data's numbers were wildly off.

I dunno, it just seems to me that Occam's razor gives a straightforward and easy explanation: PS:T did not sell well, but did turn a profit, eventually.

I'm not sure why the "PS:T was always a rip-roaring hit" is such an important narrative, when even purely from a propaganda standpoint, it seems better to say that it is an eternal classic with long legs.
 

Infinitron

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MRY The real point, I think, is that there's a conventional wisdom that PS:T didn't just not sell well, but that it was a legendarily massive flop that almost nobody brought. The fact that it actually sold more than Fallout immediately gives the lie to that. So at the very least, it's a more complex issue than most people realize.
 

MRY

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MRY The real point, I think, is that there's a conventional wisdom that PS:T didn't just not sell well, but that it was a legendarily massive flop that almost nobody brought. The fact that it actually sold more than Fallout immediately gives the lie to that. So at the very least, it's a more complex issue than most people realize.
I thought that myth was well-debunked by now?

That said, I think going by copies sold is misleading, especially through the lens of present-day sales figures. For example, I remember reading about the copies sold for Lucas Arts adventure games, and IIRC, Primordia outsold many of them in terms of units, at least if you excluded the re-release of those games on digital distribution platforms. PC games just sold very few copies back in the day.

PS:T was right at the cusp of a shift in that, though -- regardless whether you take the 400k figure or what, Baldur's Gate and Diablo sold orders of magnitude more than PS:T. PS:T fell on the wrong side of the dividing line temporally; by the time it came out, there were other PC RPGs that were putting up millions of sales. In that context, it was universally viewed as not achieving escape velocity, and nothing since has really disabused me of that impression. But by the time GOG distribution became available, PS:T became a genuine hit (like the older Lucas titles have).

In terms of the comparison to FO, I think it's a little off. The reason why FO was a valuable "franchise" is that it was franchisable -- its setting and rules were unencumbered by licensing and they were iconic in a way that PS:T's weren't. PS:T utilized its setting to great effect, but IMO the Planescape setting would've had diminishing returns because a big part of its impact was its novelty. The value of FO's setting was that it was an amalgamation of popular post-apocalyptic cliches, so you could reuse it forever the way you can Tolkien or Star Wars. The familiarity is its appeal, so the more familiar it becomes, the more valuable. Anyway, but for FO3, I'm not sure people would've assumed FO was way more successful than Torment... In my mind the two were comparably niche titles in comparison to BG/Diablo.
 

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In terms of the comparison to FO, I think it's a little off. The reason why FO was a valuable "franchise" is that it was franchisable -- its setting and rules were unencumbered by licensing and they were iconic in a way that PS:T's weren't. PS:T utilized its setting to great effect, but IMO the Planescape setting would've had diminishing returns because a big part of its impact was its novelty. The value of FO's setting was that it was an amalgamation of popular post-apocalyptic cliches, so you could reuse it forever the way you can Tolkien or Star Wars. The familiarity is its appeal, so the more familiar it becomes, the more valuable.

Basically what I was trying to say in my first post in this discussion.
 

Fairfax

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Where are you getting within a year?
The expansion was discontinued after the bundles were released. And assuming the numbers were roughly half of real sales, it sold around 312k in the US in that period. With sales from the rest of the world, 600k in a year or by the end of 2000 is not far off.

Err, something like, "Contrary to what people have said, Planescape: Torment more than doubled its production costs and exceeded our projections by 50%." I just find it very weird that you, who are generally apt to turn a sharp, skeptical eye toward corporate talk, wouldn't see that here. "People say my game was a failure, but actually it was commercially successful" without more is corporate speak for "it didn't put us out of business." At least, that's how I hear it.
I don't see why MCA would use corporate talk several years after the game's release and his departure, specially considering how openly he talks about everything else from that period.

Except with entry-level scripters, apparently. :D
Who knows where he got that information from? The quote is from after a lot of people left BIS (including himself) and Obsidian was founded, so it could've been Feargus, for example. He's always had a huge mouth.
 

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