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Company News Taking Care of Business - Iron Tower Studio 2018 Business Diary

Mustawd

Guest
And people get confused with real financial forecasting and forecasting with make believe marketing gibberish with not one accurate or real datum. Finance and marketing are polar opposites

Wtf are you talking about? Financial models regularly use sales forecast data that is specifically provided by the sales as well as the operations team (in tandem a lot of times because operations will be able to say if and when a product can be shipped).

Google what a dcf model is (discounted cash flow model). One of the biggest inputs is sales forecasts, which is 100% provided by the sales team. As someone who had worked with a fair share of FP&A teams, I cam confidently say that if you're making a midel without the input of various teams (tax, sales, operations, dacilities, etc) then you're doing it wrong. Of course I mean in hpuse forecasts. Sell side as well as buy side have to make best estimates based on a variety of inputs and the analyst's own intuition.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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California
What's interesting though is that AoD and Underrail sold roughly the same number of copies, even though the Codex vote was split 50/50. So maybe there is a scientific method that would allow you to narrow it down and make accurate forecasts, but it's not my area of expertise.
I've mentioned before that I assume this feature of Steamspy is wildly inaccurate, but it asserts that only ~20% of owners of each of those games bought the other one: http://steamspy.com/audience/230070/250520

Note that Steamspy also claims that ~25% of Dungeon Rats owners don't on AOD: http://steamspy.com/audience/230070/531930
 

YES!

Hi, I'm Roqua
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Messages
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And people get confused with real financial forecasting and forecasting with make believe marketing gibberish with not one accurate or real datum. Finance and marketing are polar opposites

Wtf are you talking about? Financial models regularly use sales forecast data that is specifically provided by the sales as well as the operations team (in tandem a lot of times because operations will be able to say if and when a product can be shipped).

Google what a dcf model is (discounted cash flow model). One of the biggest inputs is sales forecasts, which is 100% provided by the sales team. As someone who had worked with a fair share of FP&A teams, I cam confidently say that if you're making a midel without the input of various teams (tax, sales, operations, dacilities, etc) then you're doing it wrong. Of course I mean in hpuse forecasts. Sell side as well as buy side have to make best estimates based on a variety of inputs and the analyst's own intuition.

Sales isn't marketing. Sales is based on actual events. You didn't address or incorporate marketing into anything you stated. And you are talking about staple products. What do you think the major inputs are for a company rolling out a new hipster drink is? Or avocado toast? Or some hipster hair product? Have you ever worked at a company that is driven by marketing and how the product is perceived by targeted demographics of young retards? Its like some sort of anti-science nightmare. Until you have, you have a very skewed view of the horror of voodoo magic belief that goes into marketing driven products.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Sales isn't marketing.

It is in a lot of companies. Marketing/sales are commonly one team.

Sales is based on actual events.

Not sure what this means. Sales teams can provide forecasts in terms of possible units shipped. That being said, business to business sales tend to be a bit more predictable than selling to retail consumers. Mostly because b2b sales usually have a more predictable model in terms of what they're looking to purchase. Retail consumers are a lot more volatile due to a variety of factors, which can include brand loyalty, social media, price sensitivity, etc.

You didn't address or incorporate marketing into anything you stated

Not sure I know what you mean. See first post above. Marketing/sales a lot of times shares team resources and have similar strategies. In addition, there is sually a VP woh is in charge of both. But again, this is dependent on the company as well as the industry.

Regardless, in a typical financial model, input from both is used (assuming they are discreet teams). Since sales provides revenue forecasts, and marketing provides marketing expense forecasts.

And you are talking about staple products. What do you think the major inputs are for a company rolling out a new hipster drink is? Or avocado toast? Or some hipster hair product? Have you ever worked at a company that is driven by marketing and how the product is perceived by targeted demographics of young retards?

I've worked for a company in a very competitive space, where customization of the product was a priority. Was it a typical retail company? No. Have i audited retail companies, and restaurants, and hotels, and private equity companies, and government sponsored entities, and insurance companies, and real estate investment companies, and not for profits, defense companies (think McDonnell Douglass type), and software companies, and SaaS companies, and software with embedded hardware companies, and energy companies, and oil refineries, and petroleum drilling companies? Sure.

Until you have, you have a very skewed view of the horror of voodoo magic belief that goes into marketing driven products.

Yah, you have no idea wtf you're talking about.
 
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YES!

Hi, I'm Roqua
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It is in a lot of companies. Marketing/sales are commonly one team.

And market is minor and used for awareness instead of manipulation in a lot of companies. In a lot of companies they are major and focus on magic and manipulation. And it works because people, especially for the younger markets, are stupid. It also works on the markets targeting old people but in a different way (more with services instead of products - such as investments or insurance).

Since sales provides revenue forecasts, and marketing provides marketing expense forecasts.

I've never seen a sales team do a revenue forecast. That is a finance function as far as I am aware. But I've never worked in a commission driven sales market. Sales sell and the actual finance professionals takes the hard data of 'what is' and uses that as a factor in predicting what 'will be.'

You are ignoring that in a lot of businesses marketing's success drives sales, so marketing attempts to predict sales based on voodoo. If the product is successful it is a marketing success, not a product success. Are you one of those idiots that will pay 3x more for a shirt with a specific name on it? Or sneakers with an 800% mark up? If so, you are part of the voodoo make-believe nonsense.

I honestly don't know what you are talking about or if you know what you are talking about. Marketing expense forecast? They work on budgets. Is it them spending all their budget every single fucking time? A forecast is a model to predict something. It takes zero effort to add up costs, and the forecast would be really accurate every time. That's like saying HR does turn-over forecasts. It makes no sense to call anything that can be done with simple math a forecast. Your marketing expense forecast is a budget request to be approved, modified, or denied. And it has nothing to do with the actual forecasts solid marketing professionals do in some companies, and is used as a weighted measure of the real forecasts done in finance that are discussed and used to make decisions at the big table.

What kind of auditor are you? Some sort of new age business health auditor or some type of data analyst that reviews a business and gives them advice? Because the auditors that work in finance use financial terms and definitions and are focused on the actual.

Let me ask you this to see if we are both coming from a hard and actual finance perspective - do you recommend people pay off their home debt?
 

Goral

Arcane
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Vault Dweller
IMO one of the mistakes you've made was reducing the price too much too soon (-40% 4 months after the release, -75% just a year or even earlier after the release). Unless you've had financial problems you've had no reason to do so because in the long run you've lost a lot of money.
The other mistake was giving away way too many free keys to about anyone who asked (hyperbole). You've given it to youtubers with less than 5k subscribers, much less in some cases. It's pointless IMO. Choose 1-2 YT with many subscribers and with non-retarded content and that's it (so that people could see how "The New world" looks like on YT). And please, don't give them an advance copy so they can spoil the game (1 day before official release would be OK). Giving away 50 keys was too much IMO. Then again TNW will have a demo so why give keys at all?
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
Dungeon Rats just wasn't that interesting...
Even games with greatest turn-based combat (Jagged Alliance 2, Temole of Elemental Evil, Silent Storm, Dark Sun) always had a lot of content besides combat.
Dungeon Rats didn't have combat of comparable strength, and it was absolutely lacking in all other aspect. It even lacked in aspect which are closely related to combat.
Take a look at Fallout Tactics (DR and FT are both combat focus games with fallout inspired combat system) - difference between game levels are night and day. FT might not have inceredbly complex combat system, but since it has interesting/complex level design - it works. Just like one button Dark Souls combat works thanks to its level design and enemy placement.
Dungeon Rats levels/arenas are just primitive.
 
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YES!

Hi, I'm Roqua
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Dungeon Rats just wasn't that interesting...
Even games with greatest turn-based combat (Jagged Alliance 2, Temole of Elemental Evil, Silent Storm, Dark Sun) always had a lot of content besides combat.
Dungeon Rats didn't have combat of comparable strength, and it was absolutely lacking in all other aspect. It even lacked in aspect which are closely related to combat.
Take a look at Fallout Tactics (DR and FT are both combat focus games with fallout inspired combat system) - difference between game levels are night and day. FT might not have inceredbly complex combat system, but since it has interesting/complex level design - it works. Just like one button Dark Souls combat works thanks to its level design and enemy placement.
Dungeon Rats levels/arenas are just primitive.

What other content did SS have besides combat? It was mission, mission, mission, with some talking and setting up in between. DR had at least as much content. Same with FOT.

Maybe it is map size where the combat took place? Both AoD and DR had little combat maps whereas SS and FOT had much bigger ones, but neither of those games (outside of the base in FOT) had much going on outside the maps. I think they are comparable if you look at the full maps of DR versus SS and FOT.
 

YES!

Hi, I'm Roqua
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IMO one of the mistakes you've made was reducing the price too much too soon (-40% 4 months after the release, -75% just a year or even earlier after the release). Unless you've had financial problems you've had no reason to do so because in the long run you've lost a lot of money.
The other mistake was giving away way too many free keys to about anyone who asked (hyperbole). You've given it to youtubers with less than 5k subscribers, much less in some cases. It's pointless IMO. Choose 1-2 YT with many subscribers and with non-retarded content and that's it (so that people could see how "The New world" looks like on YT). And please, don't give them an advance copy so they can spoil the game (1 day before official release would be OK). Giving away 50 keys was too much IMO. Then again TNW will have a demo so why give keys at all?

Or ask yourself if you really want the sales of the type of people who decide to buy a game or not by watching a someone else playing it on YouTube.
 

PrettyDeadman

Guest
What other content did SS have besides combat? It was mission, mission, mission, with some talking and setting up in between. DR had at least as much content. Same with FOT.
It didn't really have more non-combat context, but the combat was infinitely more complex.
It had steallth and preparation (moving your guys to position) on maps which are 20-30 times bigger and infinitely more complex.
It had great destructability which encanched combat from both tactical point of view and added wow effect.
It had dynamic movement during combat. covers and etc.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
SS also had different purposes to combat, never mind how sparse those were. In addition to killing everyone, you had the odd stealth job and an occasional defence objective. Gave some variations though there could have been more of those.
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
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the next tactical game (The New World’s spin-off) will take place during the Mutiny and feature a fully customizable squad (you’ll be able to create an entire party yourself), mission-based structure, base building and defense.

I was thinking maybe use Dead state's structure, using a blueprint of the ship as a map or something. Wouldn't need a lot of story or c&c, as long as it has some solid mechanics.
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
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Vault Dweller
IMO one of the mistakes you've made was reducing the price too much too soon (-40% 4 months after the release, -75% just a year or even earlier after the release). Unless you've had financial problems you've had no reason to do so because in the long run you've lost a lot of money.
The other mistake was giving away way too many free keys to about anyone who asked (hyperbole). You've given it to youtubers with less than 5k subscribers, much less in some cases. It's pointless IMO. Choose 1-2 YT with many subscribers and with non-retarded content and that's it (so that people could see how "The New world" looks like on YT). And please, don't give them an advance copy so they can spoil the game (1 day before official release would be OK). Giving away 50 keys was too much IMO. Then again TNW will have a demo so why give keys at all?

Or ask yourself if you really want the sales of the type of people who decide to buy a game or not by watching a someone else playing it on YouTube.

Yet you keep using the word "hipsters". Who gives a flying fuck if someone bought your game off watching a youtube vid? In a perfect world TNW would become the gaming hipster flagship of "true oldschool gaming bro, I'm just hardcore like that", sell a bunch and have ITS laugh all the way to the bank.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Even games with greatest turn-based combat (Jagged Alliance 2, Temole of Elemental Evil, Silent Storm, Dark Sun) always had a lot of content besides combat. ... Take a look at Fallout Tactics...
These are full-scale games sold at full price. We're talking about a $5 game put together in 10 months. I'm not asking if it's a great game (it's not) or how to sell a million copies (you can't), I'm asking if there's a 100k copies market for such games.

Vault Dweller
IMO one of the mistakes you've made was reducing the price too much too soon (-40% 4 months after the release, -75% just a year or even earlier after the release). Unless you've had financial problems you've had no reason to do so because in the long run you've lost a lot of money.
The other mistake was giving away way too many free keys to about anyone who asked (hyperbole). You've given it to youtubers with less than 5k subscribers, much less in some cases. It's pointless IMO. Choose 1-2 YT with many subscribers and with non-retarded content and that's it (so that people could see how "The New world" looks like on YT). And please, don't give them an advance copy so they can spoil the game (1 day before official release would be OK). Giving away 50 keys was too much IMO. Then again TNW will have a demo so why give keys at all?
It's complicated.

First, each game has an expiration date (at which point it's mostly forgotten and no longer being talked about, which is the most vital aspect). For many indie games it's about a year or less. We managed to stretch it to 2 years, which is quite a feat, but this period ended 5 months ago. I believe that discounts will be less effective after the 'expiration date' so waiting until people stop talking about it and then offering deeper discounts to entice them is a losing strategy because your game will be invisible by then. So like it or not, we have to go through the full discount cycle while there's still some interest.

We ran 15% off 3 times. The first sale was ok, the second kinda ok, the third sale wasn't very effective at all. So we moved to 25% off, rinse and repeat.

Second, we didn't go overboard with YT-bers, we gave away maybe 50 keys, which cost us nothing and not a lost sale. If a YT-ber has even a 1,000 subscribers and only 50 people would watch his/her AoD video and only 1 person would buy it, it's already more than we would have had otherwise. If anything, maybe we were too conservative there. Essentially, it's free publicity no matter how you look at it.

Edit: Just got a notification that 6 games I once wanted to buy are on sale now, 50-75% off discounts. It's nice but I've already moved on, have other games I bought but didn't have a chance to play much yet, or games I'll definitely buy in the near future. So, not too little but definitely too late.
 
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Zanzoken

Arcane
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Messages
3,559
Vault Dweller said:
I hope that [DR] will keep selling over the next 3 years and make a more convincing case when it’s time to make a decision.

Do you have a specific success/failure threshold in mind where you would consider ditching TB tactics and going for a spin-off of a different type?

If so, would that be an expansion or potentially something else entirely?

Vault Dweller said:
... the next tactical game (The New World’s spin-off) will take place during the Mutiny and feature a fully customizable squad (you’ll be able to create an entire party yourself), mission-based structure, base building and defense.

This sounds pretty awesome btw. Rolling a party from scratch IWD-style is a lost art in today's market, where everyone wants Bioware imaginary friends. I like to experiment with different builds and party compositions and it's much easier when you can just make the characters you want right from the beginning.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
Vault Dweller said:
I hope that [DR] will keep selling over the next 3 years and make a more convincing case when it’s time to make a decision.

Do you have a specific success/failure threshold in mind where you would consider ditching TB tactics and going for a spin-off of a different type?

If so, would that be an expansion or potentially something else entirely?
The way the game ends, there isn't much room for expansion but there's plenty of room for a pretty cool sequel for a certain ending. The New World would have to do extremely well for us to consider it. For the sake of throwing numbers, let's say 250k copies in the first year. Basically, unprecedented success (even though it's only a quarter of what Darkest Dungeon sold) and a strong demand for a sequel. Needless to say, we'll be more than happy to do the Inquisition game instead, which is our plan A.

So the only question here is do we spend 12 months on a tactical game or switch to the next full-scale RPG right away.
 

Eyestabber

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We can't do anything about these issues so we'll ignore them and focus on trying to make the next tactical game better for people who like tactical TB combat a lot, play on Hard, and don't mind restarting a few times.

Holy shit, this quote right here should be engraved on your tombstone one day, VD. Making RPGs more attractive to people who dislike RPGs is the very essence of :decline: and I'm glad to see you guys unwilling to compromise. Retards gonna retard, there isn't much you can do other than supporting eugenics.

- too difficult on Hard but I refuse to play on Easy because it's humiliating, make Hard easy or else
- ran out of food, don't want to restart
- expected a game like AoD but this game has nothing but combat

We can't do anything about these issues.
LOL, that's totaly not true. For the first one change the names of the difficulty modes. For the third one put "Tactics" in the fucking name of the game. Done (but there's nothing to do about the second one without changing the game, though).

Just say you don't WANT to do anything about these issues, it's more honnest (and totaly understandable :lol:).

Case in point.
 

dmonin

Arcane
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Make the Codex Great Again!
That's really awesome information. Thanks for sharing, Vince!

Fantastic stuff. Hopefully additional indie developers will take up Vince's offer and publish similar pieces of their own.

Easy. I need just to finish... :D
 

YES!

Hi, I'm Roqua
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Messages
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IMO one of the mistakes you've made was reducing the price too much too soon (-40% 4 months after the release, -75% just a year or even earlier after the release). Unless you've had financial problems you've had no reason to do so because in the long run you've lost a lot of money.
The other mistake was giving away way too many free keys to about anyone who asked (hyperbole). You've given it to youtubers with less than 5k subscribers, much less in some cases. It's pointless IMO. Choose 1-2 YT with many subscribers and with non-retarded content and that's it (so that people could see how "The New world" looks like on YT). And please, don't give them an advance copy so they can spoil the game (1 day before official release would be OK). Giving away 50 keys was too much IMO. Then again TNW will have a demo so why give keys at all?

Or ask yourself if you really want the sales of the type of people who decide to buy a game or not by watching a someone else playing it on YouTube.

Yet you keep using the word "hipsters". Who gives a flying fuck if someone bought your game off watching a youtube vid? In a perfect world TNW would become the gaming hipster flagship of "true oldschool gaming bro, I'm just hardcore like that", sell a bunch and have ITS laugh all the way to the bank.

I'd rather be smart enough to be able to invent something that would kill all people recording themselves play video games and all those watching them. And I'd laugh all the way to the electric chair. And God would smile as he place me on his right side for being the savior of humanity.
 

Jaedar

Arcane
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Messages
9,840
Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
We hired a marketing firm that had established contacts with the media, which increased the chance of getting through to sites and magazines, nothing more. These days that's something worth paying for.
Did this actually work though? Hard to see referrals from Steam (I'm assuming), but iirc websites tell you where people found the link to you. Do you think you got enough traffic from media to make it worthwhile?
 
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First, each game has an expiration date (at which point it's mostly forgotten and no longer being talked about, which is the most vital aspect). For many indie games it's about a year or less. We managed to stretch it to 2 years, which is quite a feat, but this period ended 5 months ago. I believe that discounts will be less effective after the 'expiration date' so waiting until people stop talking about it and then offering deeper discounts to entice them is a losing strategy because your game will be invisible by then. So like it or not, we have to go through the full discount cycle while there's still some interest.

We ran 15% off 3 times. The first sale was ok, the second kinda ok, the third sale wasn't very effective at all. So we moved to 25% off, rinse and repeat.

Second, we didn't go overboard with YT-bers, we gave away maybe 50 keys, which cost us nothing and not a lost sale. If a YT-ber has even a 1,000 subscribers and only 50 people would watch his/her AoD video and only 1 person would buy it, it's already more than we would have had otherwise. If anything, maybe we were too conservative there. Essentially, it's free publicity no matter how you look at it.

Edit: Just got a notification that 6 games I once wanted to buy are on sale now, 50-75% off discounts. It's nice but I've already moved on, have other games I bought but didn't have a chance to play much yet, or games I'll definitely buy in the near future. So, not too little but definitely too late.

Could making a Director Cut after a year mitigate this lost of interest from public?
 

Goral

Arcane
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Messages
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How much is Goral's salary?
Whose alt are you? Also, Infinitron rating your post funny is pure gold :D.
So like it or not, we have to go through the full discount cycle while there's still some interest.
You might be right, still I would suggest that you would make TNW sales less often and not as drastic. Shadow Tactics after a year hasn't gone more than 50% and these deals are quite rare. For Age of Decadence at some point there wasn't a month when it wasn't on sale. Hopefully much better graphics will attract more players and will extend its "expiration date".
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Messages
28,024
Could making a Director Cut after a year mitigate this lost of interest from public?
It works while there is some interest AND you have paid DLCs or extra content or visual upgrades to roll into it. Making a Director Cut now would be like making it for Oblivion now - nobody cares about it at this point. Plus without a media push nobody would even know about it. The media might write about Oblivion but they won't write about some two-bit indie studio repackaging their game.

You might be right, still I would suggest that you would make TNW sales less often and not as drastic.
You don't go on sale, you don't sell. Simple as that. You wait too long and then start discounting, you miss your window. People tend to buy games when other people are playing and discussing them. That's your window. For example, there used to be a time when we'd sell 3-4,000 copies a day at 50-60% off. Now we sell 200-300 a day at 75% off (or 60% off the new price). See the difference?

Shadow Tactics after a year hasn't gone more than 50% and these deals are quite rare.
You don't discount a game that's selling well at full price or at a minor discount. You discount it when it stops selling. Shadow Tactics is a very successful game that sold 400k copies in the first year. AoD sold 40k copies in the first year if we count 2 years of early access sales, 25k without it.

For Age of Decadence at some point there wasn't a month when it wasn't on sale.
Only in the fall, when Steam runs 3 monthly sales in a row. Any other time we run a sale once every 3-4 months. Steam requires at least 8 weeks between sales (the fall events are the only exception).

Hopefully much better graphics will attract more players and will extend its "expiration date".
Better graphics help convincing people who are already interested and visited the store page, but they aren't good enough to drive people there.

We hired a marketing firm that had established contacts with the media, which increased the chance of getting through to sites and magazines, nothing more. These days that's something worth paying for.
Did this actually work though?
Yes. They did a pretty good job and we'll definitely use their services in the future.
 

Goral

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Shadow Tactics is a very successful game that sold 400k copies in the first year.
But supposedly they almost went bankrupt and if you'll read their posts on Steam and on the gamasutra article they aren't satisfied with sales.

Even with a rather successful release, it's still really hard to reach the people out there – despite all those great reviews and press coverage we luckily had. So those are the things that still didn’t work out as intended
And yet they don't want to go lower than 50% to reach more customers.

But you might be right and I'm just too optimistic.
 

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