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Eternity PoE II: Deadfire Sales Analysis Thread

AMG

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 15, 2012
Messages
374
How would soulless babies work on its own? You know next to nothing about their world and its the first time playing with your character. You're even supposed to be a complete foreigner in that particular land. It's just not strong enough to entangle you emotionally from the start.
Likely why it was rejected.

They could make one of the soulless babies your kid, though that would rub quite a few people the wrong way, being forced to roleplay a father/mother.
Even Bethesda had enough balls to use this plot device. Terribly so, but still.

It doesn't need to happen to you for you to relate to something tragic and painful. Seeing your character's father murdered will get you deep down. Being told through a bunch of dialogues that babies are born weird this year doesn't carry the same weight.

You're really overplaying it. You don't even interact with Gorion in Candlekeep at all. Just stating that a character is supposed to be a father figure for your PC is not enough to establish any sort of emotional connection. Did you cry when daddy Neeson left you in Vault in Fallout 3 :lol:?

I wouldn't call BG1 story personal at all. Aside from the initial cutscene you're just strolling around and fixing problems plaguing the countryside. It just so happens that the guy who is after you is also the one behind all the bad shit happening everywhere. The godhood shit doesn't really kick in until BG2.
 

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
Deutschland über alles. I'd say ELEX is a much more popular genre and should've sold even more, but eh, I don't care. The question of why PoE2 doesn't seem to be selling great is still relevant. Is it because the nostalgia wore off in PoE1? Is it because of marketing? Is it because PoE1 was a bit garbage-y and was only tolerable in specific circumstances? The general public thinking the gameplay is antiquated? Those are interesting questions to ask, too bad we have no-one to ask.
My list for the sales situation in no particular order would go like:

DIRECT SEQUEL.
People who played the first game at launch and didn't finish it, or who did finish it but now it's three years later and they've forgotten most of the story, probably don't much care for playing as the same character and having reactivity for their choices. New players don't want to start the story at chapter 2.

FIFTY DOLLARS.
In terms of production values it's a clear step up from the first game, but it's not AAA level, and that's what a $50 price tag is saying. I still wonder if it was strategically priced to take advantage of the steam summer sale.

IT'S OBSIDIAN.
You know what "Obsidian game" means: great writing, buggy pile of shit. Even among people who only know Obsidian casually and don't know the great writers are all gone, there's no reason to get the game at launch when they can get it a few months down the line. If word of mouth is positive after launch then the game could see a sales boost from these people deciding to buy it now after all, but...

CAME OUT TOO SOON.
Obsidian fans will tolerate bugs, glitches, the odd crash. But Obsidian fans are a rapidly dwindling demographic, and they need to be replaced by something. The whole tone of this game makes it clear they're trying to nab some casual gamers and the recently-betrayed Bioware romance market. Releasing a big RPG bug-free is probably impossible, but for these people it's got to be somewhat polished. Instead, this is the first Obsidian game I've seen where the story is broken. Characters decide to have it out once and for all after one interaction, romance trigger during the introductory conversation, save importing is inside-out. Ironically they'd probably have been better off focusing on this and ignoring gameplay bugs.

BALANCE.
If you want to have positive word of mouth, one thing to 100% not do is give the impression your game is still in development. The huge balance changes after release must have put off any number of people who don't want to have the rug pulled out from under them 30 hours into a playthrough. Nerfing the Sword Of Instant Death is one thing, but cutting everything in half while people are playing? While more people are playing than will ever be playing in the future because it's four weeks after launch? I wonder how many people got pushed off about that and told their friends to hold off.

MEDIA SATURATION.
There's a million things to do. There's more video games than any one person can ever play, not to mention the myriad other avenues of entertainment available. Not buying the game now because you want to wait until the patches are done and the DLC is out can very easily turn I to not buying the game now and then not buying it ever because you have so much other stuff competing for your attention.

PoE lacks plot consistency and proper structure, so it makes sense people argue over what it was really about. They should have focused on the soul wheel and soulless baby thing, but they got muddled as the game went on.
It does not lack either of those things. There is too much prose and expository dialogue which is not interesting or entertaining enough in and of itself to command your attention, so people stop reading and then base their criticisms of the story on their memories of reading every third word or so three years ago.
 

Lycra Suit

Prophet
Possibly Retarded
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Political refugee in Canada
You're really overplaying it. You don't even interact with Gorion in Candlekeep at all. Just stating that a character is supposed to be a father figure for your PC is not enough to establish any sort of emotional connection. Did you cry when daddy Neeson left you in Vault in Fallout 3 :lol:?

I wouldn't call BG1 story personal at all. Aside from the initial cutscene you're just strolling around and fixing problems plaguing the countryside. It just so happens that the guy who is after you is also the one behind all the bad shit happeing everywhere. The godhood shit doesn't really kick in until BG2.

Yet one is well remembered by legions of players and a consistent seller on GOG after 20 years despite frankly mediocre gameplay (talking about the first) and dialogue. I wonder why? Maybe because the plot and characters were memorable? Is this why I keep seeing Minsk memes in 2018?
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
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Sep 23, 2015
Messages
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Pathfinder: Wrath
BG1 is a great adventure full of ideas and cool characters along for the ride. It might be unstructured (although placing BG the city at the end is a great move that intrigues you with its siren call) and the story simple, but that doesn't matter when you are in the second underground level of one of the best dungeons ever made in a cRPG, trying to avoid flame traps and fighting ghastly Doppelgangers. Being on the 13th floor of one of the worst dungeons ever made (Endless Paths) fighting kobolds, while the narrative is tapping its foot trying to convince you of its urgency, is just not the same thing.
 
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Trashos

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2015
Messages
3,413
In terms of production values it's a clear step up from the first game, but it's not AAA level, and that's what a $50 price tag is saying. I still wonder if it was strategically priced to correct the mistake of launching just before the steam summer sale.

Fixed it for you.
 

Atlantico

unida e indivisible
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I'll probably buy Deadfire TBH. Seems like an interesting game, and has made many people butthurt who have not even played the game.

Well I'll put my butt on the line and actually play the damn thing.
 

DalekFlay

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It does not lack either of those things. There is too much prose and expository dialogue which is not interesting or entertaining enough in and of itself to command your attention, so people stop reading and then base their criticisms of the story on their memories of reading every third word or so three years ago.

I don't agree with this. Granted I played PoE over three shifts, with months separating each shift because I was bored and needed to play other things, but I'm too anal to skip dialog or lore. I read all that shit and my opinion is that after a strong start leading into Defiance Bay the story goes down the crapper. The factions in Defiance Bay end up meaning nothing, the spy stuff is a wet fart, then you're heading to Twin Elms with a distinct lack of narrative thrust or excitement. Twin Elms itself is kind of a meh city with meh wilderness environments around it. Don't get me wrong, I don't bash the game outright like many here, I think it's a solid 7 or whatever, but the great writing, faction systems and setting that I wanted just aren't quite there like they should be.
 

Flou

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It got outsold by two different iteration of skyrim, and one of them is VR......Also got outsold by niche old games like rimworld and stardew valle. Oh well at least outsold the nu vampire,nu total war game and Battletech.


EDIT: I am amazed that witcher 3 still push such number of copies to be in lead gold.

Why are you amazed at that? The amount of games people own these days is staggering compared to what they owned in the 90s. I still haven't bought Witcher 3 and I know I will enjoy the game.

Rimworld isn't an old game, isn't it still on early access and that genre has a following as does something like Stardew Valley.
Also it helps that those games cost less than 30 euros/dollars/squirrel skins vs. 45 for Deadfire.
 

Flou

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PoE 1 sales two months after the release, estimated by Steamspy: 437k

I don't think they were that naive to expect D:OS 1/2 sales for PoE 2, but 200k sales is very underwhelming to say the least.

Also worth noticing is that Tyranny is sitting around 562k sold copies on Steam. With GoG it should have topped 600k units which would have made it quite profitable (by now) for Paradox.
Deadfire should be able to reach those numbers in a year. Definately not a massive hit everyone at the studio were hoping for, but at least it'n not completely dead in the water.

If anything these numbers should make Feargus actually fucking greenlight a turn-based game instead of creating 3 very samey games in a row (which also shows in the sales numbers imo).
 

Flou

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This. Full VO didn't improve the game's quality by 0.0001%, but it took away precious time and money from other areas. It baffles me how clueless Feargus is about their market. He is just chasing the trends again which Larian set up for indie games, not realizing that it is not applicable for every game.

I don't think decision was completely made on the market and what Obsidian thinks the playerbase expects.
Larian's decision forced Feargus to make it. Deadfire has been and will be compared to DOS2 in the gaming media. If one game has full VO and the other one doesn't, it would hurt the reviews.
 

AwesomeButton

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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath

Atlantico

unida e indivisible
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fantadomat

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Lacrymas

Arcane
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Pathfinder: Wrath
No manual is Cleve's genius move of forcing players to recount/relive/recapture their childhood experiences of being confused by game mechanics and blindly stumbling through character builds and the game world.
 

Rev

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Messages
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In the case of a game that's 50 euros, very low. Maybe at most a few thousand.
Yeah, it's been released only two months ago and it's not been discounted very much as of now (only 15%) so I don't think there are so many people who bought it and never played it, maybe between 10 and 30 thousands if I have to take a guess.

PoE1 instead has been on numerous discounts and even in some Humble Bundle deals, so the total number of owners is definetely higher than 1,2 million (and the same is true for D:OS). Impressive numbers for D:OS2: almost 1,7 million players.
 

vonAchdorf

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Sep 20, 2014
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PoE has been given away for free by Twitch - but this doesn't factor into the Steam owner numbers.
 

IHaveHugeNick

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Yeah I think it Deadfire should break 500k eventually with discounts and bundles and eventual GOTY edition and whatnot. It's definitely a massive disappointment for them though. Ultimately I blame RtWP - overwhelming sentiment is that combat is incomprehensible for newcomer players.
 

Bester

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Ultimately I blame RtWP - overwhelming sentiment is that combat is incomprehensible for newcomer players.
I blame that PoE1 was shit. Lot of people bought it, but how many finished? Like 10%?

Why buy 2 when you never finished 1.
 

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