Review RPG Codex Review: Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear

[Infinitron]

You can also look at the metrics another way: the SoD launch patch added achievements to the base game, and the earliest base game cheevo is sitting at 6.6%. That means that about 35k people have played through [warning: heavy spoilers!] Gorion's death since SoD came out, which is quite respectable; conversely, fewer than 3k have actually finished the base game since then. That makes me think that many of these new active players are in the middle of a base game playthrough, and not an expansion playthrough.

More handwavey math. If ~50k new BG:EE owners translates to a 6.6% achievement rate in the base game, then the expansion might be owned by (50,000 / (6.6/0.9)) people.

 

[Manmower]

If ~50k new BG:EE owners translates to 6.6% achievement rate in the base game, then the expansion might be owned by (50,000 / (6.6/0.9)) people.

What kind of jew magic is this? Speak in goy terms!

Spoiler

They still dun goofed. No way is Trent happy with those numbers.

 

[MRY]

Am I missing some math here? Steamspy says that BG:EE has sold 540k copies. "The End of Korlasz" achievement triggers very early in Siege of Dragonspear, apparently, and .9% of BG:EE players have that achievement. Doesn't that mean approximately 50k people have gotten that achievement (and thus must own the game) on Steam?

[EDIT: As Infinitron points out, I'm a fool. I guess approximately 5k.]

 

[Infinitron]

Am I missing some math here? Steamspy says that BG:EE has sold 540k copies. "The End of Korlasz" achievement triggers very early in Siege of Dragonspear, apparently, and .9% of BG:EE players have that achievement. Doesn't that mean approximately 50k people have gotten that achievement (and thus must own the game) on Steam?

That's 0.9, not 9.

 

[MRY]

Wow, I'm a moron. :/

 

[Athelas]

I'm sure they'd be ecstatic to quit their jobs in favor of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on a game series that spawned such unique characters like Aerie and Minsc.

Eh you do realize BG2 is one of Ziets' favourite games and that on several occasions he talked about cool concepts for a sequel (such as a divine-level campaign where the player starts off as a deity)?

I should've been more clear that I was talking specifically about SoD, a 'fan-servicey' interquel that was meant to provide an explanation for the canon party at the start of BG2, among other things, which would have put some limits on creative input. And as great as Ziets' idea sounds, it's very far removed from what BG did with the Slayer/divinity concept (which never went beyond it being the typical 'ultimate' power/damage increase common to RPG protagonists).

 

[Fairfax]

Let's how PoE:TWM fares in comparison. Most popular DLC achievement is :

3.2%
Soulbinder
Unlock all the powers of a soulbound weapon.

Roughly 21,316 players. You do get a couple of them very early in the DLC, so I'd say it counts.
There's always the group of compulsive buyers that want to have all DLC before even starting a game, and those who bought this after finishing the game but have yet to touch it. Only multiple devs could tell us the average % of players who buy and actually play DLC content like this.

Still, it's worth reminding that only 9.2% finished the game, or ~61,285 players. Compulsive buyers aside, which should be a relatively small number, it takes satisfied players to purchase more content 6-12 months after launch. I'd say it'd be unreasonable to expect a number higher than the amount of people who finished the game.
That said, an educated guess would be somewhere between 25,000-60,000. Best case scenario, everyone who finished it bought the DLC (hundreds of codexers didn't, but it's just an exercise) + compulsive buyers, so ~70K. About 3.28 times the number of players who got the earliest achievement in TWM.

Using that same metric, the best case scenario for SoD would be 13,257 copies sold. However, SoD is a different beast, as a lot of people finished BG in between months and 17 years ago and were only interested in the expansion. Even if you double or triple that number, it'd reach the overly optimistic 40k I mentioned earlier.

Disregarding regional prices, the revenue from 13,257 copies would be $185,598, while 40k copies would give them $560,000.

 

[Delterius]

Infinitron, I disagree. The writing is ultimately what buried the game.

Let's be fair. The EE's sales have been in a downward spiral since the first release. Even BG2 hasn't sold as much as you'd expect. SoD would have to be of a mindblowing quality to revert that trend. Plus, I don't think the potential market's standards for writing are that high.

 

[Manmower]

Plus, I don't think the potential market's standards for writing are that high.

True, but writing doesn't have to be mind-blowing in order to be fun. BG2's was much lower-quality than PS:T's, but it was still sufficiently well done to immerse people in the game. SoD's is just jarring. And I'm not even talking about the trans character. The overall dialogues are poorly structured, and chcok-full of modernistic slang. Very poor effort on Beamdog's part.

 

[Infinitron]

Delterius How does BG:SoD's writing compare with Divinity: Original Sin's

 

[Bubbles]

Delterius How does BG:SoD's writing compare with Divinity: Original Sin's

If SoD had a "man with many cheeses" type of quote, I think we'd have heard about it by now.

 

[Delterius]

DelteriusHow does BG:SoD's writing compare with Divinity: Original Sin's

Well, in my opinion...

In one game some soldiers might have the bright idea to use a love potion to enslave a dangerous orc.

In the other you've got the SPAAAACE GNOOOOOME.

To be honest I haven't played that much of D:OS but what I've seen of it reminds me of Divine Divinity. Larian just doesn't take itself seriously. Not everything is forced attempt to be hilarious, its just that the overall tone is consistenly silly. So you can sorta run with it even if you don't like their humour.

SoD and by extension Baldur's Gate are like the pendulum of tone. Sometimes its serious as hell, sometimes it is borderline insane and not in an endearing way. The expansion desperately tries to create their own memes and fails spectacularly. This doesn't account for the entirety of its writing, but by God that mark runs deep.

 

[DeepOcean]

How does BG:SoD's writing compare with Divinity: Original Sin's

D:OS writing:

SoD writing:

Both are retarded but I have greater tolerance towards D:OS because it is innocent retarded while SoD is akward, self important retarded, that is worse.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Delterius How does BG:SoD's writing compare with Divinity: Original Sin's

If SoD had a "man with many cheeses" type of quote, I think we'd have heard about it by now.

instead it has a man with many genders

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Let's be fair. The EE's sales have been in a downward spiral since the first release. Even BG2 hasn't sold as much as you'd expect. SoD would have to be of a mindblowing quality to revert that trend. Plus, I don't think the potential market's standards for writing are that high.

It was always going to be a niche product but they managed to divide that niche up further by declaring the original games were sexist and they would be changing characters accordingly. We'll never know how much that actually cost them (anecdotally it seems quite a bit), but from an already small potential customer base it was a genius marketing move. Promote that person to head of marketing immediately!

 

[Tacgnol]

Let's be fair. The EE's sales have been in a downward spiral since the first release. Even BG2 hasn't sold as much as you'd expect. SoD would have to be of a mindblowing quality to revert that trend. Plus, I don't think the potential market's standards for writing are that high.

It was always going to be a niche product but they managed to divide that niche up further by declaring the original games were sexist and they would be changing characters accordingly. We'll never know how much that actually cost them (anecdotally it seems quite a bit), but from an already small potential customer base it was a genius marketing move. Promote that person to head of marketing immediately!

Yeah, I really don't know why they pulled all the SJW shit. At best, it was going to get them a few sales from the dyed hair crowd, at worst, it was going to alienate a lot of fans.

 

[Elwro]

I'm wondering what they hoped for. If they plan on making more expansions, it would make sense to somehow coerce people into buying their EE. But it really seems risky.

 

[ArchAngel]

Steam sale numbers are not only ones. They had 1 month long preorders on Beamdog site. I am pretty sure they had lots of sales there.

 

[Mrowak]

And in spite of naysayers I am having a blast. That fight on Bridgeford was extremely intense it definitely is amongst the top battles in BG series.

 

[Athelas]

Let's be fair. The EE's sales have been in a downward spiral since the first release. Even BG2 hasn't sold as much as you'd expect. SoD would have to be of a mindblowing quality to revert that trend. Plus, I don't think the potential market's standards for writing are that high.

It was always going to be a niche product but they managed to divide that niche up further by declaring the original games were sexist and they would be changing characters accordingly. We'll never know how much that actually cost them (anecdotally it seems quite a bit), but from an already small potential customer base it was a genius marketing move. Promote that person to head of marketing immediately!

Well, they say there's no such thing as bad publicity...

After reading the reaction of certain elements of the community I’ve decided I will buy this and I will ensure I do so at full price not using a Steam Sale even if it is a buggy mess I want to support this company and hope it weathers this attack. Good job to those who are complaining about this game trying to turn people against Beamdog, you just got a person who wasn’t going to buy the game to give them their money.

++1 this. I was planning on waiting for a Steam sale, and to finish another BG1 playthrough; I’m getting this next Friday when I get paid, just on basic principle. Beamdog deserves my money, and not only because they released an expansion for a 17 year old game.

Me also, I am at the very least going to buy the expansion, probably won’t play it as I seem to have developed the attention span of a short attention span thing… but I do believe they deserve support.

Man, I was totally against Beamdog updating and adding stuff to the games-heard nothing but how buggy and ill conceived stuff was.
Now I’m gonna have to buy all their remasters, would really like to help them do well. Doubly so now that they have David Gaider on board (also a lightning rod for controversy for all the things he "dared" to put in the DA games).

 

[AwesomeButton]

Retards are alive. They don't have to be your audience, but they're so much easier to please.

 

[Black]

Thread recap: too many Brazilians on the Dex, Trump will have to build more walls when he's president.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

Disregarding regional prices, the revenue from 13,257 copies would be $185,598, while 40k copies would give them $560,000.

And doesn't Steam/GOG take 30% of that?

 

[Fairfax]

Disregarding regional prices, the revenue from 13,257 copies would be $185,598, while 40k copies would give them $560,000.

And doesn't Steam/GOG take 30% of that?

Already considered. That's 13,257*$14.

 

[Delterius]

Yeah but does whoever owns D&D take their share as well?