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Vault Dweller: Age of Decadence needs to sell 45,000 copies to be successful

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Suddenly, doom and gloom: http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,6807.msg139950.html#msg139950

Vince said:
AbounI said:
Since the final release date is now known, doesn't it have an impact on the latest pre-orders you can receive?Did you observe any form of increased number of the sales?RPGWatch, Codex and some others sites have published this great news, so I guess it can positively affect the sales stats.Or perhaps is it too early to let the stats talking about themselves?
Our Steam sales went from 3-5 copies a day to 8-12 copies a day in the last 7 days. We sold 2 copies via BMT in the last 2 weeks (a copy a week, woohoo!).

Scott said:
Well, no one can beat your optimism: I don't think we can do better, but we can do a lot worse. -Vince D Weller, Lead Developer Age of Decadence
:salute:
Optimism should be based on something. Even blind faith requires a foundation, no matter how week. I had a lot more optimism and faith when we started. I hoped that we'd sell a few thousand copies in the first month when we released the full demo. It took us a year to sell a thousand copies. I hoped that we'd sell a few thousand copies in the first week when we launched on Steam since that's what most indie games were selling. We sold 282 copies in the first week. Etc.

So literally everything I've seen so far sent the same message - it won't be easy, don't expect for the game to sell well because it won't. I think that Dead State did very well, compared to many recently released indies. Going by Steamspy's numbers which seems to be accurate (we sold 15,000 copies to-date):

Dead State - 58,788 ± 5,860
Serpent in the Stagland - 4,134 ± 1,554
Lords of Xulima - 35,671 ± 4,565
Legends of Eisenwald - 39,345 ± 4,794
Halfway - 25,567 ± 3,864

Other Early Access' titles:
Underrail - 22,658 ± 3,638
Sui Generis's combat game - 21,586 ± 3,551

We need to sell 30,000 copies in the first year (on top of what we already sold) to consider the game successful and secure our future, so roughly we need to sell 45k, i.e. 2/3 of what Dead State sold but more than many other indie RPGs sold. You don't need a crystal ball to know that it won't be easy and that it's far more likely that we'll fall short. Thus for me the only question is how short?

Dead State had more coverage, Brian Mitsoda has a strong following, and people do like zombie games a lot more than they like 'urban intrigue simulator' fantasy. We tried to get more coverage but what you see today is the absolute best we can do at the moment.

I'm not complaining. I know that AoD is a hard sell, both for the media and the gamers. I know that it won't be easy when we started, I just didn't know how hard it would be. It is what it is and honestly I'm ok with it. I'm not dreaming to triple DS sales and wake up swimming in money. I'm dreaming about selling enough to stay in business and make more games. I have 3 settings (other than AoD) that I want to explore and play with and then I can die in peace.

PS. The moral of this story is that it's best to expect the worse and be ready for it than hope for the best and be crashed by disappointments.

I feel a little guilty for coming up with the "urban intrigue simulator" moniker now...
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
The RPG Codex is the worst site at promoting Age of Decadence, except for all the other sites
 
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Now if only someone would shill this game as much as PoE around here
Just about everybody on the Dex knows about AoD so we don't need any shills, however theres probably quite a number of members who haven't bought it because its not complete.

VD's gotta get the game on GoG, which has had some problems if i recall, and assemble a crack team of AoD shill commandos to various forums and social media if he wants to hit 30K.
 
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My bad. Got mixed up with Underrail.
Has AoD been shown off at any cons after IGF in 2013?
 
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Weasel
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Yes, it looks as though selling 30k copies in a year is a tough ask, unless something unexpected happens (someone with a lot of reach taking an interest). Perhaps people like Swen putting the word out will help.

I still think this will be a timeless classic with a very long tail in terms of sales, as more people discover the game. So I just hope it doesn't become bundle fodder (out of necessity) too soon.

As Likaq just posted on the other thread, the time they spend on improving AoD is obviously linked to how well it initially sells, so it's in all our interests to get the word out as much as possible.
 

Mer1

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The first arena combat demo was pretty good, but I found the latest one a fugly mess with clunky gameplay.
I do hope they will reach the target though, plans for next games were somewhat interesting iirc
 

Robert Jarzebina

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They should add zombies to the game, and rename it with "Dead" in the title, ohh wait....
 

Copper

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just need to tap that Game of Thrones audience. 'Murder. Lust. Betrayal. Few will survive - the Age of Decadence.'
 

Blackstaff

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And that's the reality of video game sales and that's why the 80k games sold by HBS for SRHK in only a month is in fact a good performance that nets them more than a million dollars in profits and a good potential for promotion sales later on... ;)

I already preorder AOD by BMT three years ago, but I plan to buy another copy on GOG on the release date. Can't bring the incline without doing some sacrifice :M
 
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Mustawd

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$30 at half price (to include steam discounts over time) = $15 game

$15 game X 30,000 copies = $450,000

Wow...that seems like a lot of cheddar to be profitable...what gives? Have the expenses been that high to make this thing? $450k, on top of what they've already sold, seems like an extremely high threshold.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
$30 at half price (to include steam discounts over time) = $15 game

$15 game X 30,000 copies = $450,000

Wow...that seems like a lot of cheddar to be profitable...what gives? Have the expenses been that high to make this thing? $450k, on top of what they've already sold, seems like an extremely high threshold.

I suspect it's not so much a matter of "expenses" but more "what amount of money do I need to continue on making big RPGs without having to get a real job again".
 
Weasel
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$30 at half price (to include steam discounts over time) = $15 game

$15 game X 30,000 copies = $450,000

Wow...that seems like a lot of cheddar to be profitable...what gives? Have the expenses been that high to make this thing? $450k, on top of what they've already sold, seems like an extremely high threshold.

I'm sure VD will answer but bear in mind:
- taxes, Steam fees come off that
- this is a small team of people who have put in years of work with little pay, I guess hoping to get something to live on and replenish savings when the game comes out
- they want to "secure their future", ie: fund the next couple of years to make the next game
 

Cazzeris

Guest
I find it funny how VD thinks that Dead State sold very well, while the Mitsodas found it to be not enough to keep them making more CRPGs for the next few years. This is how you know who has real passion for this genre.
 

likaq

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Ugh, Dead State team was/is much bigger, therefore they need more revenue to keep making crpgs.

Edit: DS sales were great from VD perspective, not so much from 10+ team ( doublebear ) perspective.
 

Cazzeris

Guest
That doesn't mean having that team was necessary at all. If I remember correctly, Dead State's development started not too long after TAoD's, but it was the one with the smaller and less experienced team and zero Kickstarter dollars the game that feels reasonably polished near release, features content that never feels repetitive and most likely will be remembered for many years to come as a better and more creative game.

Its not like VD's "next" game will be on the Torque engine right?

The dungeon crawler set in that prison Dellar talked about in TAoD will definitely be developed using Torque, but the Generation Ship RPG will probably be on the Unreal Engine 4.
 
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Why not? It's got all the functionality...although, I remember reading something about the unreal engine? Dunno, that might have been a different game.
I was just thinking it was a bit long in the tooth and wondering what the costs for developing on a new engine would be.
 

Cazzeris

Guest
Dead State's development started in 2009, AoD's in 2004.

Hmm, I was wrong then. Still the $332.635 they received makes me think they are more interested in getting enough revenue than in just developing CRPGs, at least when compared with TAoD's team.
 

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