Broken Roads - Steam statistics

[AdahnGorion]

Hi all

First I want to say, that I think the developers put a lot of love into this game and I was very interest after trying out the demo. I have ultimately chosen to wait with a purchase and I reckon that might be the case for many.

I will list some of the statistics, that we currently know about the game and why they might be as they are.

If you want to see general steam statistics you can go here to see them yourself
https://steamdb.info/app/1403440/charts/

The all-time concurrent peak for this game was 570 players
Currently 224 are ingame

It sits on a 40.63% positive reviews score.

If we look further, there are a suggested overall sale of 930 copies and a gross revenue of around $23500

These numbers are much lower than I anticipated and I feel rather sad by this, as this looked like it had some real potential and I wonder if the early reviews (both professional and random YT) have damaged the sales to a large extend.

This game had over 20k followers after all.


Those are some of the statistics, that we can currently find. I hope that the devs gets some of the issues sorted out (it seems like they are already working hard on them) and eventually I will support the game, once I´ve played a few of my other games.. Because I want to support smaller companies, that dare take a leap with this genre, its a very hard genre to hit right and its not a simplistic mainstream audience.


Thank you all for listening, feel free to add more statistics or even just friendly debate.
Have a good day all

[starkmaddness]

Of course the early reviews hurt their sales, that is the whole point of reviews. I was 10 seconds away from buying a copy until I saw the red "Mostly Negative" review score.

The reviews themselves were even more damning. 3 hours before the first combat and limited player agency? Amature move, the first chapter should be one of the strongest to draw the player in. Lack of party customization in an RPG? I know they exist, but I can't think of another RPG that does that. Lack of a difficulty setting? Seriously? Gamer skill varies wildly, and I personally like games to be more challenging than the default difficulty could be. And many other questionable decisions. To be fair, the Devs have stated their intention to fix those things, so I will keep my eye on the game. But yes,the bad reviews absolutely decimated their sales.

[[TwitchTV] TorNis]

Game was also featured on iii-Initiative, it's not a good look ;/

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by starkmaddness:

The reviews themselves were even more damning. 3 hours before the first combat and limited player agency? Amature move, the first chapter should be one of the strongest to draw the player in. Lack of party customization in an RPG? I know they exist, but I can't think of another RPG that does that. Lack of a difficulty setting? Seriously? Gamer skill varies wildly, and I personally like games to be more challenging than the default difficulty could be. And many other questionable decisions. To be fair, the Devs have stated their intention to fix those things, so I will keep my eye on the game. But yes,the bad reviews absolutely decimated their sales.

I got into my first fight in less than 15 minutes into the game. Less than 5 if you count the combat tutorial. So not sure what the reviewers were doing wrong.

[Chanczo]

Originally posted by starkmaddness:

Of course the early reviews hurt their sales, that is the whole point of reviews. I was 10 seconds away from buying a copy until I saw the red "Mostly Negative" review score.

The reviews themselves were even more damning. 3 hours before the first combat and limited player agency? Amature move, the first chapter should be one of the strongest to draw the player in. Lack of party customization in an RPG? I know they exist, but I can't think of another RPG that does that. Lack of a difficulty setting? Seriously? Gamer skill varies wildly, and I personally like games to be more challenging than the default difficulty could be. And many other questionable decisions. To be fair, the Devs have stated their intention to fix those things, so I will keep my eye on the game. But yes,the bad reviews absolutely decimated their sales.

100% this. I was ready for a day two purchase but then I saw the reviews, which I imagine was the case for a ton of people.

I'm gonna wait for a few patches to see what devs can improve based on feedback, or wait for it to go on sale.

[Tingly]

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

I got into my first fight in less than 15 minutes into the game. Less than 5 if you count the combat tutorial. So not sure what the reviewers were doing wrong.

Might depend on what character background you take? Otherwise, I don't really see how they could've avoided it either.

[Panic! At The Costco™]

Different starting origins have different starts. Some people get combat quickly, others do not it seems. And you can also avoid combat, which also delayed getting into first combat. My surveyor avoided a lot of combat early on.

People don't realise that their playthrough isn't the only one others will experience.

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by Tingly:

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

I got into my first fight in less than 15 minutes into the game. Less than 5 if you count the combat tutorial. So not sure what the reviewers were doing wrong.

Might depend on what character background you take? Otherwise, I don't really see how they could've avoided it either.

Yeah I'm doing Jackaroo and the first combat is unavoidable and happens right after your first quest. I remember trying Hired Gun back in the demo and getting a fight early too. (Might be different on launch)

If its taking multiple hours on say 'Barter Crew' then that sound appropriate.

[Stoibs]

I think waiting for the first weekend for player counts and in-game numbers is usually a good idea. Weekday releases + tImezones being a thing and all (this one released at like, 3am in Australia of all places.. )

Cool to hear the different starting jobs have so wildly different intros too, I'm Jackaroo also and was in combat within minutes.

[starkmaddness]

Originally posted by Stoibs:

I think waiting for the first weekend for player counts and in-game numbers is usually a good idea. Weekday releases + tImezones being a thing and all (this one released at like, 3am in Australia of all places.. :csd2angry:)

Cool to hear the different starting jobs have so wildly different intros too, I'm Jackaroo also and was in combat within minutes.

The game has a 34% rating, the weekend won't make a significant difference.

At this point they need to either release consistent updates and/or plan for a soft relaunch, while hoping that user reviews go up. Then they will need some good media and influencer attention to make the game relevant again. The one thing they have going for them is that a lot of people that were turned off by the bad reviews are still interested in the game, pending improvements.

Of course this all requires them to have enough funding to continue, and we have no idea what their financial situation is.

[Sysgen]

Should always release in Early Access so have an excuse for launch issues.

[Torpex]

it's not really a cRPG in a conventional sense.

I've seen as early as 2023 some of the previews comparing it more to a "budget" Disco Elysium. Which is an adventure game with RPG elements. Then I got a demo and was like "yup, aussie flavoured dysco elysium".

So those negative reviews are mostly due to misplaced expectations, IMO.

BTW, if you are looking to a "fallout" type of cRPG, there are plenty. Like Underrail, Atom, Encased, WL2 and WL3.

[dreamstation]

I think a lot of people are wanting something else from what the game actually sets out to be. You don't review a game negatively because it's not what you want or thought it to be.

[BadAstronaut]

Also want to point out that the overwhelming majority - as in about two thirds of all negative reviews relate to the Russian and Chinese localisation.

On Playstation Store for example, which is still English only, our rating is 74%.

There is a LOT of valid criticism and we are working on a hotfix right now for a bunch of things and also preparing a roadmap for what features players can expect by end of next week and by start of May.

[Stoibs]

Ah..

Really hard to not come across as racist about that but yeah.. I've seen firsthand what Chinese players can do with review bombing (Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery comes to mind most recently.. those guys can be wild and unrelentless )

[starkmaddness]

Originally posted by Stoibs:

Ah..

Really hard to not come across as racist about that but yeah.. I've seen firsthand what Chinese players can do with review bombing (Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery comes to mind most recently.. those guys can be wild and unrelentless :trolol:)

I don't think it is review bombing so much as really bad localization. At least that is the impression I got from several reviews.