The game is so bad it killed the Studio

[Rumi]

Square Enix has announced that Luminous Productions - the development studio behind Forspoken - will be merged into Square Enix effective May 1, 2023.

[Melodia]

引用自 Renka：

Basically no Forspoken 2

No reason it couldn't happen. it's still SQEX's IP and always has been.

As mentioned elsewhere, what this is is basically absorbing a sub-comp;any into the main company. Luminous doesn't exist as its own studio anymore but that doesn't mean a different studio or one of SQEX's many internal teams (including one made up of people who worked on this game) couldn't make one.

[.Master Jiren, The Strongest]

Ah I figured i'd find this kind of conversation here. Yeah, glad I passed on this. Pretty clear to see that more level headed people didnt think this game was a major success while people that were bought into it from the start were going to defend it no matter what.

But now that we see the company is merged, its pretty clear to anyone thats not biased about this that they didnt trust the company enough to produce on their own. I mean, the overall feedback from the game is a testament to that.

Everyone knows what happened here. Everyone knows why this game received such harsh backlash.

But honestly, I think it was a smart move. They were banking on twitch streamers to really sell this game for them, but, unfortunately..The target audience never really financially supports their own causes.

This game is basically the polar opposite story of Hogwarts Legacy.
Fascinating timeline we live in.

[Many-Named]

引用自 Elveone：

引用自 BlackSunEmpire：

We certainly have the sales data for pc, estimated by steam db, playertracker and steamspy:

https://steamdb.info/app/1680880/charts/

All three sources fluctuate between:

100.000 - 301.100 sold units.

Those are estimations, not sales data. Even if they are correct we still don't have sales on PS5, how much money Sony paid for exclusivity and what the budget of the game is. While I agree that the game is most likely a financial loss we cannot really be sure about that.

Here is some math though.

Luminous productions said they had 130 employees in 2018, their linkedin stats say they have about 60 and the number hasn't changed since then so let's assume they've been 130 through all of it. Some of this staff is not developers but for the same of estimation let's say that they all are and half of them are more junior and half of them are more senior. According to google the average yearly salary of a more junior developer is about $61000 and for a more senior it is about $106000 so on average it will be about $83500. Let's assume that everyone in the studio worked on that game exclusively for the 4 years it was in production. This would end up at $43420000 in salaries. And although this is somewhat generous because of assuming everyone is a dev, you know, let's round it out to $50 million because of taxes, office expenses, etc.

Now 100k to 300k sales is also kind of weird, only one source estimates it that high and there is one that estimates at sub 100k so let's say about 150k sales is okay. There haven't been that many discounts on PC so let's say that the game sold for let's say about $60 on average because of slightly inflated base price and regional pricing, discounts on third party sites and more expensive editions. That would be about 9 million in sales on steam alone. But then Steam and other resellers would take about 30% of that so is 6.3 million from steam alone. The game is also on EGS so let's be generous and give that storefront an additional 10% of revenue in addition to steam and round it up to $7 million from sales on PC in total. Now let's be even more generous and say that the game sold twice as well on PS5 than on PC so that would be an additional $14 million profits from sales there.

Okay, so where do these assumptions leave us? Well, with Square Enix being $29 million in the red for starters. Then with Forspoken being one of the more expensive games to develop. And honestly - it doesn't really seem like it is so if it really is then the studio wasted a bunch of money. Also if that budget is correct the game will have to sell about 1.2 million copies to recoup its cost at full price and currently it is most likely about a third there and in the long run it might actually be able to do it in a couple of years if they fix the performance issues and have several good sales in a row. And lastly - it is quite obvious now that I love making stupid speculative calculations.

Quality posting, thanks.

Yes it is speculative but this game has PROBABLY lost money, and lost big too. I would say between the advertisement and the salaries and all afferent costs, they most likely lost a chunk on this one.

[Many-Named]

引用自 Elveone：

引用自 Patrick Swayze's Ghost：

What is it with Bulgarians and bad takes? Read Square Enix's just-released financial report, and weep. Company is failing and they would have already died if not for FFXIV keeping them afloat.

They're dying specifically because they wasted money on trash like this game.

Thank you for pointing it out. I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure it says they made $330 millions in profits in 2022... in comparison to $292 millions in 2021. Also says their MMO profits are less than a fourth of all profits. No insane billboard prices in it though... must have missed it. Although their total advertisement budget for all games is about $150 million so it is kind of insane that you think that a single billboard costs $10 million and that they spent all of their advertisement budget for the year on one game.

Yeah it's surprising isn't it? But I guess they are extremely well positionned in the RPG genre and probably sell goodies etc, with huge profit margins, I mean did you look at their stores prices? Lol!

Anyway they do have a lot of assets and I don't think the company is floundering, but it's certainly not heading in the right direction....Probably too many suits at the helm and not enough Love...

[BlackSunEmpire]

引用自 Elveone：

引用自 BlackSunEmpire：

Certainly not in post #15 .

Sorry, didn't realize it was too complicated for you. I will stick with numbers less than 100 next time so you can follow.

Its not complicated, you are pulling numbers out of thin air.
Thats as much math, as "Bingo" is math.

Steam db and steamspy might be estimates, but they use real data to estimate.
Your source on the other side is your imagination and wishfull thinking ;)

[Syad]

引用自 BlackSunEmpire：

Its not complicated, you are pulling numbers out of thin air.

This, might as well include the moon phases. That having said he in entirely in his right to post lala math and clearly marked it as such.

[Melodia]

引用自 .Master Jiren, The Strongest：

Ah I figured i'd find this kind of conversation here. Yeah, glad I passed on this. Pretty clear to see that more level headed people didnt think this game was a major success while people that were bought into it from the start were going to defend it no matter what.

I mean yeah, the game was a flop, that's not even an opinion. But that doesn't mean it's bad, just that no one bought it. There's a big difference.

[Rommel]

引用自 Littlepi：

Square Enix has announced that Luminous Productions - the development studio behind Forspoken - will be merged into Square Enix effective May 1, 2023.

Well what a surprise huh lol! About the only surprise here is they waited a little more than a month to do it.
Was never gonna get it as the trailer and limited game play did not impress me{and many others}. Never seen a AAA game do so poorly on the first day like this one. 3 weeks later
it was #486 on the top steam charts for sales. Even I was shocked by that!

[Elveone]

引用自 BlackSunEmpire：

引用自 Elveone：

Sorry, didn't realize it was too complicated for you. I will stick with numbers less than 100 next time so you can follow.

Its not complicated, you are pulling numbers out of thin air.
Thats as much math, as "Bingo" is math.

Steam db and steamspy might be estimates, but they use real data to estimate.
Your source on the other side is your imagination and wishfull thinking ;)

Luminous production company size and Forspoken development time: https://www.gematsu.com/2019/09/luminous-productions-square-enix-president-and-studio-head-discuss-mission-to-create-new-global-aaa-ip

Luminous Prodution on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/201804luminous-productions/

Average game developer salary in japan depending on experience: https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/game-developer/japan/tokyo#:~:text=An%20entry%20level%20game%20developer,average%20salary%20of%20%C2%A514%2C464%2C069.

Forspoken pricing data: https://steamdb.info/app/1680880/

Forspoken owners on steam estimation: https://steamdb.info/app/1680880/

Do I have to provide you with links that prove that Forspoken exists on PS5 and EGS and ones that provide currency conversion or can you do that simple google search on your own?


Also bingo is math. You can google that yourself as well.

Edit: fixed one of the links that did not copy properly

[Waldherz]

The news about Square merging Luminous are over 2 weeks old.
No studio was shut down. None of you people know how to read text.

[Sem56]

引用自 Elveone：

引用自 BlackSunEmpire：

Its not complicated, you are pulling numbers out of thin air.
Thats as much math, as "Bingo" is math.

Steam db and steamspy might be estimates, but they use real data to estimate.
Your source on the other side is your imagination and wishfull thinking ;)

Luminous production company size and Forspoken development time: https://www.gematsu.com/2019/09/luminous-productions-square-enix-president-and-studio-head-discuss-mission-to-create-new-global-aaa-ip

Luminous Prodution on Linked In: https://www.gematsu.com/2019/09/luminous-productions-square-enix-president-and-studio-head-discuss-mission-to-create-new-global-aaa-ip

Average game developer salary in japan depending on experience: https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/game-developer/japan/tokyo#:~:text=An%20entry%20level%20game%20developer,average%20salary%20of%20%C2%A514%2C464%2C069.

Forspoken pricing data: https://steamdb.info/app/1680880/

Forspoken owners on steam estimation: https://steamdb.info/app/1680880/

Do I have to provide you with links that prove that Forspoken exists on PS5 and EGS and ones that provide currency conversion or can you do that simple google search on your own?


Also bingo is math. You can google that yourself as well.

ROFL pulling up posts from 2019 like they are current facts

[Rodrigo]

引用自 corrupted-file：

Most studios are shut down or let go after a game is completed. They aren't working on it anymore because it's not a "live service." Sheep on.

Haha not live SeRvIcE. A lot of games that aren't live services get patches and dlcs as long as it's not a fail woke sewage.

[Simon]

引用自 corrupted-file：

Most studios are shut down or let go after a game is completed. They aren't working on it anymore because it's not a "live service." Sheep on.

that's some major copium right there bruh

[Zitan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8MZBUoQt68&ab_channel=ChrisVoiceman
Good day sir!

[movte]

a well deserved shut down <3 hope future game studios learn from the failure called Forspoken