My own 2 cents on Veilguard sales projections (as unbiased as I can make 'em)

[Jusenkyo7]

Hi all,

I thought I would offer some perspective, as unbiased as I can make it (given my obvious love of the game and hope that BioWare pulls out a win). I am a data nerd, so this will be long and number-filled. My apologies. Also, I am not a video game industry expert or investment advisor. Don't make any decisions based on my calculations!

Gamalytic & Steam

Current Gamalytic estimate of Steam presales as of last night of 54k - 162k (midpoint 108k) ... this estimate is extremely error-prone, because it is not informed by player data until launch, so take it with a huge grain of salt.

Current Gamalytic estimate of Steam sales for November (i.e. the month following launch) of 136k - 543k (midpoint 272k). This data is based exclusively on the outstanding wishlist figure of 755k. So it is even more error prone.

Going by just these two estimates (and ignoring the two days of remaining preorders ... which might bring in a few tens of thousands of additional sales), that puts Gamalytic's estimate of Steam sales by end of November at 190k - 705k (midpoint of 380k).

For some additional Steam data, its weekly Steam global revenue rank has risen steadily. 24th last week, before that 48th, 64th, 74th and >100th five weeks before launch. It is currently moving up and down the top 5, and will likely finish this week in the top 5 given a mid-week launch).

For comparison, this is roughly comparable to Metaphor: 3rd on launch week, and before that 21st, 47th, and >100th four weeks before launch.

According to Gamalytic, Metaphor has sold 225k - 674k (midpoint of 449k) total as of yesterday, 18 days after launch. It's also selling about 46k copies a week, so we might expect it to add about 79k by the end of its first month, making the total 304k - 753k (midpoint of 528k).

So if compare with Gamalytic's predictions for Veilguard, there is similarity, but Metaphor's numbers suggest that there might be a bit more upside for Veilguard.

Looking at the estimates above, I would say that Veilguard sales on the low end of ~200k would be disappointing for EA, while sales on the high end ~750k would likely be very welcome.

But of course Steam sales are only a small piece of the pie. Veilguard's biggest platform will be PS5, and Xbox Series X/S and PC will probably be vying for second and third place. moreover, we don't know what percent of PC sales will be on Steam, versus EA app or other platforms.

If we use Metaphor as a comparison again we know that Metaphor total sales exceeded 1M units after its launch day. According to Gamalytic, it had sold 193k copies on Steam of that day, suggesting a Steam:Total multiplier of >5.

It's hard to know whether this is a reasonable proxy for Veilguard. However, both games are predominantly console games with a decent PC gaming presence.

Note that the Steam:Total sales ratio is ver different for different games. Sonic X Shadow also sold over 1M units as of launch day, but had sold only 78k units on Steam at the time (again per Gamalytic), a multiplier of nearly 13. However, Sonic X Knuckles is even more console focused than Veilguard and Metaphor, and additionally also released on the Nintendo Switch.

So assuming a 5x Steam sales multiplier, that would give us total Veilguard sales by end of November between 1M units (i.e. disappointing SW outlaws numbers) and 3.75M units (meaning the game would be in "break even" territory only a month after launch).

Trends Outside Steam

Let's take a look at some non-Steam trends to see how they are tracking. We have only very rough rankings for this, so we can't do anything more than eyeball.

- Veilguard is 12th in overall US sales (its largest market by far) in the PlayStation Store. The PS store does not have global rankings, sadly.

- Veilguard is 4th on the bestseller list of PS5 games and 4th on the bestseller list of XBox Series X/S games (once you collapse physical and digital code sales for the same game) on Amazon.com.

- Veilgaurd is the 4th bestselling PS5 game and 3rd bestselling XBox Series X/S game on Gamestop.com. (Interestingly enough, Gamestop also appears to be selling a LOT of the Rook's coffers).

So things look decent, but it is hard to say more than that.

EA October 29th Earnings Call

As an addendum, let's briefly touch on EA's earnings call this afternoon. The call covered financial data for July-September, so would have covered only the first 45 days of Veilguard preorders.

- EA reported strong sales overall, and revised its revenue projections of the fiscal year upward. But very little of that probably had to do with Veilguard.

- EA stated "we’re maintaining our assumptions for our upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard launch this week" (meaning that based on presale tracking to date, there was no basis to revise sales projections either up or down).

- EA also indicated that they expect 2025 Q3 revenue of growth of $2.4B - $2.55B (1% - 8% higher than the same period last year), "largely driven by the launch of Dragon Age and continued growth in our EA SPORTS FC franchise." It's hard to know what part of the revenue EA expects to come from Veilguard, but it is notable that they would list it as one of two major revenue drivers.

I was not able to attend the earnings call, and thus have not yet heard the Q&A portion. I may update this if the Q&A transcript contains relevant information. If you have information about the Q&A, please share!

Conclusions AKA TL:DR

There is a large range of possible sales outcomes based on available data. From a moderate failure (i.e. SW Outlaws-level) to a pretty good but not great success (i.e. comparable to Metaphor, or to BM Wukong's sales outside China, or a little below Space Marine 2).

For those of you who think this is going to be Concord or Dustborn, it clearly is not. For those of you who think this is going be BG3, it also clearly is not.

For anyone who is still reading ... thank you for your time!

[Mr2Thumbs]

The game needs to sell 5 million copies to break even. SW Outlaws sales would be an absolute travesty.

[JimmyKaz]

put a tldr conclusion infront, bro. no one is gonna read your math.

[Dusty!]

You aren't going to get Metaphor numbers in this game. Atlus is a respected studio that worked on that game for 8 years. Dragon age veilguard is abortion propaganda created in a 1.2 year production cycle with no advertising.

>Veilguard is 12th in overall US sales in the playstation store
LMFAO NO WAY.

[Jusenkyo7]

JimmyKaz lähetti viestin:

put a tldr conclusion infront, bro. no one is gonna read your math.

A very reasonable suggestion, and one I would use in a professional setting. However given the level of rancor on the forum, I wanted people to at least skim the analysis before getting to the conclusion, rather than reading two sentences they may disagree with, and moving on.

[jamaqa]

Skimming through the reviews on Metacritic, I suspect that you are right. The game appears to be "good enough" (i.e. neither trash nor GOTY). I suspect that DATV would flop if it were a live service game. But it is not, so it would likely do fine sales-wise.

[Jusenkyo7]

Duster! lähetti viestin:

You aren't going to get Metaphor numbers in this game. Atlus is a respected studio that worked on that game for 8 years. Dragon age veilguard is abortion propaganda created in a 1.2 year production cycle with no advertising.

>Veilguard is 12th in overall US sales in the playstation store
LMFAO NO WAY.

So far, Veilguard sales on Steam are tracking in line with Metaphor during the same period prior to release. You are certainly entitled to your opinions about relative quality.

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/category/d0446d4b-dc9a-4f1e-86ec-651f099c9b29/1

[Jusenkyo7]

Mr2Thumbs lähetti viestin:

The game needs to sell 5 million copies to break even. SW Outlaws sales would be an absolute travesty.

Figuring a median retailer holdback of 20% (based on a range of 0% on EA App to 30% on PS Store), and an average price of $70 (to take into account both higher deluxe editions and lower PC prices and regional pricing), gives us per unit EA revenue of $56.

So 3.6M units sold would net EA over $200M. That seems like break even territory. 5M units sold would net EA $280M, which would definitely be comfortably in the black.

[Jusenkyo7]

Thanks to the Motley Fool, I was able to get faster access to the EA earnings call transcript than I thought, so a couple additional thoughts on this front:

Asked whether Veilguard had "breakout potential" EA's CEO responded that "while I think it's too early to predict the outcome ... my sense is that yes, it has breakout capabilities." The CFO reiterated however that for purposes of earnings projections they "maintained [their] original assumptions for the game at this point."

- To me, this is further confirmation of what I said in the OP, that sales to date point to something in the range of moderate failure to a good but not great success.

Also, while it doesn't really speak to Veilguard's sales projections, another analyst specifically mentioned that "BioWare has had a somewhat challenging decade" since DA:I, and asked what EA has "done over the past several years to put BioWare into a position to ship a strong title like Veilguard? And what does this say about the future of BioWare from here?" EA's CEO stated that "what's happened subsequently since Anthem is the BioWare team has really rallied around what made BioWare a fan favorite studio and a fan favorite brand," adding that he "think[s] it's really been that return to what made BioWare great and giving the studio the time" it needed "is what amounts to a game like Dragon Age: The Veilguard."

- So at least EA seems to be talking the right talk: i.e., let BioWare be BioWare. That took a few years in the case of Veilguard. Hopefully with ME5 and onwards, they will do that from the start.

[Mr2Thumbs]

Jusenkyo7 lähetti viestin:

Mr2Thumbs lähetti viestin:

The game needs to sell 5 million copies to break even. SW Outlaws sales would be an absolute travesty.

Figuring a median retailer holdback of 20% (based on a range of 0% on EA App to 30% on PS Store), and an average price of $70 (to take into account both higher deluxe editions and lower PC prices and regional pricing), gives us per unit EA revenue of $56.

So 3.6M units sold would net EA over $200M. That seems like break even territory. 5M units sold would net EA $280M, which would definitely be comfortably in the black.

I disagree with your median 20%. Nobody is purchasing this on the EA App. It's all going to be Steam or PSN, both of which charge 30%

[kojak]

Probably end at 'moderate failure' once release comes out and gameplay videos reveal how incredibly repetitive and limited it is, anyone who didnt already preorder will avoid this like the plague. it is not BG3 thats for damn sure.

[Jusenkyo7]

Mr2Thumbs lähetti viestin:

Jusenkyo7 lähetti viestin:

Figuring a median retailer holdback of 20% (based on a range of 0% on EA App to 30% on PS Store), and an average price of $70 (to take into account both higher deluxe editions and lower PC prices and regional pricing), gives us per unit EA revenue of $56.

So 3.6M units sold would net EA over $200M. That seems like break even territory. 5M units sold would net EA $280M, which would definitely be comfortably in the black.

I disagree with your median 20%. Nobody is purchasing this on the EA App. It's all going to be Steam or PSN, both of which charge 30%

Steam only charges 30% on the first $10M in sales (i.e. 200k copies of Veilguard), after that it goes down to 25% until $50M (i.e. 833k copies), and then 20% (though Veilguard would only get to this level on the high end of current projections). Only PS5 stays at 30% regardless. You could reasonably argue for as high as a 25% median holdback, I guess.

But, on the other hand I have made no allowances for EA revenue from Veilguard other than straight up sales (including EA Play Pro subscriptions, and revenue sharing from bundles like GeForce Now and GPU promotions), or from add-ons like Rook's Coffer (which is selling surprisingly well at GameStop). So overall I think my assumptions are fairly conservative.

[Mr2Thumbs]

Jusenkyo7 lähetti viestin:

Mr2Thumbs lähetti viestin:

I disagree with your median 20%. Nobody is purchasing this on the EA App. It's all going to be Steam or PSN, both of which charge 30%

Steam only charges 30% on the first $10M in sales (i.e. 200k copies of Veilguard), after that it goes down to 25% until $50M (i.e. 833k copies), and then 20% (though Veilguard would only get to this level on the high end of current projections). Only PS5 stays at 30% regardless. You could reasonably argue for as high as a 25% median holdback, I guess.

But, on the other hand I have made no allowances for EA revenue from Veilguard other than straight up sales (including EA Play Pro subscriptions, and revenue sharing from bundles like GeForce Now and GPU promotions), or from add-ons like Rook's Coffer (which is selling surprisingly well at GameStop). So overall I think my assumptions are fairly conservative.

We can agree to disagree. We generally agree that 5m sales is what they need to start making money.

[Jusenkyo7]

Red Phantom lähetti viestin:

Pretty reasonable take. One thing we don't know about the game is the total budget, which I would assume is relatively high given its lengthy development. I think the chances of it being a moderate failure are pretty high, especially if the total budget is somewhere around $300 million or above including development and marketing.

That is a very good question. A couple thoughts on the budget:

DA:I reportedly cost $150M to make, or which perhaps $20-25M was marketing. Veilguard certainly cost more to make, but how much more is a little harder to guess:

- First, while there was a 9-year gap after Trespasser, BioWare was obviously not only working on Veilguard during this period. Andromeda came out in 2017 and Anthem in 2019, with work continuing through 2021. BioWare also put out ME:LE in 2021.

- Second, there is the question of how much of the production cost is fairly accounted to Veilguard. I can imagine there was a lot of development work for a live service game that was left on the cutting room floor, Whether, and how much of, the costs for this scrapped work are included in Veilguard's production budget is an open question. I would argue that the better business practice would be not to include the cost of such work.

- Veilguard is more ambitious than Inquisition in many ways, but it is also a smaller game. Overall, I expect that it was more expensive to produce, but probably not as dramatically so as you are saying.

- Marketing is one area where the costs have probably not gone up very much, other than inflation. Video game marketing is nothing like blockbuster movie marketing, that can cost $100M plus. And even by video game standards, EA is hardly pulling out all the stops. Veilguard's marketing is probably in the $25M to $30M range.

All in all, I would guess a budget in the low $200M range, maybe as high as $225M if you (wrongly in my opinion), include all discarded live service work. But this is only a guess.

[The First Furry Descendant]

The launch will go well, but negative reviews will gradually start to appear, and over time, this "woke" game is likely to lose money.

[Corona Scurrae]

tl;dr vg can either be as mediocre as outlaws or has the potential to go gangbusters like some of the recent hits... I assume anyone with a functional prefrontal cortex would have come to the same conclusion but on steam you never know.

furthermore you forgot to consider 30% tax on ps store and steam.