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!

[Deroldsen]

Should also note that I think it's going to the EA subscription from day 1.

[ʙ ʀ 4 ɪ ɴ ᴍ ɪ ɴ 🅴 ʀ]

Lots of your quoted statistics can be manipulated with bots, so I would say they are a very bad indicator. Here are some more trustworthy numbers you can add to your prediction:

As Mounting Evidence Points To Poor Sales, BioWare Partners With NVIDIA To Give ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Away For Free[thatparkplace.com]

The writing is on the wall, just look at the track record of the latest heavily DEI infused titles. They are like asbestos, nobody's touching them (except the unicorn "modern audience"). And once the user review scores are in (putting the "professional" review shills in its place) it will only go downhill from there on.

[iCantEvenButtons]

Game is 100% going to flop.
Is there even any gameplay?
It's just one long winded trans indoctrination
All the dialogue options are 95% wasted on ♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥

[Jusenkyo7]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Outback Santa:

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.

Well, there's saying something, and doing the work to model it out. Also, "going gangbusters" is a bit outside the model.

And the retailer holdback is not relevant to the number of units sold, only for calculating EA revenue and profit. I talk a little about that in an earlier post, but since we don't really know the budget, I did not attempt to model profit.

[Corona Scurrae]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jusenkyo7:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Outback Santa:

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.

Well, there's saying something, and doing the work to model it out. Also, "going gangbusters" is a bit outside the model.

And the retailer holdback is not relevant to the number of units sold, only for calculating EA revenue and profit. I talk a little about that in an earlier post, but since we don't really know the budget, I did not attempt to model profit.

it's safe to assume that with marketing combined their budget was above 50M$. I would be shocked if it's less than that but then again bioware managed to make andromeda which has the best gameplay in their entire catalog, with only 40M$. don't know if that is dev and marketing budget combined.

[Jusenkyo7]

Diposting pertama kali oleh ʙ ʀ 4 ɪ ɴ ᴍ ɪ ɴ 🅴 ʀ:

Lots of your quoted statistics can be manipulated with bots, so I would say they are a very bad indicator. Here are some more trustworthy numbers you can add to your prediction:

As Mounting Evidence Points To Poor Sales, BioWare Partners With NVIDIA To Give ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Away For Free[thatparkplace.com]

The writing is on the wall, just look at the track record of the latest heavily DEI infused titles. :CowPoop: They are like asbestos, nobody's touching them (except the unicorn "modern audience"). And once the user review scores are in (putting the "professional" review shills in its place) it will only go downhill from there on.

Respectfully, while the data is indeed fuzzy, my analysis was data driven, and all of my data you can verify yourself (well, for some you would need to pay Gamalytic $25).

That Park Place, on the other hand, just threw some words at wall and hit submit. "A retail insider" versus publicly verifiable bestseller lists. I know which one I put more credence in. But to be fair, the Gamer article that claimed Veilguard was selling amazingly well was about equally worthless in terms of analysis.

[DeRossa]

I also expect an incredible number of refunds.

[Mr2Thumbs]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Motorola:

I also expect an incredible number of refunds.

Unrealistic. Steam only allows refunds for two hours, and this game front loads those first two hours with a lot of its best content.

[Dusty!]

No wonder gaming is dead, if these digital marketplaces are taking a 30% cut. I thought that included some sort of server support.

[DeRossa]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Mr2Thumbs:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Motorola:

I also expect an incredible number of refunds.

Unrealistic. Steam only allows refunds for two hours, and this game front loads those first two hours with a lot of its best content.

dont underestimate speed runners, ever.

[Jusenkyo7]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Scyriz:

750k sales is not enough, it needs to sell prob 6 mil+units total across all platforms and I honestly don't even see it getting to half that, you forget its also on EA Plus, and there is 2 or 3 deals literally giving this game away for free as part of it which hurts sales even more.

A game sells its most copies in the first week or 2 of release, if it doesn't hit 6 mil, or whatever the budget is divided by 50 US to name an average after steam etc takes their cut the game is prob going to stay a failure at that point. Look at Alan wake 2, prime example there, its even had a dlc I believe and has been out for quite a while, it still has not made enough money to break even yet, its still a massive failure. Thats most likely the future of this game as this game has WAY more controversey than Alan Wake 2 did. It all depends on the budget, if it only cost them 100 mil including marketing to make this game which I doubt it was that cheap they could selll 2 mil units and break even and start to make a profit, which I feel they will easly hit about 2 mil.

See people see 1 mil sold and freak out saying it sold so well, but what they don't realize is 1 mil copies is a massive failure if your game had a 200 mil+ budget, as thats 50 mil in revenue they still lost 150 mil on it.

Diposting pertama kali oleh Outback Santa:

it's safe to assume that with marketing combined their budget was above 50M$. I would be shocked if it's less than that but then again bioware managed to make andromeda which has the best gameplay in their entire catalog, with only 40M$. don't know if that is dev and marketing budget combined.

I addressed some of this above:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jusenkyo7:

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.

As far as availability on EA Play Pro, this honestly is just extra revenue for EA. My modeling was based on Steam performance to date, which is what it is despite the fact that EA Play Pro is a good option.

The same is true for things like offering Veilguard for "free" by bundling with GeForce Now or GPUs. Developers have been making these deals forever, and they do so for a piece of the revenue on the bundled item. Now obviously Nvidia won't pay EA $60 a pop, but whatever they are getting is yet more extra revenue for EA that is in addition to what the model would predict.

[Deroldsen]

I would argue it is STABLE revenue, not extra revenue. A person with a subscription is less likely to buy it, but is also unlikely to cancel because of a particular game.

[76561199798488176]

Diposting pertama kali oleh robert.s_a:

Did they ever announce how much this game cost to make?

It's not working that way.

They are forced to have a year per year perspective, so dev costs in previous years haven't link with estimated revenue com that is always per year. A perfect example is Ubisoft that did huge sells but had too many delayed projects hence their annual income got endangered.

For EA their huge sells are out of Steam, so you can't say much on EA from Steam numbers (check top sell list of 2023, then the EA games in Steam and you'll see gigantic differences).

Anyway there's no Steam numbers yet for DAtV.

[Tigeroo]

Wow. That's a lot of cope. Dang.

[Jusenkyo7]

POINT:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Jusenkyo7:

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!

COUNTERPOINT:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Tigeroo:

Wow. That's a lot of cope. Dang.