Veilguard has Bombed: The Early Numbers

[TankTheta]

70 dollars like base price. To be generous to the calculations.

The game cost 150 Million in Production (so they say). So that's the first benchmark. I have scepticism on that price given the length of development and the rebooting. But it's all I can confirm

Second benchmark is marketing. I've heard reports that it was 50 million, but there's reason to believe that the marketing was about 100 million because that is the average for most Modern AAA games. Regardless, we'll work with 50 million.

====The Numbers====

To break even on Production costs alone, the game needed more than 2 million sales.
Specifically, it needed 2, 142,858.
70 x 2, 142,858 = 150 Mill
70 x 2 Mill = 140 Mill
That doesn't even break even on production costs actually. Let alone the marketing.

Next. Peak Count, Generous bonus, and double count (due to console)

70 x 70k = 4.9 Mill. (The Peak count, hard confirmed numbers of active players at launch)
70 x 100k = 7 mill. (Generous 30k ontop of Peak)
70 x 200k = 14 mill. (Doubled of generous count for consoles)

This. Is damning. Even at boosted estimates, you effectively have a game that couldn't even reach one fifth it's total PRODUCTION costs.

Let alone the marketing ontop of that.
200 Million, as "given" cost, means that 14 mill.... well not even a 10th of the cost.
Obviously, I suspect the game costs a bit more. But even without that, this game's not hit any of the benchmarks it desperately needed to, to break even.
EDIT: Last thing to note. Assuming I still can, I'll update these numbers as more details come out. Enjoy

EDIT: People are throwing out claims about how games can vary from 5x to 10x the amount of peak players as a general selling number.
The problem with using this is the extremely wide range and variance. Not to mention that often games are more akin to 1.5x to 10x. Making that scope much wider. The examples for higher end are usually extremely popular games (Elden Ring, basically GotY contenders).
It's not really a reasonable metric with the AVAILABLE concrete data. So I won't be doing this unless new information comes out to fit in line with that. Besides, I did actually boost the numbers to 2x plus with the last example for consoles. To be generous. Even doubling that leaves.
70 x 400k = 32 million. Still pretty bad. That's all. 70 x 1 Million (10 X MULTIPLIED) = 70 million, which is not breaking even. Btw.

The game has officially bombed.

[James_GT]

That's assuming this game only sold on steam. and that everyone who bought it was playing at the peak. neither are true. It might fail but it seems weird to be this invested in it

[TankTheta]

Originally posted by James_GT:

That's assuming this game only sold on steam. and that everyone who bought it was playing at the peak. neither are true. It might fail but it seems weird to be this invested in it

Didn't read, did you?
You know, I did boost the numbers. Not just the cost per game. But also the sales numbers including accounting for console (which has become less popular in general)

[JJ]

Time to short some bioware stocks 🏦💰💰

[James_GT]

Originally posted by TankTheta:

Originally posted by James_GT:

That's assuming this game only sold on steam. and that everyone who bought it was playing at the peak. neither are true. It might fail but it seems weird to be this invested in it

Didn't read, did you?

I did. you don't have enough data to make any conclusions based on not knowing the actual sales numbers. and why care so much. it might fail.

[James_GT]

Originally posted by PSA:

Originally posted by James_GT:

That's assuming this game only sold on steam. and that everyone who bought it was playing at the peak. neither are true. It might fail but it seems weird to be this invested in it

He included consoles. What are you talking about?

u can't include something u don't have. we don't even have steam

[Tentacle of Ozric]

That's some good news right here.

[TankTheta]

Originally posted by PSA:

Originally posted by James_GT:

That's assuming this game only sold on steam. and that everyone who bought it was playing at the peak. neither are true. It might fail but it seems weird to be this invested in it

He included consoles. What are you talking about?

I tried to. Didn't find any sales info on consoles in my research. If someone provides articles about the numbers I'd be happy to update the post. But to compensate I effectively doubled the "boosted" estimate of the PC sales.
I'd be surprised if it's bigger than an extra 30 percent of the peak players on PC.

[Key]

The entire premise being you knowing the 150m budget is made up, as the budget was never made public, and therefore all of what follows is wrong.

In addition to this, looking at track records from other games, sales tend to be 5x-8x the peak player count for the first week

Elden Ring, for example peaked at 950k, but sold 5m. Space Marines 2 peaked at 120k and sold over a million, Helldivers 2 peaked at 450k but sold 6m.

Lowballing the number, 70k concurrent x5 is at minimum 350k copies sold on Steam, on a game that also releases on consoles. Going by previous track records the game is unlikely to hit a million sales in the first week but it definitely will by the second.

It's absolutely, undeniably going to turn a profit within the second week, and will probably end up making quite a bit in the first year as sales continue, since this is a single player game, and single player games don't depend on online activity.

On top of this, this isn't the end of the first week, this is the first day and peak player count could very well go up in the weekend.

You want the game to fail so bad that you're trying to convince yourself that it will, despite it sitting comfortably at the top of the Top Sellers charts on day 1 of release.

Also, you suck at research. You used a made up number as your basis and you didn't use any reference for the peak players to sales correlations. Please, don't ever do this again, you're really terrible at this.

[jokerahh]

Originally posted by TankTheta:

70 dollars like base price. To be generous to the calculations.

The game cost 150 Million in Production (so they say). So that's the first benchmark. I have scepticism on that price given the length of development and the rebooting. But it's all I can confirm

Second benchmark is marketing. I've heard reports that it was 50 million, but there's reason to believe that the marketing was about 100 million because that is the average for most Modern AAA games. Regardless, we'll work with 50 million.

====The Numbers====

To break even on Production costs alone, the game needed more than 2 million sales.
Specifically, it needed 2, 142,858.
70 x 2, 142,858 = 150 Mill
70 x 2 Mill = 140 Mill
That doesn't even break even on production costs actually. Let alone the marketing.

Next. Peak Count, Generous bonus, and double count (due to console)

70 x 70k = 4.9 Mill. (The Peak count, hard confirmed numbers of active players at launch)
70 x 100k = 7 mill. (Generous 30k ontop of Peak)
70 x 200k = 14 mill. (Doubled of generous count for consoles)

This. Is damning. Even at boosted estimates, you effectively have a game that couldn't even reach one fifth it's total PRODUCTION costs.

Let alone the marketing ontop of that.
200 Million, as "given" cost, means that 14 mill.... well not even a 10th of the cost.
Obviously, I suspect the game costs a bit more. But even without that, this game's not hit any of the benchmarks it desperately needed to, to break even.

The game has officially bombed.

It is still wait to early to call it as we don't actually have all the facts a figures at this time and everything is estimated and, as has been proven a dozen times before, early estimates are always way off.

The only thing we can say is that it is not an instant financial success nor is it a complete flop. Its probably looking at around 2 - 3 million sales across or platforms and regions, which means it MAY break even in release weekend but it isn't likely to make huge profits right now.

[TankTheta]

Originally posted by hush:

how does diablo iv numbers work? the peak concurrent players is only 55k but it sold millions

Blizzard Launcher.

[Pheace]

Originally posted by Scyriz:

Originally posted by hush:

how does diablo iv numbers work? the peak concurrent players is only 55k but it sold millions

Diablo 4 has been out for what over a year now? its a game people will play off and on, its not going to be steady.

55k is the all-time peak

[Archon Archae]

Originally posted by Key:

The entire premise being you knowing the 150m budget is made up, as the budget was never made public, and therefore all of what follows is wrong.

In addition to this, looking at track records from other games, sales tend to be 5x-8x the peak player count for the first week

Elden Ring, for example peaked at 950k, but sold 5m. Space Marines 2 peaked at 120k and sold over a million, Helldivers 2 peaked at 450k but sold 6m.

Lowballing the number, 70k concurrent x5 is at minimum 350k copies sold on Steam, on a game that also releases on consoles. Going by previous track records the game is unlikely to hit a million sales in the first week but it definitely will by the second.

It's absolutely, undeniably going to turn a profit within the second week, and will probably end up making quite a bit in the first year as sales continue, since this is a single player game, and single player games don't depend on online activity.

On top of this, this isn't the end of the first week, this is the first day and peak player count could very well go up in the weekend.

You want the game to fail so bad that you're trying to convince yourself that it will, despite it sitting comfortably at the top of the Top Sellers charts on day 1 of release. It's just so f*cking pathethic.

Couldn't have said it better.

[Outmention]

Great analysis. Game deserves to die and everyone involved with it to loose their job

[TankTheta]

Originally posted by Comae®:

These numbers are wrong :

- I guess this game cost more than 250m$
- When you pay 70$, EA doesnt get 70$, its far less, let's they they have 50.

As I said, I gave generous numbers. As I specified in the post. Including noting that the production cost and marketing are low balled but the only ones I can confirm as of right now.
I too suspect the costs are higher. Hence I mentioned that for transparency.

[TankTheta]

Originally posted by hush:

Originally posted by TankTheta:

Blizzard Launcher.

so there are another factors. why it wasn't define in your formula

I'm not talking about Diablo 4 here.