Why 2.5 million sales is significant

[Cryemore]

I've shared this information in replies to other posts, but decided that it warrants a discussion thread all it's own. So I'm just copying one of my replies and pasting it here.

This game likely already turned a profit.

Not many seem to realize it but this game was made by only 392 people.

392

This is incredibly efficient for a AAA game, smaller even than the teams for some AA releases.

For context, here are the staff sizes for several other recent games. Some of these numbers are absolutely ridiculous.

Diablo IV - 8,694
Starfield - 3,902
Spider-Man 2 - 3,582
Hogwarts Legacy - 3,429
FF7 Rebirth - 3077
Jedi Survivor - 2,682
GOW Ragnarok - 2,600
Redfall - 1,996. <-----------------------------------------

Even DD1, back when it released in 2012 had 616 staff.

People like to compare Helldivers 2 constantly because it's hot right now, but even that had 1220 staff.

Say what you will, this game will make studios and publishers stand up and take notice. The cost of making AAA games is out of control and completely unsustainable. Capcom just made a AAA game and sold 2.5 million copies within 11 days of release with a development team 4x-21x smaller than anything listed here.

Itsuno had to fight to make DD1 as Capcom thought it too much of a risk. The fact that the team for DD2 is significantly smaller than what DD1 had suggests that they still believe this to be true. The production budget for this game was likely very small compared to it's contemporaries.

Despite all of this they still delivered a fantastic game, albeit a flawed one.

EDIT: There seems to be some confusion. These numbers represent the actual number of individuals credited in the development of each respective game. That includes outsourced work. This represents everyone. From programmers, artists, concept artists etc. all the way to writers and localizers.

EDIT 2: The entire purpose of this post was to point out the fact that this game is likely already profitable. It was not, in any way shape or form designed to somehow disparage other games or brag about sales numbers. The entire point is thus: Capcom developed a triple-A game released in 2024 in such an efficient manner that it most likely became profitable very quickly.

The team was tiny for a AAA title, we can thus assume with a great amount of certainty that the actual production budget was also comparatively small.

[All Day I Dream About🪓]

Such a small team and such a unique and beautiful game. Truly amazing how such this relatively small team archived such great results.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by Cloak:

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Childish, vulgar and wholly unproductive in every sense of the word. I've been using steam for like 16 years and you've earned the honor of being the first and only person I've ever blocked. Gratz. You will not receive a clown.

[Sgt. Magnusson]

Dragon's Dogma is also a niche IP and, despite that, DD2 has sold relatively well.

FINAL FANTASY VII Remake was one of the most anticipated games of all time from a much bigger IP and it sold 3.5 million copies in it's first week, just a million more than DD2. It took them about 2 and a half years to reach 7 million copies sold.

[Sgt. Flaw]

I should've taken the 40 dollar game that was properly funded....there's a reason it's numero uno rn...enough of the dev shilling

Lets say this info more than makes me blacklist crapcom for good.

[Dollmaker]

Originally posted by Cryemore:

Originally posted by Cloak:

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Childish, vulgar and wholly unproductive in every sense of the word. I've been using steam for like 16 years and you've earned the honor of being the first and only person I've ever blocked. Gratz. You will not receive a clown.

This idiot has been spamming the same thing on several threads, just report him so all of it gets removed.

[Sgt. Magnusson]

Originally posted by Sgt. Flaw:

I should've taken the 40 dollar game that was properly funded....there's a reason it's numero uno rn...enough of the dev shilling

Helldivers 2 literally had many more problems in its first 3 weeks than this game ever had and with way more microtransactions.

[Sgt. Flaw]

Originally posted by Lockhart:

Originally posted by Sgt. Flaw:

I should've taken the 40 dollar game that was properly funded....there's a reason it's numero uno rn...enough of the dev shilling

Helldivers 2 literally had many more problems in its first 3 weeks than this game ever had and with way more microtransactions.

I don't care about the mxt....the performance is fine...it's the lack of content and obvious time sinks that I have an issue with. Yes I'm playing it...but I'm quite patient. I'm just saying with AA dev crews and budgets they should be charging AA prices....

I would've been more than content at 40 bucks.

[Razorblade]

What is the source on your numbers?

It seems like you're counting every single employee of those studios as having worked on those games. And even then, some of those numbers still seem wildly inflated, like you included every employee under every studio owned by the game's publisher.

Bethesda Game Studios, the developer of Starfield, for example, only has 450 employees. Where did the other 3500 come from? Did you count literally every employee of every Zenimax subsidiary as having worked on Starfield?

By that logic, Dragon's Dogma 2 had 3300 people "working" on it, as that is the number of employees Capcom has. Studios make more than one game at a time, you know.

The largest ever team to work on a game, that we have anything resembling a solid number for, is RDR2 at about 2000.
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/557449-largest-development-team-for-a-videogame

No one is out there making games with 9000 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ people. I'd like some of what OP is smoking; they are clearly on a different plane than us mere mortals.

[Sgt. Flaw]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

What is the source on your numbers?

It seems like you're counting every single employee of those studios as having worked on those games. And even then, some of those numbers still seem wildly inflated, like you included every employee under every studio owned by the game's publisher.

Bethesda Game Studios, the developer of Starfield, for example, only has 450 employees. Where did the other 3500 come from? Did you count literally every Zenimax employee as having worked on Starfield?

By that logic, Dragon's Dogma 2 had 3300 people "working" on it, as that is the number of employees Capcom has. Studios make more than one game at a time, you know.

There's so much to this too...Bethesda had to update their engine while the RE engine is already pretty current. Does that dev crew include everyone who worked on the RE engine?

[No' Name]

I didn't read your post, but from the title I can safely tell you 2.5 million copies sold, is NOTHING.

You don't have to believe me or anything but look at Indie games like Palworld most notably. sold 20 mill+ copies in what.... 3 weeks?

So yes, as a triple A company only making 2.5 mill sales on a $80+ game? it's laughable.

Capcom was doing so well, now they've basically become "CRAPCOM" again.

[Grr. [SG CMD] Majah Lazah]

Originally posted by Sgt. Flaw:

Originally posted by Razorblade:

What is the source on your numbers?

It seems like you're counting every single employee of those studios as having worked on those games. And even then, some of those numbers still seem wildly inflated, like you included every employee under every studio owned by the game's publisher.

Bethesda Game Studios, the developer of Starfield, for example, only has 450 employees. Where did the other 3500 come from? Did you count literally every Zenimax employee as having worked on Starfield?

By that logic, Dragon's Dogma 2 had 3300 people "working" on it, as that is the number of employees Capcom has. Studios make more than one game at a time, you know.

There's so much to this too...Bethesda had to update their engine while the RE engine is already pretty current. Does that dev crew include everyone who worked on the RE engine?

this is a lie on literally every level.

Bethesda had over 1000 employees on Starfield from their own studios not counting contractors and mIcro$oft "partner labs".

Bethesda did NOT update their game engine except for rendering, which is why modders can not make use of it for anything other than simple replacements.

This version of RE has 75% longer draw distance and +50% object density compared to any other version and this is the first game using it, with MHWILD to follow, which I'm sure you'll be screeching about as well because it's going to hit even harder than this title. We haven't even covered this is the most complex mesh system Capcom has ever used, period and there's nothing else like it currently published, and we also haven't covered the AI system in place which is why everyone is butthurt in the first place.

You are literally just talking out of your ass, and should probably just stick to "I don't like this game".

[L]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

What is the source on your numbers?

It seems like you're counting every single employee of those studios as having worked on those games. And even then, some of those numbers still seem wildly inflated, like you included every employee under every studio owned by the game's publisher.

Bethesda Game Studios, the developer of Starfield, for example, only has 450 employees. Where did the other 3500 come from? Did you count literally every employee of every Zenimax subsidiary as having worked on Starfield?

By that logic, Dragon's Dogma 2 had 3300 people "working" on it, as that is the number of employees Capcom has. Studios make more than one game at a time, you know.

Source is more than likely from here https://www.mobygames.com/game/220049/dragons-dogma-ii/credits/playstation-5/?autoplatform=true

When I look at other Capcom games like Street Fighter 6, the numbers are significantly higher - https://www.mobygames.com/game/203910/street-fighter-6/credits/playstation-5/?autoplatform=true

Resident Evil 4 Remake - https://www.mobygames.com/game/200900/resident-evil-4/credits/windows/?autoplatform=true

I don't know if the numbers are completely accurate 100%, and even if you were to remove some people here and there for some other form, the number differentials are still staggering.

[Gyson]

Pre-launch, Capcom suggested their sales expectations was at least 9 million. I’m not saying DD2 can’t eventually reach that, just that 2.5 is only significant in the context that the game hasn’t been out very long. But the number is obviously still short of the long term goal and needs to do more than have a strong initial launch.

Also, those developer numbers seem very off. Helldivers 2 had about a hundred devs working on it, not 1220.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

What is the source on your numbers?

It seems like you're counting every single employee of those studios as having worked on those games. And even then, some of those numbers still seem wildly inflated, like you included every employee under every studio owned by the game's publisher.

Bethesda Game Studios, the developer of Starfield, for example, only has 450 employees. Where did the other 3500 come from? Did you count literally every employee of every Zenimax subsidiary as having worked on Starfield?

By that logic, Dragon's Dogma 2 had 3300 people "working" on it, as that is the number of employees Capcom has. Studios make more than one game at a time, you know.

The largest ever team to work on a game, that we have anything resembling a solid number for, is RDR2 at about 2000.
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/557449-largest-development-team-for-a-videogame

No one is out there making games with 9000 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ people. I'd like some of what OP is smoking; they are clearly on a different plane than us mere mortals.

This is the actual number of people credited for each games development. Keep in mind that outsourcing is a very common practice and that these numbers include those individuals.

This isn't strictly the number of developers, this is programmers, artists, writers, localizers, etc.

Dragon's Dogma 2 had a total of 392 people credited in the development of the game. Starfield had 3902 people credited in the development of the game, just as Diablo IV had nearly 9000.

Unbelievable? Of course it is. There is a reason modern games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, and it isn't because of software licenses.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by No' Name:

I didn't read your post, but from the title I can safely tell you 2.5 million copies sold, is NOTHING.

You don't have to believe me or anything but look at Indie games like Palworld most notably. sold 20 mill+ copies in what.... 3 weeks?

So yes, as a triple A company only making 2.5 mill sales on a $80+ game? it's laughable.

Capcom was doing so well, now they've basically become "CRAPCOM" again.

You cannot use an outlier like palworld as the standard. Palworld is a literal golden unicorn.