Sales Update: 3 Million Players

[Smooth_Merc]

From Ubisoft FB Account:

🔥 OVER 3 MILLION PLAYERS FOR AC SHADOWS! 🔥

✅2nd highest Day 1 sales revenue in Assassin's Creed franchise history.
✅Biggest Ubisoft Day 1 ever on PlayStation Digital Store.
✅Best community ever, with over 40 Million hours already played.

Justice is forged in the Shadows. 🦅

Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ABWU3Kvmo/?mibextid=wwXIfr

[Daevinski]

Originalmente postado por patrick68794:

Originalmente postado por Daevinski:

AC Shadows is not a cheap game. Not at all. So, if you're willing to pay good money for the game, it means you REALLY want it, you really value the title and the franchise. You can't say the same about a subscription service where people pay a low price for a big package of assorted games they don't even care to keep.

So, until they share the number of individual copies sold, the number of players doesn't mean as much as you think it means.

It means this has been the second largest launch for the franchise in terms of revenue at least

I'll only believe it when they share the official sales numbers. They even should include the number of new Ubisoft+ subscriptions since the release of the game, in fact.

[XxEyeDragonxX]

Originalmente postado por bshock:

Originalmente postado por DragonBane:

Supposedly there is 3 million players, but they haven't even hit 1 million sales yet. How does that work exactly? And if Ubisoft had gotten 1 million sales already, they would make sure that everyone knows about it by posting it everywhere in big bold script.

According to the doubters, most of the 3 million sales have been people playing and then refunding it on Steam, console owners having parties at their homes and everyone signing in on a different account to try it out, and Ubisoft lying.

It's not that either, but people thinking that 3 million players is the same as 3 million sales isn't acceptable either.

Let's look at a Ubisoft game that hasn't sold particularly well either, Star Wars Outlaws. They reported 1.5 million players, but they had to admit they sold less than 1 million, in other words, less than two-thirds of the players.

If we use that with AC Shadows, we have that they said 3 million players, so we could estimate that they sold less than 2 million, which is still pretty bad.

[Maschendraht]

Originalmente postado por AdahnGorion:

Originalmente postado por Roy:

It's outselling Odyssey by most assumptions. A game that sold 10,000,000 copies in two years. inb4 a newly minted stock bro tells me it needs to sell 40,000,000 to be profitable.

Incorrect.

They said that Day one numbers for Gross revenue was higher for AC:Shadows, compared to Odyssey.

That is not unlikely. Odyssey released 7 years ago and the daily steam userbase (this is just steam alone) is over twice as large now..
Factor in that Odyssey was not on steam day one.

Odyssey did not need as much gross revenue to make a profit either, as AC:Shadows does, as that game had under half the budget of what AC:Shadows have.

Its like trying to argue, that a new Pizza place is a great success, compared to the old burger joint 7 years ago... because they have a larger gross revenue.. but people forget that the staff needs twice as much in wage now, the products cost 300% more to make and then it does not really matter if you have twice the revenue, you will still have less profit or even a loss...


Its the same here..

AC:S at its lowest estimate is 400m.
So a gross revenue (from all sources) on day one for ie. 150m is not really a good result.


As you might have noticed, there are already talks about reconstruction.

- The other day when we discussed this you estimated 250m as cost, now it's already 400m+. But ok.

-You're correct that Odyssey wasn't on day one available on Steam. The game initially released on October 2nd 2018 and it released on Steam October 5th 2018, so three days later. I don't think this is really a point.

- You're saying the Steam userbase has increased. That's true. But the number of games on Steam also has increased, and mostly older games get played anyway. Only a small amount of the overall playtime is spent on new games anyway. (I can dig up the study for this if necessary).

[patrick68794]

Originalmente postado por AdahnGorion:

Originalmente postado por patrick68794:

Odyssey was absolutely on Steam day 1 lol release date was October 5th, 2018. Guess when it was released on Steam?

https://steamdb.info/app/812140/

October 5th, 2018

Odyssey was released October 2nd.
It was not on steam day one. Have fun.

Nope. October 5th.

October 5, 2018
PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One
WW: October 5, 2018
Nintendo Switch
JP: October 5, 2018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_Odyssey#:~:text=Odyssey%20was%20released%20worldwide%20for,One%20on%20October%205%2C%202018.

Release Date:October 5, 2018

https://store.ubisoft.com/us/assassins-creed-odyssey/5afda5f788a7e34d25b5012f.html?lang=en_US

There was an "early access" period that started on October 2nd, but unsurprisingly that was available on Steam as well lol

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/assassins-creed/news/1ZWsYEGqGkmqHkTadSx5Ys/assassins-creed-odyssey-launch-essentials

[HiRed_ThuG]

Originalmente postado por DragonBane:

Supposedly there is 3 million players, but they haven't even hit 1 million sales yet. How does that work exactly? And if Ubisoft had gotten 1 million sales already, they would make sure that everyone knows about it by posting it everywhere in big bold script.

You do realise that the number of gamers that use Ubisoft Plus is relatively small don't you?

https://tech4gamers.com/majority-xbox-users-wont-subscribe-to-ubisoft-plus/

[MajesticJazz]

Originalmente postado por Maschendraht:

I think people here are underestimating the money you can earn with subscription services. Some will only pay for a month, but with a long game like this, many will continue to subscribe and once they're in, they might also try other Ubisoft titles and play them with the subscription. Or cancel the subscriptuon and buy one of the older games they've tried, which is almost as good. Then there are always a few players who'll simply forget to cancel their subscription. This is something all subscription services count on. Then some players will return for the DLC and also pay for another month. And there's also ingame purchases. The bigger your player base, the more you can sell in game.

In the end, some of the subscribers will pay the same or sometimes even more in comparison to buying the game. There are reasons why companies like these services so much.

Also subscribers also buy MTXs....which is a major revenue stream.

[Ele]

Only 37M more subscriptions to break even. Let's go!

[Ryu]

Originalmente postado por Lucifer Verone:

Everything you have said is cope my friend. Nothing more than justifications for Ubisofts statements which ultimately mean nothing unless they are backed up by proper sales numbers.

Sure, see you in a few months when you're seething over this game unsurprisingly turning out to be another best-seller in the franchise then!

[Tiasmoon]

Originalmente postado por Maschendraht:

- You're saying the Steam userbase has increased. That's true. But the number of games on Steam also has increased, and mostly older games get played anyway. Only a small amount of the overall playtime is spent on new games anyway. (I can dig up the study for this if necessary).

Concurrent peaks for recently (past 2~ years) released big titles that were very popular contradict this being relevant. Yes, people play a lot of older games. No, they didnt prevent at this point, many other games from reaching peaks 10x or even 20x the size.

[AdahnGorion]

Originalmente postado por Maschendraht:

Originalmente postado por AdahnGorion:

Incorrect.

They said that Day one numbers for Gross revenue was higher for AC:Shadows, compared to Odyssey.

That is not unlikely. Odyssey released 7 years ago and the daily steam userbase (this is just steam alone) is over twice as large now..
Factor in that Odyssey was not on steam day one.

Odyssey did not need as much gross revenue to make a profit either, as AC:Shadows does, as that game had under half the budget of what AC:Shadows have.

Its like trying to argue, that a new Pizza place is a great success, compared to the old burger joint 7 years ago... because they have a larger gross revenue.. but people forget that the staff needs twice as much in wage now, the products cost 300% more to make and then it does not really matter if you have twice the revenue, you will still have less profit or even a loss...


Its the same here..

AC:S at its lowest estimate is 400m.
So a gross revenue (from all sources) on day one for ie. 150m is not really a good result.


As you might have noticed, there are already talks about reconstruction.

- The other day when we discussed this you estimated 250m as cost, now it's already 400m+. But ok.

-You're correct that Odyssey wasn't on day one available on Steam. The game initially released on October 2nd 2018 and it released on Steam October 5th 2018, so three days later. I don't think this is really a point.

- You're saying the Steam userbase has increased. That's true. But the number of games on Steam also has increased, and mostly older games get played anyway. Only a small amount of the overall playtime is spent on new games anyway. (I can dig up the study for this if necessary).

No

I have always estimated a 400m as cost. Its been my estimate for half a year now.
You might have noticed the thread were we discussed production cost and the sources we had for it.

Those sources made a 250-350m estimate.
These numbers are without advertisement cost. Hence why we use the 300m middle road and add the 100m estimated advertisement budget. That is 400m in total cost.

We did not add 20m delay cost, nor the cost it takes after release (the game is still being patched etc, so there are running cost)

What I look at for a financial point of view is the gross revenue. That is what is important for us. Then we can take away the cut, taxes and overall development cost to find a net profit/loss.

None of the above is any indicator on if the game is good or not, as that is a subjective matter. I like some aspect of this game, as I detailed in my review, I dislike other aspects and I hate.. yes hate is a strong wrong, but I hate MTX and live service in SP games.

[Ryu]

Originalmente postado por DragonBane:

Supposedly there is 3 million players, but they haven't even hit 1 million sales yet. How does that work exactly? And if Ubisoft had gotten 1 million sales already, they would make sure that everyone knows about it by posting it everywhere in big bold script.

How'd you know? Do you have access to their numbers or something?

[Trentscousin]

All this banter.

Just wait for the financials to be leaked to the public, that info, nothing else determines success or failure.

My prediction is not breaking even, and ubi being sold and used for parts.*

*will check back later.

[Corona Scurrae]

Originalmente postado por casdarius:

is the game on gamepass? because i very highly doubt that theyve sold 3m copies... which is still 5m short of breaking even on their dev costs alone.

Ubisoft got their own sub model and it's available across all major platforms. Oddly enough despite the major success and your usual wallstreet journal suspects describing it as a success it seems as if the news of ubisoft selling their IP to the highest bidder did more to move their market cap than this release

But you know what? Don't apply reason in this forum

[Roy]

Originalmente postado por Trentscousin:

All this banter.

Just wait for the financials to be leaked to the public, that info, nothing else determines success or failure.

My prediction is not breaking even, and ubi being sold and used for parts.*

*will check back later.

A one sentence prediction not digging into invisible numbers. Holyyyy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[Ele]

They had a $500M budget (including marketing), with the game priced at $70 per copy. Subscriptions bring in $18 per player, and platform cuts (Steam & consoles) take 30% of standard sales revenue.

To break even, they’d need to generate $500M in revenue, meaning they’d have to sell around 7.14M full-price copies ($70 * 0.7 = $49 per copy after platform cuts).

Since subscriptions bring in $18 per player, they’d need about 27.8M subscriptions to reach $500M, almost 28M subscribers.

Being generous, if 2M were full-price copies and 1M came from subscriptions, that would put them at:

$98M from copies (2M * $49)

$18M from subscriptions (1M * $18)

Total: $116M / $500M, or just 23.2% of the way to breaking even.

Edit: Removed the 30% cut from their own subscriptions, that adds 1.2% progress.