Outward’s Sales a Success?

[AsianGirlLover]

Anybody know if there’s any way to gauge how well Outward is doing in sales?

I’m very interested in the developers continuing to make more games like this, as it’s an absolute gem!

I hope they had great success to fund all their future endeavors.

[Nemerlight]

Impossible to say. I doubt its cheap game to make since you had 10 people instead 1 or 2 like some other indie games.

[Jonatom]

Metacritic is sitting at a 73 atm with RPS not weighing in yet with their score (which could push it to a 75 possibly).

Overall it has been well received by all gaming platforms, but I do not think we will see any sort of financial report until possibly a quarter or two from now.

In my personal opinion, I think we can expect another game from this Developer with the overall well reception this game has had, probably along the same genre, and hopefully a little more intricate (they have made a very solid foundation with this game).

[Neyreyan_Youtube]

I think overall the game did well but not as good as they expected it, for some reason i think they are trying to leave the game as it is since they are fighting a lot of bugs and didn't say anything about the continued support of the game since the game was supposed to have 10 zones and they confirmed 1 dlc if the game does well(wich we don't know how well is well)

[Sindex]

The game had 11,277 concurrent players on steam so it's not bad, especially considering that something like Dark Souls Remastered had 24k and is a success.

[Kai]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Anybody know if there’s any way to gauge how well Outward is doing in sales?

I’m very interested in the developers continuing to make more games like this, as it’s an absolute gem!

I hope they had great success to fund all their future endeavors.

They don't want to tell anyone until they reach milestones...
Steam Spy is now owned by Epic and is locked behind a paywall.

Originally posted by Neyreyan:

I think overall the game did well but not as good as they expected it, for some reason i think they are trying to leave the game as it is since they are fighting a lot of bugs and didn't say anything about the continued support of the game since the game was supposed to have 10 zones and they confirmed 1 dlc if the game does well(wich we don't know how well is well)

Exactly.

If you paid attention to the outrage and narrative you are seeing in gaming media, people are not happy with Deep Silver...

[Boink]

Originally posted by Kai:

If you paid attention to the outrage and narrative you are seeing in gaming media, people are not happy with Deep Silver...

Explain?

This game failed a kickstarter. It failed to get funding from the Canadian government (I think?). It's niche and very janky and made by a first time dev team - without Deep Silver there's zero chance it would have got a PS4 or XBOX release (which might have been a good thing).

They've sold 30k+ units which, for what the product is, is relying a lot on Deep Silver's reputation for open world games (given the review disparity between this and ELEX, they're also getting a lot of free good will).

There is zero chance I would have seen this or bought this at $40 without Deep Silver's name on it - and I have a absolute rack of EA games I support, but not at that kind of buy in price.

IGN will never rate a deep RPG that's not Obsidian well. They simply don't. They're also not that influential anymore. But they're right about the bugs and general jankiness - the PS4 version is a walking disaster atm.

~


They hit the jackpot compared to what most indy dev teams go through - if they're being hit by penalty clauses by the big console two, well, there's an answer to that: don't run before you can walk.

[AsianGirlLover]

Originally posted by Boink:

They've sold 30k+ units

Where are you getting this number? If that’s true, the profit they’ll make from this game is minimal considering the 30% cut to both Steam and Deep Silver.

Without taking taxes into account, if we were to assume Outward currently has 30k confirmed sales, that’s $1,200,000 gross, with Nine Dots only having access to roughly $480,000 of that before taxes.

That’a not too great if you divide it by 10 to share with the team. For 4 years of work, each team member would earn $48,000 before taxes...

What the ♥♥♥♥? This game is amazing, it should have at least 100k sales.

[Boink]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Originally posted by Boink:

They've sold 30k+ units

Where are you getting this number? If that’s true, the profit they’ll make from this game is minimal considering the 30% cut to both Steam and Deep Silver.

Without taking taxes into account, if we were to assume Outward currently has 30k confirmed sales, that’s $1,200,000 gross, with Nine Dots only having access to roughly $480,000 of that before taxes.

That’a not too great if you divide it by 10 to share with the team. For 4 years of work, each team member would earn $48,000 before taxes...

What the ♥♥♥♥? This game is amazing, it should have at least 100k sales.

That's a low ball PC only figure. But it won't be much north of 100k on all platforms for 2 week initial sales, esp. with the reviews / technical issues.

Put it into context: ELEX sold ~170k on PS4, Risen 3 got ~290k (as of Mar 1st 2018) for the EU market. Perhaps double it to inc USA, AUZ etc, but Deep Silver titles don't usually appeal to the US market.

Source: actual SONY EU figures (inc. UK).

Outward had a unique selling point with the co-op, but that's not been a smooth ship.


You really don't understand the game market - niche RPGs are... niche.


~More data.

Ok, let's look @ the UK market for SONY since it's generally fairly accurate between USA - EU etc.

https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/grid/STORE-MSF75508-GAMETOPSELLERS/1

Outward is sitting @ #12 which isn't bad (although March hasn't seen many large releases). But you'll also notice something: another indy game, Generation Zero, is sitting @ #6. On Steam, Generation Zero peaked @ 7k users. Outward peaked @ 11k.

These are not multi-million unit selling franchises.

[AsianGirlLover]

Originally posted by Boink:

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Where are you getting this number? If that’s true, the profit they’ll make from this game is minimal considering the 30% cut to both Steam and Deep Silver.

Without taking taxes into account, if we were to assume Outward currently has 30k confirmed sales, that’s $1,200,000 gross, with Nine Dots only having access to roughly $480,000 of that before taxes.

That’a not too great if you divide it by 10 to share with the team. For 4 years of work, each team member would earn $48,000 before taxes...

What the ♥♥♥♥? This game is amazing, it should have at least 100k sales.

That's a low ball PC only figure. But it won't be much north of 100k on all platforms for 2 week initial sales, esp. with the reviews / technical issues.

Put it into context: ELEX sold ~170k on PS4, Risen 3 got ~290k (as of Mar 1st 2018) for the EU market. Perhaps double it to inc USA, AUZ etc, but Deep Silver titles don't usually appeal to the US market.

Source: actual SONY EU figures (inc. UK).

Outward had a unique selling point with the co-op, but that's not been a smooth ship.


You really don't understand the game market - niche RPGs are... niche.


~More data.

Ok, let's look @ the UK market for SONY since it's generally fairly accurate between USA - EU etc.

https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/grid/STORE-MSF75508-GAMETOPSELLERS/1

Outward is sitting @ #12 which isn't bad (although March hasn't seen many large releases). But you'll also notice something: another indy game, Generation Zero, is sitting @ #6. On Steam, Generation Zero peaked @ 7k users. Outward peaked @ 11k.

These are not multi-million unit selling franchises.

I understand that it’s niche, but I didn’t think the community that enjoys these types of games was THAT small. You’d think the lovers of ELEX and Gothic would have jumped all over this, but I guess not. :\

[Kai]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Originally posted by Boink:

That's a low ball PC only figure. But it won't be much north of 100k on all platforms for 2 week initial sales, esp. with the reviews / technical issues.

Put it into context: ELEX sold ~170k on PS4, Risen 3 got ~290k (as of Mar 1st 2018) for the EU market. Perhaps double it to inc USA, AUZ etc, but Deep Silver titles don't usually appeal to the US market.

Source: actual SONY EU figures (inc. UK).

Outward had a unique selling point with the co-op, but that's not been a smooth ship.


You really don't understand the game market - niche RPGs are... niche.


~More data.

Ok, let's look @ the UK market for SONY since it's generally fairly accurate between USA - EU etc.

https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/grid/STORE-MSF75508-GAMETOPSELLERS/1

Outward is sitting @ #12 which isn't bad (although March hasn't seen many large releases). But you'll also notice something: another indy game, Generation Zero, is sitting @ #6. On Steam, Generation Zero peaked @ 7k users. Outward peaked @ 11k.

These are not multi-million unit selling franchises.

I understand that it’s niche, but I didn’t think the community that enjoys these types of games was THAT small. You’d think the lovers of ELEX and Gothic would have jumped all over this, but I guess not. :\

https://steamcommunity.com/app/794260/discussions/0/1812044473332707014/

We actually ended up discovering the CMF loan the devs made, and the possibility of Deep Silver 'paying' off this loan for them... Steam Storefront has a 30% cut, the publisher, 30%+ maybe, and the 'zero interest' loan isn't really zero, plus the Quebec government might impose taxes on digital game sales in the province.

[Kai]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Originally posted by Boink:

They've sold 30k+ units

Where are you getting this number? If that’s true, the profit they’ll make from this game is minimal considering the 30% cut to both Steam and Deep Silver.

Without taking taxes into account, if we were to assume Outward currently has 30k confirmed sales, that’s $1,200,000 gross, with Nine Dots only having access to roughly $480,000 of that before taxes.

That’a not too great if you divide it by 10 to share with the team. For 4 years of work, each team member would earn $48,000 before taxes...

What the ♥♥♥♥? This game is amazing, it should have at least 100k sales.

If you pay for Patreon for Steam Spy you can see more details on sales and stuff I think... But for us 'normies' we can't see any of the data now, since it was secretly ran by a Epic staff member.

https://steamspy.com/app/794260

"Access restricted.
This feature is only available to users with special access rights. Sorry.

If you want to proceed, you need to register or log in first and then back Steam Spy on Patreon. Look for Indie or Pro pledge. (Also note that the money made might go into Epic's pockets)

Don't forget to use the same email as on Steam Spy!"

Old userscore: 74%
Owners: 0 .. 20,000
Followers: 707
Peak concurrent players yesterday: 8,940
Peak on Twitch yesterday: 17,905 viewers, 155 channels
YouTube stats: 1,160,084 views and 4,883 comments for videos uploaded last week, over 50 new videos uploaded yesterday

If there's ~20k owners on Steam, then the remaining 10k is on Epic launcher.

[Boink]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

I understand that it’s niche, but I didn’t think the community that enjoys these types of games was THAT small. You’d think the lovers of ELEX and Gothic would have jumped all over this, but I guess not. :\

If you want to be depressed, look up the sales figures for PoE2 and so on, and the old Baldur's Gate franchise has a much longer history / larger fanbase.

https://twitter.com/Aerothorn/status/1060202788989222912


On the plus side, D:OS2 sold very well indeed.


Or, if you want a bit of context. Crate - Grim Dawn released their second DLC recently, and is hitting ~12k players for it. That's an old game with a small following and you need the previous DLC to play it.

Chances are... it might have out-sold Outward.

[Kai]

Developers needs to go back to the old days of 'more for less' or 'don't make game development your job, keep it as a hobby'?

[AsianGirlLover]

Ok, let me submit this question to you then since it seems games like these don’t get too many sales...

Why?

Why is it that streamlined, miquetoast crap like Skyrim, (ok game, terrible RPG), get huge sales while genuinely deep and complex games like these usually get average sales?

I’ve heard some people say that games like Skyrim are dumbed down to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, and that you need a high IQ to enjoy games like these, but... come on, dude, im just an average guy who likes to enjoy a challenging RPG, not some nuclear physicist. Surely there must be more people like me out there, right.....? RIGHT???

Edit: in other words, maybe they need better marketing?

[Kai]

Originally posted by AsianGirlLover:

Ok, let me submit this question to you then since it seems games like these don’t get too many sales...

Why?

Why is it that streamlined, miquetoast crap like Skyrim, (ok game, terrible RPG), get huge sales while genuinely deep and complex games like these usually get average sales?

I’ve heard some people say that games like Skyrim are dumbed down to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, and that you need a high IQ to enjoy games like these, but... come on, dude, im just an average guy who likes to enjoy a challenging RPG, not some nuclear physicist. Surely there must be more people like me out there, right.....? RIGHT??? :lunar2019shockedpig:

Edit: in other words, maybe they need better marketing?

Skyrim had Oblivion and Morrowind on it's back to help it market to the gaming industry.
Fallout 3, New Vegas, helped a lot too.

And the massive amount of modding support over the years.