500K sales, 13K reviews, and sub 1K players on averagely? This math isn't adding up.

[Zartanyen]

500K sales, ( supposedly) with only 13K reviews ( about 3% of sales) on a game that's pretty much only sold on steam, and keeps a average of under 1K players daily. ( less than 1/500th of sales) ( usually between 600 and 800) I can't be the only one that thinks these numbers are off. ( meaning inflated sales numbers.)

Either these sales numbers are inflated or this game is doing so terrible that only the most die hard fans of it stick around to play it still daily.

Your looking at over 99% of the people who bought this game leaving it. ( according to those sales numbers) Your obviously doing something wrong if you can't keep players around after initial sales, I mean grim dawn and even titan's quest have way better averages daily than this. ( grim dawn averaging triple the daily average and it's average peaks around your all time peak.)

The other thing that sticks out is your all time peak of 7200 with 500k sales? GD was over 60K and wolcen had over 120K ( I can only imagine their sales numbers if they had 120K plus on at one time, betting they made the over 500K sales mark with those numbers.) which would clearly show strong sales numbers, but you could only manage 7200 max with 500K sales???

These numbers are correct, ( doubting that myself) then your doing a absolute awful job on this game and aren't going to keep a sustainable amount of customers around to buy your mtx to keep it going once it launches. You must be praying for a wave of new customers at a launch ( probably in 2025 or so if keeping with your 2 year cycle of full .10 improvements.) but with POE2 probably coming out in 2024 and D4 going to be discounted at that time) but I wouldn't count on a huge amount.

You have a buyout clause in that tencent deal if your numbers drop to a certain percentage? I hope you do or can redo the contract to get one, because based off these numbers your going to need it to walk away with anything.

I think you need to start sending out some emails or having some survey on why people left last epoch and what you can do to change it to have some of these players return.

The development has been slow but there has been some nice improvements over the years, I am looking forward to seeing the mtx items, but if you can't keep customers around what will it matter as their will be no one around to buy them and even loyal fans might be on the fence about buying them if their's not a good number of players on the game for them to feel the investment is worth it.

I hope it doesn't happen, but I am going to bet this goes F2P within 2 years or less after 1.0 launch.

[RodHull]

Първоначално публикувано от Fenris:

So, it's better to be like POE than GD with his 7M but barely have 5 or 7K players in average (0.1% of copies sold, the ratio is even worse than LE in beta)

The difference of course being...

1) GD was made by a team of 5 full time staff and around 5 part time
2) GD was not a live service game, it allowed them to work on expansions slowly and at their own pace (not chasing the LS gravy train)
3) Even when the expansions hit it didn't matter what level of engagement they got daily cause their business model was purely based on box sales and expansion sales, not selling digital hats and wings to people to dress up in.

[wespe___o=/;;;:*]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/w80uqn/how_hard_is_it_to_sell_a_100k_copies/

some comments..

Just to give an estimate from 2019 Steam data leak, there was only about 1850 games that had hit the 100k copies mark. And most of those are from larger studios. However, I haven't checked how many of those are free-to-play, so the total games that actually had to be bought is much lower. Also, there have been massive increase of games in Steam, especially non-quality ones. I can't remember exact numbers (from Steam official data), but I think it was something like +15k new games in 2020 and +20k in 2021. So basically, the whole game pool got more diluted, which makes it even harder to sell 100k copies in 2022 than it was 2019.

But for 100k copies, you are probably estimating over a million in sales, which would easily make your game in top 5% (from that 2019 data). And pay in mind that the sales curve in Steam is exponential from start to finish. So if you rank every Steam games by copies of sold, and your game goes up by one decile, your sales should almost double. So basically, you need to be very close to the top 5%, which statistically should be very hard task to do, especially for indies.

Anyway, I suggest you to look for this one: https://vginsights.com/steam-analytics. You can use those to get somewhat estimates of how much sales your competitors are having, and what you should expect.
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Depending on marketing strategies, gameplay, trailers, websites etc. You could potentially hit around 30k.

100k copies would have to be a pretty popular concept or game in general. If the company has a good reputation or is in demand. You could probably hit that number in a few days or less.

Vampire survivors reached 100k in almost 7 months after release without any marketing or any help (solo developer) Essentially it just comes down to how good your game is or has the potential to be.

So in saying that. It wouldn't be impossible but it would be pretty hard to reach such a goal.
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The last time I saw stats, 98% of games sell less than 1k. Median was between 5-10k and was heavily propelled up by AAA selling millions. 97% revenue comes from 0.1% games. Something like that. Go look at steamspy for a vague understanding.

[nacciw574]

Първоначално публикувано от Fenris:

POE has already been in the Steam Top 10 and for a long time, Grim dawn, him.... And people name it in the heavyweight category (what always surprised me, his numbers never been on par with others released big h&S).
So, it's better to be like POE than GD with his 7M but barely have 5 or 7K players in average (0.1% of copies sold, the ratio is even worse than LE in beta)
Expecting a game, from an indie company, not even released and only in EA, from a niche kind of game, being in Steam top 10. Seriously ?
You really dream and expect too much, or it's just an argument to try to create a bad buzz and bring down the game.
Even POE, never been in the top 10 before 2017, so years after his release.
https://steamcharts.com/app/238960
His success has been far to be immediate but build on the long term, with multiple updates during 4 years after his release.

No one has to bring down the game. It does it on its own. How much is LE going to change between now and release? It is 0.9. You think it will have a ton more features? How close will release resemble now? That is the real question and I am willing to bet it won't see much change if any at all.

The excuse of people not playing now because "waiting on MP" is so FoS. If peeps are okay with LE the way it is now, cool...I mean I won't stop anyone if they settled down in a cow pasture with their fork and knife to have themselves a tasty meal...

If you need kats-up, let us know.

[Zephos]

Първоначално публикувано от wespe___o=/:*:

My opinion:
Latest trick claiming 500k sold units. So where are the players?? °_°
500k ?? sounds like a typical marketing gag aka window dressing (preorders, etc) at best.
[LastEpoch is far away from Steam´s #top 100 bestselling games, never in #top10 weekly in last year, so how is that number generated ?! Seems hot air, zero proof, maybe Tencent Preorders]
copies/[/code]

you forget they have there own store......

[sibbs]

Grim Dawn and Valheim has to be the joint number one Early Access purchases I've ever made, I've been playing GD since 2014 and the game has evolved in to one of the best Arpg on the market.
I backed Last Epoch four years ago and even though i wish the Developers well I just cannot get settled in their world, still I don't don't regret giving my money to any EA title and I just hope it all works out for them.

[celticarmoury]

I have played a ton of LE but until they release the final trees I have no interest in continuing. MP holds no draw for me.

[SrsBznz]

I played a ton of it in 2021 (430hours) but started getting burnt out and decided to shelf it until multiplayer fully launches. I imagine there are many others like me who really enjoyed the game but decided to take a longer break. I'll be back when there aren't any planned progression wipes.

[oldschooldiablo]

Първоначално публикувано от Fenris:

from an indie company

EHG isn't an indie company anymore. They have investors now. Ur not indie when u have company's investing in ur company or game.

[RodHull]

Първоначално публикувано от celticarmoury:

I have played a ton of LE but until they release the final trees I have no interest in continuing. MP holds no draw for me.

Release them? They barely have work done on them beyond the concept board phase of design.

[Danyaell]

I'm playing other games while LE is still in EA.

[Koala 4peace]

Първоначално публикувано от RodHull:

Първоначално публикувано от Fenris:

So, it's better to be like POE than GD with his 7M but barely have 5 or 7K players in average (0.1% of copies sold, the ratio is even worse than LE in beta)

The difference of course being...

1) GD was made by a team of 5 full time staff and around 5 part time
2) GD was not a live service game, it allowed them to work on expansions slowly and at their own pace (not chasing the LS gravy train)
3) Even when the expansions hit it didn't matter what level of engagement they got daily cause their business model was purely based on box sales and expansion sales, not selling digital hats and wings to people to dress up in.

Just between 5 and 10 and no live service, plus the fondness the fans prove when writing about the game? Would have to check Grim Dawn, when there is some spares...

[RodHull]

Първоначално публикувано от Koala 4peace:

Just between 5 and 10 and no live service, plus the fondness the fans prove when writing about the game? Would have to check Grim Dawn, when there is some spares...

It's pretty old school in the way it plays (not everyones cup of tea) but it is imo the best ARPG since OG:D2, and I don't say that lightly. The world is deep and rich full of lore, the classes and setting is pretty unique (sort of post apocalypse cowboy/steampunk mixed with Cthulhu vibe) the two expansions could easily be sold as games in their own right they amount of content they add. If its ever on sale its well worth picking up.

[Dareo Larix]

bought it, never played it cause i'm waiting on multiplayer like all my friends

but well you do you with your numbers :D

[wespe___o=/;;;:*]

Първоначално публикувано от Zephos:

Първоначално публикувано от wespe___o=/:*:

My opinion:
Latest trick claiming 500k sold units. So where are the players?? °_°
500k ?? sounds like a typical marketing gag aka window dressing (preorders, etc) at best.
[LastEpoch is far away from Steam´s #top 100 bestselling games, never in #top10 weekly in last year, so how is that number generated ?! Seems hot air, zero proof, maybe Tencent Preorders]
copies/[/code]

you forget they have there own store......

Exactly - perfect to pump numbers out of thin air without any proof for 1-2years IF you really want. Best (somewhat precise) algorithm-based estimate is ~300k for LastEpoch in a Release-scenario (which 0.9 is NOT), but even that number is inflated as it´s based on secondary Steam Stats like followers, etc, which is hyped in EA-games
-> At this point there are no 100k players of LastEpoch, you will find out soon

[vishuspuss]

Първоначално публикувано от nacciw574:

The excuse of people not playing now because "waiting on MP" is so FoS. If peeps are okay with LE the way it is now, cool...I mean I won't stop anyone if they settled down in a cow pasture with their fork and knife to have themselves a tasty meal...

I'm not playing it because of no MP