Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Steam Summer Sale launch issues.

So, I imagine you guys know this is happening correct? You have the old Divinity games on Steam, and even have Dragon Commander up.

Sometime between June and July the Summer Sale is going to start, and the front page is going to be removed to showcase game sales. In the past, any game that's launched during the Summer Sale/slightly before the Summer Sale got reduced sales, because it wasn't in any sort of spotlight. Even those that attempted to market their game through game review sites/reddit got drowned out by the waves of deals popping up regularly.

Current guesstimates are saying the Summer Sale will be going from around June 20th to July 14th or so, directly cutting off Original Sin, and killing any potential first day sales it has. I know Larian is putting a ton in to this launch, so I figured I'd drop by this post to warn you.

I realize you have a date set right now, but it may be better to "launch" 1.0 on the 30th, but not formally leave Early Access until a week or so after the Summer Sale ends, so you can get the banner ads/get the front page treatment. That way those of us who ALREADY bought it and know about the 30th release date can play it on the 30th, while everyone who doesn't know/haven't been paying attention can just assume it really launched on July 20th or so.

Meh, screw Steam, GOG has awesome sales all year round and their Summer Sales are bound to be amazing. Especially now that GOG will be the first DRM free online platform. http://www.gog.com/galaxy

See, that's nice and all? But Steam was responsible for 70% of all PC game sales 3 years ago. It's only gotten bigger since then, and I've seen a few 90%'s from Ubisoft/Indies recently.

Larian can't "screw Steam". GoG isn't a big deal outside of a niche of hardcore gamers. If they want to make a return on the money they put into Original Sin ( because there is no way they made the entire game off Kickstarter funds, and Sven even admitted they dipped into the Dragon Commander profits ), it needs to sell well.

And that'll only happen on Steam.

You can dislike Steam all you want, and enjoy GoG all you want, but the reality is most people only know games exist when they show up on the Steam front page. Most of my friends don't even bother checking news/reviews sites anymore, because there isn't much of a need.

If they launch during the Summer Sale, it'll kill their profits.

Larian should try to convince the "youtube personalities" to make new videos of D:OS, like Total Biscuit and Angry Joe did during the Kickstarter. It would be a cheap and effective way to make some word of mouth outside the people who frequent CRPG communities.

Sadly you're right, though I think GOG only appears small because all the publishers fear it like the plague. Now with the Witcher 3 launching GOG in a massive way along with the Galaxy service it would work miracles for Larian if they managed to get big exposure there.....bot Larian and GOG would benefit massively.