I like how we went from " Barrelmancy must go ! " to " Ok listen here. So my grandfather is a barrel expert. He told mde not to put too many in a video game ". I just can't xD It's perfect.
I have no idea of what the hell are you even talking about, frankly. he asked if anyone ever saw a real barrel and yes I did, plenty of them on a regular basis. Period.
Last edited by Tuco; 21/06/2104:14 PM.
Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
The barrel convo has been my favorite since I joined the forums. Spent a few hours watching old strongmen competitions with my fella as a result of it. We had many good laughs.
Looking at "Recent Games" in Steamspy Mass Effect Legendary Edition leads the pack with 500k to 1 million sales. Solasta is on the first page though, at 200k to 500k sales. Given the rather stark differences in marketing power behind those two publishers the Solasta result actually looks pretty good!
Only time will tell whether we get a sequel, but 500k sales (give or take) is probably a windfall for a small studio like Tactical Adventures. My confidence in their next project getting traction is very high.
Looking at "Recent Games" in Steamspy Mass Effect Legendary Edition leads the pack with 500k to 1 million sales. Solasta is on the first page though, at 200k to 500k sales. Given the rather stark differences in marketing power behind those two publishers the Solasta result actually looks pretty good!
Only time will tell whether we get a sequel, but 500k sales (give or take) is probably a windfall for a small studio like Tactical Adventures. My confidence in their next project getting traction is very high.
I mean, I am hopeful as well. One thing to keep in mind about ME Legendary edition is that most sales probably went through Origin - EA's games platform - and not through Steam at all. Since the game has to be run through Origin anyway.
500k is not terrible. Its about 20 Million Gross - minus 30% for Steam is about 10-14 million for Tactical Adventures adjusting for sales - on a budget of 250k.
Sven all but confirmed that they are making BG3 for fans of DOS2. Not fans of the original series, not fans of tabletop DnD, but for their fans whom have already purchased their previous games.
He also confirmed they are working on improving combat and other mechanics based on feedback. Since we don't yet know which feedback - let's not take one comment out of the context of the entire interview, let them work and see what happens, hmm?
Given that the entire combat model is removed from the action economy of actual 5e, and is instead centered around attack/push/throw/jump, I don't see them reorganizing it in any meaningful way that doesn't maintain the existing combat focus. Not to mention the damage that they have done to class balance with their changes. They aren't scrapping what they have at this point given how far behind they seem to be at the moment.
Well, I mean, to bring up Solasta - which apparently did a great job with 5E rules - didn't sell more than 500k copies as far as I can tell.
It also comes from an unknown developer at their first title and it didn't cost, what, 1/30th of what BG3 did? And it shows. Do I really need to point to you why that's a disingenuous argument to make?
I am not being disingenuous. I say all these things in my argument. And I am being sincere. I have watched tons of streamers cover Solasta in glowing terms and it has not resulted in sales. So either streamers are overrated (they are) or sticking to perfect 5E rules is not a magic bullet (it isn't). And I mention that BG3 has name recognition and Advertising on its side. People ARE shallow!
Btw, I am not offended but do you understand that accursing a person of being disingenuous is an insult? It gets thrown around a lot in this forum (not by me) and it's really a pretty harsh thing to throw at people.
Disingenuous -not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.
lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous
The majority of gamers will buy in to games with appealing visuals. Solasta went for functioning visuals that are a few generations behind.
Imagine if Solasta had Halsin and other eye-candy characters like Baldur's Gate 3...
Tuco is hinting at return-on-investment and Solasta is probably doing very well with 500k copies sold.
Looks like DoS 2 reached 1 million sales by around 2 months of release. 500k for Solasta is looking better and better.
(I don't think Solasta will reach the same numbers as DoS 2, but even this is not an apples to apples comparison... Larian was well known when it released DoS 2. There is no real apples to apples comparison, but it might be interesting to compare to Divine Divinity lol).
I've been very consistent as a vocal critic from the day the game was revealed. It *is* nice to see so many posters here who were in the "the game is fine/awesome" camp now coming around to one degree or another and agreeing with the critics that the game is not fine and that it does have some serious problems.
I used to be in the "this will be the game of the decade that redefines the genre, and my favourite game ever!" camp until EA hit. Har. Har. Now I'm a... salt mephit, I suppose.
Quite hilariously, about a year ago I looked at this forum and recoiled in horror at the sight of "terrible toxic haters who do nothing but shit on Larian, it's so sad"; I specifically remember you and Tuco. Fast forward to October and, lo and behold, I agree with most of what "the horrible complainers" say. Myself being one of the most critical complainers.
Originally Posted by kanisatha
But the problems can be fixed. And the game can be fine, even awesome. If only Larian will listen to us for a change.
It could be fine. But, honestly, I have exactly 0 hope Larian would go with anything that's a fundamental change in design philosophy. And many such changes would be - in my personal opinion - required for this game to be both a proper main entry in the Baldur's Gate series and an "RPG of the decade". Or just a game I could really like.
(Btw, I love how the topic devolved (evolved?) into a serious, in-depth discussion on the intricacies of historical and technical aspects of barrels.)
Nice to have you back, @Uncle Lester!
Very sad that even after a year and a half, I am so very disappointed with this game. I am a true BG franchise FANatic, and have been dying for a BG3. I so want to be able to love this game, but just cannot in its current state.
Sven all but confirmed that they are making BG3 for fans of DOS2. Not fans of the original series, not fans of tabletop DnD, but for their fans whom have already purchased their previous games.
This is how I've been describing this game right from the very beginning. It is being made only for the D:OS fans and no one else. Now, I'm not saying don't try to bring in the D:OS fans. That would be silly to say. But surely it is not too much to expect that a game titled "Baldur's Gate THREE" will be made with an eye to appealing to fans of Baldur's Gate ONE and TWO.
Steamspy "data" is not particularly useful, imo. Firstly, it obviously leaves out a lot of other ways in which people may be buying their games. But even taking it to represent Steam sales data is highly flawed because Steam uses ranges of sales, 200k to 500k, 2m to 5m, etc. And then people conveniently latch on to the high end of the range and claim that is the sales number. So for BG3 EA, for example, if it falls in the 2 - 5 m range, BG3 fans of course want to claim the sales figure is 5 m which is quite ridiculous. At best I would say it is likely sitting right at 2 m.
How many copied did Larian sell of their first game?
Divine Divinity: 500,000 - 1,000,000. Solasta: 200,000 - 500,000. Not really a useful comparison though. When Divine Divinity was initially released neither steam nor GOG existed. I would guess most of its sales were CDs and none of those sales would be shown in those figures. The total number of people who played games back then was also smaller, so comparing an audience from a game back then to a game now isn't something you can feasibly do. Also, these games aren't even in the same genre, so its like comparing a racing game to a puzzle game. The market was also less diluted though, so people had less to choose between. There are also other variables like the fact that the one was released 20 years ago and the other was only released now which muddies the water and the fact that Divine Divinity had a publisher to advertise for them and Solasta did not. Or how about the fact that Solasta is able to appeal to an audience which is attracted to a specific ruleset (the D&D ruleset) whilst Divine Divinity as an original IP could not. As you can see, trying to make a comparison is a little pointless.
Assuming you were asking non rhetorically however, there are some figures.
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Steamspy "data" is not particularly useful, imo. Firstly, it obviously leaves out a lot of other ways in which people may be buying their games. But even taking it to represent Steam sales data is highly flawed because Steam uses ranges of sales, 200k to 500k, 2m to 5m, etc. And then people conveniently latch on to the high end of the range and claim that is the sales number. So for BG3 EA, for example, if it falls in the 2 - 5 m range, BG3 fans of course want to claim the sales figure is 5 m which is quite ridiculous. At best I would say it is likely sitting right at 2 m.
Steamspy is very useful. The data from it is used by a lot of publishers as well as developers to make a case for whether or not there is a business sense in making a specific game. Considering that, last I checked, Steam makes up 90% of the sales on PC its very close to a monopoly and using sales data from Steam is probably fairly accurate. Those ranges are there to provide a (from memory) 95% confidence interval and the data is not provided by steam, it is extrapolated via things like achievements data. Its highly unlikely the sales figures exist outside of that range. Trying to make assumptions like, "BG 3 is at 2m and Solasta is at 500,000" is a misunderstanding of the methodology used to extrapolate that data to begin with. Its also misunderstanding the use case of this information.
How many copied did Larian sell of their first game?
Divine Divinity: 500,000 - 1,000,000. Solasta: 200,000 - 500,000. Not really a useful comparison though. When Divine Divinity was initially released neither steam nor GOG existed. I would guess most of its sales were CDs and none of those sales would be shown in those figures. The total number of people who played games back then was also smaller, so comparing an audience from a game back then to a game now isn't something you can feasibly do. Also, these games aren't even in the same genre, so its like comparing a racing game to a puzzle game. Assuming you were asking non rhetorically however, there are some figures.
It's also "lifetime sales since arriving on Steam" vs "one month since launch".
Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
How many copied did Larian sell of their first game?
Divine Divinity: 500,000 - 1,000,000. Solasta: 200,000 - 500,000. Not really a useful comparison though. When Divine Divinity was initially released neither steam nor GOG existed. I would guess most of its sales were CDs and none of those sales would be shown in those figures. The total number of people who played games back then was also smaller, so comparing an audience from a game back then to a game now isn't something you can feasibly do. Also, these games aren't even in the same genre, so its like comparing a racing game to a puzzle game. Assuming you were asking non rhetorically however, there are some figures.
It's also "lifetime sales since arriving on Steam" vs "one month since launch".
Yeah, I went back and edited that in while you were busy responding. There are a shitton of variables to consider here making the comparison completely useless.
Steamspy "data" is not particularly useful, imo. Firstly, it obviously leaves out a lot of other ways in which people may be buying their games. But even taking it to represent Steam sales data is highly flawed because Steam uses ranges of sales, 200k to 500k, 2m to 5m, etc. And then people conveniently latch on to the high end of the range and claim that is the sales number. So for BG3 EA, for example, if it falls in the 2 - 5 m range, BG3 fans of course want to claim the sales figure is 5 m which is quite ridiculous. At best I would say it is likely sitting right at 2 m.
Larian allows access to the BG3 EA through GoG, Steam and Stadia. There is no other way to get it, currently. (Obviously that will change on full release, and additional platforms are likely).
Solasta sells their finished game through Steam, GoG, Gamesplanet, Microsoft Store and Humble Bundle.
The bulk of sales will be from Steam for both.
In terms of how many people signed up for the BG3 EA I think 2 Million is a safe number.
In terms of Solasta I am hoping that the number is 500k but you are right (or according to your logic) it could be as low as 200k. Which would mean 5 Million profit on a 250k investment. Still good but less promising.
There are no absolutes here - its statistical analysis to get a "sense" of where sales may be. Tactical Adventurers is not publishing its sales numbers which is a bad sign as companies do like to brag when they hit certain milestones, which tells me they have not broken a million. As dumb and arbitrary as that may seem it caries a totem-like significance straight from Campbells -The Power of Myth.
Valheim on the other hand sold 2 Million copies in 13 days and was up to 5 million by March and they made sure everyone knew it.
Steamspy is very useful. The data from it is used by a lot of publishers as well as developers to make a case for whether or not there is a business sense in making a specific game.
Steamspy 's data reliability took a severe hit when Valve made all user profiles hidden by default and it never completely recovered since then.
It used to have a margin of error of 5% at most, even for a lot of small sellers, as confirmed by several developers regarding their own games over the years, while these days it can swing WAY more wildly. There have been cases where it was confirmed to be wrong by a factor of ten or more. And it's especially unreliable (I've been told) for anything under the 500K these days.
On a side note, while it was a useful tool to have, I can't even be sad about its downfall, given who's working on it and managing it.
Last edited by Tuco; 21/06/2107:17 PM.
Party control in Baldur's Gate 3 is a complete mess that begs to be addressed. SAY NO TO THE TOILET CHAIN
Could there be some pressure from WotC to make BG3 closer to D&D after Solasta proved that 5e RAW does work for video games after all? =)
At this point, making BG3 even less like D&D and more like DOS or "videogame", whatever that even means, has no grounds. Every omission or addition to the 5e system has only made the game worse.
Before EA was released to the public, Swen said that they started with a 100% faithful adaptation of the ruleset. They should have released the version that was closest to RAW for EA instead of the ~50% version we got and worked from there together with the community to see what actually works for a videogame.
I honestly don't think WotC gives a shit as long as BG3 is going to make a lot of money.
Yes, just look at Dark Alliance, D&DINO game or Sword Coast Legends, another D&DINO. Hasbro owns the company that made Dark Alliance and in a recent interview, Hasbro stated that is have like 1/2 dozen more D&DINOs in the works, they just don't care as long as a game sells. To Hasbro, D&D is just name recognition like G.I Joe, Barbie or Transformers. As long as something sells, who care how awful it is.
