Sorry, don't buy this claim at all. I don't see EA sales being 2 million right now. Furthermore, and more importantly, I see the EA sales as NOT being the tip of the sales iceberg and rather as the BULK of sales for the game. In other words, people who like this game have already bought it in EA, and there are not that many people left out there who will be buying it after it comes out of EA. I see total sales at no more than 5 million max, under the best of circumstances, which is what DA:O sold, so not at all an impressive showing for a AAA game.
Hmm, curious. What would be a good showing, if something around 5 million isn't? When we look at things like Skyrim, how many of those sales are people buying multiple copies? I have 2, one for PC, and one for XBox. Am I the only one, or are there millions of others just like me? How many of those are going to buy the latest edition, that's slated for release due to it's anniversary?
How many people that may be interested took Larian's advice from the store fronts, and are waiting for full release, or for reviews after full release? From where I'm sitting, even just the million copies is a decent enough showing for a AAA game. It certainly shows that there's a reason to develop and release the game, even if it just doubles the initial sales. If it hits 5 million, it would put it in line with some of the most popular RPGs out there. There's this post https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=786065#Post786065 that shows that ME 2 sold 5 million copies. I guess that game isn't as popular as the internet would lead us to believe? I mean, if 5 million copies is a lackluster showing, it can't be all that popular, right?
When I talk sales here I am speaking purely in a commercial and marketing context. A game that sells just a couple of million can still be a success in many other ways, including being a "fan favorite." For me, then, AAA success amounts to the sales numbers of games like Skyrim and Witcher 3, 42 M and 35 M respectively. Even games like DA:I and ME3 have sold around 10 M. By contrast, commercially successful AA games like The Outer Worlds 1 have sold around 3 M, and older games like DA:O and ME2 sold around 5 M. And then you have games like D:OS2 and P:Km with sales in the 2+ M range. So this gives me a sense of where the cutoff point may be for sales "success" between a AA game and a AAA game, and that seems to be around 5 M. In other words, if it's a AA game, sales of about 2-3 M would be good and around 5 M would be excellent. Whereas for a AAA game, around 10 M is the low point for being viewed as a success.
But the bottom line is that this is just my personal take. People can see this in whatever way they want. I'm sure there are people out there who will sing the sales success of a game that sold 2 M even while putting down another game that sold 5 M, all because they personally loved the first game and hated the second game. All people are ultimately subjective, myself included.
Here's my problem with your analysis, and I asked about it in my post: How many of those sales numbers are people buying multiple copies? I own The Witcher once, and 2 copies of both 2 and 3. One each for PC and XBox. The same applies to all of the ME games, including the recent release. I have 2 copies of Skyrim, but I'm not buying the recent release, and I didn't touch the VR version. Skyrim is an interesting choice here, since there's Vanilla for all platforms, then the Special Edition, and 3 or 4 other re-releases. Then there's the platform issue. Currently, this game isn't available on consoles. So let's compare apples to apples, what are the Skyrim sales for PC/Stadia? How do they compare? The same for the Witcher series. Then, let's compare initial release sales for the one platform. It's not that I think this game's going to be a record setter, although it might, but when I see people comparing sales numbers from 5 or 6 platforms, over 10 years, vs a single platform release, in EA, I start scratching my head, wondering what they're trying to prove.
Edit: Upon re-reading this it seems rather snarky, and that's not my intent. Sorry if it seems rude.
