Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Great Steam Numbers

Yay!!! Amazing news!

Only in for days waiting for reviews all around the world. I would like to know how much does it sell in Brazil, China, South Korea, Japan and India.

Woah what...??? 10-20 million sales just on Steam.

That can't be correct, or do you mean $$ wise?

If that's right....what the actual Golden Pantaloons?????

Swen: I think we need to scale back the company after growing so large.

The Rest of the World: No.

Steamspy now says between 5 and 10 million. Not sure what happened. Maybe refunds? Glitch?

I believe BG3 will end up being one of the costliest ever RPGs, maybe even the most costly. As I've said many times previously, they'll need a *minimum* of 10 million in sales just to be considered having done okay, and a whole lot more beyond that to be judged truly successful. Several gaming journos are now beginning to write that indeed BG3 should be properly compared with games like Elden Ring, CP2077, and Zelda (which is again something I've long argued), and that means sales numbers WELL beyond 10 million.

Or maybe Steam Spy is completely untrustworthy crap? I've never believed their numbers for any game.

Alright so here’s an attempt at numbers independent of Steam Spy based on official information:

Larian sold over 2.5 million copies before full release, meaning approximately 150 Million USD in sales before release. That’s spread over 3 years of EA though, I think.

Larian reached over 800,000 concurrent players on Steam. Based on Steam Achievements, assuming the majority of the 800,000 got off the Nautilloid, but less than 1% have that achievement, we can assume that vastly more people own the game than 800,000. My most conservative estimate would be concurrent players represent 10% of BG3’s playerbase, so sales likely exceed 8 million.

Given the game has spent the last 34 weeks in the top 100 on steam and almost the last whole week at number 1, and it is briefly the top selling PS5 preorder in many Western markets, I would say the number MUST exceed the minimum 10 million mark. It is difficult to fathom that this game could be outselling so many other high budget AAA games for so long and not be hitting those higher sales numbers.

Of course, at some point Larian, WOTC, or Hasbro may put out a statement of some kind as to the actual number of copies sold.

It would be great if Larian announces it! I am sure BG3 will hit 10 million sold at some point if it hasn’t already.

How did you figure that? Swen said multiple times during interviews, that EA sales alone allowed them to finance BG3. So, even 10 million copies will be a great success. They are already profiting on the sales.

Aren't achievements bugged right now? All of mine say that 0.1% of players have them. I wouldn't extrapolate based on achievement numbers until that's fixed.

Can’t extrapolate based on Steamspy because bugged.
Can’t extrapolate based on Steam Achievements because bugged.

Can’t do shit in this godforsaken world. Life is bugged.

Larian must be happy with the launch! This is their first AAA game, and it has 814,666 concurrent users, it is the top selling game on steam, the early metacritic rating is 95 from reviewers and 9.3 from users, and it has had lots of great coverage on gaming sites.

What about asian markets?

Steam is international...

This simply means they could continue to pay their bills with the revenue coming in from EA sales. It does not by any measure give us any sense of the true total costs of making the game, which by the way was in production for three years before EA, for a total of six years of development time.

Articles I've read say typical recent AAA video games costs a minimum of 200 million, and more likely 500-650 million, to make. And on top of that, they spend up to another 500 million on marketing. And so a true blockbuster AAA game can potentially cost as much as a billion.

Kani, BG3 has had a glowing reception and is posting some exceptional Steam figures. Chances are highly likely that it is a success. I get that it isn’t your cup of tea, but it really just seems like you want this game to have failed, and I don’t get why.

I'll tell you why. Because he doesn't want Larian to make any other D&D games, specifically FR games, and he is terrifed, that because of this enormous success, they will be tempted to do so (even if Swen hinted, they probably won't, which was before those crazy Steam numbers appeared). And even if they do make another FR game, he is afraid that this will be enough for WoTC, and they won't be eager to allow any other studio to develop another FR game, thus locking him out to play on his beloved setting.

So yeah, he is very eager for them to fail with BG3, because of that.

I think at this point we can safely say, BG3 is a success, no matter which "Change reality" spells he casts.

Okay folks, I'm about to log off for the night so a reminder to keep things friendly. And it's generally better to let people answer for themselves rather than put words in their mouths.

Good night, all!

I am really happy BG3 has been successful.

Even though I see many flaws in BG3 and how great it could have been, the fact BG3 is doing so well makes me think a BG4 will potentially be the game I was waiting for.

And they will probably remake BG3 at some point, so there is hope.

Yes, i intended if BG3 is also considered by asian players or only by western / latin america.