Lets talk about Q1 sales, multiplayer, quittings and media rumor mill

[Surma.]

Media has been touting that CDPR is in serious trouble only selling what some have estimated in around 1 million games during Q1.

Is this bad? Lets compare to GTA 5 sales in 2013.

GTA 5 sold approximately 32.5 million units in year 2013, after being launched September 17.

There were news GTA 5 sales were in 1.0 billions in earnings in just 3 days after launch and according to some statistics I was able to find, the average earning is 36 dollars for 60 dollar game. Assuming GTA 5 sold in 4 weeks over 1 billion profits we can estimate 28 million copies being sold in Q3.

Q4 GTA 5 sold 4.5 million copies.

But remember that December is Christmas holidays.

So we can estimate from remaining 4.5 million sales. November and December amounted to 3 times regular sales of normal month, thus 6/7 of sales came from 2 months of red spike, in normal month after release of GTA 5, the sales could be 4.5mil/6 = 750 000 units.

Thus, on a non holiday season GTA 5 would have sold 2,25 million units in a quarterly earnings after its initial sales peak.

Now Cyberpunk 2077 sold initially 13.7 million copies.

13.7 million / 28 million = initial sales difference multiplier with GTA 5 is 0.4893

Of course that multiplayer was only relevant IF we can assume that consumer enthusiasm didn't change in first Q1 (which we could easily argue being the case since there wasn't large gameplay improvements apart from old consoles crashing reductions and improvements, not a lot of features got really fixed in large scale). There could have been enthusiasm to buy the game old base gen consoles when 1.1 rolled out, but Base Gen players probably amount to 5-10% of total CP playerbase (as if I remember correctly something like 83% was for PC). But for argument sake lets say enthusiasm toward the game was exactly on same levels.

Cyberpunk should thus sell 2,25 mil * 0.4893 = 1,10 million units, which seems a bit lower than what was estimated.

So it really isn't that bad earnings for Q1. It's slightly below expectations but considering the reception and how little visible improvements was made, it's on that range. CDPR certainly has long way to convince gamers that the game is going to be as polished as Red Dead Redemption 2 as they have touted. You could expect then consumer enthusiasm increase as the game starts to appear more "finished" and AI, Traffic and Police get upgraded, new DLC content gets upgraded etc.

But even if nothing got upgraded, the game would still likely keep selling 900 000 units per quarter, making it 300 000 a month, and with the 16 month math (10*1 regular month sales + 3*2 for the red month sales) ~= 5 million copies a year.

If using the GTA 5 sales on 2014 where they made 12.5mil, that multiplied by 0.4893 you get 6.115. So in both situations below 20 million in total IF NOTHING GOT CHANGED.



-- Another topic --


There was also same thing when it came to multiplayer. A ton of media platforms just intentionally lied to their audience and told CD Projekt is going to cancel multiplayer.

This news is from TechRadar:

There are people in media who use these stories to make vastly disinformative claims, even if it's by accident.

CDPR's own Job Offerings website has Multiplayer Cyberpunk 2077 recruitment OPENLY going on, and they've stated in past call that they've had this going on at least 2 years with a small team. Nowhere they've ever stated them abandoning the multiplayer and yet these "news" websites claim "maybe CDPR is going to just leave Cyberpunk world behind".... what? What gave you that idea?


-- Another topic --


Some news medias paint pretty apocalyptic picture of any kind of staffing change when it comes to CDPR, strangely.

CDPR has over 1000 employees. On any given year, even if everyone working from day they were born, to day they would die, 12.5 people would still "quit" the company every single year... assuming life expectancy was 80 years for Polish people and everyone in their staff falls equally in each age category.





Nowadays I have hard time trusting anything I don't hear from TRUSTED news source that doesn't speculate on rumors. Just too many clickbaiters.

And so tired of this constant unwarranted baseless bashing just because it became popular.

 

[reaper1]

So don't trust anything you don't hear from CD Projekts own mouth.

This is nothing more than presenting selected sets of data in a lengthy piece to deflect away from the perfectly legitimate criticism and reasonable expectations some customers have. I'm getting very tired of the constant gaslighting and attempts to shift the blame that CDPR is allowing it loyal supporters to get away with while they remain silent and unaccountable. Have a look through the articles in the news section of this very forum. Official articles that were ramping up the hype for the game. They were deliberately misleading. As I've said before, there seems to be some who treat CDPR in the manner of a sports team that they support. They take any criticism of their "team" as a personal attack on themselves that must be defended when it is made by someone they see as a non-supporter. However, any criticisms they may make are valid as they are a hardened supporter. It only serves to allow companies to get away with shoddy behaviour time and time again.

 

[LeonidLoren]

This is nothing more than presenting selected sets of data in a lengthy piece to deflect away from the perfectly legitimate criticism and reasonable expectations some customers have. I'm getting very tired of the constant gaslighting and attempts to shift the blame that CDPR is allowing it loyal supporters to get away with while they remain silent and unaccountable. Have a look through the articles in the news section of this very forum. Official articles that were ramping up the hype for the game. They were deliberately misleading. As I've said before, there seems to be some who treat CDPR in the manner of a sports team that they support. They take any criticism of their "team" as a personal attack on themselves that must be defended when it is made by someone they see as a non-supporter. However, any criticisms they may make are valid as they are a hardened supporter. It only serves to allow companies to get away with shoddy behaviour time and time again.

Constant gaslighting? It's been nothing but the exact opposite from day one. Don't you think it's enough already? By now, everyone and their dog knows what they have done wrong and where the game comes short. They learned their lesson. Reapeting it over and over serves nothing anymore. Remaining silent while fixing the game is the best thing they can do. Hello games did the same and how that turned out.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

I don't think you need such a detailed analysis to understand that such a gigantic drop-off in sales speaks volumes about the perception of the current state of the game, and the potential detriment it represents for the future of the franchise.

That doesn't mean it can't "turn around" - just that it's going to take a lot of work and good will on the part of the people they so willfully deceived.

 

[seomid]

"it's like a cult"

 

[Surma.]

This is nothing more than presenting selected sets of data in a lengthy piece to deflect away from the perfectly legitimate criticism and reasonable expectations some customers have.

I'm not trying to defend against criticism. Nobody is denying that many aspects were rushed out to the finish line.

I'm talking about how the media spins these rumors based on no research and even make claims like the sales are exceptionally low.
No they aren't. It's in the range of what GTA 5 would have had in Q1 had it been released in December. No, the multiplayer wasn't scrapped and the company isn't going to bury the game and it's multiplayer.

 

[reaper1]

I'm talking about how the media spins these rumors based on no research and even make claims like the sales are exceptionally low.
No they aren't. It's in the range of what GTA 5 would have had in Q1 had it been released in December. No, the multiplayer wasn't scrapped and the company isn't going to bury the game and it's multiplayer.

That I would agree with totally. Facebook is constantly trying to get me more irate about the game. Usually, I would be totally onboard with what you are saying, but we are talking about a company who willfully misled its customers, gave the sort of an apology you would expect from a politician (apologizing for what has transpired while being very careful to not take any responsibility for it, and taking responsibility goes beyond simply saying you do, it is actions as well), and now remain silent as it keeps the ball in their court and allows them to avoid being held to account, by which I mean giving clear direction on what players should expect from this game and what they are working towards.

 

[Surma.]

I don't think you need such a detailed analysis to understand that such a gigantic drop-off in sales speaks volumes about the perception of the current state of the game, and the potential detriment it represents for the future of the franchise.

I stated the opposite, that the sales are actually higher than what the game should have in this perception, had the initial sales been reflective of what GTA 5 sales were at launch.

In fact ~350 000 people in Q1 sales were likely people who were holding off from initial purchase, meaning 46% increase of what sales should be.

If we assume year 2021 sales are going to follow GTA trajectory multiplying total sales by 1,38, and that 46% increase of sales based on people waiting for fixes, Cyberpunk 2077 sales are going to be 13,7 * 1,38 * 1,46 ~ 27,6 million in total sales by the end of 2021.

Of course it could be higher, it could be lower as well.

There's a lot of unknown variables. What will next gen update look like, what will CDPR do with the game before release of that, are they going to use winter sales again to boost sales, are they going to get multiplayer working, is there going to be new scandal, what happens with lawsuits etc.

 

[seomid]

I stated the opposite, that the sales are actually higher than what the game should have in this perception, had the initial sales been reflective of what GTA 5 sales were at launch.

In fact 350 000 people in Q1 sales were likely people who were holding off from initial purchase, meaning 46% increase of what sales should be.

If we assume year 2021 sales are going to follow GTA trajectory multiplying total sales by 1,38, and that 46% increase of sales based on people waiting for fixes, Cyberpunk 2077 sales are going to be 13.7 * 1,38 * 1.46 ~ 27 million in total sales by the end of 2021.

For somebody who is against assuming outcomes you do tend to assume a lot of outcomes.

 

[Yllana_Ardais]

why are you even comparing this game's sales to GTA? On what basis? Why on earth would the sales trajectory of CP2077 - an overhyped, unfinished product that doesn't even run properly on most plaforms - follow the trend of GTA V, a superpolished game, beloved by both critics and players (I don't give a damn about GTA, but apparently, many other people do)?

Why should I even care as a player. As long as they stay solvent, can pay their employees and have enough ressources to improve CP, I don't care of they sell 10 M oder 20 M copies.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

I stated the opposite, that the sales are actually higher than what the game should have in this perception, had the initial sales been reflective of what GTA 5 sales were at launch.

In fact ~350 000 people in Q1 sales were likely people who were holding off from initial purchase, meaning 46% increase of what sales should be.

If we assume year 2021 sales are going to follow GTA trajectory multiplying total sales by 1,38, and that 46% increase of sales based on people waiting for fixes, Cyberpunk 2077 sales are going to be 13,7 * 1,38 * 1,46 ~ 27,6 million in total sales by the end of 2021.

Of course it could be higher, it could be lower as well.

There's a lot of unknown variables. What will next gen update look like, what will CDPR do with the game before release of that, are they going to use winter sales again to boost sales, are they going to get multiplayer working, is there going to be new scandal, what happens with lawsuits etc.

I'm not referring to your statement, but the fact that sales dropped off immensely in Q1.

Which they did in a 100% irrefutable way.

I'm fully aware of how creative people can get to spin things in a positive way - but that doesn't really change anything about the obvious nature of the problem.

 

[Surma.]

For somebody who is against assuming outcomes you do tend to assume a lot of outcomes.

I'm just trying to argue using math. Because using emotions would be quite pointless.

Of course I'm not saying GTA sales are going to go hand in hand with with monthly basis, 2013 was very different year to 2021 and there's a lot of different expectations, new releases etc. I'm just comparing 2 rather close games by their initial sales.

If you have better method to argue or wish to challenge my calculations, I'm all for it.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

I'm just trying to argue using math. Because using emotions would be quite pointless.

Of course I'm not saying GTA sales are going to go hand in hand with with monthly basis, 2013 was very different year to 2021 and there's a lot of different expectations, new releases etc. I'm just comparing 2 rather close games by their initial sales.

If you have better method to argue or wish to challenge my calculations, I'm all for it.

Math doesn't really change that you are, indeed, a human being. At least, I think we can reasonably assume that you are.

That means you're going to be motivated by emotions - because that's how human beings work.

Now, you can use "math" as a tool to help your argument - but math is different from words, which your posts are full of. Meaning math isn't actually what you're using to argue - just to help your argument.

Anyway, can you not simply start out by stating why one entirely different game from 2013 - with an entirely different history - should be more important than some other game we could google?

Because I give you my personal guarantee that we can find another game which didn't suffer from a GIGANTIC drop in sales in the following quarter - which was also eventually a big success. Heck, I don't need to Google - as I'm pretty sure WoW would be a good example of such a game.

What does that mean? It means games are different and we can't just look at sales and quarters to determine a potential future.

We need to look at the reasons things drop off, because they will differ as well - and we need to look at how people react to being lied to so overtly.

That's the kind of thing you need to keep in mind before you assume "math" can magically transfer the success of one game to another.

 

[Surma.]

I'm not referring to your statement, but the fact that sales dropped off immensely in Q1.

Which they did in a 100% irrefutable way.

Yeah I'm not trying to deny that sales dropped.

I just explained it's perfectly natural.



You're not going to find new people interested about the game just after 1-3 month after release who are going to purchase, who wouldn't have already bought the game on launch day. That's why sales always drop because people have been expecting games to come out for a long time.

It's all just natural.

There's not a single game that somehow sold lets say 10 million on launch and next month sales went to 25 million, especially if it's single player adventure.

Post automatically merged: Jun 4, 2021

Math doesn't really change that you are, indeed, a human being. At least, I think we can reasonably assume that you are.

Are you suggesting that polling doesn't matter and statistical analysis cannot be scaled up to larger populations?

I mean sure we're all humans, and everyone has their own tastes. But if you polled 1000 people randomly and got like X amount of people to vote for Party Nr1 and Y amount of people for Party Nr2, you'd assume in next election, the numbers are going to be pretty close to that X/Y for PartyNr1 to win.

If you polled 1000 schools over 10 000 schools and find out that 40% of students weren't able to jog 2 minutes without getting exhausted, you'd assume that in those remaining 9 000 of schools these numbers could be quite the same.

 

[DKDArtagnan]

Yeah I'm not trying to deny that sales dropped.

I just explained it's perfectly natural.



You're not going to find new people interested about the game just after 1-3 month after release who are going to purchase, who wouldn't have already bought the game on launch day. That's why sales always drop because people have been expecting games to come out for a long time.

It's all just natural.

There's not a single game that somehow sold lets say 10 million on launch and next month sales went to 25 million, especially if it's single player adventure.

I don't think you're getting what I'm saying.

It doesn't matter if it's natural or not. It's the fact that it's not only dropping massively, whether you think that's usual or not based on a single game - it's that the game is still in a terrible, terrible state after 6 months - especially on consoles. Think about it. It's not on the PS store 6 months after release.

A massive drop off is only a concern if it doesn't pick up again. Right?

But, given the state of CP2077 and this recent public statement, do you think a massive turn-around is going to happen any time soon?

Post automatically merged: Jun 4, 2021

Yeah I'm not trying to deny that sales dropped.

I just explained it's perfectly natural.



You're not going to find new people interested about the game just after 1-3 month after release who are going to purchase, who wouldn't have already bought the game on launch day. That's why sales always drop because people have been expecting games to come out for a long time.

It's all just natural.

There's not a single game that somehow sold lets say 10 million on launch and next month sales went to 25 million, especially if it's single player adventure.

Post automatically merged: Jun 4, 2021

Are you suggesting that polling doesn't matter and statistical analysis cannot be scaled up to larger populations?

I mean sure we're all humans, and everyone has their own tastes. But if you polled 1000 people randomly and got like X amount of people to vote for Party Nr1 and Y amount of people for Party Nr2, you'd assume in next election, the numbers are going to be pretty close to that X/Y for PartyNr1 to win.

I'm not suggesting anything that I didn't state.

You said you argued using math - and I pointed out that you weren't. You argue using words, from an emotional place - which is what all human beings do. You're just using math as a tool to help your argument.

As for your faith in what you refer to as "math" - that's your business. It's not really relevant to my point - as I haven't refuted anything about it. I'm just pointing out why it's pretty useless in this particular case.

 

[Surma.]

You said you argued using math - and I pointed out that you weren't. You argue using words, from an emotional place - which is what all human beings do. You're just using math as a tool to help your argument.

When I started doing the math I didn't know what the result was going to be.

I could have as well confirmed that the sales are disappointment, then talk about that.
Or I could have seen that sales were tiny bit disappointment, then talked about that..
Or I could have said the sales are actually tiny bit better than what they should be, then talked about that..
Or I could have said the sales are absolutely stunning to what they should be, then talked about that.

Again I'm all for pointing where I am wrong. I want to be corrected. And that should be easy in math.

If you want to use other game statistics, go for it.

If you think that you can't use past experiences with any game to form statistics, then why even talk about my issue with statistics, if the argument is you can't make any sales expectations.

 

[maniak6767]

You don't really know how many they sold. There was info that during february they sold 4% of what sold in first month, in march it was 1%.
So it's safe to say they sold at least 13 000 000 (it could be 16M, but lets say it's 13M) *( 0,04+0,04+0,01) = 1 200 000, during Q1 (if they sold 4% also in january and that safe bet).
I don't think you can really compare these two situations like that. We don't know how marketing of GTA worked, how much they spent initially, how long it lasted, how they marketed game after initial months.
Sales will always drop off. Only way to kinda mitigate it would be to release game during november, because you have Christmas next month (it was misleading to compare for example sales of AC Vallhalla to Cyberpunk).
I think there's also maximum potential for sales.
For Q2 most important for them is June.

 

[KunoichiRider]

Media has been touting that CDPR is in serious trouble [...]

No the media are not unfair, they probably take this from articles which are not part of geek culture, but genuinely focussed on economics.
I hate to break it to you, but all the efforts you made digging up your numbers are in vain, because they are not of value for an economic decider.

Go to the CDPR site and check their financial report of the last quarter, Reading the first line explains, why any respectable publication must rate the situation at CDPR deeply concerning.

CD PROJEKT Group – selected financial highlights (converted into EUR)
Revenues from sales of products, services, goods and materials
01.01.2021 - 31.03.2021 43 226
01.01.2020 - 31.03.2020 43 894

CD PROJEKT Group has an online store for computer games (and owns a game product line which at the end of its life cycle).
During a pandemic computer games sell like hotcakes.
Q1-2020 was not affected by the pandemc, except maybe for the last two weeks, in Q1/2021 we should benefit from the pandemic at least in January and February.
Now they are reporting a decrease of 1,5%, A DECREASE!

Even if witcher/Gwent may be dwindling, because it is at the end of the economic cycle, the online store should have guaranteed an increase!

If you present this data to anyone with a little bit of experience in corpo world, they will tell you: "Oh, probably the sales meetings in the last weeks will have been opened by the Glengarry Glenn Ross video! They seem to have some fundamental problem or even problems. They must find and address these issues quickly. These numbers are quite concerning, you have to countersteer and not let this trend fester!"

If you now tell somebody that the company launched a second new product line in December 2020 to bolster up for the old first product line, anyone will be shocked and have to judge this situation as quite disastrous, severely alarming or "serious trouble".

All the lines below just tell you that they will not go under immediately. But nevertheless, the first line of the report is quite shocking, if they do not remedy the situation.

P.S.: Sales Force Motivation by Alec Baldwin n Glengarry Glen Ross

 

[DKDArtagnan]

When I started doing the math I didn't know what the result was going to be.

I could have as well confirmed that the sales are disappointment, then talk about that.
Or I could have seen that sales were tiny bit disappointment, then talked about that..
Or I could have said the sales are actually tiny bit better than what they should be, then talked about that..
Or I could have said the sales are absolutely stunning to what they should be, then talked about that.

Again I'm all for pointing where I am wrong. I want to be corrected. And that should be easy in math.

If you want to use other game statistics, go for it.

If you think that you can't use past experiences with any game to form statistics, then why even talk about my issue with statistics, if the argument is you can't make any sales expectations.

You want to be corrected....

Don't you mean you want to ignore all points made until everyone agrees with you - because that's how it seems.

If you want to present a compelling case, I can only recommend not doing it as some kind of ego-serving competition. There are better ways to help people to see your point of view than ignoring what they're saying, even when they disagree about how much value there is in a single-case "statistical" analysis.

I'm not here to give you what you want, though. I'm here for public exchange - and I've made my point quite clear.

Endlessly going in circles without being heard - especially with someone ego-driven, is not something I enjoy a whole lot.

So, thank you for the exchange and have fun.

 

[Surma.]

I don't think you can really compare these two situations like that. We don't know how marketing of GTA worked, how much they spent initially, how long it lasted, how they marketed game after initial months.

That's a good point.

But if we can assume that marketing was far less noticeable, as most sales had already passed, and it would make little financial sense to throw hundreds of thousands into campaigns when the biggest sale spike is already behind.

Sooo, I don't think there's too much difference. Maybe in small scale, making some smaller social media marketing campaigns maybe... but it's not like 1 month after launch you can reach a lot of new people who weren't aware of that title.

It could be totally different scenario with smaller studios where they don't have such marketing budgets to even cause these millions of unit sales, so it could be more gradual for them where they keep trying to gain eyeballs by buying up Twitch streamers for sponsored gameplay content.

I'd love to bring out marketing budgets into discussion, but I don't think such data exists for public, so we'll just have to assume it's pretty even.

You want to be corrected....

Don't you mean you want to ignore all points made until everyone agrees with you

I want to be corrected with numbers.

Not by claims that making comparisons is pointless. If we can't agree that numbers matter there's not going to be much of a fruitful dialogue.

"People are individuals" has been thrown around thousands of years, and yet there has always been those being able to somehow manage groups of individuals as if they weren't. Every person has their own faith and yet they all have been going to same Church.