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

[SigilFey]

Bringing me to the core question: how, based on what, would one calculate how much physical stock one needs these days?

Technically...none. But if you're publicly traded, it does open up a lot of opportunity to generate both recognition and growth. Just like it can tank hard if the market suffers. Thus, most businesses I've worked with will not rely on stocks, but use sold or held shares as an asset.

With the pandemic, I'm not sure it's really clear exactly where the leaves will settle. A lot of things changed. Plus, nonsense like the Gamespot fiasco is not going to assist in any sort of stability for the future. I'm sure there are many who think they'll get away with something like that again, and it will likely add even more flux to the market in general.

We've also been "winning key battles", "growing in key areas", "shifting our strategic focus" in every goddamn quarterly report released.

Ja. This what I'm talking about when I say "...every company will do whatever it can to represent itself in a positive light..."

A business doesn't need to misrepresent any numerical data to color it for effect. And no one on the outside of the business has any idea what the real situation is based solely on numbers and words. (Often, very few on the inside have any totally clear idea.)

 

[msxyz]

Unfortunately nowadays media live selling hype, not news or information.

Before the release date, the media were all screaming "OMG, game of the century!", now it's a different tune: "OMG, CDPR is in deep trouble".

We should not believe either, because anything coming out of the media these days are tiny bit of news masterfully spun to cause sensation in the audience. I'm not defending CDPR; in fact I've been quite a vocal critic here on this forum, but I'm just trying to look at the whole picture.

Said this, I think at this point CDPR needs, more than anything else, that people are still reminded that Cyberpunk 2077 exists. Bad news, good news, at least it's in the talk. The worst that can happen to them (and it's partly already happening) is that people move forward and forget about it. So, unleash the leaks, release the alphas, even the source code: at this point anything is better than slipping into oblivion.

 

[MrGuyton]

You make an interesting point with relation to physical stock. And it has me wondering... I did just put in a preorder at my local retailer network to have a physical copy for PS4 shipped to me. But in this day and age, how much physical stock would be consumed, specificaly when offsetted with digital versions. I read and see many people who like a digital library via steam or PSN or whatever. and there's many digital providers.
Bringing me to the core question: how, based on what, would one calculate how much physical stock one needs these days?

I don't know, its always going to be a gamble, for a less established ip (and the same used to be true with music) you release enough to allow you to get into the chart and rely on short turnaround distribution if you expect growth in sales. The canny labels would offer lesser known artists on sale or return and tie it to purchases of an established artist then burn the returns so they didn't become bargain bin copies that would devalue the artist. (We can give you 200,000 copies of x but only if you take 50,000 copies of y). Nowadays when most music is digital download or streaming physical sales have become luxury limited editions and picture discs on vinyl etc.

I can only assume that the market for computer games does something similar, especially with the Xmas market. You pump out huge volume to the distributors so that everyone that wants one can get it under the tree. As this was expected to be the "launch of the season" maybe there was no anticipated need to offer them on sale or return. The distributors don't want unsold product filing up their warehouses so there will be a finite period (there's probably a minimum price in the distribution contract too) before you start seeing discounts.

Unless CDPR has persuaded the distributors to hang on until they fix the game/ next gen.
The only saving grace on ps4 I guess is that physical copies are the only way to purchase atm.

I have no idea, but the number of physical copies will be shrinking over time with the continued growth of digital sales. The fact that both Microsoft and Sony have created digital versions of their consoles and the growth of subscriptions are probably the death knell for physical media. My eldest doesn't have a physical media drive in his gaming pc, I got a blank look when I asked him why not.

Post automatically merged: Jun 6, 2021

Oh, sure, they release their quarterly reports as demanded by law etc. And yes, people from Goldman Sachs or Bridgewater do know how to read them but that's just all they are - a set of numbers.

But then come the investors' calls, interviews for business magazines, analyst reports, statements of direction and usual PR stuff - you know, the whole marketing communication. Those allow to give some nuance to all the numbers law required. And yes, sometimes they also allow to blur some red spots and make they at least yellow.

I work for one of the biggest publicly traded corporations in the world, with all the audit and regulatory compliance you can dream of. We've been losing a key market battle with our competition for years now, failing to adapt to the market with the numbers leaving a lot to be desired.

We've also been "winning key battles", "growing in key areas", "shifting our strategic focus" in every goddamn quarterly report released.

That's why KPMG etc employ armies of actuaries to hopefully see through the guff and give investors an objective understanding. You're right though, there's only so much context that can be given when a company choses to disguise losses under R&D and restructuring. There does come a point where the dam breaks though and then the losses spiral, then they get bought out, asset stripped and the directors retire on massive gardening leave payouts.

I don't think CDPR is anywhere near that though.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I have no idea, but the number of physical copies will be shrinking over time with the continued growth of digital sales. The fact that both Microsoft and Sony have created digital versions of their consoles and the growth of subscriptions are probably the death knell for physical media. My eldest doesn't have a physical media drive in his gaming pc, I got a blank look when I asked him why not.

Yep, me too
I didn't have media drive on my Mac and I didn't buy a physique version of a game since probably more than 10 years (and for example, my Drive on XB1x has never been used once, just like that of my XBSX probably).
Honestly, to do what ?
Why buy a CD/DVD that my dog is likely to eat when I can have it indefinitely online (at least as long as the host does not sink. very little luck with Microsoft or Steam). All my "physical" games (Xbox, Xbox 360) just collect dust in a cabinet

It sounds sad for physical version vendors/distributors/manufacturers, but that's how things change. We do not stop progress

 

[MrGuyton]

Yep, me too
I didn't have media drive on my Mac and I didn't buy a physique version of a game since probably more than 10 years. Honestly, to do what ?
Why buy a CD/DVD that my dog is likely to eat when I can have it indefinitely online (at least as long as the host does not sink. Little luck with Microsotf or Steam).

Yeah, you're probably right I tend to still buy a physical version of big games, I like a manual/ map I can look at and my brain doesn't feel as ripped off if I have a thing in my hand. Also they tend to be cheaper at release that they are on PSN and I have short arms and deep pockets.

 

[LeKill3rFou]

Also they tend to be cheaper at release that they are on PSN and I have short arms and deep pockets

Me too, but never paid attention for that
Honestly it's been so long since I bought a physical version (or even walked into a "real" game store) that I couldn't tell if there is a difference
It reminds me of the days when I used to go to rent movies in a store... today who does that ? Now I have Apple TV, NetFlix and other... Just too choose from my sofa

 

[Andes_Attack_Mk2]

That's why KPMG etc employ armies of actuaries to hopefully see through the guff and give investors an objective understanding.

Equally good at generating the guff / smoke and mirrors as seeing through it

 

[SigilFey]

Gotta moderate here for a minute (including myself): the topic is the earnings report. We're getting wholly drawn into arguments about the pre-/post-launch advertising. There are other threads for that.

 

[DC9V]

[...] 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.

There was a shit storm going on, so some fans decided to choose the other extreme.

It only serves to allow companies to get away with shoddy behavior time and time again.

Do you really think that the guys at CDPR sat on a table until someone said: "You know what? Let's just try to get away with it!"?

If you want to punish a company, don't buy their products. Simple as that.
Implying that fans are trying to glorify some sort of crime is pointless, to say the least.

Post automatically merged: Jun 8, 2021

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.

View attachment 11222501
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.
View attachment 11222504
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 --


Also media platforms make wild claims based on 0 evidence, like:
Title: CDPR is in BIIIIG trouble
Video: "I heard a rumor, there's no way to verify this... but hey maybe this is true. Hit that subscribe button and support me in Patreon. I love you."


-- 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:
View attachment 11222510

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.





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.

I'm still wondering if GTA vs Cyberpunk is an adequate comparison...

Post automatically merged: Jun 8, 2021

It's hard to believe that CDPR leadership, [...] were oblivious to what this would bring about.

I partly agree with that, in the way that I couldn't imagine this situation to happen. On the other hand, I got so many other theories in my head that could explain the situation in a far more interesting way.
One of them: CDPR waited for the Hackers to sell the damn source code on the black market so they can finally show us "the real game" in order to tell them: "Great job guys, you stole the wrong pony!".

 

[Draconifors]

Personal attacks are also not welcome. Posts deleted.

 

[Surma.]

I'm still wondering if GTA vs Cyberpunk is an adequate comparison...

It isn't. And in some ways it is.

The point isn't to compare exact same type of game sales to another, we would have go to different universe where Cyberpunk was released in 2013 and GTA 5 had leveling system and first person perspective, if we want to make at least semi decent comparison.

I could have used Mario game sales as well to argue my point. The point isn't to look at games similarity but to point out how game sales radically drop after initial sales burst.

CDPR has said it themselves that they aren't expecting similar burst of sales in next gen release. It took Witcher 3 what I assume is over 4 years to start gaining sales numbers close to what they had in launch year, even when the game received wild praise.

I guess Cyberpunk is completely different story (in a positive way) when launch had suffered from console performance issues and it became a meme compilation of bugs and what was promised. Still despite all of this, the initial sales figures were in 13.7m even after refunds, so it's more of an indication that IF there is going to be major reworks and community really turns around, the sales might spike up significantly and wouldn't follow Witcher 3:s exact figures.

Every game has improvements and DLCs (well outside of most Nintendo titles I guess) where communities are kept interested about the game, games go in sales and sell DLC with the original package etc, often peaking those who've been silently watching the situation to join in.

When GTA 5 released it already had a solid fanbase of GTA 3 to GTA 4 playerbase, and thus is sold over 30 million in manner of few months. Cyberpunk really only had Witcher community and marketing to grow it's initial burst of sales.

There's a ton of different variables and nobody can predict the future, though many try.

This was just attack those claims of perceived panic and saying that situation isn't necessarily so dire.
Ton of people already bought the game in winter sales, the biggest sales peak, so it's quite natural for next few months to be quiet.



I'd be interested if anyone else has similar figures for any other franchise. How much lets say Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity sales dropped after it's November 20, 2020 release date.

Any kind of sales from a game that was released in December would be all helpful just to make comparisons.