How many copies will have been sold 1 month after release (according to Steam Spy)?

[the_eye]

The release date change invalidated my 'how many sales by 1st May' thread, and there were some people who felt that looking as sales three days after release wouldn't tell the whole story, so let's try again.

How many sales of Total War: Warhammer do you think Steam Spy will report having been sold one month after release (24th June, unless the release date moves again)?

For comparison, recent Total War games have sold roughly the following numbers of units at launch:

Empire: Total War - 810,000 @ 29 days after launch (reported by Sega)
Total War: Shogun 2 - 600,000 @ 17 days after launch (reported by Sega)
Total War: Rome II - 800,000 @ 28 days after launch (reported by Sega)
Total War: Attila - 200,000 @ 11 days after launch (my own estimate)

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

isn't this just how gambling works?

[EternalSilence]

There will be many, many pre-orders.
It was a smart move from Sega to put the Chaos in as pre-order bonus.
I didnt want to pre-order, but on the other hand, i dont want to buy another 14,99 dlc for just one essential race.
So there is no other choice than to pre-order, and hope they patch it to a good game.

[Doktor Soviet]

There will be many, many pre-orders.
It was a smart move from Sega to put the Chaos in as pre-order bonus.
I didnt want to pre-order, but on the other hand, i dont want to buy another 14,99 dlc for just one essential race.
So there is no other choice than to pre-order, and hope they patch it to a good game.

There is another option. You could just NOT BUY THE GAME.

Seriously, this is the most weak-willed fanbase I've ever seen. The more you cave in to business practices (like making the most important faction in the series DLC) the more you encourage CA/SEGA to do those things.

This is why the consumer always loses; we are too weak for conviction and businesses know it.

[Ichon]

Considering Empire and Rome II both did 800,000 I would be very surprised if Warhammer did not do that much at least. For Warhammer to be considered successful by CA/SEGA/GW I'd guess all 3 releases will have to sell over 8 million combined and while many TW fans were disappointed by Rome 2 even if 2/3s of those people don't buy there are masses of Warhammer and Fantasy fans who probably will. Alot depends on the initial reviews and the final month marketing campaign though.

I do believe there will be a larger group of people refusing to pre-order than in past TW either due to the DLC or as a result of Rome 2- I'm in the second category there- however within 30 days of release if the game is well reviewed probably close to half of those holding out will buy if they still even follow the franchise.

[the_eye]

Considering Empire and Rome II both did 800,000 I would be very surprised if Warhammer did not do that much at least. For Warhammer to be considered successful by CA/SEGA/GW I'd guess all 3 releases will have to sell over 8 million combined and while many TW fans were disappointed by Rome 2 even if 2/3s of those people don't buy there are masses of Warhammer and Fantasy fans who probably will. Alot depends on the initial reviews and the final month marketing campaign though.

I do believe there will be a larger group of people refusing to pre-order than in past TW either due to the DLC or as a result of Rome 2- I'm in the second category there- however within 30 days of release if the game is well reviewed probably close to half of those holding out will buy if they still even follow the franchise.

8 million copies over what timescale? If Warhammer follows the typical Total War pattern the games will continue selling well many years after they are released. By comparison, Empire + Napoleon + Shogun 2 are at about 8 million combined sales now, having sold about 800,000 copies combined last year and another quarter million already this year.

[Ichon]

8 million copies over what timescale? If Warhammer follows the typical Total War pattern the games will continue selling well many years after they are released. By comparison, Empire + Napoleon + Shogun 2 are at about 8 million combined sales now, having sold about 800,000 copies combined last year and another quarter million already this year.

By the first year after 3rd expansion is released. After that while more titles might sell most of them will be heavily discounted and it tells alot less about revenue success.

[Jezza93]

I've bought every TW game since Rome 1, maybe not at release but sooner or later. This game however, doesn't interest me in the slightest. Unless of course someone makes a very good mod, which I doubt seeing as CA have poopooed that idea.

I don't know for how many people the historical aspect of TW is a major pull but it is for me.

[Ostrogoth]

I have every total war game with all DLCs. This case is different however. I am not going to buy the game unless CA patches Attila(especially broken Alamans). The way how they treat their last games shows that they will abandon this game also and leave it in bugged state.

[steveaokixx]

So much :o

[the_eye]

Less than a month to go now and Total War: Warhammer currently sitting at number 3 in the Steam global sales charts. Anybody else want to hazard a guess at sales figures?

[Fredrin]

I'm not really basing this on anything more than gut instinct and previous sales figures, but I imagine it will have sold about 1 million copies a month after release and 5-6 million a year after the last game is out.

I'd be surprised if SEGA/CA didn't consider that quite a big success.

[Frost, colonel]

I'm not really basing this on anything more than gut instinct and previous sales figures, but I imagine it will have sold about 1 million copies a month after release and 5-6 million a year after the last game is out.

I'd be surprised if SEGA/CA didn't consider that quite a big success.

Measuring games sales is one thing, I would also like to know how much they make from the DLC's over the trilogy.

[Fredrin]

Measuring games sales is one thing, I would also like to know how much they make from the DLC's over the trilogy.

Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if they made as much from DLC as they do from base game sales.

[Ichon]

Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if they made as much from DLC as they do from base game sales.

Some games make 2-3x as much from DLC. Of course that is a bit of playing with the numbers because many DLC features are impossible without work done on the underlying game.

Last I heard about 13% of the people who buy a game will also buy DLC which excludes f2p as no one 'buys' those and also excludes microtrans oriented casual games like CandyKrush. If Sega/CA sells 1 million Total War games they don't actually sell 1 million directly to customers- they sell a large amount of that 1 million to the distributors who sell to customers. Steam is a bit different as it is not exactly a normal distributor but almost like a market maker between publishers and customers facilitating sales and taking a cut. Steam's interests are both to generate revenue for publishers but also grow its user base and increase purchase velocity/total sales.

Anyway- figure if Sega/CA sells 1 million licenses for Total War most of the time the money that actually reaches Sega is going to be less than 20% of the sold price (-30% for Steam -CA development/marketing casts/-support and other costs). So roughly 12 million 'might' be profit. Of course since Warhammer is IP belonging to GW some part of that 12 million will go to GW. Depending on sales that 20% that Sega gets could go up or down 20% though their estimates would have to be WAY off to see more variance than that (IE they make nothing on base game vs 40% means 24 million 'profit').

Now let's say 13% or 130,000 people buy at least 1 DLC content pack (most DLC revenue is driven by about 1% of customers who spend avg 2x base cost of the game) sold at 14.99. Now if the base game development costs aren't included in the same accounting way that approx 2 million DLC revenue could have 50% reaching Sega or roughly 1 million or +8.3% profit margin. Now factor in 1% who buy 100% of DLC. About half at full price and the other half over time as DLC content prices decrease which for simplicity we'll say amounts to revenue of half what the dedicated fans spend. So 10,000 of the 1 million base game owners spend a bit over 1 million but since DLC is accounted differently 500,000 of that goes to Sega so now it is +12.4% margin.

The bigger the number of base game sales the larger the the number of DLC sales increases as 13% of 5 million is quite a bit more exponentially increasing Sega profit though it is important the base game is good enough to get 5 million sales so only so much content can be cut to sell as DLC. Where that line is though is constantly tested by all companies while the huge titles like Destiny which supposedly cost over 500 million aren't relying on DLC to increase profit margin- there DLC covers the base cost of the game and 100% of profits.

TW:WH has a far smaller budget than 500 million but considering average games costs 20 million in 2015 I wouldn't be surprised if TW:WH cost 25-30 million if not a bit more considering some CA employees are already working on content for titles 1 and 2. When I did very basic breakdown earlier of 100 employees at CA working on TW:WH for roughly 3 years the cost in salaries alone can easily exceed 15 million then add facilities, equipment, marketing, legal, etc which is often 25% of a production budget and we see the 20 million 2015 major game development cost.

To cover 20 million CA needs to sell 670,000 without DLC just to break even on a lowball development cost estimate. Because of GW involvement and the extra work for 64bit and expansion of CA I'd guess to break even is closer to 25-30 million or probably around 1 million copies of the game at FULL retail price... given that most recent 'new' TW title ROME 2 probably did somewhere a bit over 800,000 at FULL price (within the first 1-3 months after release) it seems reasonable that Sega/CA/GW would bet on at least 1 million copies in the first 3 months with DLC being a very important part for both GW and Sega to ensure profits not just to break even.

[flippers]

Some games make 2-3x as much from DLC. Of course that is a bit of playing with the numbers because many DLC features are impossible without work done on the underlying game.

Last I heard about 13% of the people who buy a game will also buy DLC which excludes f2p as no one 'buys' those and also excludes microtrans oriented casual games like CandyKrush. If Sega/CA sells 1 million Total War games they don't actually sell 1 million directly to customers- they sell a large amount of that 1 million to the distributors who sell to customers. Steam is a bit different as it is not exactly a normal distributor but almost like a market maker between publishers and customers facilitating sales and taking a cut. Steam's interests are both to generate revenue for publishers but also grow its user base and increase purchase velocity/total sales.

Anyway- figure if Sega/CA sells 1 million licenses for Total War most of the time the money that actually reaches Sega is going to be less than 20% of the sold price (-30% for Steam -CA development/marketing casts/-support and other costs). So roughly 12 million 'might' be profit. Of course since Warhammer is IP belonging to GW some part of that 12 million will go to GW. Depending on sales that 20% that Sega gets could go up or down 20% though their estimates would have to be WAY off to see more variance than that (IE they make nothing on base game vs 40% means 24 million 'profit').

Now let's say 13% or 130,000 people buy at least 1 DLC content pack (most DLC revenue is driven by about 1% of customers who spend avg 2x base cost of the game) sold at 14.99. Now if the base game development costs aren't included in the same accounting way that approx 2 million DLC revenue could have 50% reaching Sega or roughly 1 million or +8.3% profit margin. Now factor in 1% who buy 100% of DLC. About half at full price and the other half over time as DLC content prices decrease which for simplicity we'll say amounts to revenue of half what the dedicated fans spend. So 10,000 of the 1 million base game owners spend a bit over 1 million but since DLC is accounted differently 500,000 of that goes to Sega so now it is +12.4% margin.

The bigger the number of base game sales the larger the the number of DLC sales increases as 13% of 5 million is quite a bit more exponentially increasing Sega profit though it is important the base game is good enough to get 5 million sales so only so much content can be cut to sell as DLC. Where that line is though is constantly tested by all companies while the huge titles like Destiny which supposedly cost over 500 million aren't relying on DLC to increase profit margin- there DLC covers the base cost of the game and 100% of profits.

TW:WH has a far smaller budget than 500 million but considering average games costs 20 million in 2015 I wouldn't be surprised if TW:WH cost 25-30 million if not a bit more considering some CA employees are already working on content for titles 1 and 2. When I did very basic breakdown earlier of 100 employees at CA working on TW:WH for roughly 3 years the cost in salaries alone can easily exceed 15 million then add facilities, equipment, marketing, legal, etc which is often 25% of a production budget and we see the 20 million 2015 major game development cost.

To cover 20 million CA needs to sell 670,000 without DLC just to break even on a lowball development cost estimate. Because of GW involvement and the extra work for 64bit and expansion of CA I'd guess to break even is closer to 25-30 million or probably around 1 million copies of the game at FULL retail price... given that most recent 'new' TW title ROME 2 probably did somewhere a bit over 800,000 at FULL price (within the first 1-3 months after release) it seems reasonable that Sega/CA/GW would bet on at least 1 million copies in the first 3 months with DLC being a very important part for both GW and Sega to ensure profits not just to break even.

I can see why SEGA keep pushing as much DLC's they could have from TW titles, it seems like it's been working for them and making x2/x3 profit bigger than selling the base game

[alQamar]

I'd say that a million sales in a timeframe of three months should be the minimum, so it is surpassing Rome 2 "success". Hopefully with the new philosophy the game stands the test of time ... err users this time

[flippers]

If the release is successful it'll double rome 2's number

[the_eye]

And the poll is closed. We'll have to wait a month to compare predictions against reality but, barring a large number of refunds, things aren't looking good for those who voted in the 0-200,000 category.

[alQamar]

Hi the_eye will you pick up this thread once you incorporated 500.000 copies sold announcement from SEGA into your Steam statistically speaking thread? It seems Warhammer needed a much shorter time to get to the 500k border compared to Rome 2 or Shogun 2, isn't it?