Valve leaks Steam game player counts

[Daruwind]

The biggest advantage of Shogun2 in my eyes was always the artistic.. value..way how the game feels, looks. All the ingame movies for agent actions, immersion and sense for details. And for some the Avatar conquest multiplayer and whole FotS, still one of best expansion up to date. However biggest issue always was replayability as factions are near the same and campaign map is simply too simple - banana. You are either at one end or in middle. Sadly we got no expansion for Korea... :/

Anyway thanks for numbersAbdul!
7.7 millions for Troy in 24 hours
4.9 millions for Shogun2
Both said to be downloads but i think it is about claimed copies. For example I know a few people like myself claiming Troy but not even downloading...
Plus 200 new staff members in 2020, 750 total staff across all studios.

It is clearly showing that both Shogun giveaway and Troy epic launch were success in terms of numbers but artificially boosted by zero cost as retention numbers are really not so high. I´m curious what will be Troy numbers once on Steam and if CA will have some kind of initial sale or content to promote it further. I´m not in mood to pay full price for year old game that I had to wait for...
*I have theory that people claim whatever they want but hook them up enough to sell at least some DLCs, that is probably harder...

Anyway ToB is still lingering pretty much not being able to close 0.5-1 million range at all.

Yeah, hard to judge Troy performance. We will see what is planned for it in the future "What teams are working on...". If it will have more content one can guess that people still play it.

Still, I have checked some financial reports from Saga and here are excerpts related to Troy:

This is from 2Q (July - August - September).

So, Troy sales were 3.2 bilion yen which is over 30 million USD. In normal terms it would be an equivalent of over 600k copies.

Hard to say what makes up this amount. Are this only sales after free period? Does it include minimum guarantee from Epic Store (they have mentioned that they have received it first from Epic but they did not say when)? Does it include money they have received from free copies (if there were any)?

Based on this table, it seems that new titles in 2Q sold around 400k copies (not counting free downloads). In table they mention that they have released 2 titles in that period but looking through this and other financial reports it seems to be some kind of error since everywhere else only Troy is mentioned as the only new full game title in 2Q (sales table shows that new titles sold in 3.2 bilion of yen, which based on earlier graph are Troy's sales).

If this 400k units sold is from Troy alone, it would be possible that 30 million USD from sales is around 20 million USD from 400k sold copies and around 10 million USD from MG from Epic Store*.

*possible because Epic seems to have paid 10.5 million USD for Control's exclusivity.

So, in theory at the end of September Troy might have 8.1 millions of owners.

There is multiple things we have no idea about.
1)Epic could upfront some fixed money for "free" launch
2)Epic could upfront money for some fixed numbers ..like paid for 500k copies full plus some small money for anything after that (this would be good if CA was counting with low numbers of claims)
3)from beginning Epic was paying just some part of game..like 5-10-15 bucks per claimed copy (this would be ideal if CA counted with so many claimed copies)
....

Anyway great analysis. I think your scenario and numbers are very realistic. 400k/20 millions additional sold units seems realitic as 10 millions as upfronted money. Epic definitely was not paying full for every claimed copy. Right now I see Troy with 20% discount. Honestly I was not tracking if there were any sale before Christmas but Q3 probably will add a few more sold units...

I would keep in mind that ToB so far probably haven´t reached 500k so question is what expectation CA/Epic had after that...

[RafSwi7]

Anyway great analysis. I think your scenario and numbers are very realistic. 400k/20 millions additional sold units seems realitic as 10 millions as upfronted money. Epic definitely was not paying full for every claimed copy. Right now I see Troy with 20% discount. Honestly I was not tracking if there were any sale before Christmas but Q3 probably will add a few more sold units...

I would keep in mind that ToB so far probably haven´t reached 500k so question is what expectation CA/Epic had after that...

If MG from Epic was around 10 millions it would be as they have wanted to secure 200k copies, which is probably similar or better than early ToB numbers (if its still did not break 500k sold copies).

If 400k additional sold units is true (in month and half), I would say that these numbers are quite good, especially considering that many people have claimed it for free.

[Daruwind]

In 2018 we had exact numbers due to leak Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia 224,856 (6. July..release date was 2. May...first post in whole thread)
in both 2019 and 2020 the SteamSpy numbers are still 250-500k range with breakpoint for next range being 500k-1m.

So aiming at 400k paid copies at free launch seems like good enough number. This could be actual number of owners of ToB up to now...

[0riflamme]

I agree that Shogun 2 (and Fots) have more content cut out than ETW/NTW and is lesser diverse in factions. But damn do i love that game. I am actually trying to add those features back in to the game (will take a while do) as i feel it's a better optimized game than etw/ntw.

What it lacks in strategy, S2 compensates in tactics. Replay wise, the strategy map dull, but there's no fat no fluff in the way. It isn't a grand strategy game.

[Basileos Leandros I]

Personally, I found Shogun 2 to be fabulous. It had some issues with AI to be fair, but I've played & finished all of the clan campaigns in the main campaign. (with the exception of Ikko Ikki, that was too much)

Fall of the Samurai again was a great expansion and multiplayer as well was really really good. In fact, it's the most played TW MP for me, particularly because I loved the idea of RPG-ing your character and advancing on the battlemap to give you specific bonuses. Quite clever.

I'm glad more people have it now.

[PSYCHO V]

Personally, I found Shogun 2 to be fabulous.

Totally agree. Arguably one of the best titles in the franchise.

[Daruwind]

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/cre...tal-war-series

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Creative Assembly expands with new UK studio, Total War Series reaches 36 million sold


Creative Assembly is currently working on getting Total War: Rome Remastered released, but they also have Total War Warhammer 3 and an unannounced sci-fi shooter in development, which means it needs to expand space for all these teams to provide better working conditions and support a "post-COVID work model".
The company now houses over 800 employees between its three UK studios, including a specialist Motion Capture facility, and an Eastern European base with CA Sofia in Bulgaria. Creative Assembly also says that it has "refurbished all UK sites with a renewed focus on collaborative working environments to support future flexible working plans."



A Total War Saga: TROY was an Epic Games Store freebie when it released back on 13th August 2020 and was claimed by over 7.5 million players. In the 20 years that the Total War series has been available, over 36 million copies of the game have sold, with there being over 1.5 million players each month.
The studio has grown by over 20% in the last year and continues to grow its community of fans including the 7.5 million players who rushed to claim A Total War Saga: TROY in a single day in August 2020. The 20-year-old Total War series has sold more than 36 million standalone games and sees over 1.5 million players each month.
"This is an incredibly exciting time for Creative Assembly with the highly-anticipated Total War: WARHAMMER III on the horizon and our new sci-fi-shooter IP in development. We are already home to some of the best talent out there and we are growing." said Creative Assembly’s Studio Director, Gareth Edmondson. "We have a fantastic reputation for being one of the best game developers to work for with our positive approach to work-life balance. I want to continue to build on this and see an end to the traditional 9-5 in-office work model."
"In the future we’ll be transforming our working model to embed flexibility as the norm, and we need the right environment to achieve that. While we want to amplify the benefits of remote working, we also know that there is no virtual substitution to in-person creative collaboration, so we’ll be redesigning our working rhythm as well as our environment to focus on creativity and innovation when we are in the office." Edmondson continued.
As we can see, Creative Assembly has achieved much with the Total War franchise, but it won't be stopping here and aims to expand with additional IP, including the sci-fi shooter that it currently has in development. We'll bring you all the news on their upcoming releases as we get it, so stay tuned.

[Basileos Leandros I]

Seeing all those title boxes in one photo reminded me of how much fun I've had playing them and the hundreds & hundreds, probably thousands of hours, played. I love Total War.

[RafSwi7]

Some leaks from Epic:

2020

The revenue from Troy in August (basically half of August) was around $435 000 (in papers it is ~3% of total August revenue which was $14.5 millions). The game was ranked 6th in Aug Top 15 Sellers. There is also an another confirmation that it was claimed in 7.7 milions of free copies. Troy had 110 000 unique players "in the last 7 days". Most probably it was 7 last days of September 2020.

Based on graphs free Troy has brought ~600k new users to Epic and increased DAU (daily active users) Transacted or Played by around ~1.5 million users (from ~1.6 million to ~3.1 million). I guess this might be the number of people who might have tried Troy around launch. If this is the case it would be around 20% of claimed free copies.


2019

In their list of "2019 Steam Titles Not on EGS" it is noted that in 2019 Three Kingdoms sold 2 200 000 of copies on Steam. Revenues from the these copies were $87 098 000 and additional $10 000 000 from DLCs (in 2019 we had Yellow Turbans, Blood DLC and Eight Princes).

On the same list Warhammer 2 has sold 1 300 000 of units. Revenue was $31 200 000 from paid copies and $2 000 000 from DLCs (in 2019 new DLCs were The Prophet and the Warlock, The Hunter and The Beast and The Shadow and the Blade).

The first Warhammer has sold in the same year 225 000 of units, which gave $7 525 000 of revenue from paid copies and $ 1 000 000 from DLCs.

2018

In the period of Q4 2017 - all 2018, the revenue from Warhammer 2 was supposedly $18 600 000.

SIDE NOTE

Based on these numbers it seems that Warhammer 2 has sold more copies in 2019 than in 2018.

These numbers also mean that revenue in 2019 from 3K ($97 millions) was nearly twice as big as revenue from WH2 from Q4 of 2017 to the end of 2019 (~$50 millions). What is more, in 2019 the revenue from 3K DLCs was nearly 5 times as big as revenue from WH2 DLCs.

To put it into perspective - in just 7 months from release 3K revenue ($97 millions) was twice as big as WH2 revenue in the last 27 months (~50 millions), which was October 2017 - all 2019.

Table with 3K and WH2 data for 2019:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

WH2 data for Q4 2017- end 2018

[zoner16]

Well those are certainly some interesting numbers. CA usually relies more on base game sales than DLC sales, but for WH2 to make so little money on DLC compared to its base game sales a year after the base release and with 3 DLC packs is very shocking.

3K was quite the windfall for them, which you probably wouldn't have guessed from the current player numbers. I wonder how long that will sustain itself?

It's additionally interesting that Epic categorized their DLC monetization as low/mid respectively. I would've been positive that it would've been the opposite, but I suppose the numbers speak for themselves.

[RafSwi7]

Well those are certainly some interesting numbers. CA usually relies more on base game sales than DLC sales, but for WH2 to make so little money on DLC compared to its base game sales a year after the base release and with 3 DLC packs is very shocking.

3K was quite the windfall for them, which you probably wouldn't have guessed from the current player numbers. I wonder how long that will sustain itself?

It's additionally interesting that Epic categorized their DLC monetization as low/mid respectively. I would've been positive that it would've been the opposite, but I suppose the numbers speak for themselves.

Well, from what we know WH2 sold better in 2020 than 3K so there was a decline for the latest major historical title. In 2020 WH2 was in the "silver" sellers tier on Steam (from gold tier in 2019), while 3K ended up in the "bronze" tier (from platinum tier in 2019). We don't know how much revenue was needed to end up in each tier in 2020. These also change each year (for example in 2018 platinum was from $33 millions while in 2019 the game had to make $50 millions).

As a side note - in leaked documents there are some MGs (Minimum Guarantees) for some games. It might give us an idea how much CA might have received from EPIC for Troy exclusivity.

Phoenix Point - MG $11 millions

MechWarrior5 - MG $15 millions

Detroit Become Human - MG 10 millions

Borderlands 3 - MG 80 millions

In leaked documents from 2019 there are different MG tiers:

Tier 1 - MG $60 millions

Tier 2 - MG $30 millions

Tier 3 - MG $7,5 millions

Tier 4 - MG $2,5 millions

Total War series sales - in thousands copies sold - from April 2020 to December 2021.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Recently WH2 has breached 5M owners according to SteamSpy. It is first (?)* Total War title to sit in 5M-10M owners estimate.

*On SteamDB statistics for Shogun 2 are not available. In theory the game should also pass 5 millions owners as it was claimed for free in 4.9 millions copies according to video from CA summarising year 2020.

So Steam numbers right now from SteamDB* charts:

5M-10M

• WARHAMMER 2

2M-5M

• WARHAMMER 1
• ROME 2
• ATTILA
• THREE KINGDOMS
• EMPIRE

1M-2M

• MEDIEVAL 2
• ROME 1
• NAPOLEON

500K-1M

• WARHAMMER 3
• THRONES OF BRITANNIA

200K-500K

• ROME REMASTER
• MEDIEVAL

50K-100K

• TROY
• SHOGUN 1

*As mentioned for some reason there are no charts for Shogun2 but it should be in 5M-10M range.

[adellaisaacson]

This is so sad, I remember how many people used to play there in the past.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

This is so sad, I remember how many people used to play there in the past.

Well, gaming companies are like empires. They rise and fall...rise and fall

[RafSwi7]

Current estimations from SteamDB compared to 2018 Steam Leak and numbers from Epic leak. On Green estimations that are bigger than numbers from 2018 Steam Leak.

Funny how different all of them are. On paper VGinsights estimations seem to be the most probable (at least if we compare them to 2018 Steam leak), even if some numbers seem to be very conservative. Except for Shogun of course as according to CA it was claimed for free in 4.9 millions copies and they report only 2.3 millions. Playtracker seems to be greatly overestimating 3K and Shogun2, while underestimating Warhammer games.

[PikeStance]

It's a stretch calling 3K a "historical" title. The default is Romance and the "Record" game play is far from historical with mods fixing it.

[Abdülmecid I]

VGInsights data seem incomprehensible to me. How could Warhammer II have performed so much better than its predecessor, considering that the vast majority is playing Mortal and Immortal Empires, a feature that needs both games to be played? Common sense dictates that their numbers are similar, with Warhammer I selling slightly more copies. The difference is explained by those who purchased the first game, but then lost interest.

In regards to pre-order figures, according to a former CA employee, Warhammer I & II were actually commercial disappointments. Warhammer I sold slightly less than Rome II (the percentage of common owners was also smaller than anticipated). The total number was around 1.000.000 for both. Warhammer II performed even worse, the pre-order figure was 700.000, if I recall correctly. In my opinion, the 2019 leak corroborates these estimations. I can't comment on older games, but in the Warscape era, with the exception of Troy and Shogun, which were briefly available for free, Empire must have sold the most copies. Not a surprising observation, considering its commercial success and age. It is followed by Rome II, but the third place must be contested between Three Kingdoms and Warhammer.

[AnthoniusII]

VGInsights data seem incomprehensible to me. How could Warhammer II have performed so much better than its predecessor, considering that the vast majority is playing Mortal and Immortal Empires, a feature that needs both games to be played? Common sense dictates that their numbers are similar, with Warhammer I selling slightly more copies. The difference is explained by those who purchased the first game, but then lost interest.

In regards to pre-order figures, according to a former CA employee, Warhammer I & II were actually commercial disappointments. Warhammer I sold slightly less than Rome II (the percentage of common owners was also smaller than anticipated). The total number was around 1.000.000 for both. Warhammer II performed even worse, the pre-order figure was 700.000, if I recall correctly. In my opinion, the 2019 leak corroborates these estimations. I can't comment on older games, but in the Warscape era, with the exception of Troy and Shogun, which were briefly available for free, Empire must have sold the most copies. Not a surprising observation, considering its commercial success and age. It is followed by Rome II, but the third place must be contested between Three Kingdoms and Warhammer.

If your sources are corect there is only one explanation. CA/SEGA still though that dominated in Stradegy games and by adding fiction titles would ensure that domination. But I watch carefully the 2022 releases in stradegy games and the competion went far beyond in two (2) sections.
1st Quality (
2nd Moddability
THERE are atleast 5 titles similar to TW way style and atleast 3 titles that combine 1st person and TW styles game play. The most recent title is Mount and Blade II Bannerlord.
Too bad my old PC can not play this game.
Taleworlds (the company that releases Bannerlord) is about to make in late Octomber the 1st official (non beta) release. But with that release it releases a FULL pack of modding tools both by the company its self and community ones. In fact it promotes modding so far that the best creator on a "scene creation" mod will take a powerfull PC SET and the rest of modders other prices.
Companies -exept CA/SEGA) understood that no matter how good or bad a game will be mods will keep the sales up because players will see a mod that will like and will tempt to buy the game inorder to play it (if i had the money i would biy a new PC for that game).
CA/SEGA market staff failed to see how the game players community flow in a new kind of demands!