- Joined
- Jul 31, 2018
If you aren’t familiar, Obsidian (popular for games such as Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds) launched a passion-project Kickstarter years ago for Pillars of Eternity, an isometric RPG in the vein of games like Baldur’s Gate. The Kickstarter raised over $4 million, and held the record for crowdfunded video games, temporarily
The game came out, was relatively well reviewed, and interest in a sequel mounted. Obsidian decided to crowdfund again, but use the new-ish Fig platform.
It was a great success, blowing past stretch goals...
...except, it wasn’t
The director of the game has said the sales were unbelievably low, and even with the Kickstarter/Fig success, the likelihood of a third game is currently next to nil.
There is a chance that Shenmue III falls into the latter category (high crowdfunding, poor sales), but let’s pretend (and hope) that it is more like the former, being a Kickstarter success AND selling well afterwards. Crowdfunding or not, how do you make S4 a success?
I think this is interesting as I believe the two series have many parallels; both are games that are successors (literal sequel or spiritually) to older, niche games with a rabid fan base made by companies/individuals heavily renowned for their older works. We also know that many people supported these Kickstarters to “jump in” and ride the hype that hadn’t necessarily played the previous games/type of game. This is where it gets scary - those same “bandwagon” fans clearly bought PoE 1 in numbers, maybe they missed the Kickstarter, etc., but fell off afterwards and didn’t buy the second. The core fan base was clearly there as the Fig campaign was successful. Shenmue III is already in an odd spot with average review scores and a fan base slightly torn, even if skewing towards the positive. How does IV become successful?
Hope you find this as interesting to think about as I did!
The game came out, was relatively well reviewed, and interest in a sequel mounted. Obsidian decided to crowdfund again, but use the new-ish Fig platform.
It was a great success, blowing past stretch goals...
Pillars of Eternity 2 is the biggest crowdfunding success since 2015
Obsidian raises 400 percent of its goal
www.google.com
...except, it wasn’t
Pillars of Eternity 2 Has Been a Sales Disaster | GameWatcher
In a shocking turn of events, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire has apparently had an extremely underwhelming financial turnout.
www.gamewatcher.com
The director of the game has said the sales were unbelievably low, and even with the Kickstarter/Fig success, the likelihood of a third game is currently next to nil.
There is a chance that Shenmue III falls into the latter category (high crowdfunding, poor sales), but let’s pretend (and hope) that it is more like the former, being a Kickstarter success AND selling well afterwards. Crowdfunding or not, how do you make S4 a success?
I think this is interesting as I believe the two series have many parallels; both are games that are successors (literal sequel or spiritually) to older, niche games with a rabid fan base made by companies/individuals heavily renowned for their older works. We also know that many people supported these Kickstarters to “jump in” and ride the hype that hadn’t necessarily played the previous games/type of game. This is where it gets scary - those same “bandwagon” fans clearly bought PoE 1 in numbers, maybe they missed the Kickstarter, etc., but fell off afterwards and didn’t buy the second. The core fan base was clearly there as the Fig campaign was successful. Shenmue III is already in an odd spot with average review scores and a fan base slightly torn, even if skewing towards the positive. How does IV become successful?
Hope you find this as interesting to think about as I did!