25,000 copies sold (Steam)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Kerbal Space Program 2 Steam Charts · SteamDB

I don't know if this is decent for an EA title - and I do know that there were other sources for the game... but it's a start.

I get the feeling that a lot of people are holding off.  I'd have encouraged them to participate in EA prior to launch.  Now?  It's probably best for really experienced players, those folks who enjoy bug hunting and Beta participation... and folks with good systems.

Still - glad to see they've made their first mil!

[78stonewobble]

It's absolutely fair for people to not want to take the risk of early access, which implies bugs, lack of features, low performance and/or a 50 dollar price tag for it atm.

It's also completely fair for others to choose to jump on to it already. 

 

People have different temperaments and taste.

[Scarecrow71]

I bought through Epic, and unfortunately, Epic doesn't have statistics.  Would be nice to know how many bought through Epic or the PD store.

[The Aziz]

What it doesn't say is how many were refunded. With half of the reviews being negative, I expect quite a chunky amount.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Did not think of that. 

Still - a day later almost half are still playing! 

[LoSBoL]

Interesting link, owner estimation on there is a lot higher then the 25k of concurrent players

 

 

[The Aziz]

And you could finally compare both games at their current best

https://steamdb.info/app/220200/charts/

 

[Sovetskysoyuz]

2 hours ago, LoSBoL said:

Interesting link, owner estimation on there is a lot higher then the 25k of concurrent players

 

 

Yeah, concurrent player numbers are not a good proxy for the number of copies purchased. Dwarf Fortress sold 160,000 copies on its first day (confirmed by the publisher) but has never broken 30,000 concurrent players.

[blazemonger]

Also, keep in mind that many will buy direct, I actually refunded on Steam and bought direct instead as I wanted as much of my purchase benefit the studio..
For a niche game like KSP on a "rocky" start of EA like many claim they have, showing 11.5K concurrent on Steam is really not bad at all.

[Alexoff]

3 hours ago, The Aziz said:

And you could finally compare both games at their current best

https://steamdb.info/app/220200/charts/

 

The graph shows that some of the players bought KSP2, made a refund and left to play KSP1.

[The Aziz]

Barely an implication on your side but keep telling yourself that to feel better.

[Alexoff]

13 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Barely an implication on your side but keep telling yourself that to feel better.

Of course, I am always wrong when I write something in a negative way about KSP 2

[Mantarochen]

9 hours ago, The Aziz said:

And you could finally compare both games at their current best

https://steamdb.info/app/220200/charts/

 

Well that comparison doesn't look to good for KSP2 does it... 

 

KSP2-Green, KSP1-Blue

KSP2 has about 1,5K players more then KSP1. Which is disastrous for a game that launched a few days ago. 

But that puts it in line with all the steam reviews if you subtract jokes and literally troll reviews to push the steam score like these: 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Mantarochen

[78stonewobble]

What were the numbers of KSP1 3 days into it's early access? 

9 hours ago, Alexoff said:

The graph shows that some of the players bought KSP2, made a refund and left to play KSP1.

Which is fully expected? 

I mean it's completely valid to be in doubt about KSP2's early access due eg. an old computer, decide to try it out, because it is possible to get a refund and think: "Nah, this early access isn't for me yet." and get a refund. Those people might certainly try it out later. 

Others obviously made the wrong purchase and it isn't for them. Which is also fair. 

[RayneCloud]

25,000 units sold for a game like this from a studio like this is a nightmare. It's not good at all. I'm now working on my 5th game in 10+ years and the average we see as "successful" is around 30,000 units sold on steam, for "indies" mind you. IG is not indie, as they're owned by PD whose owned by T2.

 If they've sold 25,000 units, that's about 1.25 million USD in revenue so far, and that not only puts that game no where near a "break even" state, it makes it a resounding failure and complete  financial loss. At best guess, looking at linkedin and other locations, Intercept games has roughly 47 employees, so, what would the "burn rate" be for 47 people? If you paid them well? Let's take a look,

Game Developer Salaries in the united states range from a low of 60,000 a year to a high of 90,000 a year, depending on budgets and team sizes and if you're a director or not. With indies, that salary range can dump in to the 10,000 a year to 30,000 a year range. But let's assume, IG pays their people the average salary, (50,000 a year). 

47 Employees at 50,000USD a yea rSalary = 2,350,000 dollars in total yearly burn rate and cost of development.
IF we assume a 5 year total development cycle from prototyping and pre=production all the way to launch then KSP /Could/ have cost roughly 11,750,00 dollars to make.
What's the deficit? 10,500,000 
How many more copies to break even need to be sold? 
210,050.....8.4 times what's been sold already.

 

Now, take all this with a huge grain of salt, I don't know salaries for IG, I don't know full dev cycle, I don't know the budget they were given... but with all my best guesses, KSP 2 so far is a complete failure from a corporate standpoint. 

 

This makes me incredibly worried. This project's long term viability is in incredible danger.

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by RayneCloud

[MarcAbaddon]

25000 is the all-time peak of concurrent players on Steam, so it obviously a smaller number than units sold. What would be interesting is the refund rate and the long term trend. I'd not be surprised if long-term viability is an issue mostly due to that.

[RayneCloud]

4 minutes ago, MarcAbaddon said:

25000 is the all-time peak of concurrent players on Steam, so it obviously a smaller number than units sold. What would be interesting is the refund rate and the long term trend. I'd not be surprised if long-term viability is an issue mostly due to that.

The refund rate could be extremely high. Regardless, I'm deeply concerned about the project ever reaching it's goals. 

[MarcAbaddon]

Agreed. I think modders could be of great help here if they manage to demonstrate that some of the features can be fixed a bit easier than people assume. I've already seen but not tried out mods that add AP/PE markers while adjusting nodes and IVA. But it still feels this would have been so avoidable if they had polished what they had a bit more. People would have been happy to wait for the other features not the roadmap.

[RayneCloud]

I fully blame the publisher for this. I just can't say why on the forums. 

[Hotel26]

A very informative thread.  Thank you, guys!

Edited February 27, 2023 by Hotel26

[MarcAbaddon]

On Steam the main limitation is that you have to return it with than 2 hours played.

[The Aziz]

The 25000, most likely more, was just day one. We're 3 days in, let's wait for a week. Should be enough for quite a lot of people to get through reviews, buy better hardware etc.

For comparison, here's another indie early access game, out in September last year. The stats, aside from reviews being mostly positive, aren't that different from what we're seeing for KSP2. Lower, in fact.

https://steamdb.info/app/1657630/charts/

 

[MarcAbaddon]

Are you seriously comparing Slime Rancher with KSP? KSP 2 is not an indie game. 

I don't really agree with the blame the publisher take tbh, there's been plenty going wrong on dev side even before Star Theory folded. It's easy to blame the financial guys, but if you are two years behind what you promised and x million $ over-budget, at some point the hammer will drop. Personally I have started to doubt the effectiveness of the team leadership, even though I think they have some great engineers and artists.

If you want to blame the publisher, maybe giving the game to Uber Entertainment in the first place was the real mistake. If you look at their history they had one good release and one mixed release before, plus a lot of engineer turn-over. Which means neither the labor of love factor that Squad had or the deep institutional experience with game development more established studios with more titles have.

[Ferio]

3 hours ago, RayneCloud said:

 

 

This makes me incredibly worried. This project's long term viability is in incredible danger.

 

All this feels like it was released only, because the money dried up. 5 years development, delay after delay and look in what state they delivered "EA". 

Huge red flag and as you said, most likely they pull the plug from this game sooner or later. Wouldn't be surprised if they take the cash and leave it at that.

 

Game had huge potential, but man... how did it ended up like this?

Edited February 27, 2023 by Ferio

[RayneCloud]

There's no cash to take Ferio. This just feels like trolling at this point. You're treating real human beings in an incredibly unhelpful  manner. Shuttering this project would put nearly 50 devs out of jobs. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by RayneCloud