Yeah, it's a stark contrast to how MS runs their business. The first HD didn't set the world on fire; hell, it was probably a low performer, but Sony saw the potential and gave them the time and money. 8 years later, HD2 is a huge success.
Helldivers II best-selling premium game of 2024 year-to-date after placing 2nd in March. Ranks 7th in lifetime US. PC/Console both successful.
- Thread starter Gamernyc78
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Yeah, it's a stark contrast to how MS runs their business. The first HD didn't set the world on fire; hell, it was probably a low performer, but Sony saw the potential and gave them the time and money. 8 years later, HD2 is a huge success.
imagine 8+ years of support, cared for hundreds of devs and here we got CM who shit on PS and also CEO is so fucking Phony.
Out of these games, only GT7 is GaaS. Helldivers 2 has a lower price but is GaaS and we don't know the LTV of the game (average of the total amount of money paid by player including both the game purchase and all IAP / warbonds / supercitizen editions). I assume that until now the LTV should be maybe around $50, $60 if extremely lucky.
But at the same time, those games who sold over 15M I'm pretty sure that sold like half of their copies for under $50 bucks during discounts, in bundles, etc. So I think regarding average spent per copy may be pretty similar.
While it's true that Sony's game sales traditionally focus on NA+EU, the split heavily changes depending on the speficic game or genre. In this case, being a multiplayer shooter pretty likely sold more in USA.
The EU and NA tastes are different, but not much. So yes, being top 7 means it must have sold over 15M. It should be somewhere 15-22M, I'd bet almost or around 20M units sold. Something compatible with the PC user reviews.
But again, many of the mentioned variables have a big margin error. So could be way more or way less than this.
Helldivers has charted well in every European chart we've seen including the PS Store charting... At least try man...
Helldivers 1 got 81-83 MC (which is very good for a low budget 2nd party game), and as you mention Sony saw potential to fund a AAA next gen PS5+PC GaaS sequel from there.
I assume HD1 sales must have been really good for a project of that scale, because if not the bet for the sequel would have been very brave and bold.
And? I didn't say the opposite.
You're assuming that sales were what convinced Sony of the potential and that isn't necessarily the case.
Look at Sony's relationship with Housemarque for example.
But if it was about sales alone, Sony would have bought quantic dream.
Sony gets a lot of flack for their focus on big budget games, but they've created a lot of opportunities for small developers.
You're trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Sony obviously was also happy with Housemarque sales, if not they wouldn't have paid them a AAA game and wouldn't have acquired them.
Being happy with the sales of a game doesn't mean that the game sells something crazy like 20M. It means they achieved what Sony estimated for that project of that scale. In this case something relatively small and cheap projects to cover some niches. So for Sony, gettting a profitable project with good quality that covers that niche it would be great for them. Specially if they -unlike other partners- achieve that always or almost always.
Maybe a launch PS4 game with Rezogun, or an early next gen exclusive with Returnal. Or to showcase 3DTV or PSVR with Super Stardust. Or simply something to cover dual analog shooter or arcade niches.
For these things pretty likely Sony only needed low sales, and achieving it with profitable projects that maybe exceeded their estimates in terms of quality and or sales in multiple projects would be enough to trry with a bigger project.
In this case that bet was worth it in both cases, Helldivers 2 is an insane success and they got happy enough with Returnal to acquire the studio.
Regarding acquisitions, both side have to agree, and not everything are sales. Quantic Dreams wanted to self publish and move to multiplatform, so their plains back then didn't match with selling to Sony. Back then they also had that controversy, so maybe Sony didn't want to work with them at least for a while, and even less to acquire them.
I don't get what do you mean. Not sure if it's because English is my 3rd language or because you're smoking something.
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The community note was deleted, they did the right thing, but Mischief still didn't get a note, a shame
As I said, the extra costs are split between the PC and PS communities, as they both share the same game server
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Well, let's clarify something: the budgets, revenues, costs, profits of these things inside companies go per project.
For them, if they make a project like Helldivers 2 that is thought as a multiplatform game, budgeting both versions etc then the revenue, costs (or profitability) or income are counted for both versions, because this is what it wad budgeted for the project. In case of game server costs for a crossplay MP game they are also shared.
A different case are the late SP (or MP without crossplay) game ports: in that case there is a project, in Sony's case games originally made for PS only with its own budget, costs and income. In this case only of the PS version.
And then, years later, there's a separate project which is the SP (or MP without crossplay) game port: with its own budget, costs and income, the PC version ones. In this specific case, the development of the original game, the PS store costs, PS physical edition costs etc are ignored because aren't of this project, are of the other one.
You're talking out of both sides of your mouth.
On one hand you're hedging that Helldivers 2 is selling less in Europe (with no evidence) before conceding that it is likely doing well, and the evidence we ACTUALLY have that you're ignoring is that it is in fact doing very well.
We don't have as specific a benchmark as we have in the US, but it's been on top of charts in Europe since release and might even be performing better in Europe than in the US.
You come to the conclusion that Helldivers 2 is probably above 15 million units sold worldwide, but how you got to the answer was murky.
I never said Helldivers 2 is selling less in Europe, because we don't have data to compare.
I never said Helldivers 2 isn't doing very well in Europe or ignored sales rankings.
But now you're mentioning it, in Spain and Italy (4th and 5th biggest countries in Europe weren't in the top 10 for all platforms, but are in the top 10 for PS5). In any case, it isn't that important because even if they are 4th and 5th biggest European countries they represent a small portion of global revenue (under 2%) and also a small portion of European sales. UK, Germany and France represent a way bigger percent of EU and worldwide sales, so they are more representative countries for EU, and there Helldivers 2 had a top position.
And well, I think the PSN EU ranking is even more reprentative than any national EU ranking, and Helldivers 2 was top 1 for February and March (and pretty likely will for April too, which I think still isn't available).
We don't know if it's selling more in USA or in Europe because there are not oficial region specific sales numbers. But we know it's performing very well on both sides because it's top 1 in PSN stores of NA and EU for February and March, and we know globally the digital sales or PS are a huge portion of the total.
I don't came to any conclusion, as I said we don't have enough data to make a proper estimation.
But my personal guess with the data we have is that they may be above 15M, maybe even close or around 20M with both platforms combined. But again it's just a personal guess and don't have enough data to make a proper estimation.
Same goes with trying to guess if it sold more in EU or NA, but traditionally MP shooters sell more in NA, and NA is a bigger market than EU, so I think it's more likely that it sold more there than in EU. But again, it's just an informed guess and could be wrong, obviously not all games sell more in NA.
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The game went back to number 3 on Steam Global sellers even if it's delisted in 177 countries. How irrelevant are those countries 
Are they still able to play it (the ones that bought it before)?
Are they still able to play it (the ones that bought it before)?
177? Are you good with mathematics?The game went back to number 3 on Steam Global sellers even if it's delisted in 177 countries. How irrelevant are those countries
Are they still able to play it (the ones that bought it before)?
The game went back to number 3 on Steam Global sellers even if it's delisted in 177 countries. How irrelevant are those countries
It went up to number 3 from sitting around #10~ the last few days because of the battlepass came out yesterday.
This is normal behaviour for a GaaS game.
As unit sale slowdown for the game, it's doing more and more of its revenue through MTX.
It'll come back down again in a day or two.
Yes, a game can be delisted but as long as you have it bought previously, it's yours.
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