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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Right now it's impossible to make a decent sales estimation of the game because if at launch the reviews were a higher percentage of the typical, with the recent review bombing and campaign to revert it the "user reviews x 25" estimation method for Steam sales no longer makes sense.
It would indicate over 20.8M units only on Steam, which doesn't make sense. Who knows, maybe it's over 20M combining PS5+PC sales, but I'd say it's more realistic maybe to expect 10-15M+ units in both platforms combined.
It would indicate over 20.8M units only on Steam, which doesn't make sense. Who knows, maybe it's over 20M combining PS5+PC sales, but I'd say it's more realistic maybe to expect 10-15M+ units in both platforms combined.
OP
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That statement is partially BS because steam cut is lower when your game sells past a certain threshold, which Helldivers surpassed for sure. The cut must be 20% or lower.
Since several years ago, Steaam's 30% revenue cut is for then a game made less than $10M. When the game is making between $10M and 50M, the revenue cut is 25%. When the game has generated over 50M, the revenue cut is 20%.
Helldivers 2 generated way, way more than $50M on Steam.
And well, in console Sony doesn't pay the Steam revenue cut but has to pay the costs related to physical sales (manufacturing, shipping, storage, retailer and distributors cuts....) plus extra taxes. In the digital copies of the games they also have to pay PSN store & download server costs, store management costs, currency exchange costs, transaction/payment platforms costs, customer support, OS server costs not covered with PS+, etc.
He also made out the "57%", that tweet is garbage. He has no idea what he's talking about.
We saw what game Sony gets on average per copy from PC sales in two fiscal reports, and also what Sony gets on average per copy to some PS only Insomniac games in the leaks. They earn more or less the same in both platforms, $24-34/copy aprox. depending on discounts and sales, for both full priced new console games and PC ports of old games.
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Mischief has told lies before, he once said that Sony had no involvement in the development of Helldivers 2, but we know that's a lie
It's literally impossible for the game to make more money on Steam than on PSN, in fact, it's literally impossible for the profit to even be equal. And all these fees you added are irrelevant (in the case of Spider-Man, you have to take the Marvel/Disney fee)
And Steam's cuts are progressive, on PSN, the money is 100% from Sony from day one (Yes, there is physical media, but I doubt that an online game will have a significant number of sales in that format). And the servers are shared, both the PSN user and the Steam user pay to maintain the servers. If profits were similar across platforms, Sony wouldn't be planning a Launcher for PC
And Lord knows how many PlayStation Plus subscriptions Helldivers 2 has sold.
OP
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Those three weeks of its release I know so many ppl tht ran to buy the game tht didn't even know about it. All my sins friends so I imagine it sold a gd amount of plus subs. You are spot on.
This is probably SIE's plan with GaaS games, especially the premium titles.
GaaS means that it's definitely something that can appeal to both console AND PC.
Premium title means PSN required for SIE, it's basically like if you're paying for an expensive monthly battlepass(on top of a possible actual one depending on the game).
If PlayStation is able to get a lot of people to play more than one of their GaaS on a semi permanent basis, that's a lot more PSN numbers on any given month.
Less than a week till the next earnings report. Besides the usual things to look out for, the most interesting thing to me is going to be if they do have any slides and information about general and Helldivers 2 PC sales numbers.
The second thing is PS+ sub numbers.
On that last point, recall that SIE did not update people on subscription numbers in recent past reports, due to sub services across gaming not growing/stalling making it not really appealing data to show to investors.
This quarter might've seen an atypical increase due to Helldivers 2 that they might want to boast about.
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They are not irrelevant, they are all costs substracted from the money paid for the game or addon. And yes, in case of licensed games like Spider-Man or MLB obviously there's a cut for the licensor in all platforms too.
As I mentioned we saw both in leaked Insomniac docs and also from public fiscal reports what average game revenue remained per copy for the Sony teams after all these costs and external cuts for many games, some of them PS version only and in other cases only the PC port.
As I mentioned is pretty similar in both platforms, something they can adjust with the pricing and discounts.
And that is for revenue. Regarding profitability, the old ports even if obviously generate less interest and revunue than a day one release, they have a way bigger profitability/ROI than a new release, because in case of a day one release the development cost to recoup is the development of the full game (a handful hundreds of millions) while in a port is only the cost of the port (a couple millions), so even their ports that had smallest sales on their first months/years became profitable. While some games that were only released on console weren't profitable.
The point of GaaS for publishers like Sony is that multiplayer and post launch content keeps the players engaged for longer, so it's more likely they'll spend on addons too, and spend more on them. In case of PS, also means playing longer a MP means paying longer for PS+.
Regarding successful paid GaaS on PS (remember F2P doesn't require PS+), there are a ton. Regarding 1st party, there are GT7, MLB, Destiny 2 and Helldivers 2.
Regarding their PS+ reports, they no longer report subbers, their idea is to report now revenue, and sometimes (annual reports I think) also show the split between the different tiers.
I don't expect a spike this quarter on PS+ revenue, but I expect to see it on first party revenue and specially in "other software" (1st party games revenue made outside PS) due to mainly Helldivers 2 due to its great success and also because of having released day one on PC.
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It's not impossible at all.
The game ranks top 7 in sony's history for us games published in just 2 months. With few exception most of Sony's successful game publications come through US + Europe.
We're looking at some combination of the following
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man Miles Morales
God of War
God of War Ragnarok
Horizon Zero Dawn
Gran Turismo 7
Uncharted 4
The Last of Us Remastered
The Last of Us Part 2
Ghost of Tsushima
We know that many of these games hit 15+ million worldwide, again with the focus being NA + Europe.
To be 7th on this list and have a lower price than all of these games at launch, this game has to be over 13 million units sold in just 2 months and probably closer to 15 million minimum.
To do this in just 2 months, Helldivers 2 will almost certainly become the most successful Sony game of all time, which is why Sony was quick to cave to PC gamers. There are definitely a lot of factors involved in determining how it stands in terms of profitability. As has been discussed, you have to account for steam royalties, but you also have to account for the developer's cut. Sony owns the IP for Helldivers, so it might be more than a normal publisher/developer ratio.
But given that at least 2 games in that top 7 are non Sony IP, Sony has to be over the moon about this.
Sony and Arrowhead should be focused on getting Helldivers 2 on as many devices as they can. It is not an exaggeration to say that this game might be bigger than SIE itself. The revenue and more importantly the profit this game can generate if it was on Mac, iOS, Android, Switch, and even Xbox is massive. When the game becomes F2P, it could end up as big as any of the other massive games on the market like Minecraft and Fortnite.
Absolutely a huge success.
Not only that but that's just looking at the US.
I would not be surprised if Helldivers 2 is #1 or close to it in many Asian countries(excluding Japan) for SIE.
Same thing for many of the countries included in the RotW category that are not likely to have a huge PS5 presence.
I mean, this was always the plan with the PC/GaaS initiative.
To reach markets where PS has no presence, but this is the first title delivering on that potential.
It has been funny seeing the VGinsights estimates going from 11M to 15M due to the mass amount of reviews in the span of a week lmao.
There is no way MS isn’t trying to poach Arrowhead right now. Maybe their PR firms could leverage a crisis to instill dissent between Sony and AH and lure the developer to their ranks. They get the dev, the big brains leave, the studio is left without the creators, and then shut down after a successful release.
https://x.com/twthereddragon/status/1788185792377979190?s=46&t=rPQSIri7Y7uY0LWKH3ll_w
https://x.com/twthereddragon/status/1788185792377979190?s=46&t=rPQSIri7Y7uY0LWKH3ll_w
Hmm the thing is Sony owns the IP and arrowhead is contractually obligated to deliver on the game, the most xbox can do is poach the employees for their own studio. Buying the studio makes no sense as Arrowhead has to continue on helldivers and a new game would probably take 6+ years so a purchase would be a lose lose for xbox
it is all belongs to Playstation. how do you think they manage to survive 8+ years?
Well, I consider a 15M estimation could even make sense, but the 11.8M one sounds way more realistic to me, which should be added to a relatively similar amount of sales from PS+other PC stores.
Meanwhile, PlayTracker and specially SteamSpy estimations sound like a joke to me:
Well, they not only own the IP: Sony funded the project and there's way more Sony than Arrowhead staff who worked in the game.
In AAA games, normally the lead gamedev studio only provides around 10% of the total staff involved in a game. Being the other 90% people from the publisher, mostly internal support teams from the publisher or outsourcing teams hired by the publisher.
Since Sony owns the IP, Sony could make sequels, remakes, remasters, ports or movie/tv show/animation/anime/book adaptations etc. with other teams without needing to ask for permission to Arrowhead. Meanwhile, Arrowhead can't do anything with the IP without Sony's permission.
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