Market/business performance of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 *spawn

[Johnny Awesome]

The problem is that you're still making assumptions about engagement based on your own tastes instead of actual facts. For all we know, 10 million GP users tried the game and 5 million of them completed it.

The only data about whether or not the game met expectations are the metacritic scores - 81/74. The scores indicate that reviers/gamers aren't really dissatisfied with HB2. One man's "walking sim" is another's "cinematic experience" it would seem.

We'll know more a little later when MS and Ninja Theory give more feedback. Btw, it's possible that this game is MS' test about whether short cinematic experiences work for GP. Maybe if the engagement is good we'll see more $100 million 6 hour games, not less. For all we know 500k people just signed up for GP and got hooked and are now generating $100 million for MS per year. We don't really know.

 

[Seanspeed]

The problem is that you're still making assumptions about engagement based on your own tastes instead of actual facts. For all we know, 10 million GP users tried the game and 5 million of them completed it.

The only data about whether or not the game met expectations are the metacritic scores - 81/74. The scores indicate that reviers/gamers aren't really dissatisfied with HB2. One man's "walking sim" is another's "cinematic experience" it would seem.

We'll know more a little later when MS and Ninja Theory give more feedback. Btw, it's possible that this game is MS' test about whether short cinematic experiences work for GP. Maybe if the engagement is good we'll see more $100 million 6 hour games, not less. For all we know 500k people just signed up for GP and got hooked and are now generating $100 million for MS per year. We don't really know.

Review scores are certainly not the main metric by which games are deemed a success or not. Plenty of games have reviewed well, but were commercial failures. Reviews also frequently fail to capture the actual sentiment from the real gaming crowd.

You can rely on the 'dont have all the facts' and 'for all we know' as your get out of jail free card arguments if you want, but poor concurrent players on Steam is a pretty darn bad sign, and general popular sentiment around the game online even from those who have played it is not necessarily hugely positive overall. And even then, I see lots of people who liked the first saying the sequel is decent, but still disappointing because there just wasn't more substance to it. Everything to me points to this game not meeting general expectations.

 

[cheapchips]

Review scores are certainly not the main metric by which games are deemed a success or not. Plenty of games have reviewed well, but were commercial failures. Reviews also frequently fail to capture the actual sentiment from the real gaming crowd.

You can rely on the 'dont have all the facts' and 'for all we know' as your get out of jail free card arguments if you want, but poor concurrent players on Steam is a pretty darn bad sign, and general popular sentiment around the game online even from those who have played it is not necessarily hugely positive overall. And even then, I see lots of people who liked the first saying the sequel is decent, but still disappointing because there just wasn't more substance to it. Everything to me points to this game not meeting general expectations.

Steam number aren't useful. The sentiment is very love/leave it from the other places I frequent.

We know nothing!

 

[Nesh]

The problem is that you're still making assumptions about engagement based on your own tastes instead of actual facts. For all we know, 10 million GP users tried the game and 5 million of them completed it.

The only data about whether or not the game met expectations are the metacritic scores - 81/74. The scores indicate that reviers/gamers aren't really dissatisfied with HB2. One man's "walking sim" is another's "cinematic experience" it would seem.

We'll know more a little later when MS and Ninja Theory give more feedback. Btw, it's possible that this game is MS' test about whether short cinematic experiences work for GP. Maybe if the engagement is good we'll see more $100 million 6 hour games, not less. For all we know 500k people just signed up for GP and got hooked and are now generating $100 million for MS per year. We don't really know.

Can you provide a link to your numbers?
How many completed it doesn't say much for a game that can be finished on a single sitting. The graphics and story are great enough to keep someone playing until completion, and yet have some pretty good arguments about the title's shortcomings. A lot of people who talked about what they didn't like actually completed the game.

But if those numbers are true, they are potentially an indication that the game financially may have lost important revenue and may flop even if the game is actually a good experience and was played by millions. The only way that this game is not a financial flop is that it generated enough NEW Gamepass FULL YEAR subscriptions that in terms of revenue (minus related operational GB expenses) surpassed what it was required for this 7 year project to be produced in terms of cost

 

[iroboto]

both MS and Sony have similar catalog groupings and library diversification. For Xbox, it’s live service, tent pole, and gems.
For Sony the last category is called experimental.

Hellblade sits under gems for MS. It is not a tentpole title. It may have the graphics of one, but it was never designed to be.

The expectations from gems are vastly different from tentpole.

 

[Seanspeed]

Steam number aren't useful. The sentiment is very love/leave it from the other places I frequent.

We know nothing!

Steam numbers have been a pretty decent indication of commercial success, which is the most important thing for a publisher.

You can keep trying to downplay this if you want, but you definitely cant call it nothing.

 

[iroboto]

The only way that this game is not a financial flop is that it generated enough NEW Gamepass FULL YEAR subscriptions that in terms of revenue (minus related operational GB expenses) surpassed what it was required for this 7 year project to be produced in terms of cost

That’s not true. That’s a really simplistic view of things, and that isn’t how things work. Existing subscriptions require sustainment, new subs can find new titles to play.

For game pass to be profitable it needs to exceed its expenses in revenue. For gamepass to be “successful”, the average spend per game pass subscriber should be greater than the average spend of their users without gamepass.

Considering that a mass majority of profits are made of GaaS, in particular ten GaaS titles make up over 50% of PlayStations revenue, that means the vast majority of players are putting their revenue into games that are not in the service. So gamepass is being heavily leveraged as a complimentary service to make up for the hundreds of other titles that share the <50% of the remaining revenue. The total number of titles purchased per player is probably the lowest it’s ever been now due to these live service titles. Having a consistent 20M subscribers is pretty damn good. Its revenue is equivalent to 3 titles per year or over 15 AAA titles per generation. Most people will purchase 10 or below.

And secondly I don’t think this has been in development for 7 years. It’s 4. They made the trailer a year before.

 

[Nesh]

That’s not true. That’s a really simplistic view of things, and that isn’t how things work. Existing subscriptions require sustainment, new subs can find new titles to play.

For game pass to be profitable it needs to exceed its expenses in revenue. For gamepass to be “successful”, the average spend per game pass subscriber should be greater than the average spend of their users without gamepass.

Considering that a mass majority of profits are made of GaaS, in particular ten GaaS titles make up over 50% of PlayStations revenue, that means the vast majority of players are putting their revenue into games that are not in the service. So gamepass is being heavily leveraged as a complimentary service to make up for the hundreds of other titles that share the <50% of the remaining revenue. The total number of titles purchased per player is probably the lowest it’s ever been now due to these live service titles. Having a consistent 20M subscribers is pretty damn good. Its revenue is equivalent to 3 titles per year or over 15 AAA titles per generation. Most people will purchase 10 or below.

And secondly I don’t think this has been in development for 7 years. It’s 4. They made the trailer a year before.

I don't understand any of the logic of your argument when you are describing the unsustainability of Gamepass as an argument and how it actually can't sustain the costs of production of expensive games

 

[iroboto]

I don't understand any of the logic of your argument when you are describing the unsustainability of Gamepass as an argument and how it actually can't sustain the costs of production of expensive games

So you have to extend the cost over a longer time span for a budget to make sense.

You have the average expected life time revenue of a customer on game pass. You work that out over 10 years.

You work out the revenue average for the average number of subscribers over 10 years that you will have.

You work out the budget you are willing to spend on game pass for 10 years.

variances in your budget can either be remedied by increasing the cost per month, or increasing the number of users. Or you decrease the average spend. In this case you start closing studios or removing staff

The idea that it’s unsustainable is because you don’t understand the numbers they have to achieve for it to be sustainable. You are working way too close on a per person basis. You have to look at large macro
Numbers on major targets that must be hit for this to succeed.

TLDR; you’re not expected to understand how it’s achieved for so cheap. These numbers are heavily guarded for this reason. If you start showing all your numbers people will figure out precisely how to break your model.

 

[see colon]

But if those numbers are true, they are potentially an indication that the game financially may have lost important revenue and may flop even if the game is actually a good experience and was played by millions. The only way that this game is not a financial flop is that it generated enough NEW Gamepass FULL YEAR subscriptions that in terms of revenue (minus related operational GB expenses) surpassed what it was required for this 7 year project to be produced in terms of cost

I don't believe this game will remain a digital exclusive, or even an Xbox exclusive. When we are talking about the financial viability of this game, I think it's second run on Playstaion, and a physical release on PS5 and Xbox have to be considered. Remember that the first game in the series was released digital only on PS4, GOG and Steam in 2017, then digitally on Xbox in 2018, then physical releases in 2019 followed by the digital release on Switch. They had 2 years of staggered releases, and I honestly don't think HB2 is going to be an exclusive forever. It fits the criteria of a series that has history on other platforms, and beyond the PS5 release, I think it's a game that they might be keen on porting to Switch 2 if UE5 is supported on that system.

I played it on Gamepass. I bought the first game on GOG, and I might pick HB2 up if it gets a DRM free release there.

 

[Nesh]

So you have to extend the cost over a longer time span for a budget to make sense.

You have the average expected life time revenue of a customer on game pass. You work that out over 10 years.

You work out the revenue average for the average number of subscribers over 10 years that you will have.

You work out the budget you are willing to spend on game pass for 10 years.

variances in your budget can either be remedied by increasing the cost per month, or increasing the number of users. Or you decrease the average spend. In this case you start closing studios or removing staff

The idea that it’s unsustainable is because you don’t understand the numbers they have to achieve for it to be sustainable. You are working way too close on a per person basis. You have to look at large macro
Numbers on major targets that must be hit for this to succeed.

TLDR; you’re not expected to understand how it’s achieved for so cheap. These numbers are heavily guarded for this reason. If you start showing all your numbers people will figure out precisely how to break your model.

That's a whole list of assumptions

 

[cheapchips]

Steam numbers have been a pretty decent indication of commercial success, which is the most important thing for a publisher.

You can keep trying to downplay this if you want, but you definitely cant call it nothing.

I'm not downplaying the numbers. A short game, day one on Gamepass, with divisive game mechanics, is a bit of a weird fish in how it could play out for max concurrent Steam users compared to other titles.

 

[Sonic]

So does this mean Ninja Theory is in the chopping block?

 

[cheapchips]

So does this mean Ninja Theory is in the chopping block?

That's going to be a question forever going forwards with MS Studios who don't produce massive blockbusters. MS still want titles like Hell Blade, even if the recent Bethesda Studio closures muddy the messaging there.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's a whole list of assumptions

There aren't any assumptions there. It's an illustration of the kind of considerations that go into a subscription service versus a sales strategy. For a subscription service, it's not about how well a title performs, but how well the service performs, which needs to ask the sorts of questions Iroboto posted.

Putting it another way, you said it has to generate x amount from new subs. What if not putting this on lost MS 5 million subs as users felt they weren't getting their money's worth? New content helps maintain existing subs as well as driving new subs. An individuals title is difficult to value as a result. Heck, hearing the next COD drives 10 million new subs won't tell us much as we won't be told if those subs lapse or are ongoing.

 

[Frenetic Pony]

Ooof, launch title with half the playercount of Rift Apart (also a super short, less than 8 hour game) on Steam. Rift Apart on PC seems to just be a "long tail bonus" for Sony too, $14 million in revenue (estimate) but with 4 million+ units sold on PS5. So, we can say it's likely not a big success on Steam.

But, let's compare it to... Gamepass! That's interesting right? Well, it's climbing up the ranks on Xbox, heck I've seen reviews call it "the perfect Gamepass experience." Now if people buy Gamepass for 4 months, and only play Hellblade 2 that entire time, that's a financial win for Microsoft, if they buy it for 3 months, that's... eh call it break even for MS. If they only buy it for a month Microsoft just lost potentially millions.

If they get Gamepass for a year, only play this, but then play all this fall's launch triple A titles in a few months, then Microsoft still has paid a giant opportunity cost, as 4+ months of subscription would be needed per AAA title to cover the same amount of money. Opportunity cost being the operative economics term here, your revenue needs to be offset against your potential revenue of doing something else. If you take a job that pays $50k a year but pass up on a job that paid $250k a year, that's still an opportunity cost o $200k a year, gain of $50k a year or not.

 

[tuna]

But, let's compare it to... Gamepass! That's interesting right? Well, it's climbing up the ranks on Xbox, heck I've seen reviews call it "the perfect Gamepass experience." Now if people buy Gamepass for 4 months, and only play Hellblade 2 that entire time, that's a financial win for Microsoft, if they buy it for 3 months, that's... eh call it break even for MS. If they only buy it for a month Microsoft just lost potentially millions.

Why would you buy a couple of months of Gamepass for HB2 when you can complete the game within a week?

 

[cheapchips]

Why would you buy a couple of months of Gamepass for HB2 when you can complete the game within a week?

The idea is that once someone's subbed they check out other stuff and warm to Gamepass.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Btw, no one on the industry forums should be surprised that consumers often behave irrationally.

I know people that haven't played a game in 6 months that are subscribed to GPU.

 

[see colon]

Btw, no one on the industry forums should be surprised that consumers often behave irrationally.

I know people that haven't played a game in 6 months that are subscribed to GPU.

That's a win for MS, though, right? I paid for Netflix for the last couple years, and haven't watched anything on it from before Christmas until I watched Madam Web the other day.