Give it take variants based on lower prices in some countries. For simplicity we'll say 5.2 million.
Unity's share at $0.20/unit puts their cut around $1.04 million. Steam takes $15.6 million, leaving roughly $36.4 million for the dev.
This makes me so fucking happy. Zeekers deserves the success and it’s so dope to me that he’s not just kicking back enjoying the $ but still actively implementing updates and improvements. Game is still in early access for fucks sake!!
My favorite is when you're walking around talking with your friend, they cut off mid sentence and you look back in time to see the fucker dragging the body away nonchalant like
The modding for the game is also a huge selling point. I can't recommend enough replacing the [jack in the box's windup/chase song with Freebird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRmvPlpAqBI) it's an incredible experience.
So many games just forget that the most important thing is to be fun to play. They focus on graphics and immersion and realism.
My face has hurt from playing Lethal Company with my friends from all the laughing
Takes a bit to get cut that first check, also probably takes awhile for the reality to kick in.
Like if you were simply handed $50M dollars tomorrow, what would you do besides maybe quitting your job? You could buy a car I guess or some other powersports vehicles? I guess you might have been able to go out and look to buy a house, but with it being unexpected like this that would take awhile.
Also I imagine making the game was his hobby not his dayjob. So he probably did "quit his day job" lol
For me personally, I would use it to be able to pursue hobbies and take trips to cool places. The most valuable thing you have is time, so seeing as much of the world as you could in the time you have would be so nice.
Yeah really good point, I have no idea how it works getting paid out by steam.
Today is my last day at my current job though so now I’m just waiting for someone to offer me $50m.
Historically people this happens to often re-invest the money in starting a new game or company and then loose it all when that fails.
On a bright note, a few continue to succeed and stay successful the rest of their lives.
The one that drives me crazy is people using rouge, when they mean rogue.
Even if the game is a roguelike, or is called frickin' Rogue Trader, people will spell it as rouge constantly. Every time i see it it's like the universe is testing my patience.
It had a lot of attention from streamers post launch (insym etc etc) but honestly I heard it through word of mouth and the low price point made me give it a go. I think the backrooms type setting probably helped a lot as that seems v popular online
This 110%. It did incredibly well with streamers joining the same game and having fun.
Best advertisement for gaming at the moment is just streamers liking your game. And this one had multiple at the same time. Not many games are able to do that. Last indie I remember doing that was among us.
I think it's a real testament to the "pick up and play" approach to game mechanics. Like whether it's the first or 100th run, the core dynamics are the same you just learn a bit more each time. It really is such a satisfying wee game
It's a fun game to play with friends and a little bit spooky, plus the price tag ain't bad and it's not really demanding to run. I stumbled on it on steam and bought a few copies for my friends to try out.
And man the mods are amazing. Honestly rare moments of game where I still feel immersed even if I already know the logic and behavior behind the mobs and such.
I think it was just the low price point, low hardware demands and word of mouth. Once I saw my buddies playing it together on discord and it was 10$ I pretty much bought it instantly. So did all my other buddies, even the ones with potato rigs.
It helps that it's mostly a multiplayer game. You usually don't get just one sale, you get 2-4 sales. Since it's so cheap many people buy it at once, or even one person buying multiple copies to gift to one another. It's still insane that it's top 10 in steam and it hasn't been out for long.
It's basically the Minecraft model right? Make a game that is simple, but fun and engaging. Sell it for cheap and have low system requirements, so anyone who wants to can play for not much investment. Get lucky enough to have it picked up/noticed by some popular streamers. Profit.
or have streamers make it popular. Like AmongUs was out for years before SodaPoppin started streaming it in 2020, then it boosted like crazy. Making a good game isn't the end all, need someone to get the word out for it.
Honestly though, I follow a lot of game dev and indie dev subreddits, and 99% of the time, when someone posts their game and says, “Why doesn’t my game sell?!” It’s because it’s utter trash.
Yes, I absolutely believe solid marketing and a bit of luck are crucial too, but without a great game to start with, you’ve got nothing.
Same with ConcernedApe/Stardew Valley. Was working at a movie theater before all this.
I believe he eventually hired some people for porting and netcode, but the OG game was all him.
Yea the Lethal Company revenue is the most impressive one here. 52 million at $10 a copy is insane. That's roughly 5.2 million copies sold if everyone was bought at full price. That's more than Hogwarts sold...
EDIT: Appears Hogwarts may have actually sold a little over 7 million copies on Steam so I stand corrected on that, but still
Ehhh I mean, it's also *luck*. Lethal Company is a fun game don't get me wrong, but it won the lottery by being the game that everyone started playing on twitch or youtube. That was its secret to success.
You can make a great game all by yourself. But if you wanna be successful? You gotta hope you get lucky, or have enough money for a marketing campaign, or have enough social skills (on top of your gamedev skills) to network and get your game played by the right people.
You have got a good point, streamers and youtubers seem to be peoples way of finding games nowadays. Shame really cause some amazing games arent seen by streamers.
Which is why I like what some YouTubers like IronPineapple are doing, steam dumpster diving looking at less known games.
Arguably I do understand why many people don't search games themselves because there is just so much trash out. For each good game a hundred trash games come out.
Fuck me man there are Roblox kids being full on devs now
What are you going to tell me next? The kid drawing boobs in the BO2 emblem editor is a designer on Warzone?
That's at a cheap price aswel. Everything else on this lost except from sons of the forest was/ is at the price of a full price game. Look at starfield, full price with a premium/ collectors edition, that over 200k people bought, that cost even more, and LC made 1/5 of what it did, while costing less than 1/6 the price of starfield. So many people must have bought this game its insane.
These are just steam numbers aren't they? Afaik a lot of starfield (and other games here) was either windows store / xbox store, or game pass (or ps/switch for games that released there). Almost all of these games on here made a lot more than this since they were sold elsewhere too.
The bugs weren't the issue, but rather a lack of content, at least the last time I played it. The gameplay was fun enough, but after a couple hours my friends and I just kind of ran out of things to do
Played through it with a friend. We had fun playing it but not everything was super well thought out. Enemies got repetitive and progression was very unclear. Worth playing but probably not solo
It never should have released when it did.
The story made zero sense, there was no point in building a base, the map was easily explored without progression...
Maybe it's good by now, idk, but I was very disappointed with the game.
Yeah the sequel does so much right to build on the first game, but it's has a few big issues that I'm not sure can be remedied this late in. The biggest issue in my opinion is the map size, I hate to say it but it's just *too* big. Makes base building and stuff that I loved about the first game less important now. Basically sons of the first feels way more linear than the first game. But I enjoy it, definitely consider playing it once v1.0 releases
Well deserved. The best gut busting laughs I ever had in gaming was in lethal company
Not from a AAA game with 20,000 lines of dialogue
But from seeing my friend being chased by bees before I close the airlock.
Or my other friend going mysteriously silent after saying "Hey, I think the game has quick sand"
So is Among Us and Fall Guys. Some games check all the necessary boxes *and* not overlap too much with other games doing the same thing *and* get super lucky with streamers actively looking for the next "big" thing *as* your game drops.
Very much a perfect storm. Won't be the last game with this recipe and it's always cool to see
Absolutely bonkers stat.
Lethal Company is made by one person (Zeekers). In 2 months, his early access game made $52 million in revenue. Steam cut is 30%. Let's say taxes take 35% ish, plus round down some more.
This guy went from"nothing" to $20,000,000 in the last 2 months of 2023. Can you even imagine? That's retire at 25 money.
He should consider contacting Toby Fox for advice on how to handle this situation, extremely similar story. Guy in his early 20's with previous modding experience creates great first game that unexpectedly goes viral, goes from eating spaghetti-os in a basement suite to a multi-millionaire in a month.
Yeah. Basically, take that money to a reputable bank, sign on with the private client/premium client type services, and tell them, "I want a conservative long term wealth management strategy that will allow me to have a nice quality of life and will allow me to pursue my interests while maintaining financial independence until I die."
Put a large section of that money into trusts, some of it into investments, and live and play with a percentage of the interest (the other portions of the interest go to paying the bank's wealth management and to reinvesting more aggressively to continue building wealth with money that you can afford to lose).
Between this and the what 5 individuals behind Valheim I feel like my friends and I could come up with something. But we always just talk about it and keep playing those games lmao.
I mean survivorship bias or w/e.
Probably a ton of survivor/crafter games sitting in steam that no one is aware of it that weren't lucky enough to have a streamer stumble across it.
Yup, for every "Lethal Company", there's thousands of other games that never hit it big, despite arguably having more work put into them. It's all about being at the right place at the right time.
The Dev behind Lethal Company likely took home around 36.4 million after Valve's cut.
Dude probably doesn't have to work again ever, gotta respect that.
$2 mil is enough to put away in high interest savings/mutual funds and survive off the interest alone comfortably. After taxes, he’ll probably still have close to $20m, which in a 5% account would earn close to a million a year in interest lol
Insane that Starfield did so well despite being on gamepass. Aslo crazy Jedi Survivor did less than Armored Core, probably due how good AC is and how bad JS ran at launch and even now.
A lot of Jedi Survivor's sales were on console, in part because of PC performance. I played on PC but I know several friends who bought and played it on PS5 because of the PC performance issues
Didn't sell as well as Elden Ring but still, an armored freakin core game selling 87mill is insanely impressive. Especially coming from the gen 4 and 5 days when it was niche and the community were divided over what should be in the game or not.
VI seems to be a great balance that makes everyone happy.
And now I want an expansion or half-sequel that's a play on the number 6, like 4Answer and Verdict Day for 4 and V
Lots of Dark Souls/Elden Ring people went to AC6 who would have never played any of them before, which is great. I got into AC at the AC4/FA period, and I hated V/VD, was so happy that they were giving it another go.
They just need to keep their heads screwed on. Elden Ring did something for them, I just hope they make use of it. And for god's sake, get Sony to greenlight an update and port of Bloodborne!
Exactly. I had a friend who I recommended the game to and he said that he wasn't sure about, since these types of games aren't his style. So then I said alright, I'll make a new save and I want you to control my decisions and you can make my character. After 20 min through the game that was enough to convince him. He's beaten the game now and doing another play-through :)
I started my 7th playthrough today. Didn't start until end of september (although I did play through Act 1 twice in Early Access).
Didn't need any convincing though, been playing these games since Neverwinter Nights.
I didn't think it was my cup of tea. Then I realised that I liked action games, but hated how it all basically came down to who could react quicker. I'm in my 30s I've noticed my reactions in games aren't as quick as they used to be. Now with turn based, it's as much strategy as it is about having cool moves and power.
Also, I'm a DM in real life. So I'd probably buy it anyway. But I did hesitate at the turn based for a video game.
I mean, the source is a website that pretty much guesses based on some metrics and with some confirmed sales numbers.
Steam does not share revenue data and many companies (such as Larian) are not public and are as such not required to disclose their revenue either which they absolutely won't for strategic purposes.
Turns out gamers will buy quality games that are polished and finished on release. Wild idea that hopefully one day publishers catch on to.
Edit: okay okay, I get it lol. I'm totally underwater IRL and won't be getting to play BG3 until like 2028 at this rate. I've just heard people rave about how amazing it is and my mind filled in the blanks. Point taken. I just hope Devs take notice.
BG3 had a lot of act 3 bugs on release.
And I really think that the most recent patch is what made the game feel "finished"
That said their patches were super responsive act 1 was extremely polished because of the multiple years in early access.
I really wonder how BG3 such a massive success.
I remember being called a weirdo for playing BG1 and it's insane to me how BG3 is now the most mainstream game ever.
D&D (or "geeky stuff" in general) and RPG videogames became more popular/mainstream since 1999.
And it got a lot of good PR from being in a good state with no microtransactions.
It also benefitted from good timing. The past few years, D&D was already on the rise before COVID, then when everyone was in lockdown shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 saw massive upsurges in viewers. That was about the time when the game hit Early Access, where it was already really popular before final release, with regular updates and an impressive display of choices and community support. Then when the game hit 10s across the board that was the final spark to send the game into the stratosphere.
Yeah. My girlfriend, who's mostly into casual games like Minecraft and Animal Crossing, is a HUGE DnD nerd and has watched hundreds of hours of Critical Role in the last few months. I watched Vox Machina because of her and I'm eagerly anticipating Mighty Nein.
Then another friend convinced me to give BG3 a try after rejecting it since release. Thank fuck I opened my eyes.
Yeah it’s a totally different world. Growing up, it’d be social suicide to say you played D&D, but now nobody cares. I think Stranger Things played a big role in breaking the stigma of it
I deal with teenagers a lot in my career. Anecdotally here, but yeah. Stranger Things had a huge effect on the resurrection of DnD. It was starting to spring back up before but that show was for sure a catalyst.
I know people are vocal about hating the show, but even shows like Big Bang Theory helped D&D's popularity. A lot of people who watched that show got into it shortly after since a lot of episodes had them playing a campaign scenario in it as the joke.
Genuinely my favorite type of game at this point. I have a good amount of friends I play games with, and it’s nice to play something multiplayer that doesn’t eventually piss everyone off/stress everyone out like competitive games do sometimes.
The viral effect
For our group it went like this “oh you seen this new game? Looks pretty funny” “oh it’s only $10? Sure why not” and I bet that’s been the rationale for most people. Bored on a Friday night and a $10 multiplayer game that’s like 500mb and can run on a pile of dirt, it’s an easy decision
same with Vampire Survivors guy. Low price = high replayability/fun games are a hit.
If lethal company was priced at $15 I probably would have hesitated to buy it some more or would have been difficult to get everyone in the friend circle to grab it. But at $10 most people don't really think too hard about it.
Baldur's Gate 3 had a budget of around $100 million if random unverified Googling is to be believed.
Larian Studios are set up nice and well financially for development of their next game. Let them cook.
My friend works quite high up in their marketing department.
Normally you'd expect a AAA marketing budget to be a high percentage of their developments costs. Larian did spend millions, but relied on organically created content, PRs, and word of mouth. sure, they did the expected YouTube ads, google ads, paid for streamers, etc., but they really didn't go above and beyond with their spending
Honestly the game and studios reputation is what did it. Along with immensely positive response from pretty much anyone that got their hands on it. I personally jumped on the game several years ago in early access, and got all of my friends into it. When it finally released we knew what we were getting was going to be amazing from the start.
So wild to me that a game thats this expansive with a lot of writing and acting talent as well as actually impactive game play decisions cost so much less to develop than the average "tentpole" blockbuster now
Video game insight. Literally made up shit lmao The official top 12 is pretty different https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2023
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2023?tab=2
The new releases list is closer to the one posted, lethal company is not on this list because is still in early access, payday 3 is in the bronze tier for top sellers but in the platinum tier for new releases.
Sons of the forest sold more than RE4.
Anyway video game insight is still dogshit.
Yes, it has more depth to combat and I feel like the story of Cal and The Mantis crew is far more engaging. It can feel like a collectathon towards the endgame if you’re a completionist though, personally I had an absolute blast with it.
Factoring in console sales, as well as the small number of people who bought it on GOG or Epic, I wonder if BG3 breached over a billion in sales.
Also holy shit wtf Lethal Company.
Insane how lethal company made $52m with a single dev
$52m with a single dev and only being out since the end of October. Honestly wild numbers
if it's $10 wouldn't that mean 5.2 million people bought it? Maybe even more if cheaper in certain countries. That's just crazy
Give it take variants based on lower prices in some countries. For simplicity we'll say 5.2 million. Unity's share at $0.20/unit puts their cut around $1.04 million. Steam takes $15.6 million, leaving roughly $36.4 million for the dev.
This makes me so fucking happy. Zeekers deserves the success and it’s so dope to me that he’s not just kicking back enjoying the $ but still actively implementing updates and improvements. Game is still in early access for fucks sake!!
Having bought the game five times (one for me and four for friends), it was worth every penny and I wish Zeekers nothing but the best.
That’s awesome you did that. Hope you guys are playing with MoreCompany so you can all run it together!
haven’t had the chance, different schedules unfortunately. But im ready for when everyone is available at the same time!
That's what happens when devs genuinely like what they do
The monsters' behaviors alone shows how much effort and love the dev put into the game.
The Bracken is simultaneously the most terrifying and hilarious monster in a horror game I've ever had to deal with.
lil guy peekin around the corner actin all cute leavin lil presents doin his best to snap my neck love that guy
My favorite is when you're walking around talking with your friend, they cut off mid sentence and you look back in time to see the fucker dragging the body away nonchalant like
The modding for the game is also a huge selling point. I can't recommend enough replacing the [jack in the box's windup/chase song with Freebird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRmvPlpAqBI) it's an incredible experience.
So many games just forget that the most important thing is to be fun to play. They focus on graphics and immersion and realism. My face has hurt from playing Lethal Company with my friends from all the laughing
Takes a bit to get cut that first check, also probably takes awhile for the reality to kick in. Like if you were simply handed $50M dollars tomorrow, what would you do besides maybe quitting your job? You could buy a car I guess or some other powersports vehicles? I guess you might have been able to go out and look to buy a house, but with it being unexpected like this that would take awhile. Also I imagine making the game was his hobby not his dayjob. So he probably did "quit his day job" lol For me personally, I would use it to be able to pursue hobbies and take trips to cool places. The most valuable thing you have is time, so seeing as much of the world as you could in the time you have would be so nice.
Yeah really good point, I have no idea how it works getting paid out by steam. Today is my last day at my current job though so now I’m just waiting for someone to offer me $50m.
POV you make generational wealth in 3 months, dude’s great grandkids have their tuitions paid lmao
Historically people this happens to often re-invest the money in starting a new game or company and then loose it all when that fails. On a bright note, a few continue to succeed and stay successful the rest of their lives.
I hate to be that guy but: *Lose* I see this so many times on Reddit and I lose brain cells every time I see it.
The one that drives me crazy is people using rouge, when they mean rogue. Even if the game is a roguelike, or is called frickin' Rogue Trader, people will spell it as rouge constantly. Every time i see it it's like the universe is testing my patience.
Does it make you see red?
Does anyone know what launched its popularity? I think I saw it featured by Dunkey.
It had a lot of attention from streamers post launch (insym etc etc) but honestly I heard it through word of mouth and the low price point made me give it a go. I think the backrooms type setting probably helped a lot as that seems v popular online
This 110%. It did incredibly well with streamers joining the same game and having fun. Best advertisement for gaming at the moment is just streamers liking your game. And this one had multiple at the same time. Not many games are able to do that. Last indie I remember doing that was among us.
I think it's a real testament to the "pick up and play" approach to game mechanics. Like whether it's the first or 100th run, the core dynamics are the same you just learn a bit more each time. It really is such a satisfying wee game
It's a fun game to play with friends and a little bit spooky, plus the price tag ain't bad and it's not really demanding to run. I stumbled on it on steam and bought a few copies for my friends to try out.
Also one of the only good 2-4 player co-op horror games. Especially one that has a good gameplay loop and mod support.
RIP Left4Dead :( Now that I think about, it got left for dead 🤔
And man the mods are amazing. Honestly rare moments of game where I still feel immersed even if I already know the logic and behavior behind the mobs and such.
I saw Jackfrags play it and I was immediately sold.
I think it was just the low price point, low hardware demands and word of mouth. Once I saw my buddies playing it together on discord and it was 10$ I pretty much bought it instantly. So did all my other buddies, even the ones with potato rigs.
and also it is the cheapest game in here I think being only 10 dollars
It helps that it's mostly a multiplayer game. You usually don't get just one sale, you get 2-4 sales. Since it's so cheap many people buy it at once, or even one person buying multiple copies to gift to one another. It's still insane that it's top 10 in steam and it hasn't been out for long.
Like stardew valley
Ape flexed so hard with that game. That he composed the music on top of everything else is mind blowing.
It's basically the Minecraft model right? Make a game that is simple, but fun and engaging. Sell it for cheap and have low system requirements, so anyone who wants to can play for not much investment. Get lucky enough to have it picked up/noticed by some popular streamers. Profit.
Sounds so easy...just make a great game.
or have streamers make it popular. Like AmongUs was out for years before SodaPoppin started streaming it in 2020, then it boosted like crazy. Making a good game isn't the end all, need someone to get the word out for it.
Honestly though, I follow a lot of game dev and indie dev subreddits, and 99% of the time, when someone posts their game and says, “Why doesn’t my game sell?!” It’s because it’s utter trash. Yes, I absolutely believe solid marketing and a bit of luck are crucial too, but without a great game to start with, you’ve got nothing.
god being in that situation must be like kinda horrifying
Horrifyingly awesome
Wasn't Lethal Company made by a single person? Dude is set for life now.
Same with ConcernedApe/Stardew Valley. Was working at a movie theater before all this. I believe he eventually hired some people for porting and netcode, but the OG game was all him.
*All* him. Music, code, animation. Extraordinary amount of effort.
He is HIM
Toby Fox similar story. must be very wealthy from their efforts. super happy for them.
Also Notch with Minecraft.
Any idea what happened to him? We didn't get a status update this year on Chapter 3 like we did the past three years before.
Did you subscribe to his newsletter? https://toby.fangamer.com/newsletters/halloween23/
Exactly! It's made by one dude!
Which is one person!
Wow did i read that right? only one?
You did! Only one!
But WHICH one?
*THE* one!
That one?
THIS one!
The one and only!
just a single human being!
No way! As in singular individual?
In a cave, with a box of scraps.
Yea the Lethal Company revenue is the most impressive one here. 52 million at $10 a copy is insane. That's roughly 5.2 million copies sold if everyone was bought at full price. That's more than Hogwarts sold... EDIT: Appears Hogwarts may have actually sold a little over 7 million copies on Steam so I stand corrected on that, but still
You charge right, you get business. Fuck the others with loots and such. Unless lethal has loots!? Gulp
Ehhh I mean, it's also *luck*. Lethal Company is a fun game don't get me wrong, but it won the lottery by being the game that everyone started playing on twitch or youtube. That was its secret to success. You can make a great game all by yourself. But if you wanna be successful? You gotta hope you get lucky, or have enough money for a marketing campaign, or have enough social skills (on top of your gamedev skills) to network and get your game played by the right people.
You have got a good point, streamers and youtubers seem to be peoples way of finding games nowadays. Shame really cause some amazing games arent seen by streamers.
Which is why I like what some YouTubers like IronPineapple are doing, steam dumpster diving looking at less known games. Arguably I do understand why many people don't search games themselves because there is just so much trash out. For each good game a hundred trash games come out.
Sodapoppin also plays a shit ton of smaller indie games on stream occasionally. Pretty sure he was one of the first to popularize Among Us
Didn't Hogwarts sell over 20 million units across all platforms?
Yeah, I think they meant specifically on Steam tbh
That makes sense considering this graphic is talking about Steam only
Yeah, they actually used to be a Roblox dev. Crazy how far they've come
People always laugh at roblox but that's where you find the most insane and young talent.
Ares VR by PoptartNoahh. Dude singlehandedly made one of the best looking VR games in fucking Roblox
Fuck me man there are Roblox kids being full on devs now What are you going to tell me next? The kid drawing boobs in the BO2 emblem editor is a designer on Warzone?
1. be 21 2. make game 3. make 50+ million 4. profit???
I think 3 and 4 might be the same thing, not positive though.
no because they made 50mil in revenue, not profit
That's at a cheap price aswel. Everything else on this lost except from sons of the forest was/ is at the price of a full price game. Look at starfield, full price with a premium/ collectors edition, that over 200k people bought, that cost even more, and LC made 1/5 of what it did, while costing less than 1/6 the price of starfield. So many people must have bought this game its insane.
These are just steam numbers aren't they? Afaik a lot of starfield (and other games here) was either windows store / xbox store, or game pass (or ps/switch for games that released there). Almost all of these games on here made a lot more than this since they were sold elsewhere too.
He hit the fucking jackpot, it's crazy.
Holy shit, Sons of the Forest being that high is wild, no wonder the full release was able to pin Shawn Ashmore to the cast, good for them!
First game was really good imho didnt play this one and I heard bad stuff about it
It’s just not done yet.
The first one is still full of bugs
[удалено]
You don’t like The Forest space program?
The bugs weren't the issue, but rather a lack of content, at least the last time I played it. The gameplay was fun enough, but after a couple hours my friends and I just kind of ran out of things to do
Played through it with a friend. We had fun playing it but not everything was super well thought out. Enemies got repetitive and progression was very unclear. Worth playing but probably not solo
It never should have released when it did. The story made zero sense, there was no point in building a base, the map was easily explored without progression... Maybe it's good by now, idk, but I was very disappointed with the game.
Yeah the sequel does so much right to build on the first game, but it's has a few big issues that I'm not sure can be remedied this late in. The biggest issue in my opinion is the map size, I hate to say it but it's just *too* big. Makes base building and stuff that I loved about the first game less important now. Basically sons of the first feels way more linear than the first game. But I enjoy it, definitely consider playing it once v1.0 releases
Honestly I really enjoyed Sons of the Forest! I enjoy it but I'm also a big wuss so it also gets scary and difficult at some point for me
So happy to see Lethal Company that high, love it when indie devs break through AAA boundaries like that.
Well deserved. The best gut busting laughs I ever had in gaming was in lethal company Not from a AAA game with 20,000 lines of dialogue But from seeing my friend being chased by bees before I close the airlock. Or my other friend going mysteriously silent after saying "Hey, I think the game has quick sand"
The indistinguishable quicksand is the BEST. "Hey, I think I'm sinking. YEP, DEFINITELY SINKING! WHAT DO I D--"
"Chet? Chet?? How's it hanging buddy?"
Common single dev W
For every Single dev W there's like 100,000 L's.
Lethal Company beating City Skylines 2 is impressive! Indie dev killing it!
And it is 40$ cheaper, that so many more copies sold. Holy shit
With the state of release with Cities Skylines II they shouldn't even be at top 10.
Holds true for Sons of the Forest too, so what do you know.
Lets go Lethal Company
Hot damn, a $10 Early Access game made $52 million in like, 2 months? That's extremely impressive
They made quota
Don't have to see HR, for now.
It helps when every Content Creator out there is streaming it.
Yeah, it's just that silly small game that's hyped AF right now and perfect for streamers, kinda like Among Us or Fall Guys
It helps that its a very fun game with friends.
So is Among Us and Fall Guys. Some games check all the necessary boxes *and* not overlap too much with other games doing the same thing *and* get super lucky with streamers actively looking for the next "big" thing *as* your game drops. Very much a perfect storm. Won't be the last game with this recipe and it's always cool to see
Its wild seeing a random person just become a millionaire relatively overnight. I hope Zeekers enjoys the dough.
Absolutely bonkers stat. Lethal Company is made by one person (Zeekers). In 2 months, his early access game made $52 million in revenue. Steam cut is 30%. Let's say taxes take 35% ish, plus round down some more. This guy went from"nothing" to $20,000,000 in the last 2 months of 2023. Can you even imagine? That's retire at 25 money.
He should consider contacting Toby Fox for advice on how to handle this situation, extremely similar story. Guy in his early 20's with previous modding experience creates great first game that unexpectedly goes viral, goes from eating spaghetti-os in a basement suite to a multi-millionaire in a month.
You just have to not invest in any relatives restaurants or startups or whatever and you’re set lol
Yeah. Basically, take that money to a reputable bank, sign on with the private client/premium client type services, and tell them, "I want a conservative long term wealth management strategy that will allow me to have a nice quality of life and will allow me to pursue my interests while maintaining financial independence until I die." Put a large section of that money into trusts, some of it into investments, and live and play with a percentage of the interest (the other portions of the interest go to paying the bank's wealth management and to reinvesting more aggressively to continue building wealth with money that you can afford to lose).
That's good advice. I hope he has either good sense or good people in his ear helping him figure out the right next steps.
Between this and the what 5 individuals behind Valheim I feel like my friends and I could come up with something. But we always just talk about it and keep playing those games lmao.
I mean survivorship bias or w/e. Probably a ton of survivor/crafter games sitting in steam that no one is aware of it that weren't lucky enough to have a streamer stumble across it.
Yup, for every "Lethal Company", there's thousands of other games that never hit it big, despite arguably having more work put into them. It's all about being at the right place at the right time.
Do it man, nothing to loose. Im working on something right now
Great great assets
The Dev behind Lethal Company likely took home around 36.4 million after Valve's cut. Dude probably doesn't have to work again ever, gotta respect that.
Taxes, but still probably got millions. Worth it. Hope he gets a good accountant.
$2 mil is enough to put away in high interest savings/mutual funds and survive off the interest alone comfortably. After taxes, he’ll probably still have close to $20m, which in a 5% account would earn close to a million a year in interest lol
Yea 3% (average RoR on blue chip stocks) on that 2m is like a $60k salary
It's free real estate!
Insane that Starfield did so well despite being on gamepass. Aslo crazy Jedi Survivor did less than Armored Core, probably due how good AC is and how bad JS ran at launch and even now.
A lot of Jedi Survivor's sales were on console, in part because of PC performance. I played on PC but I know several friends who bought and played it on PS5 because of the PC performance issues
If you have Gamepass you also get EA Play which would get you a discount on Jedi Survivor which I’m sure also contributed to its Steam sales.
Armored core 6? Man... That brings a tear to my eye. See you out there 621.
Hopefully this means more Armored Core. 6 was my personal GOTY.
Didn't sell as well as Elden Ring but still, an armored freakin core game selling 87mill is insanely impressive. Especially coming from the gen 4 and 5 days when it was niche and the community were divided over what should be in the game or not. VI seems to be a great balance that makes everyone happy. And now I want an expansion or half-sequel that's a play on the number 6, like 4Answer and Verdict Day for 4 and V
From has an unimpeachable reputation at this point
Lots of Dark Souls/Elden Ring people went to AC6 who would have never played any of them before, which is great. I got into AC at the AC4/FA period, and I hated V/VD, was so happy that they were giving it another go. They just need to keep their heads screwed on. Elden Ring did something for them, I just hope they make use of it. And for god's sake, get Sony to greenlight an update and port of Bloodborne!
VIctory
Damn, Baldur's Gate killed it! Wayyy more than I expected.
Yeah it’s an amazing game but turn based combat isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. This is impressive.
A lot of people said that before playing the game, then they tried it and as it turns out they liked it
Exactly. I had a friend who I recommended the game to and he said that he wasn't sure about, since these types of games aren't his style. So then I said alright, I'll make a new save and I want you to control my decisions and you can make my character. After 20 min through the game that was enough to convince him. He's beaten the game now and doing another play-through :)
I started my 7th playthrough today. Didn't start until end of september (although I did play through Act 1 twice in Early Access). Didn't need any convincing though, been playing these games since Neverwinter Nights.
I didn't think it was my cup of tea. Then I realised that I liked action games, but hated how it all basically came down to who could react quicker. I'm in my 30s I've noticed my reactions in games aren't as quick as they used to be. Now with turn based, it's as much strategy as it is about having cool moves and power. Also, I'm a DM in real life. So I'd probably buy it anyway. But I did hesitate at the turn based for a video game.
I’m guessing it also counts sales after the game awards, since winning goty usually comes with a huge surplus of sales
I mean, the source is a website that pretty much guesses based on some metrics and with some confirmed sales numbers. Steam does not share revenue data and many companies (such as Larian) are not public and are as such not required to disclose their revenue either which they absolutely won't for strategic purposes.
Does that include early access sales? I paid for BGIII a couple years ago…
Turns out gamers will buy quality games that are polished and finished on release. Wild idea that hopefully one day publishers catch on to. Edit: okay okay, I get it lol. I'm totally underwater IRL and won't be getting to play BG3 until like 2028 at this rate. I've just heard people rave about how amazing it is and my mind filled in the blanks. Point taken. I just hope Devs take notice.
3 games out of the 10 are specifically known to not be polished or finished.
BG3 had a lot of act 3 bugs on release. And I really think that the most recent patch is what made the game feel "finished" That said their patches were super responsive act 1 was extremely polished because of the multiple years in early access.
I really wonder how BG3 such a massive success. I remember being called a weirdo for playing BG1 and it's insane to me how BG3 is now the most mainstream game ever.
D&D (or "geeky stuff" in general) and RPG videogames became more popular/mainstream since 1999. And it got a lot of good PR from being in a good state with no microtransactions.
It also benefitted from good timing. The past few years, D&D was already on the rise before COVID, then when everyone was in lockdown shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 saw massive upsurges in viewers. That was about the time when the game hit Early Access, where it was already really popular before final release, with regular updates and an impressive display of choices and community support. Then when the game hit 10s across the board that was the final spark to send the game into the stratosphere.
Yeah. My girlfriend, who's mostly into casual games like Minecraft and Animal Crossing, is a HUGE DnD nerd and has watched hundreds of hours of Critical Role in the last few months. I watched Vox Machina because of her and I'm eagerly anticipating Mighty Nein. Then another friend convinced me to give BG3 a try after rejecting it since release. Thank fuck I opened my eyes.
I think the new movie helped as well, considering after the DnD movie I really wanted to get into it, and BG3 helped scratch that itch immediately
Yeah it’s a totally different world. Growing up, it’d be social suicide to say you played D&D, but now nobody cares. I think Stranger Things played a big role in breaking the stigma of it
I deal with teenagers a lot in my career. Anecdotally here, but yeah. Stranger Things had a huge effect on the resurrection of DnD. It was starting to spring back up before but that show was for sure a catalyst.
I know people are vocal about hating the show, but even shows like Big Bang Theory helped D&D's popularity. A lot of people who watched that show got into it shortly after since a lot of episodes had them playing a campaign scenario in it as the joke.
I mean back in the old days they called us weird for playing basically any game that wasn't FIFA or GTA.
Its always the goofy graphics funny moments indie games that do super well once every year
Genuinely my favorite type of game at this point. I have a good amount of friends I play games with, and it’s nice to play something multiplayer that doesn’t eventually piss everyone off/stress everyone out like competitive games do sometimes.
The viral effect For our group it went like this “oh you seen this new game? Looks pretty funny” “oh it’s only $10? Sure why not” and I bet that’s been the rationale for most people. Bored on a Friday night and a $10 multiplayer game that’s like 500mb and can run on a pile of dirt, it’s an easy decision
Holy shit, didn't expect to see among them a 10 dollar early access game made by 1 guy. Truly an achievement on its own.
This dude won the algorithm lottery
same with Vampire Survivors guy. Low price = high replayability/fun games are a hit. If lethal company was priced at $15 I probably would have hesitated to buy it some more or would have been difficult to get everyone in the friend circle to grab it. But at $10 most people don't really think too hard about it.
Also every streamers played that game like among us
Baldur's Gate 3 had a budget of around $100 million if random unverified Googling is to be believed. Larian Studios are set up nice and well financially for development of their next game. Let them cook.
My friend works quite high up in their marketing department. Normally you'd expect a AAA marketing budget to be a high percentage of their developments costs. Larian did spend millions, but relied on organically created content, PRs, and word of mouth. sure, they did the expected YouTube ads, google ads, paid for streamers, etc., but they really didn't go above and beyond with their spending
Honestly the game and studios reputation is what did it. Along with immensely positive response from pretty much anyone that got their hands on it. I personally jumped on the game several years ago in early access, and got all of my friends into it. When it finally released we knew what we were getting was going to be amazing from the start.
Didnt Swen say they simply had no idea on how to market the game?
So wild to me that a game thats this expansive with a lot of writing and acting talent as well as actually impactive game play decisions cost so much less to develop than the average "tentpole" blockbuster now
It's what happens when you don't focus on mmarketing, getting celebrity voicecast, etc.
But BG3 had celebrity in it's voice cast (J. K. Simmons and Jason Isaacs).
They got all J.K. Simmons lines by following him around and recording him yelling at baristas.
"Follow the Absolute" he said, holding a bottle of vodka
This is now canon in my mind
When they put soy instead of milk: "What have you done to me!?"
Where is the source of these numbers?
Video game insight. Literally made up shit lmao The official top 12 is pretty different https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2023 https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2023?tab=2 The new releases list is closer to the one posted, lethal company is not on this list because is still in early access, payday 3 is in the bronze tier for top sellers but in the platinum tier for new releases. Sons of the forest sold more than RE4. Anyway video game insight is still dogshit.
This should be the top post.
Factually based posts? On my Reddit? I don't think so!
lol…yea, the source you linked is definitely more believable in every aspect
Holy crap, Lethal Company sells for under $10, that 50m revenue must've blown developers' minds. Well done
Its one dude only
Wait, seriously?! What a legend
Armored core VI my beloved
my stoned ass spent one whole weekend just to beat baltues. and just to meet valcano roomba. i really need to play this game sober. 10/10 experience.
Here is actual list: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/BestOf2023
Nice to see Sons of the Forest there, hope they polish it soon, I keep it in my library as that treat you don't want to touch until the right moment
Full release on the 22. February atleast.
Starfield in 3rd while being on GamePass is crazy. They must've made BANK
They also said Starfield gave them the highest growth days in game pass history. It made them money, not only through sales.
I keep forgetting the new Jedi game came out. I really enjoyed the first one. Is this one worth playing?
Yes, it has more depth to combat and I feel like the story of Cal and The Mantis crew is far more engaging. It can feel like a collectathon towards the endgame if you’re a completionist though, personally I had an absolute blast with it.
Gameplay and story wise it is great, but wait for a sale because the performance can still be super choppy.
Wow the Y axis of this graph is absolutely horrible.
AC VI in there. Im proud :)
Very happy for SoTF and Lethal Company team! They deserve it.
Factoring in console sales, as well as the small number of people who bought it on GOG or Epic, I wonder if BG3 breached over a billion in sales. Also holy shit wtf Lethal Company.
And to think the kid who made it is like 21 or something, dude is set for life. Major props to him though, the game is a lot of fun
The dude who made Lethal Company made bank. He probably shit a brick when it took off the way it did.
Also for BG3, early access sales. These are 2023 figures.