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5+ Million Console Sales, 1.5m+ PC Sales and still no chance of Days Gone getting a sequel

There was a time that breaking the 1 million barrier was a huge achievement for a game on a single platform. That time wasn't too long ago.

A lot of games in the PS3 era that sold over 1 million copies on a single platform, especially when the PS3 was struggling was considered a huge success. Early titles like Motorstorm and Resistance both sold over 2 million copies and that was considered excellent. Now it seems Sony have changed that figure to 10 million, or it sure feels like it.

See I don't think Days Gone was perfect, far from it. Game play wise, it was tonnes of fun. The story needed a lot of work. A solid 7/10. But also, like The Order and several other titles like Until Dawn, it showed promise for Sony and sold very well for it's reviews indeed.

Keeping in mind that Bend hadn't released a title since 2011's Golden Abyss and Days Gone was 2019, there was an 8 year gap between titles with numerous projects cancelled. And yet, despite the harsh criticisms and the comparisons to The Last of Us, Days Gone managed to sell over 5 million units on PlayStation 4 (confirmed by Zhuge) and a further 1.5 million copies on PC for a title of 6.5 million copies, as of those numbers in 2020.

I for one, consider that a huge achievement for the studio that was pushed to one side as Syphon Filter dwindled in popularity with each title and Sony Bend were effectively pushed off to the side and almost forgotten about. Surprisingly not closed alongside Zipper, Evolution or Cambridge.

And yet, I was bored today so for old time sake, I installed this game on my PS5 to see the patch for the console and I was more than pleasantly surprised to feel how good the game play was again. Attacking the hoards. Driving through the world. Just having fun.

And that was the important thing. It is fun. Just not going to win Game of the Year any time soon for that dumb ass story that's 50% great and 50% poor. You have to feel for Bend really. I mean the dust has settled now but if you haven't played this game, I urge you to give it a go and ignore the reviews. Hopefully like many others you'll see that the game play is really really good and makes up for the more disappointing parts of the story.

Honestly. 6 and a half million sales and you can't make the sequel, taking lessons learned and making another title that's even better. Shame. I kind of like the Sons of Anarchy vs Walking Dead concept.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
If a publisher makes on average of $30 per game sold and these AAA games cost $150+ million to make, they need 5million sales just to break even.

Sony is probably looking for at 10 million sales for ita big AAA's
 

Ezekiel_

Banned
I always found it weird that the game got green lit in the first place. Why allow another gritty 'zombie' game from one of your studios?

Anyways, I think this is a case where we don't have all the information on why they opted not to do a sequel. Perhaps a new IP was deemed better than doing an uninspired sequel?

I played the game through the PS+ Collection on PS5, and I enjoyed my time with it. Even got the platinum.

I'm sure Bend is working on a great new game right now. They are talented.
 
Days Gone is one of the best games I’ve ever played. I was so disappointed when I found out a sequel was not in the works, and probably never would be. I love games that make the world around me disappear, and this is one of those games. RIP, naked in front of the fireplace Deacon.
 

TexMex

Member
Not enough momentum out of the gate I feel like. A lot of those sales came at $20 way too late. Too much nay saying out the gate, and I include myself in that. I’m also in the camp that came around hard on the game, it really was great. Got the platinum too.
 

ANDS

King of Gaslighting
Ok, enlighten us...

You're presuming the average.

. . .to be fair, I understand what you are getting at, however it is awkwardly worded. You want to start with the total sold and the cost of a AAA title (no idea what that number came from) and then say "Day's Gone needed to have sold for an average of 30 bucks."
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
You're presuming the average and total sold.

Its just average profit per copy × number of copies sold.

$30 × 5,000,000 = $150,000,000

Yeah,im just guessing the average price but it cant be that different, not every sale is going to be at $60
 
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Its just average profit per copy × number of copies sold.

$30 × 5,000,000 = $150,000,000

Yeah,im just guessing the average price but it cant be that different, not every sale is going to be at $60

At least try to put in a modicum of effort if you're going to throw an average number around

5 million sales at 30$ on average would mean less than 500000 sales at full price
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
The lead developers left Bend Studio, didn't they?
that does not change a thing, i mean the game director for GOW is not the original creator.

Btw, to OP, i think launch sales are the most important factor ( full selling price).
If you discounted a game to 20 dollar and sold a million copies, not really considered a financial success. (just an example, not pointing to Days gone sales)

iirc, I believe Sam Lake , the creator of Control mentioned the amount of launch sales is the main factor to determine the financial success of a new game.
 
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SkylineRKR

Member
While at first glance I also thought it was overkill, another zombie apocalypse game by Sony. And the biker theme looked lame from the outset. But I started the game during PS5 launch, beat it a few months after, and its in my top 3 PS4 Sony games. Days Gone is fantastic. Delicious bike controls, great horde fighting. Its not perfect, there is too much fat and too much basic stuff is gated behind a skill tree such as decent aim.

Also a good amount of post game challenges that were released for free later on. Days Gone rocks.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
At least try to put in a modicum of effort if you're going to throw an average number around

5 million sales at 30$ on average would mean less than 500000 sales at full price

Says the guy putting sod all effort...

As for your 2nd paragraph, its just wrong

Ita not that hard

If Sony makes on average $30 of profit per copy sold

They will need to sell 5 million copies to recoup a development cost of $150,000,000.

$30 × 5,000,000 = $150,000,000
 
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Says the guy putting sod all effort...

As for your 2nd paragraph, its just wrong

Ita not that hard

If Sony makes on average $30 of profit per copy sold

They will need to sell 5 million copies to recoup a development cost of $150,000,000.

$30 × 5,000,000 = $150,000,000

What effort do I need to put in? I'm not pulling numbers out of my ass

I'm not wrong. Any modern AAA game selling 5 million copies at $30 on average is a humungous flop. You'd know this if you did your estimates first before your average
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
What effort do I need to put in? I'm not pulling numbers out of my ass

I'm not wrong. Any modern AAA game selling 5 million copies at $30 on average is a humungous flop. You'd know this if you did your estimates first before your average

Who said the copies were selling for $30?

I said $30 profit to sony.

Also theres nothing wrong with speculating about things, when this thread is looking for reasons for why a sequal to days gone does not seem to be happening.
 
It didn’t pan out well to critics and you don’t deserve a sequel. It’s damaged goods and no one wants to touch it for a sequel.
 
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that does not change a thing, i mean the game director for GOW is not the original creator.

Btw, to OP, i think launch sales are the most important factor ( full selling price).
If you discounted a game to 20 dollar and sold a million copies, not really considered a financial success. (just an example, not pointing to Days gone sales)

iirc, I believe Sam Lake , the creator of Control mentioned the amount of launch sales is the main factor to determine the financial success of a new game.

The game directors leaving does make a difference. The IP was born because the two heads were bike nuts or something, and when you have a new IP that was critically panned, the only option for a sequel at that point would be for the new head of the studio to push for it. If they don't care about the IP then they're obviously not going to do that.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
That doesn't even make sense. You don't "break even" using the profit.

Ok i used the wrong term. But I provided the numbers, is not hard to understand what im talking about.
Im talking about average revenue per game sold.

The point is at the price days gone was selling at, at a budget of $150+ million, its going to have to sell 5 million copies if sony received an average of $30 per game sold.
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
The game directors leaving does make a difference. The IP was born because the two heads were bike nuts or something, and when you have a new IP that was critically panned, the only option for a sequel at that point would be for the new head of the studio to push for it. If they don't care about the IP then they're obviously not going to do that.
i mean they can find another director to pitch a sequel again, since the first one is not that good anyway.
 
Ok i used the wrong term. But I provided the numbers, is not hard to understand what im talking about.
Im talking about revenue per game sold.

The point is at the price days gone was selling at, at a budget of $150+ million, its going to have to sell 5 million copies if sony received an average of $30 per game sold.

I understand what you're saying. You just changed it from copies per sold, to profit per sold, and then back to copies per sold again.
 

John Bilbo

Member
Maybe after five to seven years we get a surprise sequel. Especially if Last of Us 3 takes longer than that to develope and publish.
 
i mean they can find another director to pitch a sequel again, since the first one is not that good anyway.

If the game was able to hit 80+ on meta at the very least they might have done that.

But since it didn't only the two heads would have been able to push to greenlight the sequel. That's what Cory had to do for GoW 2018.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Didn't Sony Bend say something like "If you wanted a sequel you should have bought it at full price?"

That was not Sony. That was John Garvin, the former director/writer of Days Gone.

“I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest, and it might piss some of them off,” Garvin replied. “If you love a game, buy it at fucking full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen gamers say ‘yeah, I got that on sale, I got it through PS Plus, whatever’.”

 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
If the game was able to hit 80+ on meta at the very least they might have done that.

But since it didn't only the two heads would have been able to push to greenlight the sequel. That's what Cory had to do for GoW 2018.

Two heads? What on earth are u talking about?
 
But theres multiple heads at multiple studios....

And you should keep up when you cant use your calculator app to do $30 × 5,000,000 copies.

If you bothered to read the comment chain you'd realize the discussion is about the two directors who left and you wouldn't need to ask stupid questions

You can't even seperate revenue (copies sold) from profit. I decided to let you off but you still want to make an ass of yourself
 
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kingfey

Banned
Its just average profit per copy × number of copies sold.

$30 × 5,000,000 = $150,000,000

Yeah,im just guessing the average price but it cant be that different, not every sale is going to be at $60
That is how not it works.

30+40+50+60=180/4=45.

That is your average price for the game. At 5m copies, it sold $225m

Now takeout the store cut, which is 50/50 disc vs digital for playstation at my guess (last year it was 60/40). That is 2.5m copies physical. That is $112.5m. Take 30% cut from the store fees, and you get $78.750m profit from the disc and 112.5m from digital. total of $191.250m.

I can see why Sony think the game didnt make enough sales. It couldnt hit $300m sales. It recouped its cost, but it didnt hit the target they needed.
 
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