Tyranny Publisher On Sales: "Everyone Was Hoping It Would Do Better"

If the game sucks then why dafuq should u expect someone to want to buy it

It has nothing to do with "the market not being as into 90's style RPG's as it used to be". It has to do with the fact you made a game that wasn't fun to play.

It just popped up out like out of nowhere. Everyone around me was surprised, they never even knew the game was developed and I get the feeling this was true for many more people. So yeah that might had something to do with sales.

Ugh excuses... "Oh, people dont like 90s RPGs anymore" or "marketing could have been better" - sure these are partially the reasons but for me, someone who grew up on BG series, Fallout(1 and 2), NWN, Planescape Torment etc. the Tyranny just simply didnt seem like a good game. I thought Pillars of Eternity wasn't great, it was ok at best(lets say 7/10) and Tyranny had its own set of problems like supposedly very rushed Chapter 3/ending and that is something i cant ignore in an RPG. Nowadays there are too many excellent titles to waste my time on something that is barely decent(like Tyranny).

Wow..... they completely missed the point of so many people not buying it. If you want to make money don't release 1/2 complete games and expect people to pay full price. It's been like 6 months and not a single major piece of new content has come out either - it feels like abanonware. If you were sitting on the fence waiting for the game to be finished before you decided to buy or not at this point you've moved on to other titles.

Do you want to improve your sales on this game and POE? Get them on consoles, its as simple as that, take a good look at Wasteland 2 and Tides of Numenara, no bitching and a pure pragmatic approach.

I'm planning to buy it during the Steam Summer sale, myself. It kind of flew under the radar.

"Jorjani also said he believes the market might not be as enthusiastic about '90s-style RPGs as they used to be."

I hate these kinds of excuses. It's not the market. Maybe your game just wasn't that good, or maybe it wasn't marketed that well?

The problem with Pc gaming is there is way too many different games. I never even heard of this game or publisher. And I read a lot of gaming news from multiple sources.

Every freaking person's friend or mother is making games now a days. It is too crowded of a market. Unless you release everywhere including consoles, almost no one is going to hear about it. The PC platform is a incredibly crowded market. Even when games release on console it still can be overlooked.

This is a long-tail game... Not so much up front sales.

@walidras: It would have been niche then too. I'm part of that niche, but I recognize that.

"Everyone was hoping it would do better" well I'm pretty sure they weren't hoping it would do worse. Setting that obvious statement aside, I don't think I have even heard of this, and I loved Pillars of Eternity, can't wait for another. Think your marketing team needs a good kick up the arse.

Maybe they'll remember that PC isn't the only gaming platform next time if they are really concerned about sales.

@computernoises: Pillars did pretty well. Original Sin even better. Beamdog seems to be doing fine with their Infinity Engine remasters.

Waiting on a good sale myself.

I think there are a few factors at play here. First, it was just too similar to Pillars of Eternity and I only liked that game, I didn't love it. It did come out at a poor time, a summer release with less competition would likely have done better. Second, companies seem to think that wanting isometric rpgs to come back means the tech limitations as well as the style. I want an isometric rpg that looks like it is made in 2017, not 1997. Use 3D, full voice, advanced lighting effects, When I travel into someones mind in Pillars, let me see it and participate in it instead of walls of text. Lets have destructible environments devastated by powerful magic, let's have the kind of next gen item and world interaction that stopped advancing after Ultima 7. Isometric doesn't have to mean linear, it can be open world with massive optional side quests and factions. Tyranny and Pillars just felt more like Baldur's Gate 2 mods more than modern epic rpgs for 2017. I think the waves of nostalgia that started hitting us a few years ago have either been satisfied or have receded with some people realizing that some magic can't be recaptured. Isometric rpg's still have a place in gaming and I believe can still be very financially successful, but you also have to keep the experience current to the times and tech available now.

I enjoyed this game very much. The only issue maybe being the huge amount of reading, instead of voice acting. But besides that, it was a solid 8.

The market has definitely become flooded with 90s-style RPGs. The enthusiasm is still there it's just spread fairly thin.

Its got a great premise, playing as the bad guys and all. But IMO its just too convoluted and complicated with stats here and stats there. I would've played it more if it were simpler/dumbed down.

This is why Obsidian wont be making another Fallout or a big AAA title anytime soon unless they get a tonne of funding from a big publisher. Obsidian doesn't have the funding.

FWIW...

It IS a game that I plan on buying at some point during this summer. Hopefully I can be a part of the long sales tail.

I hit a slow point in the story and burnt out, but I thought Tyranny's opening/prologue was hot. Right from the jump, I was way more invested in Tyranny's world and story than I was Pillars of Eternity's. Unfortunately, the story stumbled after chapter one and felt like it was missing one or two main quest beats worth of establishment, so the hook kinda fell out.

I got swept away by the tide of new releases since Tyranny, but someday I'll get back around to it and see if the story can pick up again.

That's a shame, it's an interesting take on the genre and well worth a play through.

I like it more than POE, but that game was billed as a direct spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. Tyranny didn't have the hype of a massive kickstarter campaign behind it, and it's known that it ends abruptly. And as fresh as it is not to be automatically on the side of the good guys for once, most people like being heroes.

Excellent game with an abrupt ending, which is my only gripe. Idk why fans of POE didn't pick this up, it's got a great story like POE and is relatively replayable.