Trek to Sales Numbers
Contributed by DJMMT
On May 5th, Trek to Yomi released on PC, PlayStation, and XBOX platforms. It was a Thursday. On May 6th, not even 48 hours after the game had released, one of the developers from the studio, Flying Wild Hog, tweeted out that “Trek to Yomi made more money being on Game Pass than it will in sales on PlayStation.” You can read the tweet and a couple follow up tweets right here. Now I don’t know if this statement is true or not, but it very well might be. The fact that these studios are never transparent about these sorts of things while making such statements speaks volumes to the issue of shaping narratives to suit an agenda about money in the gaming industry. But I don’t really want to talk about that. Nor do I want to have yet another discussion about Microsoft throwing money at studios to steal market share that wasn’t built by legitimate game sales or in house development. What I want to talk about is the prospect of a developer, more specifically an indie developer, making a statement about comparative sales numbers one day after a game releases.
There’s a big problem in the industry today that has been building for years; and that problem is the overvaluation of preorders. Similar to with movies and TV, we’re now at a point where companies determine the success of something before the consumer base has even had a chance to actually experience it. Games are measured in preorder numbers rather than actual reception post launch. Meaning these companies don’t even really care if we like their games or not. They care more about how effective their marketing was. Because that’s exactly what a preorder shows. Not whether or not a game was made well but rather how well it was sold. I rarely preorder games. Especially new IPs. But I buy tons of games every year after release. Because I buy games based on the quality and reception of the game. Not the ads produced to try to sell the game.
Assuming Microsoft didn’t literally pay a king’s ransom to get an indie game on Game Pass, the idea of a developer stating that they didn’t have faith that their game would be able to find an audience in a user base of over 100 million players is frankly appalling. If you feel that way about your own project, then why did you even release it? Because that’s what is happening here. A person was paid an initial fee to let subscribers play their game for free and determined that the fee was larger than whatever their sales will actually be on the competing platform with a much larger user base. And that assumption is tied directly to preorder numbers and general confidence, or lack thereof, in the product they produced. That should stand out as a big red flag. Imagine if Phil Spencer came out to present a new IP and led with “We know people won’t buy this game, but we think they’ll play it at no additional cost if we drop it into a subscription service.” Even if he believed that to be true, he’d never say it publicly. Because it shows a lack of faith in the game. Which means the game probably isn’t good. Or at the very least people will perceive it that way.
Let me be clear here, I’m not criticizing Trek to Yomi. Because I haven’t played it yet. I can say that based on the footage I’ve seen I’m very interested in playing it and plan to pick it up on PC in the future. And that was my plan long before the game launched. But having a member of the development team flat out say that they don’t have confidence in people’s desire to buy the game, especially given the amount of media coverage it has gotten, and it has gotten it, is pretty odd. Again, assuming that Microsoft didn’t pay them an obscene amount of money that seems unjustifiably high. Maybe they did. They certainly have the money and have shown that they don’t mind wasting it. But I’d like to think that they have at least some business sense when it comes to evaluating investments. Maybe not though considering how much they overpaid to get Bethesda.
The real issue here isn’t Trek to Yomi. Nor is it Microsoft. The real issue is the idea of judging a game’s performance based solely on preorders rather than player reception post launch. The game hadn’t even been out a weekend and one of the people who should be the biggest advocate for the game was already implying that it wasn’t going to sell. That’s not good. From a strictly PR standpoint I’m shocked that tweet wasn’t immediately deleted by command from the studio or the publisher. Granted that doesn’t seem like a move you’d ever see from Devolver Digital.
Now if this developer had made this statement like a month after release, after having seen some real sales data, that would be fine. I wouldn’t even be writing this post right now. Especially if the game had reviewed very well and had great public reception from actual players. We’ve seen plenty of games that reviewed well but still sold badly. But that’s not what this is. This is an assumption based on nothing other than preorder data. And again, this is an indie game. The number of people that even preorder indie games is super low. There’s rarely any serious motivation to do so. Especially when you consider that Devolver Digital went out of their way to mock Sega for their Sonic Origins preorder announcement guide.
The only benefit for the end user to preordering Trek to Yomi was a 10% discount, regardless of platform. The game will be on sale for at least 20% off before we even hit Halloween. Why would anyone preorder this game? Note I’m not saying Trek to Yomi isn’t worth playing. Nor am I saying it’s not worth paying full price for if you’re in the habit of buying games at full price, which I’m not. What I’m saying is there was really no reason to preorder it, unless you were absolutely going to play it day one, in which case grabbing that 10% discount made sense. But to look at the preorder numbers and assume the game wouldn’t sell over values the need for preorders in order to have a financially successful game and under values the merits of the game itself. It’s just poor form from top to bottom.
The game has been out for not even a week at the time of writing this, but we can actually look at some real user data already. It has reviewed well enough by at least some major media. IGN and Destructoid both gave it a 7. But Gamespot gave it a 5. So it’s good at best, but not great. Steam currently has it listed as mixed with 593 reviews. So the question of the game’s sales on PlayStation versus the fee for Game Pass may agree with that developer’s statement. But is that because people don’t buy games? Or is it because the game is average at best? It’s not really fair to argue that Microsoft gave you more than the player base when you’re selling a product the player base isn’t impressed by. It would be a much different story if we were talking about a game that reviewed extremely well. But I suspect that this developer knew that going into launch. It’s really easy to blame the players before they’ve even had a chance to try out your game. Then when it doesn’t sell you can claim to have been right all along while ignoring the root cause.
Truth be told, I’m still planning on playing Trek to Yomi even with the mediocre reviews. I love Devolver Digital games. I just beat Loop Hero and had a blast playing it. They’re probably my favorite indie publisher. So I have no problem giving a game that already looks cool to me a shot. But I’m not gonna pay full price for an indie game that isn’t reviewing well. I’m gonna wait until it’s on sale on Epic Games Store and pick it up for half price of less. But it would quite possibly be a much different situation if the game was getting 9’s or 10’s across the board and everyone was talking about how great it was. Don’t blame the players for low sales numbers when the product hasn’t proven itself to be worth buying.
More power to Flying Wild Hog and any other developer that can get Microsoft to throw fat stacks of cash at them. But let’s not sit here and pretend like Game Pass is helping developers responsible for top tier must play games. If that game was truly great, someone among 116 million PS4 owners plus however many more PS5 owners would buy it. And by someone I mean millions of people. PlayStation users love samurai games. Ghost of Tsushima sold more than 8 million units. Now if you can’t make Ghost of Tsushima that’s fine. But don’t blame the player base because you can’t deliver true excellence. People buy good games. They don’t and shouldn’t buy good marketing.
4 Comments
Damien ,17 May, 2022
Pre-ordered for the discount, played from day one, beat it and enjoyed it. You're right, Devolver Digital games are quite fun. More power to those awaiting an even better discount!
@GameChangerDOC ,17 May, 2022
I recently tried the new Card Shark demo from DD. It's great too.
Gio ,01 Jun, 2022
I need to play this game
Adil ,11 Jun, 2022
I played this game from day one and enjoyed the game a lot, trust me it's a great game. Surely you have given correct information in this blog. Devolver digital games are a lot of fun. I'm going to tell my friends about this game, it would be nice if I could get some more discounts. Thank you.