Support NeoGAF

[The artful mincer]

So a few caveats first.

1. By biggest I mean in unit sales not revenue.
2. By breakout- sales have to have exponentially increased from the devs previous games. Games like Call of Duty, Fifa, Ragnarok and Tears of the Kingdom don't fit this.
3. This is in the Console and PC space not mobile.
4. Single player being the main selling point. A couple of these games have multiplayer aspects.
5. This generation means released on next gen consoles so includes cross gen games.

With that out the way let's go!

So 4 games fit within the above framework and they have outsold any multplayer/live service games released this generation. These games are

Elden Ring
Baldur's Gate 3
Hogwarts Legacy
Black Myth Wukong

So Elden Ring was the first major sales surprise of the generation. Yes Souls popularity had been snowballing for a while but very few saw Elden Ring being as big as it was. With a Peak steam concurrent player count of over 950,000 players and over 23 million units sold to date its one of the best selling games this generation. It would have likely outsold Call of duty if a Modern Warfare entry had not released in the same year.

Next Baldur's Gate 3. Who would have guessed a turn based rpg would be on here! It peaked at 875,000 concurrent players on Steam impressive but what's more impressive is it's dare I say GAAS like player retention. Every month since release it has peaked over 100,000 players on Steam. Well Done Larian.

Next perhaps the best selling game this generation Hogwarts Legacy. It peaked over 800,000 on Steam but it's peak on Consoles was likely far higher. It did what Elden Ring couldn't and outsold Call of Duty in America. With over 25 million units sold so far it may end up being the 2nd best selling game this generation after GTA5 unless....

Black Myth Wukong can overtake it! The newest entry in the list thanks to China it had the 2nd highest Steam peak ever with 2.4 million players and 3 million across all platforms. In less than week it sold over 10 million units it's unclear what it's legs will be like but it's off to a thunderous start!

So in the sake of fairness what has been GAAS/ multiplayer best attempts so far in comparison?! Well I think there's been 2 big hits in this category and honestly I'm not sure one of them fits the live service category. I'am less knowledgeable in this category so please tell if I've missed any other games and I will update. Anyway

Helldivers 2! It's been an incredible success for Arrowhead. It peaked at over 450,000 players on Steam and I think 700k if you include ps5. Great obviously but all of the above games beat this number on STEAM alone! Secondly Helldivers 2 hasn't really maintained it's player base that well. It's maintaining about 30,000 ish a day at the moment, still really solid but hardly the new Fortnite.

The second game is Palworld! I'am not sure this even belongs here but whatever let's give it to them! It had the 2nd highest peak on Steam of 2.1 million until Black Myth came along. It's probably the cheapest game to develop on this least so arguably the biggest success. It has retained its players the worst out of any game on this list although this hardly matters for the devs.

So Discuss GAF why is this!?

I have some thoughts of my own but this post is getting to long.

Please Factcheck me on any wrong or missing details and I will edit them in.

It also occurred to me while typing that Cyberpunk 2077 could have been included but never mind!

 

[diffusionx]

Outside of the Mihoyo stuff and Valorant I guess, most of the big multiplayer games are from before 2020. It's really hard to break through. People who like these games, like the games they are playing. Sometimes games pop like Helldivers 2 but struggle to build a long term business.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Wasn’t BG3 developer recently complaining about $70 base price of games??

I feel something viral with modest budget is far more valuable. It doesn’t have to be Helldivers 2, Palworld level of success. Just a couple of million copies for AA budgets is more than enough.

It proves that base game is good and people are not drawn by eye candy etc.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Except Elden Ring started last generation.

edit: nope.

 

[Guilty_AI]

The line between multiplayer/single player, traditional/GAAS has been blurred a lot lately so its a bit hard to have these discussions.

BG3 and Elden Ring, while technically single-player, their MP aspect was a huge appeal that helped them sell what they did. Meanwhile a "multiplayer GAAS" like Helldivers 2 is a game that can still be played solo no problem.

 

[The artful mincer]

Except Elden Ring started last generation.

It released after PS5 and Xbox Series so it's this generation I will edit that in

 

[BennyBlanco]

people keep forgetting how massive Palworld was

 

[Sethbacca]

I'd be kind of curious if there's an age breakdown anywhere showing game type by age group. I feel like a lot of us older gamers with lives and responsibilities are going to skew heavily in favor of single player experiences as we age up, and that those games would sell well because we would be the group with disposable income to spend on it. Many of us aren't going to have the time to devote to hours upon hours of multiplayer to get good and stay good. Multiplayer and GAAS games with low cost barrier to entry are going to likely to skew toward kids and teens with less disposable income and more time to throw at them and that can only throw $5-10 at a shot toward that kind of thing.

Wild ass guess on my part but it feels like it would have some grounding.

 

[The Cockatrice]

So 4 games fit

We used to have more than 10 games per year that were breakouts. Now we have 4 games over what, 4 years? WOW truly am,azing times we live in, said no one ever. Not to mention that ER is pretty much a compilation of all 3 Dark Souls games mashed togheter, nothing new, only difference is that its open world which blew up with the average consumer, Hogwarts and Wukong are mid af and do absolutely nothing groundbreaking nor anything great either, and BG3 is just a better Divinity OS2.

 

[kevboard]

The line between multiplayer/single player, traditional/GAAS has been blurred a lot lately so its a bit hard to have these discussions.

BG3 and Elden Ring, while technically single-player, their MP aspect was a huge appeal that helped them sell what they did. Meanwhile a "multiplayer GAAS" like Helldivers 2 is a game that can still be played solo no problem.

GaaS games are being financed by offering free updates in exchange for pushing in-game micro translations.

neither BG3 not ER do that. Helldivers 2 absolutely does that. Helldivers 2 also can't be played offline while the other 2 can

so in that case I don't really see any blurring of lines. singplayer games very often had multiplayer components. that was always absolutely normal.

 

[MrRibeye]

OP: My argument is true under these specific ABCD conditions.

 

[The artful mincer]

Outside of the Mihoyo stuff and Valorant I guess, most of the big multiplayer games are from before 2020. It's really hard to break through. People who like these games, like the games they are playing. Sometimes games pop like Helldivers 2 but struggle to build a long term business.

Yeah thanks for this I was focused mainly on retail games not free to play. Do you have any sales numbers?

 

[Kotaro]

Is BG3 really selling that well? I thought it's critically well received, but the sale number is just good, not breaking any record like the other three

 

[The artful mincer]

We used to have more than 10 games per year that were breakouts. Now we have 4 games over what, 4 years? WOW truly am,azing times we live in, said no one ever. Not to mention that ER is pretty much a compilation of all 3 Dark Souls games mashed togheter, nothing new, only difference is that its open world which blew up with the average consumer, Hogwarts and Wukong are mid af and do absolutely nothing groundbreaking nor anything great either, and BG3 is just a better Divinity OS2.

I was picking the extreme examples obviously there alot more games have been successful. Publishers seem to be focused on getting mega hits so I think it's relevant.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Outside of the Mihoyo stuff and Valorant I guess, most of the big multiplayer games are from before 2020. It's really hard to break through. People who like these games, like the games they are playing. Sometimes games pop like Helldivers 2 but struggle to build a long term business.

Mihoyo games are all single player. Every big gacha is. MP is not a big thing anymore, unless it's some massive game like Fortnite.

 

[Guilty_AI]

GaaS games are being financed by offering free updates in exchange for pushing in-game micro translations.

neither BG3 not ER do that. Helldivers 2 absolutely does that. Helldivers 2 also can't be played offline while the other 2 can

so in that case I don't really see any blurring of lines. singplayer games very often had multiplayer components. that was always absolutely normal.

That's why i'm saying blurred. Another example, Drangons Dogma 2 is pretty much single player yet has tons of MTX, is that GAAS then?

 

[DaichiChan]

Well elden ring and black myth are two huge games with no early access for 30 bucks or whatever dlc announced way back before the game was released, so there is this. Other thing of course - these games are really good and with no bugs out and released complete and the audience know this. So the spreading of good word is faster than light I would say

 

[EverydayBeast]

Gaming needs a giant reset, and how we want games to play I like open world but I like games with an identity, the one thing I’m looking for is the return of multiplayer shooters, shooters with campaigns and consistent story player games.

 

[The artful mincer]

OP: My argument is true under these specific ABCD conditions.

Lol there's definitely a bit of this I won't deny. Having said that do you think any of my conditions are unreasonable?

Even with those conditions there's still a huge list of games to chose from.

 

[Generic]

The singleplayer meme.

 

[The artful mincer]

Is BG3 really selling that well? I thought it's critically well received, but the sale number is just good, not breaking any record like the other three

Definitely it's player retention is where it stands out. Peaking over 100,000k every month since release is unprecedented for a single player game.

 

[RoboFu]

Like a demonstration of the game... brilliant! We can call them montrations for short.

 

[The artful mincer]

Like a demonstration of the game... brilliant! We can call them montrations for short.

What?!

 

[RoboFu]

What?!

i replied in another thread and it ended up here.

 

[XXL]

Is BG3 really selling that well? I thought it's critically well received, but the sale number is just good, not breaking any record like the other three

BG3 sold 15M as of March.

Sales-Age - Baldur's Gate 3 has sold over 15 million copies

Baldur's Gate 3 has sold over 15 million copies, Larian announced in a Gamespot podcast: Swen: It's almost doubled DOS2 now, so it's doing really really well as DOS2 was very successful. So it did beyond what we expected. Source

www.neogaf.com

It hasn't even really been on (a good) sale yet on Steam. When it's does those numbers are going to increase dramatically.