ELEX - More Reviews

Official word is that PB has a burn rate of 160k€ per month. Or was it 140k? Elex took 3.5 years to make. Then add loca, marketing, distribution and console tax.

So 5.5M$ can't even be close.
 
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I think if they toned down the difficulty of the start, it would be a betrayal of their long time fans and Bjorn in that twitch stream with Gamasutra said they didnt want to do that.

As for the total sales, Risen 3 sold 90k total on MS Windows(physical copies) according to VG Chartz, another 150k on consoles but I cant get steam sales on Risen 3. So Risen 3 has about 250k sales excluding Steam and GoG. Elex already has more reviews on Steam than Risen 3 even though IIRC you dont even have to own the game on Steam to make the review back then. So the likelihood of Elex selling over a million overall is pretty much guaranteed. I think they would be very happy with that.

Steamspy says 500k for Risen 3. If Elex only sells 150k, it is a major flop for PB...
This is likely to put them at risk.
 
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Official word is that PB has a burn rate of 160k€ per month. Or was it 140k? Elex took 3.5 years to make. Then add loca, marketing, distribution and console tax.

So 5.5M$ can't even be close.

Can you link the official word of PB's burn rate? For a 60 hour week of 29 people, it would mean everyone there got 80 Euro per hour per month.
 
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This is not correct. Elex took the same "3 an a bit" because Risen 3 came out in August 2014 and Elex on 10/17/2017.

My bad, I was taking the "enhanced edition" of risen for the PS4. So Risen 3 took 2 and something years and Elex took 3 and something years.


Every PC retail copy appears on Steam since it is tied to Steam.

Do you have any sources for this, none of the sites with the requirements says you need steam for it?
 
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Can you link the official word of PB's burn rate? For a 60 hour week of 29 people, it would mean everyone there got 80 Euro per hour per month.
The salary of people is only a part of the burn rate. There are other costs like office space, insurances, IT, taxes and a load of other things. Besides that I don’t think they do 60 hours a week, but more likely 40 hours a week and probably not all 29 are full-time employed. I believe Moriendor pointed out in another thread that PB mentioned not to do any overtime and crunch time.
 
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Can you link the official word of PB's burn rate? For a 60 hour week of 29 people, it would mean everyone there got 80 Euro per hour per month.

Björn mentioned their burn rate in the Gamestar stream close to release. He is a shareholder, so he should know.

He said PB no longer does 60 hour weeks and long crunches. Nowadays they even insist their people take all their extra hours off later.
 
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And from what I heard, THQNordic is one of the "good guys" in publishing. Apparently they publish a lot of odd and creative games and passion projects. So by confirming ELEX 2, they must really believe in PB and what they are doing with ELEX. So I take that as a great sign.

PB also got a grant from a European arts group (?) for I think 150,000 Euro. So that's cool, too. :)

Thanks for the info, @Moriendor;!
 
Hey man, I'm with you! Please read my "solutions" and see if you agree.

Although I will stay far, far away from the retraining camp, thank you. :lol:

Oh, I think the part you mention about it being so different is an important one, too, because gamers likely have a certain idea of how it SHOULD play when they go in. I.e., the game is a 3rd person action RPG, open-world, you fight monsters, do quests, okay, good, got it! Then they go in and die in the tutorial. :lol:

So that is what leads me to believe that better in-game tutorials could go a long way to at least give newbies a chance to possibly enjoy the game, rather than it becoming a quick refund and negative review…

Indeed, education in a form of proper turorials could be the key for piranha bytes. I think people have forgotten how to play these kind of games. When a videogame is labeled as an action rpg, it is often expected that it can be cruised through. The staggering ammount of handholding most videogames contain these days have taught gamers wrong kind of responses. If game doesn't give in or say what to do, they begin thinking that the game is some way broken instead of thinking what am I doing wrong.
 
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Thanks for the info guys. 140k a month for 3 years and 3 months is 5.5 million Euro still. It seems my estimates came out to more than what PB really uses a month(I estimated the use 180k a month). I made a mistake thinking the 140k Euro was per week.

EDIT: But that is purely for the German version and no marketing. But considering how poor the translations are and how little marketing there is for the game, it surely cant add another 1 million on top of that? I guess we will only know when THQ Nordic says something.
 
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Thanks for the info guys. 140k a month for 3 years and 3 months is 5.5 million Euro still. It seems my estimates came out to more than what PB really uses a month(I estimated the use 180k a month). I made a mistake thinking the 140k Euro was per week.

EDIT: But that is purely for the German version and no marketing. But considering how poor the translations are and how little marketing there is for the game, it surely cant add another 1 million on top of that? I guess we will only know when THQ Nordic says something.

Add probably 3 million for marketing and interest (that's cheap - often marketing exceeds other development costs and you just can't avoid interest costs aka present value of monies spent over a 3.25 year time) -- then convert the 5.5 Euros to 6.4 million dollars for a total dollar cost of approx 9-10 million dollars -- or there about…

__
 
I would be shocked if their marketing budget was anywhere near $3 million. I don't know details but that seems very high for a project like ELEX.

@Moriendor; seems to know a lot about them. Any ideas on that, Moriendor?
 
Indeed, education in a form of proper turorials could be the key for piranha bytes. I think people have forgotten how to play these kind of games. When a videogame is labeled as an action rpg, it is often expected that it can be cruised through. The staggering ammount of handholding most videogames contain these days have taught gamers wrong kind of responses. If game doesn't give in or say what to do, they begin thinking that the game is some way broken instead of thinking what am I doing wrong.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Glad you agree!

There is evidence of that, too, like the IGN reviewer who said it took him 2 hours to defeat a "boss" because his strikes were barely doing any damage. I don't mention that to shame or diss the reviewer, but it's clear there is a lack of understanding from even professional game reviewers on how ELEX and other PB games actually work. Education could really help there.
 
Don't forget the console tax. 100k retail copies on consoles should costs ca. 1M€. In advance.
Translation is cheap, but voice actors aren't. So full voice overs in a couple of languages should also be a few hundred k.
Marketing also includes trade shows - VERY expensive - and press junkets.
And there's also a lot of outsourcing which goes extra.

My guess would be the project costs THQ Nordic ca. 10-12M€, which has to be recouped before PB makes royalties (in a classic publisher-developer model). Elex 2 could be significantly cheaper though due to recycled assets, tech and game mechanics.

For comparison:
Deck 13 had 60-70 people on The Surge. They said their game has to pass the 1M units mark within reasonable time to be considered a success. This means while the game still costs more than a certain amount in the shops. They also said initial sales were better than expected and the game was on track, as of a couple of months ago.
 
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Bjorn and Jenny's baby, i.e. the Last RPG Developer Jedi! :D

I think it would be cool to work with PB on their games. For a developer that is 20 years deep in the industry they really have stuck to their guns. Most developers are either out of business by that time or have been bought by EA. :D It's cool to see PB still doing their thing and doing it their own way.

If I had some sort of technical skills to offer I'd inquire about a job. Until then I guess it's an ELEX Let's Play on YouTube for me and random online admiration for the work they're doing. :thumbsup:
 
I think some hear are too big of PB fans to be objective. I only read the one review but it was hardly just about difficulty.

They mention poor combat due to laggy unresponsive controls, bugs and glitches. They still gave it a 7/10 good rating. Seems fair.

Games like dark souls, nioh and bloodborne all got good reviews from mainstream reviewers. I doubt the scores are just about difficulty.

I think it has more to due with PB’s games usually having mediocre combat and are unpolished at release. They also seem to have a style that appeals to a more niche crowd.

I’m a fan of PB’s but I’m not blind so I can see their faults or while others might be Luke warm to them.
 
I think some hear are too big of PB fans to be objective. I only read the one review but it was hardly just about difficulty.

They mention poor combat due to laggy unresponsive controls, bugs and glitches. They still gave it a 7/10 good rating. Seems fair.

Games like dark souls, nioh and bloodborne all got good reviews from mainstream reviewers. I doubt the scores are just about difficulty.

I think it has more to due with PB’s games usually having mediocre combat and are unpolished at release. They also seem to have a style that appeals to a more niche crowd.

I’m a fan of PB’s but I’m not blind so I can see their faults or while others might be Luke warm to them.

You assume that yet have you played it?

I personally don't find combat "clunky" at all, nor laggy or unresponsive (that is ludicrous IMHO.) Dark Souls is "clunky" in the same way, i.e. slower, more calculated movement with "weight" to it. That is by design.

Bugs and glitches? Sure, that's fine, but let's keep that in perspective. ELEX is over 3 times the size of Skyrim and didn't have a single game-breaking bug at launch. The only bugs I've experienced in 115 hours have been minor graphical glitches, a couple AI glitches and, well, that's about it. I think some people need to think back about release days for other large open-world RPGs, and then realize ELEX is 3 times (or more) the size of those.

So relatively speaking, it has no bugs at all.

As for PB faults, sure, their presentation isn't that great, voice acting could be better, animations, yada yada yada. So this is where I again point people to the fact the game was made by 29 people on a shoestring budget.

Taking that into consideration, what they continue to do with their games is equivalent to performing miracles.

This is why I gave up rating games a long time ago. How can you compare a passion project made by 29 people and pennies in comparison to something like a Bethesda or CDPR megalithic corporation production? Those games have 10 times or MORE the budget, and in some cases 10 times the personnel working on them.

I disagree with your premise because there is evidence of the contrary. IGN, one of the biggest outlets for gaming reviews you can find, has an official review where the reviewer himself was playing the game wrong. Flat out wrong. You're not supposed to fight 2 hour battles that take 1000s of hits, that is absurd. :lol: The reviewer did not understand the game mechanics, which brings me full circle to my idea for better in-game education about the game's workings.

I like ELEX and think it's an excellent total package, but hey, YMMV.

So this is where you respond I'm a fanboy and not being objective. Cheerio. :)
 
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I think some hear are too big of PB fans to be objective. I only read the one review but it was hardly just about difficulty.

They mention poor combat due to laggy unresponsive controls, bugs and glitches. They still gave it a 7/10 good rating. Seems fair.

What reviewer was that and what version did they review? I ask because, in 150+ hours, I never experienced any sort of lag or unresponsiveness in the controls.

I've also never seen that claimed in any of the reviews I've read. Was that review for the console version perhaps?

As far as bugs/glitches go, they were few and far between even before the patch. The game was quite polished for a large open-world game at release, and I say that without the fanboy goggles that Fluent seems to wear. ;)
 
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You assume that yet have you played it?

I personally don't find combat "clunky" at all, nor laggy or unresponsive (that is ludicrous IMHO.) Dark Souls is "clunky" in the same way, i.e. slower, more calculated movement with "weight" to it. That is by design.

Bugs and glitches? Sure, that's fine, but let's keep that in perspective. ELEX is over 3 times the size of Skyrim and didn't have a single game-breaking bug at launch. The only bugs I've experienced in 115 hours have been minor graphical glitches, a couple AI glitches and, well, that's about it. I think some people need to think back about release days for other large open-world RPGs, and then realize ELEX is 3 times (or more) the size of those.

So relatively speaking, it has no bugs at all.

As for PB faults, sure, their presentation isn't that great, voice acting could be better, animations, yada yada yada. So this is where I again point people to the fact the game was made by 29 people on a shoestring budget.

Taking that into consideration, what they continue to do with their games is equivalent to performing miracles.

This is why I gave up rating games a long time ago. How can you compare a passion project made by 29 people and pennies in comparison to something like a Bethesda or CDPR megalithic corporation production? Those games have 10 times or MORE the budget, and in some cases 10 times the personnel working on them.

I disagree with your premise because there is evidence of the contrary. IGN, one of the biggest outlets for gaming reviews you can find, has an official review where the reviewer himself was playing the game wrong. Flat out wrong. You're not supposed to fight 2 hour battles that take 1000s of hits, that is absurd. :lol: The reviewer did not understand the game mechanics, which brings me full circle to my idea for better in-game education about the game's workings.

I like ELEX and think it's an excellent total package, but hey, YMMV.

So this is where you respond I'm a fanboy and not being objective. Cheerio. :)

“Combats great, no bugs at all, any problems should be dismissed because it was made by 29 people, PB perform miracles, there’s nothing wrong with the game , people are just playing it wrong.”

Nope, looks like your being as objective as always about a game you like. Don’t have the energy or desire to go back and forth with you. Glad you love the game.


What reviewer was that and what version did they review? I ask because, in 150+ hours, I never experienced any sort of lag or unresponsiveness in the controls.

I've also never seen that claimed in any of the reviews I've read. Was that review for the console version perhaps?

As far as bugs/glitches go, they were few and far between even before the patch. The game was quite polished for a large open-world game at release, and I say that without the fanboy goggles that Fluent seems to wear. ;)

Select button review linked to this thread. Might be console version he’s playing with a controller.
 
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