However, Lords of the West ranked #31 Dawn of the Dukes ranked #48 Dynasties of India ranked #53 Return of Rome ranked #54 The Mountain Royals ranked #65.
That’s not good. Not “bad” but not good.
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Starting to get the feeling that it doesn’t matter how this DLC does 
The discourse has gone from “less players playing” (incorrect) to “the update added less players” (inconclusive) to “the update didn’t sell” (arguably it did compared to recent paid content).
(I’m not saying you specifically said all of these things)
What would your measure of success look like, bearing in mind you dislike what is being sold? Can you separate liking or not liking something from the thing being a commercial success? Can you separate out your personal like or dislike from the thing being a commercial failure? What does it mean if an arguably-rushed DLC is successful? What does it mean if an arguably-good DLC isn’t?
What metrics matter to you?
Surely, you simply want the devs to make better / more consistent / different content in the first place. Does it matter how this one sells? Even if it was the most popular thing ever . . . would that be a good thing for you?
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To be fair these are not concrete numbers. Also, we need to consider things such as the other game releases when the other DLCs dropped to have a conclusive evaluation of whether the DLC did well or not.
For the 3k, there we no major releases. Just discounts. So it does look like it did not do well overall. Plus the mixed rating. The DLC probably performed below expectations.
Masmorra’s comments do not seem to match the end result.
Yes, it does matter. As sales often equal endorsement for people at the top.
For this to under-perform means that we will hopefully never see anything this far from AoE2 again (certainly not in ranked). And hopefully concessions.
If it did well, what would the desire be to keep the current playerbase around?
I would rather DLCs that both sold well AND leave me with the desire to stick around were made.
Well, he claimed it was an inside source. Either that source was a liar, or they utterly misunderstood the statistic they were looking at. “Best-selling AoE DLC” my foot…
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Well, exactly. Which is partly why I was asking.
It’s not an either / or; it’s more of a matrix. Good sales | bad sales | agreeable product | disagreeable product. Right?
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Nice, 2 civs > 5 civs (well 1.5 civs really). I hope they learn the lesson.
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However, Lords of the West ranked #31 Dawn of the Dukes ranked #48 Dynasties of India ranked #53 Return of Rome ranked #54 The Mountain Royals ranked #65.
Looking at rankings like this lacks criticle context. What games were topping charts when those released? what games are topping the charts now? How well are those games selling?
Two games could be be at the number 1 sales spot with wildly different sales numbers depending on what the compitition is that month. Between Clair Obscur, Doom: the Dark Ages, Oblivion, Dune awakening… its a busy release month.
Which is not to say that the months when Dawn of the dukes, Dynasties of India, so on weren’t busy, but there is a lot of missing context when trying to guess how well something sold based on it’s position on the steam best seller list. The only people who know how well it sold are the Devs.
And Steam sales likely aren’t the only sales they’re considering as part of the sales of the DLC… PS5 release
While the shills still believe they are protecting WE from the “haters”
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If you really want to be honest here, then that already proves it’s a flop. Because none of the other dlcs had the advantage of being on the PS5 during their release, and they mostly did better on Steam alone than TTK. I think the PS5 move was a good business move for the company, for sure, but it doesn’t change the fact that the sales are middling at best in the Steam market, which has been the major market for this game for years.
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I mean aside from the fact that none of us really know what the steam sales truely look like, the point is if the claim is it’s “the best selling DLC of all time”, theres a lot of ways that statement can be true. It could be that review numbers and steam best seller placment isn’t reflective of the actual sales of the game, it could be the Playstation release and the bundles involved are being considered as part of the sales, or he could have bad info.
I’m not saying that the case is one way or the other, but I’m pushing back on “theres only one possible explination”. People on this forum are really quick to present evidence as factual (both for an against the DLC) when the reality is the only people who know how well the DLC sold (and by whatever metrics they are measuring that) are the devs.
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I agree, but it seems like you’re pushing way too hard for the possibility of a very unlikely event.
The sales of this DLC are great because most players care about the campaigns the most. Only a fraction plays ranked. And from those who play ranked and watch the tournaments, the absolute majority is very much likely to either not care about wu shu and wei, or be totally against these civs in ranked mp/tournaments, because they go against the spirit of the game. The ones who are actually in favor of them staying there, are likely to be a very marginal minority.
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I agree, but it seems like you’re pushing way too hard for the possibility of a very unlikely event.
I get you don’t think people on a consol would want the game, but between heavy controller optimisation as well as the ability to just plug in a mouse and keyboard, Xbox sales were clearly succesful enough to push for a Playstation release (notably a consol microsoft doesn’t own which means they think it will do well dispite distribution fees)
You may think it won’t do well on Playstation, and I don’t have any idea how well it will do on Playstation, but the devs and/or corperate very clearly think there is a market to tap.
Idk man, theres evidence the multiplayer community likes it to.
which isn’t saying they are a minority or majority, I’m not going to try and guess a DLC’s sales based on a single statistic.
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This screenshot, just like you posted in out argument a few days ago, literally proves our point - these ranked and mp players care about Khitans and Jurchens, NOT about Wu, Shu and Wei - in fact, check the achievement attain rates - Shu (the first 3k campaign) have 0.5% attain rate (a victory playing as this civ), but Khitans and Jurchens only have 0.1%.
People bought 3k for the campaigns, and those who play ranked, bought it for the Khitans and Jurchens. The inclusion of 3k in ranked/tournaments, as well as not enough campaigns for all those new civs, are literally the most prominent aspects of negative reviews as well as negative points in positive reviews.
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were just going to ignore Wu at 4th I guess (at least for pickrate)
Though if were going to make hypothesis from random numbers, It’s more likely to do with percieved power than actual popularity (the Jurchans and Wei are notably lower winrates and notably lower pick rates)
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The Wu are also played a lot
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This is a sort based on WIN rates, not PLAY rates. You’re the one posting these screenshots and you did not even interpret them correctly? Also, you’re the one trying to find unlikely scenarios and “all possibilities”, but you haven’t thought about the fact that Wu, Shu and Wei are picked because they are NEW, and mostly by the players that actually don’t care about the historicity of aoe?
Anyway, which site is that? I have troubles finding it, aoestats.io is not updated yet.
This is a sort based on WIN rates, not PLAY rates.
I mean, yes, being a new civ is inflating that number. being a percieved powerful civ is also probably inflating that number.
by your own argument, doesn’t that mean the Khitans aren’t actually popular, they’re just a fad? You can’t say “people bought this for Civ A thats popular, but Civ B being also popular is just a coincidence”
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The romans have been the top civ statistically and the dont have a good playrate, what makes you say the 3k civs have a bad playrate, not to mention the Khitans who are incredibly designed they are cool, maybe a bit strong
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The answer is literally in the screenshot. Khitans have 8100 picks, Wu have 3815, Shu have 2794 - idk about Jurchens or Wei, unfortunately. Khitans alone have more picks than Wu and Shu combined. It’s only natural that new civs will have higher pick/play rates than the rest (for now). We need to see how Wei and Jurchens perform. And of course, standard well loved civs, like Huns, will have a high pick rate anyway…
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Yeah I get what youre saying, but the romans have a better winrate and theyre not as played as much as the 3k civs, they were never that popular to begin with compared to the 3k civs.
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