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[WSJ] Rocket League has made ~$50M on ~$2M budget, More famous cars in talks(KITT)

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ElCidTmax

Member
It's interesting to think about how the numbers work on this.

We all know the backstory, how Rocket League had a relatively small but dedicated PC community when it was 'Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars' before it became Rocket League.

The release of Rocket League as a free PS Plus game potentially gave it an instant player base of let's say 11M on the PS4. I am sure that only a fraction of PS Plus subscribers downloaded and played the game.

What we don't know is how much Sony paid Psyonx for the rights to license the game as a PS Plus title. The developer has acknowledged that they significantly changed their plans for DLC as less of the money they make will be front-loaded due to the PS Plus approach.

So of the 50M, how much was paid by Sony? How much was purchases made after the free month, what with all the ongoing buzz about what an awesome game it is. How much was DLC purchases? What is the average $$ per player paid for DLC? What percentage of players purchased DLC?

From what I can tell, this has been a real success for the developer, who has managed to roll out DLC without splitting the community and employing any pay-to-win ugliness. The player community has nothing but good will for these folks.

Understanding the financial aspect may help other developers with their own planning around how to make a successful game. I would love to see a new Fat Princess or similarly scaled title take this approach.
 
B

Bsigg12

Member
Dear Microsoft,

Stop being assholes and allow cross-platform play so the Xbox One version of Rocket League doesn't die off a month after launch and can live off the sizeable community of PS4 and PC players.

Sincerely,
Someone who really likes Rocket League
 
IISANDERII

IISANDERII

Member
Of course Spielberg signed off on the DeLorean. He signed off on ET for the Atari 2600 saying it was a great game

spielberg.gif
 
Hale-XF11

Hale-XF11

Member
KITT would be amazing, especially if they somehow get William Daniels to do the voice again, that is unless they have access to the original isolated audio clips from the show.
 
Cre8

Cre8

You want a shot at the champ? [NG gif winner July 23]
One of the best MP game this year. Lots of fun and incredible goal shots from teammates and opponents. I want this, Mach 5 from Speed Racer.

latest
 
A

AcridMeat

Banned
Super happy for them, my favorite game in years.

As for cars, I still want the Ecto-1 most, but also would love a Paul Walker GTR.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
ElCidTmax said:
We all know the backstory, how Rocket League had a relatively small but dedicated PC community when it was 'Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars' before it became Rocket League.
Click to expand...
Maybe we don't all know, because it was a small but dedicated PS3 community. ;)
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
Bollocks said:
Wow 2mil for a rather simple game. Didn't know such a game costs this much.
Click to expand...

$2 million is cheap. Why do you think that's a large number?

Simply look at the costs of employing people, the costs of overhead, and it easily reaches $2 million.


Also, Rocket League isn't "simple". A game does not get as good as Rocket League by hacking together some assets in an engine. It takes months if not years of tuning, which in turn costs a lot of money to pay salaries.
 
P

Par Score

Member
ElCidTmax said:
The release of Rocket League as a free PS Plus game potentially gave it an instant player base of let's say 11M on the PS4. I am sure that only a fraction of PS Plus subscribers downloaded and played the game.

What we don't know is how much Sony paid Psyonx for the rights to license the game as a PS Plus title. The developer has acknowledged that they significantly changed their plans for DLC as less of the money they make will be front-loaded due to the PS Plus approach.

So of the 50M, how much was paid by Sony? How much was purchases made after the free month, what with all the ongoing buzz about what an awesome game it is. How much was DLC purchases? What is the average $$ per player paid for DLC? What percentage of players purchased DLC?
Click to expand...

I'm not going to say the PS Plus freebie had not effect, because it clearly exposed the game to a much wider audience and gives the game a guaranteed player-base (which is crucial for such an online-multiplayer focused title.

But the game has sold ~2 million copies on Steam, the vast majority of those at or near the full price of $20, which even being stingy likely accounts for $30-35 million of the $50 million.

The DLC is all on PC too, so this is really a massive PC success story, potentially partially fuelled by the PS Plus promotion, but also because it's a hell of a game.
 
S

Stormhammer

Member
got this on ps+, had some friends over and did some 4 player split screen online, was just fucking amazing. bought it on pc and have been putting serious hours into it. they deserve every penny~

if they're adding more unique cars, just get hornet from daytona usa :3
 
Q

qa_engineer

Member
Well deserved. The game was well executed and the people have spoken with their wallets.

Obvious tie-ins: Star Wars X Wing, Tai Fighter, and Bat mobile.
 
S

serversurfer

Member
Par Score said:
I'm not going to say the PS Plus freebie had not effect, because it clearly exposed the game to a much wider audience and gives the game a guaranteed player-base (which is crucial for such an online-multiplayer focused title.

But the game has sold ~2 million copies on Steam, the vast majority of those at or near the full price of $20, which even being stingy likely accounts for $30-35 million of the $50 million.

The DLC is all on PC too, so this is really a massive PC success story, potentially partially fuelled by the PS Plus promotion, but also because it's a hell of a game.
Click to expand...
They've moved 8M copies, but without the exposure created by the 4.5M PS+ copies, their actual sales could be closer to 350k or even 35k instead of the 3500k they "sold."

It's a huge success story, but in the developer's own words, the only difference between this game and the last one is the level of awareness. It's hard to attribute that to anything other than the 4.5M evangelists, who probably brought more than $10M in revenue with them on their own. It's great that they're making bank on PC, but don't try to pretend PS+ wasn't a significant contributing factor there.
 
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