After hearing how well Baldur's Gate 3 sold, I was curious to know what the overall sales are for all the games. I quickly came to realize that there is no overall tally of the sales, so I did the next best thing and researched the reported sales I could find for individual games and added them together:
2.) Strategic Simulations' Dungeons & Dragons games (1988-1993) - 2 million
3.) Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft (1996) - 150,000
4.) Baldur's Gate (1998) - 2.8 million
5.) Planescape: Torment (1999) - 400,000
6.) Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000) - 2 million
7.) Icewind Dale I and II (2000-2002) - 580,000
8.) Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001) - 1 million
9.) Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001) - 150,000
10.) Neverwinter Nights (2002) - 2.2 million
11.) The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003) - 128,000
12.) Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (2012) - 1 million
13.) Baldur's Gate 3 (2023) - 15 million
So altogether, that would add up to 28,106,000 million copies. Surprisingly, I found many reports of sales for earlier games, but had a hard time finding reports of sales for many games after 2003, which incidentally may give a little bit of an idea as to how well those unreported games sold. If many later games selling less is truly the case, then I imagine the overall figure of all the games would be somewhere around the 35-40 million mark. If any of you happen to know of more data, I'd appreciate to see it.
It’s a bit misleading to put gold box as a single entry. There were a lot of games in that series. You can pick up the gold box classics as a package on steam and it’s like 21 games altogether. I get it that finding data for each one would be really hard, so I don’t mean that to be as critical as it sounds when it’s written down.
It’s a bit misleading to put gold box as a single entry. There were a lot of games in that series. You can pick up the gold box classics as a package on steam and it’s like 21 games altogether. I get it that finding data for each one would be really hard, so I don’t mean that to be as critical as it sounds when it’s written down.
Maybe I'll try to list individual sales later, but their two million should be enough to take it with a grain of salt. It's hard enough finding sales for older games as is, so this was welcome:
I think the MMOs (the first Neverwinter Nights from 1997, DDO, and Neverwinter) make sense to be in the conversation too. All three made quite a bit of money!
Neverwinter is free to play, would need to know the numbers for the PTW contend
We actually do have some numbers around that. When the VC firm Embracer Group purchased Perfect World Entertainment circa 2021, a report of the latter's portfolio was published that showed Neverwinter has having generated around ~$400 million in revenue to date. That was about 8 years into Neverwinter's life, giving us an average of $50MM per year.
Now having said that, it's likely to be declining year over year as most aging MMOs do, so it may not be bringing in that kind of revenue 4 years later. But even if we cut that average in half, that's still 25MM per year.
Now having said that, it's likely to be declining year over year as most aging MMOs do, so it may not be bringing in that kind of revenue 4 years later. But even if we cut that average in half, that's still 25MM per year.
Anecdotally, this seems true. I used to play obsessively. After a long break I hopped on about 2 years ago and it was a ghost town. It was actually kind of hard to level new characters, as there was no one doing the low-level raids, so gear would fall behind. Still though, I’m sure they’re still making money.
I think the MMOs (the first Neverwinter Nights from 1997, DDO, and Neverwinter) make sense to be in the conversation too. All three made quite a bit of money!
MMOs tend to be trickier since those tend to rely more on subscriptions, which is debatable as to whether or not it counts as an actual sale.
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After hearing how well Baldur's Gate 3 sold, I was curious to know what the overall sales are for all the games. I quickly came to realize that there is no overall tally of the sales, so I did the next best thing and researched the reported sales I could find for individual games and added them together:
1.) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain (1982) - 698,000
2.) Strategic Simulations' Dungeons & Dragons games (1988-1993) - 2 million
3.) Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft (1996) - 150,000
4.) Baldur's Gate (1998) - 2.8 million
5.) Planescape: Torment (1999) - 400,000
6.) Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000) - 2 million
7.) Icewind Dale I and II (2000-2002) - 580,000
8.) Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001) - 1 million
9.) Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (2001) - 150,000
10.) Neverwinter Nights (2002) - 2.2 million
11.) The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003) - 128,000
12.) Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (2012) - 1 million
13.) Baldur's Gate 3 (2023) - 15 million
So altogether, that would add up to 28,106,000 million copies. Surprisingly, I found many reports of sales for earlier games, but had a hard time finding reports of sales for many games after 2003, which incidentally may give a little bit of an idea as to how well those unreported games sold. If many later games selling less is truly the case, then I imagine the overall figure of all the games would be somewhere around the 35-40 million mark. If any of you happen to know of more data, I'd appreciate to see it.
Sources:
1.) Intellivision Lives! (1998)
2.) https://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1994&pub=2&id=117
3.) https://web.archive.org/web/20180618001634/https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/filing.ashx?filingid=696724
4.) https://www.newspapers.com/article/edmonton-journal/89325400/
5.) https://rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10604
6.) https://web.archive.org/web/20051106013711/http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/about/
7.) https://web.archive.org/web/20121017165955/http://www.edge-online.com/features/top-100-pc-games-21st-century/
8.) https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/03/24/dark-alliance-ii-announced
9.) https://web.archive.org/web/20140811010123/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/91838/Acquisitions_Propel_Ubi_Soft_Sales_Up_72.php
10.) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-oct-12-fi-games12-story.html
11.) https://web.archive.org/web/20050405233402/http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=9052
12.) https://www.newspapers.com/article/edmonton-journal/89325400/
13.) https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/dublin-firm-behind-baldurs-gate-game-posts-249m-profit-after-runaway-success/a2033961431.html
If memory serves, Eye of the Beholder II was the first D&D video game I played.
It’s a bit misleading to put gold box as a single entry. There were a lot of games in that series. You can pick up the gold box classics as a package on steam and it’s like 21 games altogether.
I get it that finding data for each one would be really hard, so I don’t mean that to be as critical as it sounds when it’s written down.
Maybe I'll try to list individual sales later, but their two million should be enough to take it with a grain of salt. It's hard enough finding sales for older games as is, so this was welcome:
https://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/issues/cgw_117.pdf
I think the MMOs (the first Neverwinter Nights from 1997, DDO, and Neverwinter) make sense to be in the conversation too. All three made quite a bit of money!
Neverwinter is free to play, would need to know the numbers for the PTW contend
We actually do have some numbers around that. When the VC firm Embracer Group purchased Perfect World Entertainment circa 2021, a report of the latter's portfolio was published that showed Neverwinter has having generated around ~$400 million in revenue to date. That was about 8 years into Neverwinter's life, giving us an average of $50MM per year.
https://www.mmobomb.com/news/neverwinter-20-million-accounts-other-details-from-perfect-world-sale
Now having said that, it's likely to be declining year over year as most aging MMOs do, so it may not be bringing in that kind of revenue 4 years later. But even if we cut that average in half, that's still 25MM per year.
Anecdotally, this seems true. I used to play obsessively. After a long break I hopped on about 2 years ago and it was a ghost town. It was actually kind of hard to level new characters, as there was no one doing the low-level raids, so gear would fall behind.
Still though, I’m sure they’re still making money.
MMOs tend to be trickier since those tend to rely more on subscriptions, which is debatable as to whether or not it counts as an actual sale.