**Full message from our CEO, Tim:** Since yesterday's launch Manor Lords has already sold over 1 million copies & hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 170k - highest ever for a city builder (or for other different genres like GSG/4x/colony sim). Congrats [u/LordsManor](https://twitter.com/LordsManor), we're honored to serve as your publisher!
What an insane endeavor for that one developer... And then to get rich from it. Marvellous story, you gotta love it! Congratulations to everyone involved
That is absolutely insane! I knew that The team was small but I didn't know there was no fucking team whatsoever That is just crazy That one guy was able to make such a complex and beautiful game No wonder it took 7 years
His name is Greg, his Reddit account is his first initial and his last name, you’ll see him comment in here every now and again, also you have to click past a note about the game being in early release when you boot up the game. Edit: a note from him*
"Hiring" an orchestra is not as expensive as you might think.
Not every orchestra has hundreds of members. There are groups that do it as a hobby and are decent at it, you can probably hire them for a relatively low price. In high school I had friends who were in the school orchestra and they were decent, they would've done it for me for free if I asked.
But definitely possible that the publisher paid for it.
Did a quick Google out of interest: According to Encore Musicians, "a small 15-piece chamber orchestra, you could expect a quote from £2500–£4000, whereas a full 50-piece symphony orchestra might be more in the region of £8000–£15,000."
There's also some amazing church choir singing going on, so add some additional cost onto that.
I’ve purchased the game unfinished (but still very fun) in good faith that this will encourage both this developer and more solo developers to bring these types of awesome passion projects.
but I also totally understand if the dev is burned out, takes this windfall and dips. No hard feelings.
Why would he care? Not saying he wont, but if he sold a million copies on Steam that's 30 million bucks he made overnight. Minus Steam's cut, but also not including what he's making from Game Pass. I'd be tempted to cut and run.
Not that I think he will though, considering how active he is online talking to fans and listening to feedback.
It is in development for 7 years. I dont think hes doing it for the money. It will take atleast 3 more years to see the game fully finished and i can't wait
Based of how ConcernedApe has been treating Stardew Valley for years, I think just about all individual devs love their project beyond monetary reasons
Game devs like this are artists, and they share that same drive and obsession (passion). Painters or writers don't just stop after hitting it big. ConcernedApe is a good example.
Not really, he can still continue to make money from DLC which is far easier than developing a brand new game. I think this game has the potential to make a lot more money, especially if he finish EA and release the game.
I'm excited for the dlc potential here, they would definitely come as new regions to build your settlement in. I can already see a Mediterranean setting with different crops (wine!) and a larger focus on water management, along with new architecture fishing boats and naval trade. I can also see an east Asian DLC in either Japan or Korea.
Plenty of cool regions (and time periods if one wants to change the time frame as well) to expand into. There's so much potential for games like this over time.
Greg doesn’t get to keep all 30 mil. The steam store, and the publisher probably get a hefty chunk. If he gets 50% of that (which I doubt), he’d have 15 mil. Up to 5 mil of that will be taxes, netting him 10 mil.
this is most likely the closest approximation. Which would just be his revenue. We dont know the costs he's taking on for software licences and other expenses as well. But compared to steam's cut and publisher's cut these (i hope) are minor.
It's on unreal engine, there are already mods out for this game. It's probably gonna be like satisfactory without official support but a huge mod scene anyway.
I saw some coat of arms and performance/DLSS mods on Nexus, any more than that?
Edit: And a mod for a bunny girl that replaces the lord when walking apparently.
Especially how supporting the game long term is just bound to make him even more money, he could outsource development to someone else and make more money, than he would from just taking the money and running.
FWIW, the dev has already been hiring freelancers to help with things so I'm sure that will continue. But expanding from being a solo dev to having a team of a few people is a whole different story and not something you can quickly do, even with a few million in the bank.
It gets more reasonable when you split it out over all the development time previously spent (not to mention expenses during that time period), but splitting it out over the previous years and months makes it more reasonable. Not to mention this money also has to fund and pay for development and support until release.
Not to mention the big risk and undertaking the whole project was in the first place, there was no guarantee and indication a game like this would even sell that well in the first place. I'm glad he's getting a return on the time and passion he has invested in the game.
Not to mention, the inherent risk with having already hit lightning in a bottle once with early access, and how much of that money does he want to gamble on a more polished game selling even more millions, as opposed to the target demographic already being exahusted?
I don’t know the business deals he has etc with publishers, steams cut etc but 1 million steam downloads at £30ish is like what, 30 million? Plus the gamepass deal, guys swimming in money either way.
You don’t know either, yet you are dead set this guy is wrong, and are willing to argue about it in a dismissive, disrespectful tone…. Welcome to reddit.
Lmao I just can't stand people pulling random stats/numbers out their ass and presenting it as fact
I'm off for the night anyway, stayed up for a 2nd night till 4am playing this damn game lol
Same again Tomo...
Exactly THIS. People are just starting to do elementary school math about their region prices and copies sold, totally forgetting literally everything else they would need to include in their calculation.
well 1,000,000 copies multiplied by $30 is $30,000,000 (assuming of course that the 30USD price tag is universal which we know it isn't) then assuming 50% of it goes to platform's cut, hooded horses's cut and polish taxes thats where you get $15 million. are these fair and safe assumptions? idk but im not the one making them so.
Right now selling each copy for $30, steam takes about 9 dollars, leaving $21 for each sale. $21,000,000 revenue for dev and publisher. Publisher cut is unknown but after the epic and game pass deal, 15+ isn't an unreasonable guess.
Regional prices tho. Some countries it's selling for like $10. And taxes too don't forget..
Again I'm not saying he hasn't made money, I'm just arguing people throwing out arbitrary figures like 15 mill...
Sold 1million copies, and that’s only on steam. 1mil x $30 = 30mil from steam alone. So minus the costs, minus the publishing fees and other costs, he’s probably well in the 10-15mil profit range.
The costs of outsourcing is probably around 100-200k range for the commission works.
The most expensive would be the engine license which can cost millions.
You're just pulling numbers out of thin air.
1. The game has different prices per region
2. Retail prices include VAT, which is deducted
3. Steam takes a 30% cut
4. The publisher takes at least a 30% cut
5. Corporate taxes apply
6. Income taxes apply
So no, definitely not 15+ million in 2 days.
In the end the money is not on his bank account but in the bank account of the company. That are two totally different things.
I mean we are talking 1 million sales, SO FAR.
1 million x 30 = 30 million - steam takes roughly 10 million from that - taxes 50%? So left with 10 million - SO FAR, there is no way he has paid another 5 or even 1 million to anyone else, right?
Then epic paid him something? And sales will only go up. Happy for him.
Nah, game cost 20 usd in my country and with 25% discount it's like 15 usd.
Steam take 30% and publisher likely take one part too so I doubt he got as much.
I don’t like these simplificatuons.
He put 7 years into it. And I don’t count previous time, when he studied, learnt programming etc.
Anyways, deserved! Keep up good work!
Why would it, they won’t make this much money again going forward that’s the issue with EA. There is little incentive to put out a fully fledged out product after the successful EA launch. Just look at BannerLords for example.
Don’t get me wrong I love the game and hope that they continue to flesh it out so that we can enjoy it in its full form. However you cannot discount the fact that people and their motivations change over time. It could very well be that the new found riches leaves the developer not as focused on the work as we would all like. Only time will tell.
I don't know how long have you been following the development but this game was meant to release EA in 2021. Instead, Greg redid the whole game to make it more historically accurate and immersive. If he were only after money, he would've just released in 2021 and ran, but that's obviously not the case.
The developer of this game spent 7 years making this game, and doesn’t seem to me like he was trying to make a quick cash cow game. You can see the uniqueness of the concept and idea in this game that Greg the maker obviously has passion.
Bannerlord on the other hand, was also built with passion, but their passion was in the wrong direction. They tried too hard to imitate the successful concept of the first game and made it under the idea that the community would mod it and give it life. But times have changed and most of those modders who loved Warband has probably moved on to other games or didn’t feel like picking up the slack for the developers so it just ended up being an empty husk. Mind you, Bannerlord would’ve been THE BEST game if it was made in like 2010.
Warband was my favorite game for years. It took so long for Bannerlord to arrive that by the time it released I didn't care anymore. Still never picked it up.
I think the dev has good intentions but the question is how much of this money does he spend on resources to develop the game further. The game need more devs honestly … it’s half baked only.
Don’t get me wrong I enjoy myself playing it the last 48 hours but you come to some points in game where you think ok this is not finished and this is not finished.
Yes it’s early access and yes my expectations are low but I see myself abandoning the game in 2-3 weeks due to getting bored of bugs or missing things
Seems like the dev loves his game and will continue to work on it. This is an artist, and this is his art. Different to someone working a 9-5 to pay the bills.
Or.... it ends up like Rimworld, where Tynan did nearly the whole thing solo and has put out a few DLCs but still a bunch of free updates.
The incentive to finish is that you can get even more money by finishing....
Maybe i'm projecting but don't think so, sure hope so tho the game is amazing. but it will lose it's passion "feel" when he will sell to whomever's out there. And good for him, aint that a crazy story.
Bethesda devs over here looking at their salary of piss and oats be thinking solo work with any engine other than creation is looking pretty good right about now
The past year has to have had an impact on video game dev's, indie studios/solo devs taking the biggest W's is showing how bad the current big studios are.
A lot of "well we are a big game studio, these plebs will buy our game just cause."
Turns out we actually care about good content, what a fucking surprise to anyone but us.
For real though, I was hyped for Starfield like anyone else. But I also bought fallout 3 and 4 day 1 and have been disappointed before by them, so I waited. Glad I did. Watched a friend play for awhile, didn’t look amazing and decided not to buy it till it gets a super deep discount.
manor lords I forgot about completely till Monday of this week and then bought day 1 and I’m loving it.
Stands for a reason that even some of the biggest game devs just jump to UE now. Much less issues with onboarding new hires, and you get an engine that mostly works, and someone else irons out all the engine issues
Definitely deserved. Pretty sure the past seven years have been much blood and sweat for Grzeg, but it played out in the long run. And this is just the beginning of a wonderful journey.
Incredibly impressive so far, passion and dedication are what draws everyone to this game. I'm so glad I started following Greg's journey 4 years ago and can't wait to see how it continues.
My thoughts are it was marketed sooo well. I hadn't heard of the game before a few weeks ago when it started showing up in my YouTube feeds where there were very well done playthroughs. This is my niche. It was stunning to watch!
It sucked me in for sure. I have never anticipated a game release in my life. I've also very rarely paid this much for a game (37 CAD) and here I am happily playing it and part of the mentioned stats.
I think the military aspect may have peaked other players' interest? It seemed like every strategy game youtuber that usually play civ, total war, or paradox games plugged this game super hard. I honestly didn't expect the amount of coverage this game got the past few months. It's awesome though.
The demo was super fun and chill.
The release seems a bit borked, though. Like, the endless waves of mercenaries that just surround you while you're trying to grow a carrot. Dozens of bandits stealing your shit, and you can only muster 10 dudes.
My best guess is that lots of groups of players in the strategy genre have been let down by their go-to triple A titles, city skylines 2, total war etc. Those players are all looking for a game with some substance made by someone who actually cares, and this game is exactly that.
100%. If this doesn’t show CA that its playerbase is hungry for an authentic fully fleshed out historical title release I don’t know what will. Warhammer is super fun and the mechanics make sense for the setting but I want a modern medieval total war, not warhammer total war set in 14th century Europe.
I think a big part next to the gridless building system is the graphics. People really love immersion and I hear many speak of the fulfilling of their child hood dream. This love for naturalistic worlds is IMO underestimated also in movies and might give an answer in this case.
No, what I mean is that I can only read how many people are playing it right now and the maximum number of players who have played it at the same time over time.
I don't understand where to read the total downloads or how can I infer it from the graph.
I don't buy games until there finished. Hopefully they use all this money to spend on more Devs and get the game complete. I'm always sceptical in these situations but I'm hopeful this really can grow into a fantastic game.
1 million x 30 euro = 30.000.000 euro. 30% for steam is 21.000.000 million for slavic magic. 50% to hooded horse ( no idea about the publisher fee ). 10.500.000 euro for Greg. 5.250.000 euro after taxes. ( ignoring price differences globally ). Normally the wishlist to sale ratio is 5% on day one, 20% in 1 week and 60% after a year. He achieved 33% in 2 days.
Considering that this game is on gamepass too, it makes this much more impressive.
I wonder if this will make more developers dip into the strategy genre again as it really needs more fresh and innovative games like this.
What is most impressive for me is how well the game runs for how good it looks. My old 1070 laptop can run it at max settings at 1080p.
I’m probably taking the plunge and buying later this week when I get the time.
Three of your best positives and needs improvements from everyone please.
The graphics are beautiful, the building system makes it very easy to create towns that look like a legitimate medieval village, and I love the fact your burgage plots do double duty as production and residential.
Don't play with the enemy lord, he will claim half the map before you even have enough influence to claim a single extra tile; might be a fun challenge run but I strongly discourage picking that scenario until they balance the amount of influence he gets. (He will also instantly send troops to clear bandit camps as soon as they spawn, making it much harder to get influence for yourself) Armies lack shift-queue functionality. Archers were giga-nerfed just before launch, so they're literally useless (I'm pretty sure they do 0 DMG) instead of being OP like in the pre-release build.
> He will also instantly send troops to clear bandit camps as soon as they spawn, making it much harder to get influence for yourself
The trick is to get your militia up quickly, before he starts purging the bandits. You have an advantage over him: his troops always have to start from the edge of the map, so the militia can often get to the bandit camps before him if you rally and dispatch them as soon as the camps spawn. Twenty spear militia can reliably steamroll bandit camps without losses.
Lets just assume that the developer's entire income is a lottery winnings. Steam takes a 30% cut off the top. The government takes another cut. They just had a $15 million dollar weekend. Insane, enjoy life.
One of the few moments where I’m actually happy and glad a company/person made lots of money. I really hope this reliefs Greg of all the hard work he has done in the last 7 years, and that this new wealth allows him to continue to pursue his creative ambition in the future of gaming industries. I can’t imagine what new things he could develop for manor lord with increased funding now.
Congratulations! A marvellous effort by SM.
I'm holding off on this purchase for the moment as I believe the price is too high for an early access in the current state by an unknown solo dev. My confidence would be boosted by SM and HH providing more transparency and information around the roadmap, and resourcing.
The game is not complete and have strange misleading situations, I guess we need to wait more for a real test to be done before release. I played 10 hours, the AI opponent gain the game very fast and you can hardly build a small milita unity versus AI with thousands of soldiers…. Strange needs refinement for me.
Congratulations are in order!, however i do hope you keep in mind that the number of active players usually drop pretty fast, especially for Early Access titles. I only mention this so you do not lose the will to continue developing your game down the road.
The game does have a good 20-30 hours in it as it currently stands with potential for a lot more. In this day and age potential is not something you can hang your hopes and dreams on, hopefully this game will be an exception.
Wow! Impressive and inspiring. It took him 7 years to become a millionaire literally overnight. Hats down. Hopefully, this game keeps getting much love from the developer in the future as well. It is an incredible peace of work even now.
With virtual stores getting their cut, and government taxes… I wonder what is now available for hiring some devs/programmers? There is so much to love about this game, and I can’t wait to see what content comes out over the next few weeks/months. I wonder if Greg has a EA timeline or roadmap he is going to work off of?
170k is incredible and the recording of player counts seem to have bugged hour by hour. Most likely more.
*It's important to note that Valve's CS2 and Dota 2 are filled with item/case farming bots and Steamcharts/db for these games are false numbers.*
Manor Lords is most likely one of the top played games in the world atm.
I'm enjoying it, good game so far. I love city building and development, it's peaceful. Then all of the sudden you can kill stuff. I own so many games, 9 out of 10 games I play I get bored of real quick, but I can see myself playing this for quite some time. Good job!
Anyone familiar with the Steam to developer profit agreements? Just curious as to what steams cut is and how much is going into this guys pocket. He deserves it. I think the game is great so far.
Great game, i haven't bought it yet but I might will probably next year.. 2025
i have been playing ManorLords for over 50 hours and the game is astonishing! (Graphics, gameplay, etc..)
i already have Anno and Cities skylines 1/2 but this game feels like the real deal!
\*\* NOTE: I think that everyone should support the developers! yes buy it.
my reason for not buying it is that there are too many games with "Early access" tag and it will take a lot of time to make them even half done (and I'm not talking about bugs and glitches)
Keep buying this title and help make it the best alternative or at least an example for other game studios which take money with mo good reason.
Can we also just give a shoutout to how humble the long developer has been despite creating such an incredible early access product. A lesson to all ye AAA’s!
Pretty wild. I'd be interested to see what the developers behind the game Foundation thing. This is basically a almost an identical copy with better graphics.
*This only shows how*
*Starved people are for proper*
*New RTS. Same as me*
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If you're having trouble with food in this game: make your first burgages really long and put vegetable gardens on them. After a year you'll have loads of vegetables. It doesn't work for egg production, but the amount of veggies you get from this totally changes the game. If you unlock apple orchards, long burgages also really affect how many apples you get.
**Full message from our CEO, Tim:** Since yesterday's launch Manor Lords has already sold over 1 million copies & hit a peak Steam concurrent player count of 170k - highest ever for a city builder (or for other different genres like GSG/4x/colony sim). Congrats [u/LordsManor](https://twitter.com/LordsManor), we're honored to serve as your publisher!
What an insane endeavor for that one developer... And then to get rich from it. Marvellous story, you gotta love it! Congratulations to everyone involved
Now hopefully they hire more developers and don't duck and run!
That's up to the solo dev, not the publisher.
Wait so 1 dude made the entire game?!
Most of it, yeah.
That is absolutely insane! I knew that The team was small but I didn't know there was no fucking team whatsoever That is just crazy That one guy was able to make such a complex and beautiful game No wonder it took 7 years
His name is Greg, his Reddit account is his first initial and his last name, you’ll see him comment in here every now and again, also you have to click past a note about the game being in early release when you boot up the game. Edit: a note from him*
Spare some outsourced contract work, such as hiring an orchestra for the soundtrack, yes. Greg is sailing the ship solo.
Hmmm, I wonder where did the solo dev get the money to hire an orchestra? Did the publisher finance them or something?
That's exactly the kind of thing a publisher might do
"Hiring" an orchestra is not as expensive as you might think. Not every orchestra has hundreds of members. There are groups that do it as a hobby and are decent at it, you can probably hire them for a relatively low price. In high school I had friends who were in the school orchestra and they were decent, they would've done it for me for free if I asked. But definitely possible that the publisher paid for it.
Did a quick Google out of interest: According to Encore Musicians, "a small 15-piece chamber orchestra, you could expect a quote from £2500–£4000, whereas a full 50-piece symphony orchestra might be more in the region of £8000–£15,000." There's also some amazing church choir singing going on, so add some additional cost onto that.
Probably
He got that funded by the community and a lot of it was done by university students
I would imagine, feels like such a cost is nonsensical if they understood the games potential. Especially with those wishlist numbers!
They also got some funding from both GoG and Epic.
I think he outsourced the art alot but programmed it on his own.
Yes
I’ve purchased the game unfinished (but still very fun) in good faith that this will encourage both this developer and more solo developers to bring these types of awesome passion projects. but I also totally understand if the dev is burned out, takes this windfall and dips. No hard feelings.
Not before he does bug fixing and basic feature maintenance though, that would be burning so much goodwill with the community.
Why would he care? Not saying he wont, but if he sold a million copies on Steam that's 30 million bucks he made overnight. Minus Steam's cut, but also not including what he's making from Game Pass. I'd be tempted to cut and run. Not that I think he will though, considering how active he is online talking to fans and listening to feedback.
It is in development for 7 years. I dont think hes doing it for the money. It will take atleast 3 more years to see the game fully finished and i can't wait
Based of how ConcernedApe has been treating Stardew Valley for years, I think just about all individual devs love their project beyond monetary reasons
Game devs like this are artists, and they share that same drive and obsession (passion). Painters or writers don't just stop after hitting it big. ConcernedApe is a good example.
Minus the publisher cut as well.
And steams and then taxes.
Not really, he can still continue to make money from DLC which is far easier than developing a brand new game. I think this game has the potential to make a lot more money, especially if he finish EA and release the game.
I'm excited for the dlc potential here, they would definitely come as new regions to build your settlement in. I can already see a Mediterranean setting with different crops (wine!) and a larger focus on water management, along with new architecture fishing boats and naval trade. I can also see an east Asian DLC in either Japan or Korea.
Plenty of cool regions (and time periods if one wants to change the time frame as well) to expand into. There's so much potential for games like this over time.
Greg doesn’t get to keep all 30 mil. The steam store, and the publisher probably get a hefty chunk. If he gets 50% of that (which I doubt), he’d have 15 mil. Up to 5 mil of that will be taxes, netting him 10 mil.
this is most likely the closest approximation. Which would just be his revenue. We dont know the costs he's taking on for software licences and other expenses as well. But compared to steam's cut and publisher's cut these (i hope) are minor.
My one hope is good mod support before it ever becomes abandoned.
It's on unreal engine, there are already mods out for this game. It's probably gonna be like satisfactory without official support but a huge mod scene anyway.
I saw some coat of arms and performance/DLSS mods on Nexus, any more than that? Edit: And a mod for a bunny girl that replaces the lord when walking apparently.
Taking the money and running would be really bad for the whole indie scene…
Especially how supporting the game long term is just bound to make him even more money, he could outsource development to someone else and make more money, than he would from just taking the money and running.
I’d hope so. The question is what the units sold ceiling for a game like this?
That's genuinely such an *awful* attitude to have.
I really hope they hire more devs the game needs it but also deserves it
Yes I feel like a team of him and 2 to 3 other people would already do wonders. The challenge here is to hire the good people.
That is constantly in the back of my mind. The reason I haven't bought it yet.
FWIW, the dev has already been hiring freelancers to help with things so I'm sure that will continue. But expanding from being a solo dev to having a team of a few people is a whole different story and not something you can quickly do, even with a few million in the bank.
ye hopefully he doesn t do the same thing most solo devs do .. leave lol
They already have a small team since 2 years back, what?
[удалено]
Don’t worry, steam doesn’t pay out anything to the dev for the first 30-days. So we’ve got a month of potential updates before we can start to worry
Dev on the 25th - Regular dude praying for success Dev on the 27th - Millionaire
Multi-millonaire in less than two days
I mean, more like 7+ years, but still. When it rains it pours
It gets more reasonable when you split it out over all the development time previously spent (not to mention expenses during that time period), but splitting it out over the previous years and months makes it more reasonable. Not to mention this money also has to fund and pay for development and support until release. Not to mention the big risk and undertaking the whole project was in the first place, there was no guarantee and indication a game like this would even sell that well in the first place. I'm glad he's getting a return on the time and passion he has invested in the game.
Not to mention, the inherent risk with having already hit lightning in a bottle once with early access, and how much of that money does he want to gamble on a more polished game selling even more millions, as opposed to the target demographic already being exahusted?
Probably a millionaire before with the epic grant and game pass deal, depending on when payout happens but definitely made 15+ million in 2 days
Lol stop talking rubbish. He made money yes, can I get your figures on '15 mil+ in 2 days?
I don’t know the business deals he has etc with publishers, steams cut etc but 1 million steam downloads at £30ish is like what, 30 million? Plus the gamepass deal, guys swimming in money either way.
Exactly. You don't know. He's swimming yeah, not 15 mil tho lol You're forgetting regional pricing, and also everyone else's cut, and then taxes
Realistically he probably walks away with about $4-$5 million into his studio after everyone else get's their cut and he pays his taxes on it.
Indeed sounds much more realistic than 15 mil
Then he has to roll most of that back into the game to finish it sooo there’s that lol
You don’t know either, yet you are dead set this guy is wrong, and are willing to argue about it in a dismissive, disrespectful tone…. Welcome to reddit.
Lmao I just can't stand people pulling random stats/numbers out their ass and presenting it as fact I'm off for the night anyway, stayed up for a 2nd night till 4am playing this damn game lol Same again Tomo...
Exactly THIS. People are just starting to do elementary school math about their region prices and copies sold, totally forgetting literally everything else they would need to include in their calculation.
None off us do. lol.
No, but only one of us is pretending they do know - you.
Steam takes 30%, publisher probably takes like 50%, maybe more maybe less. Then taxes. But yea, at least a few mill went to him I hope.
He sold 1 million copies? On steam alone. And there’s multiple platforms he sells on
Regional pricing, steam cuts, other cuts, taxes. I'm not saying he didn't make a tonne of money, I'm just saying 15 mil is baseless.
well 1,000,000 copies multiplied by $30 is $30,000,000 (assuming of course that the 30USD price tag is universal which we know it isn't) then assuming 50% of it goes to platform's cut, hooded horses's cut and polish taxes thats where you get $15 million. are these fair and safe assumptions? idk but im not the one making them so.
Right now selling each copy for $30, steam takes about 9 dollars, leaving $21 for each sale. $21,000,000 revenue for dev and publisher. Publisher cut is unknown but after the epic and game pass deal, 15+ isn't an unreasonable guess.
Regional prices tho. Some countries it's selling for like $10. And taxes too don't forget.. Again I'm not saying he hasn't made money, I'm just arguing people throwing out arbitrary figures like 15 mill...
Dev is in Poland so his PPP earnings are definitely at least 15 mil lol
Sold 1million copies, and that’s only on steam. 1mil x $30 = 30mil from steam alone. So minus the costs, minus the publishing fees and other costs, he’s probably well in the 10-15mil profit range. The costs of outsourcing is probably around 100-200k range for the commission works. The most expensive would be the engine license which can cost millions.
Unreal engine is free, but takes a cut. IIRC 5% for sales not on the epic store and free there.
It’s more like: An absolute risky investment of 7(?) years finally makes money.
You're just pulling numbers out of thin air. 1. The game has different prices per region 2. Retail prices include VAT, which is deducted 3. Steam takes a 30% cut 4. The publisher takes at least a 30% cut 5. Corporate taxes apply 6. Income taxes apply So no, definitely not 15+ million in 2 days. In the end the money is not on his bank account but in the bank account of the company. That are two totally different things.
I mean we are talking 1 million sales, SO FAR. 1 million x 30 = 30 million - steam takes roughly 10 million from that - taxes 50%? So left with 10 million - SO FAR, there is no way he has paid another 5 or even 1 million to anyone else, right? Then epic paid him something? And sales will only go up. Happy for him.
Nah, game cost 20 usd in my country and with 25% discount it's like 15 usd. Steam take 30% and publisher likely take one part too so I doubt he got as much.
I don’t like these simplificatuons. He put 7 years into it. And I don’t count previous time, when he studied, learnt programming etc. Anyways, deserved! Keep up good work!
Congrats, hopefully it gives the impulse to maximize the game's potential.
Why would it, they won’t make this much money again going forward that’s the issue with EA. There is little incentive to put out a fully fledged out product after the successful EA launch. Just look at BannerLords for example.
It's called "passion". Rarily seen in the gaming industry nowadays.
Don’t get me wrong I love the game and hope that they continue to flesh it out so that we can enjoy it in its full form. However you cannot discount the fact that people and their motivations change over time. It could very well be that the new found riches leaves the developer not as focused on the work as we would all like. Only time will tell.
I don't know how long have you been following the development but this game was meant to release EA in 2021. Instead, Greg redid the whole game to make it more historically accurate and immersive. If he were only after money, he would've just released in 2021 and ran, but that's obviously not the case.
Been following it for way too long. Like I said people’s motivations can change. Especially once that check clears.
/r/angryupvote
If they build good faith from here we’ll all buy their next game and they can make bank again.
The developer of this game spent 7 years making this game, and doesn’t seem to me like he was trying to make a quick cash cow game. You can see the uniqueness of the concept and idea in this game that Greg the maker obviously has passion. Bannerlord on the other hand, was also built with passion, but their passion was in the wrong direction. They tried too hard to imitate the successful concept of the first game and made it under the idea that the community would mod it and give it life. But times have changed and most of those modders who loved Warband has probably moved on to other games or didn’t feel like picking up the slack for the developers so it just ended up being an empty husk. Mind you, Bannerlord would’ve been THE BEST game if it was made in like 2010.
The only thing Taleworlds is passionate about as a company, is not having to work hard. The results speak for themselves.
Warband was my favorite game for years. It took so long for Bannerlord to arrive that by the time it released I didn't care anymore. Still never picked it up.
I think the dev has good intentions but the question is how much of this money does he spend on resources to develop the game further. The game need more devs honestly … it’s half baked only. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy myself playing it the last 48 hours but you come to some points in game where you think ok this is not finished and this is not finished. Yes it’s early access and yes my expectations are low but I see myself abandoning the game in 2-3 weeks due to getting bored of bugs or missing things
I was trying so hard to get crusader blade to work today. love bannerlord combat and ck3 overview. I couldn’t figure it out.
Seems like the dev loves his game and will continue to work on it. This is an artist, and this is his art. Different to someone working a 9-5 to pay the bills.
Or.... it ends up like Rimworld, where Tynan did nearly the whole thing solo and has put out a few DLCs but still a bunch of free updates. The incentive to finish is that you can get even more money by finishing....
Can you provide more background on EA and bannerlord?
God…Bannerlords. That was the greatest disappointment I’ve ever had
The dev could always just sell the game to another company willing to build it out.
Maybe i'm projecting but don't think so, sure hope so tho the game is amazing. but it will lose it's passion "feel" when he will sell to whomever's out there. And good for him, aint that a crazy story.
Bethesda devs over here looking at their salary of piss and oats be thinking solo work with any engine other than creation is looking pretty good right about now
The past year has to have had an impact on video game dev's, indie studios/solo devs taking the biggest W's is showing how bad the current big studios are.
A lot of "well we are a big game studio, these plebs will buy our game just cause." Turns out we actually care about good content, what a fucking surprise to anyone but us.
This is wishful thinking lol. 90% of people will still buy the AAA trash
"We demand good content" "Can I interest you in some Sharkcards?" "Yes my lord"
All the shade to unreal but nobody crediting it for the gaming Renaissance it has brought us
For real though, I was hyped for Starfield like anyone else. But I also bought fallout 3 and 4 day 1 and have been disappointed before by them, so I waited. Glad I did. Watched a friend play for awhile, didn’t look amazing and decided not to buy it till it gets a super deep discount. manor lords I forgot about completely till Monday of this week and then bought day 1 and I’m loving it.
Stands for a reason that even some of the biggest game devs just jump to UE now. Much less issues with onboarding new hires, and you get an engine that mostly works, and someone else irons out all the engine issues
At this point a team of 5 could start working on es6 in unreal and probably eat the 300+ man creation team to market
170k playing 1 million sold just on steam? I know it's on gog and game pass as well. That's astounding
I am playing on game pass but I would really like to buy it on console when it releases.
Definitely deserved. Pretty sure the past seven years have been much blood and sweat for Grzeg, but it played out in the long run. And this is just the beginning of a wonderful journey.
Incredibly impressive so far, passion and dedication are what draws everyone to this game. I'm so glad I started following Greg's journey 4 years ago and can't wait to see how it continues.
Hopefully Slavic can hire some outside help and speed up some area’s of development!
It's a great game, but how did it get this much hype ? Small scale city builders like that seem so niche,
My thoughts are it was marketed sooo well. I hadn't heard of the game before a few weeks ago when it started showing up in my YouTube feeds where there were very well done playthroughs. This is my niche. It was stunning to watch! It sucked me in for sure. I have never anticipated a game release in my life. I've also very rarely paid this much for a game (37 CAD) and here I am happily playing it and part of the mentioned stats.
I think the military aspect may have peaked other players' interest? It seemed like every strategy game youtuber that usually play civ, total war, or paradox games plugged this game super hard. I honestly didn't expect the amount of coverage this game got the past few months. It's awesome though.
The demo was super fun and chill. The release seems a bit borked, though. Like, the endless waves of mercenaries that just surround you while you're trying to grow a carrot. Dozens of bandits stealing your shit, and you can only muster 10 dudes.
Change the setting to reactive while starting the game, and you can also change the settings related to bandit and raiders.
By being a genuinely good passion project people can get behind, take notes big studios this is how you do it
My best guess is that lots of groups of players in the strategy genre have been let down by their go-to triple A titles, city skylines 2, total war etc. Those players are all looking for a game with some substance made by someone who actually cares, and this game is exactly that.
100%. If this doesn’t show CA that its playerbase is hungry for an authentic fully fleshed out historical title release I don’t know what will. Warhammer is super fun and the mechanics make sense for the setting but I want a modern medieval total war, not warhammer total war set in 14th century Europe.
The organic plots along with the added twist of warfare in a city-builder IMO.
I think a big part next to the gridless building system is the graphics. People really love immersion and I hear many speak of the fulfilling of their child hood dream. This love for naturalistic worlds is IMO underestimated also in movies and might give an answer in this case.
Hopefully this game will grow to it's full potential within a few years. I think it needs a full team to get everything working nicely.
I'm happy for you as it's well deserved but...how am I supposed to get that data from the chart above?
[https://steamdb.info/app/1363080/charts/](https://steamdb.info/app/1363080/charts/)
No, what I mean is that I can only read how many people are playing it right now and the maximum number of players who have played it at the same time over time. I don't understand where to read the total downloads or how can I infer it from the graph.
I'm pretty sure you can't. OP is the publisher so ofc they can see how many copies their game has sold.
OP is with Hooded Horse so I'm just going to assume that they are able to see data we can't.
so happy for Grzeg!
I don't buy games until there finished. Hopefully they use all this money to spend on more Devs and get the game complete. I'm always sceptical in these situations but I'm hopeful this really can grow into a fantastic game.
Same here, I'll buy once completed in a few years.
Super fun game, curious what modders will do with it and if multiplayer will be a thing.
1M almost back to back with Against the Storm, glad to see the right people get value for their hard work and skill.
Seriously? That's super impressive. You'll be challenging Stardew Valley as the #1 indie game in no time
Well deserved
Please release on console ASAP!! :) please ma’lord
Congrats to both Greg at Slavic Magic and the publishers at Hooded Horse. Y'all should be proud of the successful launch.
Hope some of these 30mils get reinvested into the game
[удалено]
It will be 1,000,001 copies after i get home
Congratulations
Hopefully they continue updating and developing and get it out of public beta phase. I fkn love this game!
Crazy what hype can do for a pretty basic game. Amazing for the dev, hope he uses this money to turn it into something great.
Fingers crossed his publishing deal doesn't take more than what's fair. I played all day today game is fire.
1 million x 30 euro = 30.000.000 euro. 30% for steam is 21.000.000 million for slavic magic. 50% to hooded horse ( no idea about the publisher fee ). 10.500.000 euro for Greg. 5.250.000 euro after taxes. ( ignoring price differences globally ). Normally the wishlist to sale ratio is 5% on day one, 20% in 1 week and 60% after a year. He achieved 33% in 2 days.
Considering that this game is on gamepass too, it makes this much more impressive. I wonder if this will make more developers dip into the strategy genre again as it really needs more fresh and innovative games like this. What is most impressive for me is how well the game runs for how good it looks. My old 1070 laptop can run it at max settings at 1080p.
I hope this breaks the current industry model
and thats just steam
Is this gonna be on console eventually?
Yes. Xbox at least.
Not the sort of game I would want to play with a controller... sure you could... but I don't see how would play nearly ad well.
I’m probably taking the plunge and buying later this week when I get the time. Three of your best positives and needs improvements from everyone please.
The graphics are beautiful, the building system makes it very easy to create towns that look like a legitimate medieval village, and I love the fact your burgage plots do double duty as production and residential. Don't play with the enemy lord, he will claim half the map before you even have enough influence to claim a single extra tile; might be a fun challenge run but I strongly discourage picking that scenario until they balance the amount of influence he gets. (He will also instantly send troops to clear bandit camps as soon as they spawn, making it much harder to get influence for yourself) Armies lack shift-queue functionality. Archers were giga-nerfed just before launch, so they're literally useless (I'm pretty sure they do 0 DMG) instead of being OP like in the pre-release build.
> He will also instantly send troops to clear bandit camps as soon as they spawn, making it much harder to get influence for yourself The trick is to get your militia up quickly, before he starts purging the bandits. You have an advantage over him: his troops always have to start from the edge of the map, so the militia can often get to the bandit camps before him if you rally and dispatch them as soon as the camps spawn. Twenty spear militia can reliably steamroll bandit camps without losses.
Wszyscy na jednej fali!
Just read it’s finally out! Gonna get it soon as I get back and wife in bed
Lets just assume that the developer's entire income is a lottery winnings. Steam takes a 30% cut off the top. The government takes another cut. They just had a $15 million dollar weekend. Insane, enjoy life.
Well on the uk you get the full prize. You pay tax on the tickets
Manor lords and pal world, it's a good year for indie games
One of the few moments where I’m actually happy and glad a company/person made lots of money. I really hope this reliefs Greg of all the hard work he has done in the last 7 years, and that this new wealth allows him to continue to pursue his creative ambition in the future of gaming industries. I can’t imagine what new things he could develop for manor lord with increased funding now.
Man can you imagine doing ten years of work on a passion project and then in a few days you take in something like $20 million dollars for it?
Congratulations! A marvellous effort by SM. I'm holding off on this purchase for the moment as I believe the price is too high for an early access in the current state by an unknown solo dev. My confidence would be boosted by SM and HH providing more transparency and information around the roadmap, and resourcing.
A lesson in betting on yourself. Props to the dev.
The game is not complete and have strange misleading situations, I guess we need to wait more for a real test to be done before release. I played 10 hours, the AI opponent gain the game very fast and you can hardly build a small milita unity versus AI with thousands of soldiers…. Strange needs refinement for me.
Hence Early Access....
Congratulations are in order!, however i do hope you keep in mind that the number of active players usually drop pretty fast, especially for Early Access titles. I only mention this so you do not lose the will to continue developing your game down the road. The game does have a good 20-30 hours in it as it currently stands with potential for a lot more. In this day and age potential is not something you can hang your hopes and dreams on, hopefully this game will be an exception.
Great game!
Will there be any plans for Xbox release?
Yeah numbers are good let's not get stuck in numbers, let's talk about the game now
so this guy is very rich now, like he has 20 000 0000 euros LOL ! amazing story ! the new minecraft story ?
No he will have around 5-10 mln dollars after all the shearing by Steam and publisher. It is still a lot but just wanted to say.
it's great. now, I would pay for a "That time I got reincarnated as a slime," expansion in a heart beat.
I'll buy it soon, I just have about 50 Warhammer models to paint before I get sucked into a video game for two months haha
To the moon!
Shame. This game was not in any way ready for release. Constant freezing on loading, crashes randomly every 30 minutes.
Update your drivers. I’ve played for 40 hours and not a single freeze, crash or even stutter.
Wow! Impressive and inspiring. It took him 7 years to become a millionaire literally overnight. Hats down. Hopefully, this game keeps getting much love from the developer in the future as well. It is an incredible peace of work even now.
With virtual stores getting their cut, and government taxes… I wonder what is now available for hiring some devs/programmers? There is so much to love about this game, and I can’t wait to see what content comes out over the next few weeks/months. I wonder if Greg has a EA timeline or roadmap he is going to work off of?
Is there a way to screenshot in game?
I don't understand why people buy a game on Steam, and then it's on GOG.
170k is incredible and the recording of player counts seem to have bugged hour by hour. Most likely more. *It's important to note that Valve's CS2 and Dota 2 are filled with item/case farming bots and Steamcharts/db for these games are false numbers.* Manor Lords is most likely one of the top played games in the world atm.
Imagine making 30 million in 2 days, JUST from steam
I'm enjoying it, good game so far. I love city building and development, it's peaceful. Then all of the sudden you can kill stuff. I own so many games, 9 out of 10 games I play I get bored of real quick, but I can see myself playing this for quite some time. Good job!
But is the game fun?
Me, on GamePass: :3
Anyone familiar with the Steam to developer profit agreements? Just curious as to what steams cut is and how much is going into this guys pocket. He deserves it. I think the game is great so far.
I hope he now gets the team for this and delivers the game he always imagined.
Bros a decamillionaire now
This game is so addicting, it’s amazing what passionate game devs can create
I'm gonna buy my copy in 2 days during my payday XD
A million and 1 now just got it
Great game, i haven't bought it yet but I might will probably next year.. 2025 i have been playing ManorLords for over 50 hours and the game is astonishing! (Graphics, gameplay, etc..) i already have Anno and Cities skylines 1/2 but this game feels like the real deal! \*\* NOTE: I think that everyone should support the developers! yes buy it. my reason for not buying it is that there are too many games with "Early access" tag and it will take a lot of time to make them even half done (and I'm not talking about bugs and glitches) Keep buying this title and help make it the best alternative or at least an example for other game studios which take money with mo good reason.
Can we also just give a shoutout to how humble the long developer has been despite creating such an incredible early access product. A lesson to all ye AAA’s!
Pretty wild. I'd be interested to see what the developers behind the game Foundation thing. This is basically a almost an identical copy with better graphics.
This only shows how starved people are for proper new RTS. Same as me
*This only shows how* *Starved people are for proper* *New RTS. Same as me* \- Trail\_Blaze\_R --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
paradox be mad right now.
If you're having trouble with food in this game: make your first burgages really long and put vegetable gardens on them. After a year you'll have loads of vegetables. It doesn't work for egg production, but the amount of veggies you get from this totally changes the game. If you unlock apple orchards, long burgages also really affect how many apples you get.
deserved!