Visionary Realms' CEO Talks Pantheon Development & Successful Early Access Launch, With 40k Unique P

System · January 3

Visionary Realms' CEO Talks Pantheon Development & Successful Early Access Launch, With 40k Unique Players | MMORPG.com

Visionary Realms CEO Chris Rowan is featured in a new interview talking about the game's development, reaching 40k players, and the legacy that Brad McQuaid would be proud of.

Read the full story here

Hengist · January 3

I wonder where they get that 40k number.

Slapshot1188 · January 3

If you only get 15 percent of your players (that already bought your game) to login to your first few weeks of early access... that's... not good.

I'm actually surprised at the 6000 number. I thought that would be much higher given that steamdb shows a max of almost 5k concurrent users, excluding the non steam accounts.

slowz2secret · January 3

steamdb said 4k players :x

Brainy · January 4

Yeah only 6k in total is much lower than I expected. I expected at least 4k logging through their launcher. There were alot of backers. So they have almost 5k in steam and only 1k in their laucher. Not great.

Heck think of all the people who gave away free keys. That means even people with free copies are not playing.

We will see in a month from now how the numbers will hold, I suspect it wont be pretty.

Slapshot1188 · January 4

.

Calavry · January 4

I have not used my key and do not intend to either.

barrizzle · January 4

Calavry said:

I have not used my key and do not intend to either.

Calavry, can I use your key?

Eldrach · January 4

Im eager to play it - but i hate early access in games like these, leveling takes a long time and you’ll face most likely several wipes begore launch.
I do applaud the team, despite really reeeaally tough conditions they’re still moving on.
20 devs on a 10 mill usd budget that has to stretch for 4-5 years, brings their salaries to well below 50k a year after deducting expenses.
I hope they are successful as we haven’t really had any real mmorpg’s launched for ages - the genre needs it

Morbeous · January 4

Eldrach said:

Im eager to play it - but i hate early access in games like these, leveling takes a long time and you’ll face most likely several wipes begore launch.

I do applaud the team, despite really reeeaally tough conditions they’re still moving on.

20 devs on a 10 mill usd budget that has to stretch for 4-5 years, brings their salaries to well below 50k a year after deducting expenses.

I hope they are successful as we haven’t really had any real mmorpg’s launched for ages - the genre needs it

The game is fun in the state that its in at the moment. They have said their will only be wipes when necessary. There will be a wipe before release thats the only wipe thats guaranteed to happen.

Digdugger · January 4

I'm always Leary of these types of interviews. Much will be expectation management, while the other is equal parts redirects and well rehearsed answers. Understandable, but makes them less valuable for myself.

Sovrath · January 4

Digdugger said:

I'm always Leary of these types of interviews. Much will be expectation management, while the other is equal parts redirects and well rehearsed answers. Understandable, but makes them less valuable for myself.

I'll do Scot's job ...

"Welcome to the forums!"

great avatar!

achesoma · January 4

The Gamebeat article isn't well written. Over 40k sold on Steam, 6k ATH concurrent users. These are Steam numbers only, not including pledgers that don't use Steam to play Pantheon.

Slapshot1188 · January 4

Massivelyop just published a review piece on the game.

Hartack · January 4

The Massively article was written by someone clearly wanting his hand held and the circles and arrows from Alice's Restaurant in his mmo, and to be fair, pretty much says that, but not in the way that'll be clear enough for some readers.
If anything it's a bit too candyland at the moment and somewhat less gritty than it was prior to Ea release, but I remain confident it'll right itself (as it's all just testing the waters and installing new systems as we go).
But it's still your best option for an updated EQ like experience in 2025

Brainy · January 4

Slapshot1188 said:

Massivelyop just published a review piece on the game.

As least someone is willing to give it an honest review.

Brainy · January 4

achesoma said:

The Gamebeat article isn't well written. Over 40k sold on Steam, 6k ATH concurrent users. These are Steam numbers only, not including pledgers that don't use Steam to play Pantheon.

where are you getting the 6k concurrent on steam from?

Sovrath · January 4

Brainy said:

achesoma said:

The Gamebeat article isn't well written. Over 40k sold on Steam, 6k ATH concurrent users. These are Steam numbers only, not including pledgers that don't use Steam to play Pantheon.

where are you getting the 6k concurrent on steam from?

He's not saying 6k concurrent on steam he's getting 6k from the Gamebeat article and if I'm understanding what they are saying, have have, at some point, reached 6k total concurrent.

However, "currently" it's at 4,273k.

Sovrath · January 4

Hartack said:

The Massively article was written by someone clearly wanting his hand held and the circles and arrows from Alice's Restaurant in his mmo, and to be fair, pretty much says that, but not in the way that'll be clear enough for some readers.
If anything it's a bit too candyland at the moment and somewhat less gritty than it was prior to Ea release, but I remain confident it'll right itself (as it's all just testing the waters and installing new systems as we go).
But it's still your best option for an updated EQ like experience in 2025

That's somewhat true but it's up to people to read any review and take from it what is meaningful to them.

I read the review and when they complained about not knowing what to do and where to go that only comes across as a huge positive for "me." They complained about a variety of things that just point to the game not being finished.

So a person who wants to have a clear thread of what to do and a person who wants a more finished game should know to stay far, far away.

Heck, I have a friend who tried Skyrim and after about 20 minutes uninstalled. He hated the open world free for all it was, even though there is a narrative that can bring a player through it.

Brainy · January 4

Sovrath said:

Brainy said:

achesoma said:

The Gamebeat article isn't well written. Over 40k sold on Steam, 6k ATH concurrent users. These are Steam numbers only, not including pledgers that don't use Steam to play Pantheon.

where are you getting the 6k concurrent on steam from?

He's not saying 6k concurrent on steam he's getting 6k from the Gamebeat article and if I'm understanding what they are saying, have have, at some point, reached 6k total concurrent.

However, "currently" it's at 4,273k.

The GameBeat article doesn’t say that. In fact, it mentions '40,000 unique players and more than 6,000 have logged in on early access.'

It also doesn’t specify Steam in that sentence.

There’s no way I believe 40,000 people bought the game but only 6,000 logged in. That doesn’t add up.

First, unique players and purchases aren’t the same thing. Second, it doesn’t claim 40,000 purchases were made on Steam.

It’s more plausible that there were 40,000 purchases across all platforms (lifetime), with 6,000 total player logged in on Steam (not concurrent).

Hartack · January 4

Brainy said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Massivelyop just published a review piece on the game.

As least someone is willing to give it an honest review.

Dude said

"There are six races and four classes."

Anyone not willing to look any further doesn't know any better, and anyone who knows knows better, but you're agenda is right out there, ain't it.

Warlyx · January 5

i would like to try it , maybe a free login weekend in the future

Sovrath · January 5

Brainy said:

Sovrath said:

Brainy said:

achesoma said:

The Gamebeat article isn't well written. Over 40k sold on Steam, 6k ATH concurrent users. These are Steam numbers only, not including pledgers that don't use Steam to play Pantheon.

where are you getting the 6k concurrent on steam from?

He's not saying 6k concurrent on steam he's getting 6k from the Gamebeat article and if I'm understanding what they are saying, have have, at some point, reached 6k total concurrent.

However, "currently" it's at 4,273k.

The GameBeat article doesn’t say that. In fact, it mentions '40,000 unique players and more than 6,000 have logged in on early access.'

It also doesn’t specify Steam in that sentence.

There’s no way I believe 40,000 people bought the game but only 6,000 logged in. That doesn’t add up.

First, unique players and purchases aren’t the same thing. Second, it doesn’t claim 40,000 purchases were made on Steam.

It’s more plausible that there were 40,000 purchases across all platforms (lifetime), with 6,000 total player logged in on Steam (not concurrent).

Yes, it doesn't specify steam. I say that. The article specifies 6k but it's not clear what that means. I surmise that they mean 6k between steam and the original backers.

If you have a better guess by all means state it. Otherwise, we only have two buckets of players: steam and backers.

ValdemarJ · January 5

achesoma said:

The Gamebeat article isn't well written. Over 40k sold on Steam, 6k ATH concurrent users. These are Steam numbers only, not including pledgers that don't use Steam to play Pantheon.

Something doesn't add up though because according to SteamCharts, it's currently at an all time peak of ≈5.3K. When the article here was first published, the max Steam concurrency was 4.9K.

slowz2secret · January 5

clearly these folk on mmorpg.com got paid so much for all the ads they did on this trash game.

Brainy · January 5

Sovrath said:

Yes, it doesn't specify steam. I say that. The article specifies 6k but it's not clear what that means. I surmise that they mean 6k between steam and the original backers.

If you have a better guess by all means state it. Otherwise, we only have two buckets of players: steam and backers.

It sounds like on the 6k part, we are in agreement, that number is counting both Steam and their own launcher combined.

There is not just steam players and backers, there is also free keys and backer free keys. This is important because this implies not all 6k are paying customers.

I still dont understand the 40k stat, but I can only assume this is the number of forum accounts created or something.

Its confusing language on purpose, I can only assume this is done to overstate the reality of what it truely is.

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Visionary Realms' CEO Talks Pantheon Development & Successful Early Access Launch, With 40k Unique P

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Visionary Realms' CEO Talks Pantheon Development & Successful Early Access Launch, With 40k Unique P

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