Behind the scenes player numbers via Ubisoft sources: Valhalla day 1 - 2.55M; Odyssey day 1 - 430k; Shadows day 2 - 2.2M

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Copy of the tweets in case they get deleted again:

Had to remove the original Valhalla/Shadows tweet because I was sourcing the Valhalla wiki which was inaccurate.

Behind the scenes data (via Ubisoft sources):

Valhalla day 1 player numbers = 2.55M
Odyssey Day 1 player numbers = 430,000
Shadows day 2 player numbers = 2.2M

Shadows should do about 6M in its first month on its trajectory. Valhalla did 8M.
Odyssey did 3.4M in its first month.
Because I don't have day 1s for shadows yet





 
Seems decent. Definitely not bombing, but I would guess Ubisoft was hoping their AC Japan game would be their most played game ever. To be fair, AC Valhalla dropped during the pandemic and at the end of the console generation. They are selling to roughly 40mil less console players
 
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cormack12

Gold Member
Seems decent. Definitely not bombing, but I would guess Ubisoft was hoping their AC Japan game would be their most played game ever. To be fair, AC Valhalla dropped during the pandemic and at the end of the console generation. They are selling to roughly 40mil less console players
Yep, said the same yesterday. Shadows is next gen consoles only. In terms of players I think that's solid.

Also that second tweet is crazy. Shadows has well better wom than Valhalla. Except if people are only listening to the woke garbage.

Yeah I dunno who that dude is but he's clearly a shill but for negative reaction. That timeline, damn

 
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yurinka

Member
Valhalla is the one a lot of people got burned at due to bloat. Even if you put it on Ubi+ not everyone wants to slog through. People value their time much more nowadays.
People have been complaining about Ubi open world games being bloated since AC1. But people kept buying them, back in 2020 (back when Valhalla was released) they reported over 200M units sold for the series.

Since then Valhalla sold over 20M copies and now Shadows seems to be on track to be their top 2 best selling AC game ever looking at the UK sales, preorders being top 2 for AC, top 1 AC launch in Steam, top positions in Steam and PSN sales ranking etc.
 
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Lokaum D+

Member
The real crime here is that M ManaByte isn't around to argue about this
Sad Doctor Who GIF
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
Since then Valhalla sold over 20M copies and now Shadows seems to be on track to be their top 2 best selling AC game ever looking at the UK sales, preorders being top 2 for AC, top 1 AC launch in Steam, top positions in Steam and PSN sales ranking etc.
The market has significantly expanded since 2020.
 

Ogbert

Member
I don’t believe any numbers that AAA publishers pump out.

It’s all nonsense, relying on euphemistic terms.
 

yurinka

Member
The market has significantly expanded since 2020.
No.

There have been many thousands of people fired, many games cancelled and studios shut down because many investors moved away from gaming after seeing that the gaming marked did stop growing for the first time in its 50 years of history during a handful years due to 'going back to normality' after the covid sales peak that happened during Valhalla's launch.

This year is expected to be the first one with normal growth that the industry had before the covid.

This is paid copies, btw, unlike the other two games, which is why it is significantly lower.
To rent games in gamesubs isn't free, even if less than selling the game day one, publishers get money from putting their games there, specially when the publisher is the platform holder.

In this case, the Ubisoft+ tier to get the game day one costs 18€/month.
 
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calico

Member
Around 60% of Valhalla's players seems right to me, but I bet more are rentals now than they were for Valhalla.

Valhalla made a big % of its money from mtx iirc, so they still have that to juice.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
No.

There have been many thousands of people fired, many games cancelled and studios shut down because many investors moved away from gaming after seeing that the gaming marked did stop growing for the first time in its 50 years of history during a handful years due to 'going back to normality' after the covid sales peak that happened during Valhalla's launch.
You are wrong.

2020 market size: $159.3 billion https://strivesponsorship.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Global-Games-Market-Report-2020.pdf , this talks about $175 billion - https://globalxetfs.co.jp/en/research/video-games-esports-building-on-2020s-rapid-growth/index.html
2025: $345 billion - https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gaming-market-analysis-2025-everything-you-need-know-1731535
 
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Topher

Identifies as young
"Shadows should do about 6M in its first month on its trajectory. Valhalla did 8M."

These are not "flop" numbers. Obviously not setting the world on fire either. The game is performing well, but not breaking records. Certainly not bad.

Valhalla got a big boost from launching alongside ps5, so if this is true, its a good win for ubi.

Valhalla was also cross gen.
 

ssringo

Member
Not that I'd expect it to really affect numbers but was Shadows given away with hardware purchases? I know for sure i got Valhalla with a cpu purchase and I feel like Odyssey as well. It's been a while but I did buy Odyssey on Steam during a deep discount and I don't think I've ever outright bought anything from Ubisoft's store but its on my account there.
 
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kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
The market has significantly expanded since 2020.

I think the consoles market has shrunk since 2020. PS5 is selling about the same as PS4 but Xbox Series S/X is doing worse. PC has grown, but I think most of the growth came out of China and that's not going to help Ubisoft sales.
 

touchfuzzy

Gold Member
It's a great game and the franchise has huge casual appeal, I imagine it will continue to sell well through the year. I think it might be the best in the series.
 

RafterXL

Member
To rent games in gamesubs isn't free, even if less than selling the game day one, publishers get money from putting their games there, specially when the publisher is the platform holder.

In this case, the Ubisoft+ tier to get the game day one costs 18€/month.
Right, but there was no rental service when Odyssey released. I'm just pointing out that Odysseys numbers are actual sales, not "players" and that's why it is lower than the other two.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
So let me get this straight, it took Valhalla one day to reach 2.55M total players, while Shadows took two days to reach 2.2M total players.....isn't that a huge drop off????

Context. Valhalla launched alongside PS5 and XSX and was also cross-gen. So no, that is not a "huge drop off".
 

Topher

Identifies as young
How. Many. People. Paid. Full. Price?

Everything else is retarded noise.

Then no one should care about Steam CCU numbers either. I'm fine with that. I'd rather have actual sales numbers as well. Definitely the clearest indicator of how well a game is doing. If Henderson's 6 million sold projection turns out to be accurate then I'd say the game did pretty good.
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
So let me get this straight, it took Valhalla one day to reach 2.55M total players, while Shadows took two days to reach 2.2M total players.....isn't that a huge drop off????
It's tracking ahead of AC Odyssey, but behind Valhalla. Even so, it's projected to reach 6M players in its first month while Valhalla did 8M (this info is in the OP you've quoted BTW).

Edit: Changed the wording from sold to players.

Also, context from my previous post on Valhalla Sales:

AC Valhalla was the biggest launch in the franchise's history which was helped in big part by the increased spending on gaming during the height of the pandemic and also by the launch of the current gen consoles. I'm not sure how AC Shadows is supposed to beat that.

Regardless, the word of mouth is strong since it's a good game, and it will continue to sell well over this weekend, in the coming months, and during the holidays

Btw, being this obsessed with a game you don't want or plan to play is not healthy. You've barely posted anything this month on GAF only to return this past Friday and make a bunch of posts like these all over the AC related threads. At least you had the decency to avoid the OT with your non-sense so I'll give you props for that.

there's no PLAYERS count bullshit here, UNITS SOLD chad only
Woketards bragging AC Shadows, 2 million PLAYERS in 48 hours = success 😂😂😂

Meanwhile MHW, 8 million SOLD in 72 hours = dead
The Woke mob celebrating 2 mILliOn pLaYeRs!! for an AC game is the saddest thing you see here

a game from a calibre franchise like AC should be doing MHW number, 8 million sold in 3 days
 
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Kotaro

Member
Context. Valhalla launched alongside PS5 and XSX and was also cross-gen. So no, that is not a "huge drop off".

it's a huge drop, no matter how you contextualize it.

So Valhalla day 1 = 2.55M
Shadows day 1 approx 1-1.2M....that's less than half
 

Topher

Identifies as young
it's a huge drop, no matter how you contextualize it.

So Valhalla day 1 = 2.55M
Shadows day 1 approx 1-1.2M....that's less than half

Context matters no matter how much you try to pretend otherwise.
 
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MMaRsu

Gold Member
So let me get this straight, it took Valhalla one day to reach 2.55M total players, while Shadows took two days to reach 2.2M total players.....isn't that a huge drop off????
Valhalla launched during covid, physical was still strong, crossgen.

But thats been posted plenty of times already. Folks continue to ignore it?
 
Comparing the first days player counts of Odyssey and Shadows is a bit dishonest. The Shadows numbers will obviously be more front loaded due the existence of Ubi+ and the fact that more people buy digital in 2025 than in 2018.

The more curious thing in my opinion is that we haven’t received a “3 million players!” celebratory tweet yet.
 
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