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In This Edition
- How Xbox helped Expedition 33 to soar
- Why publisher Kepler didn’t sign it immediately
- Expedition 33 vs Oblivion in numbers
- Does Borderlands 4 date change tell us something?
- Ziff Davies vs OpenAI
Hello there! I am really excited about this week’s The Game Business Show. First, because it’s a positive one about games selling well (specifically, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), but also because I am reunited with my old friend and colleague James Batchelor, and my old friend and colleague Matt Handrahan. What a delight.
For those who prefer reading to listening (or watching), you can check out all the key facts and quotes from today’s episode below.
As is the way of things, we recorded the episode before the news of Xbox’s price rises and before Apple was slapped down by a US Judge. We’ll perhaps talk about those stories next week. But if you’re ok with reading, we’ve covered the App Store ruling here, and we’ve delved into the Xbox price changes here.
Enjoy!
P.S. Stay tuned for details on The Games Business Live, which takes place in LA on June 9. We’re getting there.
Expedition 33 publisher hails Xbox as the RPG soars
Kepler says that Xbox helped ‘change the view’ of what Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was after featuring the game in its Summer Showcase last year.
The hit RPG, developed by French studio Sandfall Interactive, sold over one million units in three days. It was heavily backed by Xbox, with the game featuring in two of the firm’s digital events, as well as launching within Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
“[During the Summer Showcase] our game was placed alongside Gears of War, Fable and products that are very traditionally known as AAA products,” Kepler’s senior portfolio manager Matt Handrahan told The Game Business.
“It let people understand what it was in a way that I think we would've struggled to do if we weren't allied with Xbox in that way. We couldn’t have done it through a Steam demo alone, for example. It helped us to kind of claim this AA territory in a much more confident way. Because it's a vague space that exists somewhere between small games and extremely big games, and there's a lot of ground that that covers.”
Xbox’s support for the game was significant, but what was perhaps less helpful was the surprise release of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Microsoft decided to announce and release the game, which is also an RPG albeit in a different style, just days before Expedition 33 was due to launch, and also made it available within the Game Pass service.
“We always knew that Expedition 33 had a very specific identity,” Handrahan said. “When I was in the press, I saw the Western-style RPG and the Japanese-style RPG as having quite different appeals and audiences. I knew plenty of people that would play an Elder Scrolls game that wouldn't necessarily play Final Fantasy and vice versa.
“Also, by the time that we rolled around, we had momentum of our own and we felt pretty confident that we could stand beside it. I think there were other aspects, like the price point we were at and the inclusion in Game Pass… so we knew we would have a lot of interest around the game. We were confident in that. And it went as well as it possibly could have done in our eyes. And, actually, proximity to Oblivion didn't seem to harm us at all. In many ways, I think it just drew attention to quality RPGs that week and everybody was thinking and talking about the genre.”
“I think Oblivion just drew attention to quality RPGs that week and everybody was thinking and talking about the genre.”
The game has proven to be a major hit for Kepler, which initially saw the game in its early prototype stage. And Handrahan reveals the firm didn’t sign it straight away.
“It was an early version of the game. We could see the potential, but the form it was in at that point wasn't quite fleshed out enough. With a game like this, with this tactical battle system, you need to see that side of it is working. You want to know the world is going to hit in the right way. We needed to have confidence that they could do that.
“My CEO, Alexis Garavaryan, had the most contact with them at this time. He saw the potential in it, but thought there was still some parts that needed a little bit more work. So Sandfall went away, did that work, came back, and on the second time of seeing it, our response was extremely, extremely quick.
“One of our executives received an email from a different publisher, who I won't name, saying that by the time they'd even started looking at Expedition 33, Kepler had already signed it. We were straight on top of it. If you find a game you like, if you find a game that excites you, you really have to act quickly. There's a lot of good games, but the really remarkable stuff comes along relatively rarely.”
35% of Expedition 33 players also played Oblivion
There was significant overlap between players of Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Ampere data has revealed.
35% of Expedition 33 players also played Oblivion, according to the data firm. This is primarily due to the Xbox edition, with 55% of Xbox Expedition 33 players also engaging with Oblivion. Both games were available within the Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
The cross-over percentage drops to 22% for Steam players, and 16% for PlayStation 5 players.
The data covers major European markets, US, Canada, Australia and the UK. It tracks all players from each game’s launch until Sunday, April 27. Oblivion launched on Tuesday, April 22, whereas Expedition 33 released on Thursday, April 24.
Xbox was the No.1 platform for both games because of that Game Pass inclusion. 45% of Expedition 33 players were on Xbox, while 47% of Oblivion players were on Microsoft’s platform.
Things differ after that. The second-best platform for Expedition 33 was PlayStation, with 30% of players on that console. The game is a Japanese-style RPG akin to games like Final Fantasy, which typically do well on Sony formats. 25% of Expedition 33 players were on Steam, Ampere states.
Meanwhile, Steam was the No.2 platform for Oblivion (accounting for 34% of players), while 19% of players were on PlayStation. Oblivion is a PC-style RPG, and the original game was a hit initially on Xbox 360 and PC.
Both Oblivion and Expedition 33 were not available in a subscription service on Steam or PlayStation.
Game Pass may have resulted in a stronger player count, but the downside comes in the form of hours played.
According to Ampere, and tracking players worldwide, the average playtime for Expedition 33 on Xbox was 2.2 hours, while it was 4.4 hours on PlayStation and Steam. Meanwhile for Oblivion, average play time was 3.6 hours on Steam, 3.8 hours on PlayStation and 2.2 hours again on Xbox.
In terms of press coverage, media sites supported both games strongly in terms of coverage. According to Press Engine, over 5,000 articles have been written about Oblivion over the last two weeks, attracting an estimated unique readership of 953 million people. Meanwhile, Expedition 33 has seen almost 4,250 articles over the past two weeks, with an estimated unique readership size of one billion.
Meanwhile…
Microsoft has increased the price of its hardware and games. You can read more about that here.
Apple has been found to have violated a 2021 anti-steering injunction as part of a US legal battle with Epic. Developers are now allowed, in the US, to use their own language to inform customers of alternative payment options for in-game purchases. Apple is also not allowed to charge a fee on purchases made outside of the app, or use so-called ‘scare screens’ intended to discourage users from leaving the Apple ecosystem. After the ruling, Epic Games offered a ‘peace proposal’ to Apple in order to move forward from the legal battle, which has been running for five years.
Electronic Arts has reportedly laid off around 300 employees, including around 100 at developer Respawn, IGN reports. Respawn has cancelled two projects in early stage development and made ‘team adjustments’ around its Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi teams. EA reported last year that Apex Legends has fallen short of expectations in 2024. Other cuts have been made to the customer services team.
Sticking with EA, the publisher’s Codemasters team is no-longer working on rally titles. Codemasters has been making rally games since 1998, with franchises including the Colin McRae Rally, Dirt and WRC series. The firm said on its blog that its last update for EA Sports WRC will be its final expansion.
Ziff Davis, owners of IGN, Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247, GamesIndustry.biz, and a number of non-gaming publications, is suing OpenAI for copyright infringement. According to GamesBeat, the lawsuit makes a series of claims including that OpenAI has knowingly copied the text of Ziff Davis’ sites without authorization and violated written demands to stop. The lawsuit also accuses Open AI of passing this work off as its own, and falsely attributing output to Ziff Davis that is not Ziff Davis content. An OpenAI spokesperson said: “Our models empower innovation, and are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use.”
2K has games has pushed forward the release date of Borderlands 4 from September 23 to September 12. Randy Pitchford, who leads Borderlands developer Gearbox, insists the date move is purely because the game is ahead of schedule and is unrelated to any other game, whether that’s the currently undated Grand Theft Auto (developed by 2K Games’ sister company Rockstar) or Bungie’s Marathon (which was scheduled for release the same week as Borderlands 4).
Remedy has reported revenue growth of over 24% to €13.4 million for the first quarter of 2025, while operating profit has hit €1.3 million (up from a loss of €2.1 million the year before). The firm is now seeing royalties from its acclaimed horror game Alan Wake 2 after the title surpassed two million units sold at the end of 2024. Remedy is now pushing into self-publishing its titles (outside of Max Payne, which is owned by Rockstar), beginning with co-operative shooter FBC: Firebreak on June 17.
The Entertainment Software Association has surveyed US veterans around the benefits of video games. The survey revealed that 77% of veterans believe that games have a positive impact on their lives, 86% say it is a healthy outlet for stress and anxiety, 81% says it helps deal with difficult times, 77% says it helps them connect with others, and 74% said that video game communities have a positive impact on their emotional well-being.
Well that was a busy one. Join us next week where we’ll have CD Projekt on the Show to discuss Nintendo Switch and Cyberpunk 2077. Until then, thank you for reading.
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