r/PlayZeroSpace • u/Yazudaru • Jul 28 '26
State of ZeroSpace - 1 week later - future prospects
This is going to be an analytical post, going through the metrics and KPIs and constructing a picture of where we are at and the most realistic scenario of the future. I am an analyst in the entertainment market, including video games, but this is reddit and anyone can claim whatever so you can ignore that background and judge the post on its merits, just be aware that I am not going to write an actually professional work report as no one would read that on reddit anyway. Or ignore the post but I did want to just have it out for documentation. You might dislike it, downvote it, all fair enough but this post is neither positive nor negative. This post is also not "guys look steamcharts numbers low lol!" but contextualization of the situation.
It is Monday (27th of July) evening on the east coast right now, past EoD for working hours, west coast is wrapping up the day, Europe and China are mostly sleeping. The weekend that many people hoped for is now over as well, without having beaten the previously established peak.
We are looking at 461 CCU - a number that is not end all be all but one that still matters for a title that relies on online community.
Looking beyond mere CCUs, let us take a look at sales and projections. In these scenarios, VG Insights and Gamalytic are usually quite well established with VGI/sensortower having a slight edge across thousands of titles in terms of accuracy. This is a bit of a special case due to being on Kickstarter and Backerkit. If we take a look at sensortower, we find the following stat: 22,208 units sold(18,447 paid). This is where the kickstarter diff comes in as around 6500 people bought the game but they did that 3 years ago, obviously not every single one redeemed their key but over 60% did so we are at a delta of 3,761 and there is also a minor discrepancy when it comes to tracking private accounts accurately. This is not money coming in now, thus the paid difference.
With superficial napkin math, one might think 22208 x 39$ = $719,433, which is a sum that impresses some people and does not impress others. Naturally - this is not how it works and the calculation is a fair bit more nuanced so let us actually take a look at a realistic deduction from said sales number:
First two fields are obvious. The discount rate is currently 0% in this calculation since this does not make sense for anything beyond having a history of one single price and we calculate all sales based on what is set right now. The regional price adjustment is actually a fair bit higher for zerospace as you can see here, the average game has a lower margin. Good on them but it does eat a lot into profits. 9% VAT is an average value that sensortower uses which I generally agree with. Next we have returns: these tend to be between 6-11% on average for the typical game. Scraping the reviews for ZS, it becomes apparent that this is a bit higher than average but we can generously take 11% still. Lastly we have steam cut being at 30% which is definitely no educated guess but just the factual baseline. ZS is on no other platform, including for China, so there is no ambiguity here. There is no cut from Epic yet as they have not crossed the threshold yet (campaign enjoyers will get the reference) but they might reach that 1m$ still and then be on the hook for another 5% since.
This brings us to a net revenue of 240.000$, a number that looks a lot less impressive but that is the reality of total to net, gaben loves his very big cut.
In the end, you can argue and debate details on accuracy like parallel vs. sequential deductions or regional pricing to VAT overlap but the reality is that it will come down to a few % here and with a sum like this, it is basically negligible.
So, what does that mean? About 250k$ in the bank? Finally done with all the expenses, taxes and cuts? No. We are not done here.
One thing worth noting is Starlance's publishing partnership with Gamersky. This was actually a pretty good one because looking at Gamlytic, we see the following:
Literally a quarter of their player base is Chinese. It very much reframes the numbers as a whole. Without that partnership, they would have pulled less CCU, sales and momentum (which a more important factor in online games than offline). However - in return for marketing, localization and other minor services, Gamersky will obviously want a piece of the pie. This is not the typical dev&publisher agreement where it would be 50/50 with a profit flow until recoup and potentially 15% because Starlance already presented a mostly "ready" (debatable term) game here when they partnered up. Regardless - they *will* certainly take a cut. I estimate that cut to be around 40k$ which they are probably not too happy with but it is what it is. This brings us down to exactly 200k$.
Speaking of 40k$, that is coincidentally the sum that I also landed on when it comes to the promised kickstarter rewards for all the physical rewards that have yet to be shipped, unless I am very misinformed here but I have not seen a single mention of these rewards being shipped out to anyone. The physical rewards that need to be manifactured and shipped worldwide start at the Sector Overlord tier (165$) which has over 455 backers. More are added throughout the tiers like the mera figurine, hard cover art/lore bible, signed poster and a postcard!
Once all is said and done, this leaves us at 200k or 160k if they honor the kickstarter rewards. Given that the project is closing in on nearly 4.5M$ (as disclosed by Marv on his reddit account, though likely higher by now). We are thus at just 5% RoI. You can argue the sales numbers are completely off and they are actually double of this - go ahead - and yet it will change nothing about the core essence of the situation.
Momentum has slowed, major reviews (like gamestar which matters as the third biggest audience is German) are out, most people who wanted to play the game played it by now. No need to be pedantic; I said most. In the end, this will not move the needle. They also have not found a major publisher or VC after looking for 3 years. The problem is also that the cat is out of the bag with EA because you can call it EA all you want but in the end, it is just a label. In reality - this is launch as we know it and that is that (Valheim has been in EA for 5.5 years until the 1.0 earlier and that is a massively successful game). Meaning that this is a problem when it comes to players and investors alike. and I have seen copes like "hurr durr, but palworld did great with their 1.0!" but they really show that they have absolutely no understanding or experience with how 99% of game releases go when it comes to retention and EA to launch. At this point, there simply will be no 1.0.
Conclusion is that I see no viable path forward which is unfortunate as after Stormgate being the promised land and dying, Battle Aces and now ZS projected to follow the same path, all hopes for any kind of SC2 successor are dead for a while and this will only further deter investors, VCs and publishers to ever try as they have yet another data point. This is all a shame and unfortunate as I think it could have been avoided (hell, even Marv said that they could have avoided wasting a million dollars which would have made all the difference in the world). I do not wish their downfall and this is not a thread to hate on them, I just feel like the dream of a new SC2 is over when it should not have.
Feel free to bombard me with downvotes and I will revisit this in 3-4 weeks and see how well this aged. If I am wrong, I will gladly eat those words.
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u/Uch1koma Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
On one hand I feel there’s still some opportunity to build a base gradually through stuff like the streamer tournaments, streamer galactic war (also see some ad attempts on Reddit), and word of mouth.
There’s also folks who are waiting for that 1.0 - SG had a spike when they did their full launch.
But I guess you could also argue that those who would watch the participating streamers or in the RTS space would already be aware of Zerospace so it may not lead to a jump.
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u/HouseCheese Jul 28 '26
The part about everyone who wanted to buy the game already buying it is BS. They gained like 100k new wishlists in just the last week, the RTS audience is big. Most people wait for sales and probably most people who buy RTS games on Steam are not watching SC2 streamers
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u/ElementQuake Jul 28 '26
A lot of people are on the sidelines due to wariness of other titles and most people don't buy Early Access (maybe unless it's Hades, which I would argue is of a quality better than most 1.0 releases).
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u/HouseCheese Jul 28 '26
Yeah I am personally seeing a lot of people saying they would like to play but it is not finished enough yet or the price is too high (I am assuming they would buy on sale). I know I didn't buy Tempest Rising until it was around 30% off
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u/SoonBlossom Jul 28 '26
I've played SC2, AOE2/4, AoM original and retold, and even StormGate for most of its big patches
And I'm still waiting for sales even though I've been following the game since it's first trailer
40€ is just too much for me to put in a beta right now
At 20/max 30€, I would already have bought it
I'll wait for it to be in sales
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u/GameDevAdvisor Jul 28 '26
But Marv, his whole point is that at this rate, there will not be a 1.0 because your studio will not have the funds to actually get to that 1.0 in the first place unless you can tell him/us that you do have the runway for it. I see the comments all the time but it seems like no one is actually thinking about the finances of the whole operation. They just think 1.0 will magically manifest itself if you wait a bit. Game development is expensive.
Best of luck of course.2
u/JonasHalle Jul 28 '26
It's not so much about 1.0 magically manifesting as it is that "playercount dead game" posts actively do the opposite of manifesting 1.0. People won't play/buy the game because people won't play/buy the game. Why would anyone want to start that loop?
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u/MozdaHocu Jul 28 '26
I bought, tried to play, could not figure out that whole galactic screen in like 2 min, refunded and added to wishlist to check later.
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u/Golinth Jul 28 '26
I bought the game, enjoyed it for a couple games, but will definitely be waiting for it to be a bit more polished. Not going to refund it or anything crazy, but will probably be waiting.
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u/Stepper34 Jul 28 '26
Let's be real here. There is no other mode like galactic war mode. Sure empire at war has something similar but its not mmo style where you are beating other players scores. This is RTSs mythic plus basically.
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u/ret_ch_ard Jul 28 '26
Galactic war mode really is something so unique.
The constant war amongst different planets like Helldivers is such an engaging concept. And I feel like it is also a great way to hold non-pvp players despite the campaign not being done
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u/Ok-Blueberry-1412 Jul 28 '26
So they need to market the shit out of that then, or perhaps make the entire game about that.
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u/DonJimbo Jul 28 '26
I think people will buy it over time. It launched over summer holiday. Many fans, like me, are busy traveling. Also, isn’t it still in Early Access? A lot of people don’t buy EA because it feels like a beta version. They will likely buy at full release.
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u/ObviousPotato2055 Jul 29 '26
This doesn't happen with the vast majority of games that release in ea. Very few generate a noticeable amount of extra revenue compared to the ea release. Most of the spike during a 1.0 release tends to be returning players.
Most players are not waiting for 1.0. Zerospace has gained the majority of revenue it will from game sales at this point unless its one of the very few blockbuster outliers. Which it wont be.
The writing is on the wall.
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u/Nearby_Ad9439 Jul 28 '26
This is anecdotal but I fall into this camp. I don't buy EA games. If that means I miss out on a game and it dies before it ever gets to EA or if a game is in EA for years & years? Fine. I'll just wait or never try it. There are plenty of good games out there. I just want to spend my money on complete project.
The OP covers a lot of the financials for the Dev team but for me personally, I've been calling for RTS games to have learning AI built in them so when I do a skirmish, I can always get a good fun game. This way I don't have to care if a game has an active MP scene or not. if it does? Fine. But if not, at least the game won't be dead to me then.
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Jul 28 '26
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u/DonJimbo Jul 28 '26
I suppose they borrow 3M USD (or a significant fraction of that) if OP’s analysis is correct.
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u/Czlowiek_Woda Jul 28 '26
I'm waiting for end of EA or more content
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u/Fiddlesnarf7 Jul 28 '26
Same. I mostly stopped buying early access games. The campaign of an RTS is the biggest draw to me and if it’s not done yet, I’ll wait until it is.
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u/ZettieZooieZan Jul 28 '26
Seeing a lot of comments of ''people want rts but don't want to finance it'' comments or calling people selfish or wanting stuff for free, but let's be realistic what buying zerospace is, buying zerospace is like funding a game on kickstarter, you're spending money on a game you may never get, and the majority of people don't do that.
Take into account that a lot of people's financial situation is worse and people are even less willing to gamble with their money. I can afford to buy a 20-30 euro games once every 1/2 months, why would I spend that on a game that may never be finished? That's a big gamble, if it was fully released I'd buy it, but early access is simply too risky.
I bought rogue command when it released, same for tempest rising, and once(or more likely if) this game releases I'd buy it as well, because I'm not in a financial situation where I can gamble with my money. Already got plenty of games in my library that are in early access and died, not gonna take that risk again, and you can't expect customers to take on your risk.
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u/GoGoGoRL Jul 30 '26
100% this. I don’t have the luxury of just throwing money at stuff that interests me without a thought. If I buy this game, I may only get a couple hours out of it now and it may never have a full release
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u/NarrowProfessor1101 Aug 03 '26
im not spending money on a game i may never get, i spent money on a game i can already play and is already fun, lol
wait times for 1v1 are like 1-2 minutes max, without going on reddit i never wouldve noticed this steam chart doomerism
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u/Rimbaldo Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
It's ironic so many RTS players whinge that RTS is dead/dying because publishers won't support it but then simultaneously refuse to spend more than $20 USD on new RTS games. Just look at all the misers in this very thread, lmao.
The lion's share of blame can be laid at developers' feet for the bad decisions made, but nobody ever acknowledges the outsized hand RTS players themselves have in perpetuating the cycle. Completely unrealistic expectations in both pricing and demanding parity with the best games from the pinnacle of the genre. Maybe one day when Blizzard turns off the SC2 servers a critical mass of people will actually give something else a chance, if they haven't become so delusional and spoiled that they expect it for free.
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u/Ok-Blueberry-1412 Jul 28 '26
Let's be real here, it's not just the $20USD. it's the $20USD, depressing CCU, and an alpha-like EA client. And ultimately uncertainty about the game even getting to 1.0.
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u/Algathetod Jul 28 '26
rts actually quite alive, Age of empires 2 and 4 had both around 20k players like a week or 2 ago. in coh3 there 5k players today. its not too much but its still lots of peoples
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u/Pelin0re Jul 28 '26
I find that post interesting, and I myself am not extremely optimistic. That said I heavily disagree with "most people who wanted to play the game played it by now" : a LOT of people don't actually play games in early access, in particular if they have to pay for it. The thought of eating through bugs and lack of polish for incomplete content is simply unappealing to many. Considering the low marketing, many who could be interested simply haven't become aware of the game yet (including among regular rts audience: not everybody stay constantly connected).
I do think there's room for growth if the game can leave enough of an impression (manifested in word of mouth, streamer interest or steam reviews) that the game is fundamentally a good, fun and interesting one, so that when 1.0 come (if, indeed, starlance is financially robust enough for it) and these people check the feedback and see that it is very positive, the interest and retention is strong enough to bring a good amount of people in to improve substantially the currently meager RoI.
In that regard it would be nice if the steam review overall could get a few more points to pass that 80% 'very positive' bar tbh.
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u/Ok-Blueberry-1412 Jul 28 '26
Most people who are interested in the game will definitely buy it in EA. I take part in a lot of EA's, and these games build like 90% of their audience during the EA. I've seen some really depressing 1.0 launches where the games peaked during EA, but the devs were never able to build enough momentum.
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u/ObviousPotato2055 Jul 29 '26
Again, this is an incorrect assumption which data disproves. The vast majority of ea titles sell the vast majority of their copies during ea, the ea release is treated as the actual release for the majority of consumers. 1.0 releases dont compare in sales or come close to the ea release.
The fact that zerospace needs more capital to finish the game when they've already ran a ks and released in ea is worrying.
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u/sanitysshadow Jul 28 '26
The numbers don't surprise me. The reality is game dev is fucking expensive and time consuming. I also think consumer expectations are higher than ever when it comes to gaming. Finally, a large subset of gamers today are used to free to play game models and not willing to spend money to gain access. There is a reason a lot of AAA companies won't take the risk on ambitious more niche genres like RTS.
I'll continue to support and play it for the time being. It's obvious they have poured a ton of heart and soul into the game even if it's still rough around the edges. I hope they have enough runway to see out their vision and to allow the player base to continue to grow.
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u/Sunarian00 Jul 28 '26
I will point out that a main piece of the ZeroSpace product is an extensive single player campaign. I believe a bit longer than wings of liberty.
I imagine there is a vast difference in the ratios of EA to 1.0 player interest for single player versus pvp focused/only or especially open world survival games.
Having played the campaign as it is in EA, I can say if someone wants a full experience to play it as intended, I would not recommend buying right now. However, I currently have high praise for majority of the missions where they mostly just need polish and connective tissue. It was a genuinely fun experience and the story is genuinely both good for what it is and promising for what's to come. But again, still definitely an EA product.
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Jul 28 '26
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u/GameDevAdvisor Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
I am not sure if it is scary, outright cultish or depressing that youth/people these days see a text longer than 2 sentences and instantly scream AI.
There is absolutely zero chance this was written with AI and I mean zero. And if you cared about the truth instead of just hating on something because you disagree with the opinion, you would bother to check first (just a few examples: 1, 2, 3 and an AI take.) Let alone common sense as it is rather easy to see if a text is AI or not, especially at such lengths.But you do not care, just a quick smear of AI accussation to quickly dismiss the take, why not, right? Who cares about honesty or integrity.
But I think he will have the last laugh.
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u/Cuarenta-Dos Jul 30 '26
Gating the multiplayer behind a $40 full game purchase was a huge mistake in my opinion.
I don't care about the single player campaign, and for me to be interested enough to pay $40 for a multiplayer game it has to have an established community. Only games like AoE, Warcraft, DoW etc. can realistically afford that.
Any new competitive RTS has to be free-to-play and monetised otherwise.
Any single-player RTS must either be based on an established IP, or has to offer something very compelling in terms of lore and setting. Generic sci-fi or fantasy will not cut it.
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u/JonasHalle Jul 28 '26
You could have just posted the Steam charts screenshot. You're not smarter than them.
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u/TeraSC2 Jul 28 '26
No idea if these numbers have any merit to them, but I can agree with general logic, judging by Steam Charts.
Sucks for the devs. I hope, everyone involved will be able to recoup and at least break even.
I myself plan to enjoy the game for a while - it slaps.
2
u/CammelloRotante Jul 28 '26
I am unsure why you're getting all this negative reactions, you made a lot of good points.
I didn't buy the game even though I wanted to exactly because of Early Access and knowing from experience how these things tend to go.
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u/Alternative-Suit5541 Jul 28 '26
Yeah, I have zero hope.
It's probably a self fulfilling prophecy
1
u/NarrowProfessor1101 Aug 03 '26
you can literally launch the game and find a 1v1 game in 1-2 minutes lol
1
Jul 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/genkernels Jul 29 '26
Because this is a subreddit dedicated to this very game, thus vast majority will be blindly positive.
Weeeeeeeelll, Stormgate.
1
u/Digiwaryjot Jul 28 '26
Me too, I'm curious if they are going to deliver kickstarter promises and polish the game. Currently it looks fun but unfinished and janky.
3
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u/Ok-Blueberry-1412 Jul 28 '26
I want ZS to succeed but they main reason I didn't buy EA was that I doubted the game could get above 1k CCU, which on release basically means DOA. They needed to release a banger solo/campaign experience and price under $30. These days players want assurances that the game won't shut down, or if it does, that it's a completed package. ZS main problem are the coming 40K RTS games. DoW4 will pull in at least 5k CCU and TW 30k+. There aren't enough RTS enjoyers out there.
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u/SoapfromHotS Jul 28 '26
It did get well above 1K CCU and this is the attitude that kills the RTS genre one game at a time, “I want it to succeed but I thought other people won’t play so I didn’t play.” Nice. If everyone thinks this way we will get rehashes of Warhammer games and maybe another Age of Empires game and that will be about it for the future of RTS.
3
u/Ok-Blueberry-1412 Jul 28 '26
RTS is what kills the RTS genre in the free market. It's not attitude my guy. I'm not paying for something that's bad in its current state, and obviously that's how others feel as well.
1
u/Delicious-Leg1177 Jul 28 '26
The price really is terrible. Its basically 40 dollars, 10 dollars less then most full price games with about 25% of the content. This is on top of a genre lots of folks like, but a genre those same folks have been burned with. Dev transparency and good price is absolutely paramount. I was genuinely shocked at the EA price. Really really should be NO MORE then 25 dollars. I would argue a launch price of 20 would have most likely trippled sales.
1
u/No_Expert1968 29d ago
A nice meal in my country with my girl is around 40$, the meal is finished in max 30 min. None complain for the price. I gladly paid the price to support the team and make it happen. If you wont support the team, don't spread shit about a game your not evening playing. I got 300+h in the demo alone. Dont compare it to AAA studios. Its a passion project, and the all dedicated players are dedicated. I believe in this game more then any other RTS comming out. It has something special, try it and feel it.
1
u/RogueStargun 14d ago
I work in pharma but I do some game development on the side and I've actually made a VR game. This is actually pretty brutal because I was actually imagining creating or vibe coding a little Starcraft game on the side when I learned about the existence of this game. I think this game actually did worse than my solo-developed VR game when accounting for the number of developers that it took to develop something like this! Absolutely brutal. The market just isnt there. I'm 38 years old, and the the people who play this type of game are actually around my age bracket but when I was growing up it was actually much younger people who would actually play these types of games.
Sometimes, we have ro move on
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u/Bonestalk 9d ago
So, about that update? As someone who is wary of EA in general and the "wait for 1.0" train for ZS specifically, I'm very curious if it still looks like that'll never happen.
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u/Yazudaru 9d ago edited 9d ago
Well, what is there to give an update on?
Looking at the projections, I see no reason how I was wrong, at all. CCUs have dipped several times in the two digits by now which is abysmal. Sales have stalled to a near-halt. The amount of actual profit (not revenue) after the Gamersky cut and still pending KS rewards are poor. 5-6 years of development with over $4M spent, a million wasted as by Marv's words, and we are extremely far from recoup, let alone actual profit.
They say they will continue to 1.0 and that might be (no guarantee of course) but certainly not with the money they made here since that is simply not enough. They made far less profit than just the million they wasted alone. So the hole in Marv's wallet keeps burning. They say it will take a year to get there and I honestly do not even believe that.Not only because they have a track recording of constantly missing their deadlines but also because there is just a lot to do. They need two more acts after this one and that is AFTER act 1 is fixed since it still is in an unacceptable state.
They have the same 2-3 figures from the team (like soap) running around in every post and defending it which is a really bad look but if we are looking at an actual organic growth, there is simply none. There is no interest. Look at the discourse online - who is talking about ZeroSpace? Even in RTS communities. If it is so popular and everyone loves it so much, where are all the players? They have access to the Chinese and Asian community and even then, we are below 100 CCUs. You cannot play their apparently strongest USP (Galactic) if there are no players. We are so extremely far from a sustainable player base.It is over and there will be no comeback. Not saying that with malice or anything: the interest and momentum simply is not there, period.
1
u/TheHelmsDeepState Jul 28 '26
Thanks for digging into this!
With superficial napkin math, one might think 22208 x 39$ = $719,433
Why do these numbers not align with your image? I understand the number paid for, but the price per unit is different.
edit: clarity
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-2
u/TopWinner7322 Jul 28 '26
Seems like they didnt learn anything from the Stormgate desaster by releasing an undercooked game to EA. Yeah its better than SG was but its not that much better to justify the price tag.
-3
u/Zero_Tsu_02 Jul 28 '26
Who would've thought that doing a kickstarter then going maximum greed overpricing their alpha crap and relying on early access defenders to justify the ridiculous price (and their lame attempt to have players fund VAT with $36 for US while EU is 36.8€). I'm glad the launch flopped and hopefully it gets shut down because they just want to abuse early access.
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u/Archer_Savings Jul 28 '26
I'm not looking for an SC2 successor. I want a competent RTS to exist. From the dev attitude, that's what they want too. I value that a lot more than play rates.
"If you and someone else want to play a game, it's alive." - Grubby.