Mount & Blade II - Interview @ GamereactorTV

[HiddenX]

GamereactorTV has interviewed Armagan Yavus about the improvements in Bannerlord compared to Warbands and the development progress:

We caught up with TaleWorld Entertainment's Armagan Yavus and found out how development is coming along on Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.

More information.

 

[HiddenX]

Thanks Eye!

 

[souha13]

More Bannerlord news?! Yummy!

 

[souha13]

I assume the interview is a few months old though. Looks to be from Gamescom.

 

[Saxon1974]

Love Mount & Blade, especially the mod scene, so very much looking forward to this. I just wish the development time was not so long. Even if it release sometime in 2016 it will be another full year or more until its complete most likely. I realize they are a small team though. By my guestimate it will be around 2018 before its fully complete. I wonder how they make any profit from such a long development time?

 

[Fanest]

I wonder how they make any profit from such a long development time?

They must have made a tone of money from Warband - almost 2mil owners, with huge player base of some 200k gamers who play it regularly. One can speculate that they must have made some 20mil € profit or even more with DLCs and other releases. Also im guessing that the developers cost in Turkey is much lower than in EU or USA.

 

[souha13]

You (Saxon1974) mean that they will release the game but will need plenty of patching for a long time? The only problem with that is that it wil harder to develop mods I think. But maybe I missunderstood you?

 

[Saxon1974]

They must have made a tone of money from Warband - almost 2mil owners, with huge player base of some 200k gamers who play it regularly. One can speculate that they must have made some 20mil € profit or even more with DLCs and other releases. Also im guessing that the developers cost in Turkey is much lower than in EU or USA.

2 million sales would surprise me for a bit of a niche game but if so that's quite a bit of sales. That being said Warband is an update to the game released in what 2007/2008? So even if they made 2million euro on it that's like 250k per year over 8 years. They have had a few sales mods and I'm sure some new sales coming in so I guess for a small studio with low costs that's possible.

 

[Saxon1974]

You (Saxon1974) mean that they will release the game but will need plenty of patching for a long time? The only problem with that is that it wil harder to develop mods I think. But maybe I missunderstood you?

Yes that's what I mean. I think original game released in like 2007 and it was like 2009 before I felt it was feature complete. Warband in 2010 was just the base game expanded and enhanced so really the version I loved was sometime around 2011/2012. That's like 5 years. Based on that M&B 2 if it releases in 2016 it will most likely be 2018 before its the fully complete game IMHO. Still excited but so far off

 

[Fanest]

2 million sales would surprise me for a bit of a niche game but if so that's quite a bit of sales. That being said Warband is an update to the game released in what 2007/2008? So even if they made 2million euro on it that's like 250k per year over 8 years. They have had a few sales mods and I'm sure some new sales coming in so I guess for a small studio with low costs that's possible.

No Warband was more than just update - maybe owners got some discount but im sure Warband wasnt given out free, besides today there is only around 500k owners of original M&B compared to 1.9mil of Warband.
Also i wouldn't call M&B:W a niche game because its player-base is comparable to games like Rome Total War 2, MGS5, CoD:BO etc.
I do agree though that Bannerlord will most likely need more than a year to be fully functional, but from MP perspective it should be pretty good from the start i think.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Cant remember any discount operation made for owners of M&B.
Cant even remember that beta testers were offered a free copy. They might have been though.

So even if they made 2million euro on it

The speculation is about 20 millions in profit.

 

[fragonard]

Cant remember any discount operation made for owners of M&B.
Cant even remember that beta testers were offered a free copy. They might have been though.

The speculation is about 20 millions in profit.

You're correct, there was no discount. I have followed M&B since pre-release version in 2006 which was discounted but Warband was full price when released in 2010.

 

[Saxon1974]

You're correct, there was no discount. I have followed M&B since pre-release version in 2006 which was discounted but Warband was full price when released in 2010.

OK granted Warband wasn't a free upgrade, that's not what I meant really but more that it felt like the same upgraded game to me. Still 2 games in a 8 year period isn't much for a small studio. M&B feels like a game to me but that's my opinion and I could be wrong as I do t know user numbers.

 

[Morrandir]

Is it known if M&B2 will have a significant story campaign?