Frostpunk hits 5 million copies sold in six years, boasting average playtime of 24 hours
11 bit studios is celebrating the sixth anniversary of Frostpunk. The survival city builder’s lifetime sales have now surpassed 5 million copies.
This game has been free on Epic, free on GOG through Prime gaming, and free through gamepass. Does anyone know if they're counting those free claims as "sales"?
I would assume they do. When companies have these free deals, then the intermediary/store hosting the deal will be the party who pays for the claimed copies. As such it is technically copies sold, even though the price is not necessarly the current full price that consumer would pay in another store
Those free copies are paid copies in one form or another.
Love this game. Its such a good experience
I tried the first one via PS+ and kept failing because the tutorial didn't really explain the game very well, and it does a lot of things differently than games of a similar nature, which isn't always easy to intuit.
Probably would have had more fun if the tutorial did things like tell you how to mine coal, and not just to mine coal. Looking up a guide on how to accomplish a thing when you're still in the tutorial is kinda awful.
I wish the sequel was anything at all like the original though, it's low key bland and not fun
Weird flex, but OK. Doing a bit of napkin math, Factorio has something like 210 hrs. avg. playtime, and Civ 6 is at 290 hrs.
I personally like the 1 hr/US$ playtime metric as a good value product. At full price, Frostpunk gets 0.8 on average. It does regularly go on 80% off sale, though, so if you buy it then, it scores a 4.0 which is really quite decent.
Still, it's by no means anywhere near contention to lead the pack.
I may have played Factorio for longer, but Factorio didn't make me feel emotions like Frostpunk did. Playtime isn't the only measure of a game's worth.
What Remains of Edith Finch is a great way to break this metric as well. Fantastic emotional rollercoaster of a story that’s over in about 2-3 hours. The original Portal also fits here. Probably about 4-6 hours for most people, but hits hard on quality and impact.
Playtime isn’t the only measure of a game’s worth.
This concept seems to be lost on many these days. If a game doesn't provide gaas-levels of constant content, or have endless "endgame", it's considered a rip-off. For me, some of the shortest games I've played have been the most impactful and worthwhile.
Go listen to Sentient a few more times while thinking about what you've done to those poor bugs and tell me again that Factorio doesn't make you feel anything.