Shares of 11 bit studios plummeted by 36% following the release of Frostpunk 2. Initial sales of the game reached 350,000 copies
On the morning of September 23, the stock price of the Polish publisher and developer 11 bit studios sharply declined. The reason was the less than successful launch, according to investors, of the city-building survival game Frostpunk 2.
Frostpunk 2
At the time of writing, the company's shares are trading at 343 zlotys ($88.9) each. This marks a 36.25% drop compared to Friday evening when the Warsaw Stock Exchange closed for the weekend.
In a comment to Reuters, Erste Group analyst Piotr Bogusz stated that Frostpunk 2 did not meet the forecast for online numbers on Steam. This is one of the few publicly available metrics. Specifically, his company expected to see an online presence of 80-100 thousand people, whereas in reality, it stood at 35.5 thousand. Although Frostpunk 2 surpassed the original by 6 thousand people on this metric, more was expected from it, partly because Frostpunk 2 had eight times more wishlists than the first Frostpunk. As a reminder, in April, Frostpunk 2's developers reported that over 2 million people had added the game to their wishlists.
Frostpunk 2 online numbers on Steam
The analyst also expressed dissatisfaction with Frostpunk 2's user rating on Steam, which currently stands at 71% positive reviews. He pointed out that the visibility of games on Steam decreases when their rating falls below 80%. Ultimately, this impacts sales.
In a note to investors, 11 bit studios reported that by September 23, Frostpunk 2 had sold over 350,000 copies. The number of people who launched the game through the PC Game Pass subscription, where it is available from day one, was not disclosed. However, the company stated that Frostpunk 2 has already recouped its development and marketing costs.
Frostpunk 2 was released on September 20 and is currently available only on PC. It will reach PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles later.
