On November 30, the Larian Studios blog on Steam reported that 1.3 million people have played the game since its release on August 3. This allows you to give an approximate estimate of the number of copies of the game sold.
As our colleagues from the Game World Observer found out:
- 17.1% of players have played the game on PC (Steam data);
- 16.5% of players have played the game on PlayStation 5 (PSNProfiles data);
- Accordingly, at least 7.6 million people could buy the game (if you take 1.3 million for 17.1% of 100%).
How did you manage to calculate it?
Baldur's Gate 3 has the achievement "All's Well that Ends Well". It is issued if the game is completed regardless of the difficulty and ending.
Data on the number of specific achievements received by players is publicly available on Steam. As for Sony, the information about the achievements received by the players is collected by the independent PSNProfiles service.
This is enough to have information on the number of users who have received a particular award, calculate approximate information about the total number of players in any game.
But, of course, you should not take this data as accurate and correct information. At the moment, this is nothing more than a speculative assessment.
The Game World Observer also writes that the information received should be treated with caution. The fact is that the same Steam shows that 19.1% of players have the achievement "Hero of the Forgotten Kingdoms", which is issued for a good ending. The situation is similar on PlayStation.
That is, the proportion of players who got a good ending is greater than the proportion of players who completed the game as a whole. It is possible that the platforms or the game itself incorrectly tracks the output of achievements.
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In any case, Baldur's Gate 3 has become the most successful game in the history of the studio for Larian Studios. Previously, none of her games had been in the top 10 of Steam sales for more than three months in a row and had not reached 875,000 people online (by the way, it is still at a relatively high level - around 170,000).
The dynamics of Baldur's Gate 3 online on Steam
For what reason Larian Studios itself does not disclose information about the copies sold is unclear. Perhaps she is waiting for the launch on the Xbox Series, which is about to take place, or she is ready to publish only a round figure (for example, 10 million). On the other hand, the company as a whole rarely shares sales.
However, at the launch of Baldur's Gate 3 — last August — Larian CEO Sven Vincke stated that as part of early access, the total sales of the game amounted to 2.5 million copies.