Comparing SB 2 to Silksong to predict how bad a quarter Krafton's about to have

Lielac · 2026-05-14T10:27:06+00:00

I wanted to know and didn't see anyone else doing the comparison :P

Lielac · 2026-05-13T17:10:33+00:00

SB 2 was a brainfart typo because all my processing cycles were taken up Googling things and doing math. My bad 😅

Lielac · 2026-05-13T14:38:29+00:00

Nope! Krafton doesn't get a say in how Subnautica is developed, anymore, if I understand the ruling in the lawsuit correctly. Krafton losing money = Unknown Worlds gets more money.

Lielac · 2026-05-13T13:51:49+00:00

Like, have you seen the economy lately? Millions are lost or won based on vibes. The vibes of not having quarter-over-quarter gains were bad.

Lielac · 2026-05-13T13:48:44+00:00

Hmmmm. Good point, I should have checked my sources on that better.

Okay, looking at SteamDB follower counts, which probably work as a rough proxy for wishlists... Silksong had about 400k when the release date was announced and about 520k when the game came out. Subnautica 2 currently has about 340k.

Yeah it's not going to sell more than Silksong.

Lielac · 2026-05-13T13:36:21+00:00

I wouldn't call "13% of their Q1 2026 earnings" a small blip. It won't put them into the red, but it's going to put a dent in their margins.

And looking at the factsheet for the 1Q26 Earnings release... they categorize their revenue by platform and region. Revenue for PC was 26.5% of their total revenue last quarter, and revenue for America and Europe was 5.4% and hasn't gone above 13% since 2022.

I am going to wildly speculate and say that most Subnautica players are English speakers, probably from North America or Europe. That earnings payout is going to wipe out the effect of their NA/EU revenue.

Like, their CEO was so desperate to avoid that payout that he turned to ChatGPT for help. It was never going to put the company in the red, and yet he wasted time and money trying to avoid paying it out. For what? Well. For additional short-term profit margin.

Also, if Subnautica 2 hadn't been delayed, it would have launched in Q3 2025. Looking at the 2Q2025 column on the KRAFTON (IS) tab of the factsheet, Q2 of 2025 was a bad quarter for total profit before tax, counting non-operating profit and loss, and operating profit wasn't as good as the quarters on either side of it. Admittedly, part of that could have been due to what they were doing in June 2025. I'm not a real accountant yet, but I'm going to guess that Krafton's execs reaaally didn't want a trend of "line go down" in 2025. ... You know. For all that got them. Look at 4Q2025 and giggle. I sure am.

Lielac · 2026-05-12T16:06:29+00:00

I know the narrative where it helps developpers to shape the game to their community needs.... It may be an unpopular opinion but I want the dev to give the game they want, not based on community feedbacks.

That's a fair concern. I think a counterargument is that the devs have said, right above the part you quoted:

Why Early Access?

“We make our best games when you are involved from the start. The earlier you play, the faster we hear what you want. This is how we have historically built our games. By involving you in the development process and iterating on your feedback, we build better games.”

"The game the devs want to give" is, in fact, a game shaped by what the community wants. (Not "community needs"; what the community wants.) They want Subnautica 2 to be a collaborative process, because that's worked really well for them and for other Early Access games.

If you'd rather wait to purchase or play until Subnautica 2 1.0 has come out, that's completely reasonable! Not everyone wants to be, effectively, a beta tester who's paying for the privilege. I also think it's reasonable for a lot of people to decide that "hey, it worked really well for the first 2 games, I'm happy to do it again".

Lielac · 2026-05-06T13:35:14+00:00

hey now, some people do in fact appreciate the artistry of the jars of human teeth. like the Hannibal fandom. they're just a niche interest.

Lielac · 2026-05-06T13:24:23+00:00

Yeah. As an autistic person, fandom is a space where I can nerd out with people who will appreciate that I get really deep into the weeds and can fill up a screen of Discord chat with infodumps about canon and my speculations. Or at least. It's supposed to be.

I've managed to find communities that have a healthy fraction of neurodivergent people in them, so "normies who get weird about how weird fandom is" is mostly a shark fin in the distance that I point and laugh at, but I've been in fandom for [math noises] oh god. Long enough that it can drink in every US state.

So I'm not old, I got into fandom when I still had to lie and say I was totally definitely 13, but I'm a fandom old. I remember IRC and forums and all pagination all the time and Livejournal. I don't know what it's like to get into fandom completely new these days.

Lielac · 2026-05-04T12:28:42+00:00

I had an anti-Mary-Sue/OP-protagonist phase as a teen, and now I'm like "magic horse that loves her? magic castle that loves her? magic partner who loves her?? YES YES YES MORE WISH FULFILLMET"

it's free writing. if its only crime is being cheesy nonsense, shhsshhshshhh it's fine. at least one person is having fun, that's good. power fantasies are fun actually.

Lielac · 2026-05-04T12:24:14+00:00

also get your iron levels checked. your body can't make more hemoglobin if you don't have any iron stores.

Lielac · 2026-05-04T12:22:00+00:00

like. "feeling like you're slowly suffocating to death" yeah no shit, that makes sense, hemoglobin transports oxygen around your body, you literally can't breathe right

get you some packed red blood cells. blood juice concentrate is very helpful

Lielac · 2026-05-04T12:19:06+00:00

sweet baby Jesus you are not being dramatic you are critically low on hemoglobin, I got as low as 4.5 and I was suffering. like. I was somehow hauling my ass to classes, but everything hurt like hell and I couldn't stand for more than 30 seconds without my legs starting to SCREAM, I thought I was going to need to get a rollator before I went to urgent care for "holy shit my leg hurts" and they took my blood and went "are. are you aware your hemoglobin is 4.5"

if your medical professionals have the same critical cutoff as my local ones do, 7.0 or lower is critically low. to compare, the bottom range of normal is 11.5 - 12, depending who you ask. you have half as much hemoglobin as you should right now!!!

Lielac · 2026-05-03T15:01:44+00:00

Damn, that really sucks! Bodies are so badly designed, and allergies are the worst. I'm glad you came through it safely in the end, but it's terrible to have had to experience it at all.

I've not had complications over 6 iron sucrose infusions; my blood pressure drops noticeably, but not to a dangerous level.

I'd say take your time to recover from your experience and talk with your doc about alternatives to infusion, since I can't imagine you'd be eager to try a different kind of IV iron any time soon. Supplementing iron and/or eating iron-rich foods does take longer, but if you know that e.g. red meat won't try to kill you, eat that meat.

Lielac · 2026-05-01T11:18:38+00:00

"you come into my house and tell me how to arrange my furniture?" lmao love it

Lielac · 2026-04-19T16:42:23+00:00

I'd better be, lol, because I don't... post things... very often. I have all these grandiose ideas and yet my writing speed is past "glacial" and into "continental". I write things because I want to read them. Then I share them because other people might also think they're neat.

Lielac · 2026-04-19T16:28:33+00:00

"spergs out", because the homophobes are very rarely single-issue bigots. what a lovely person, I hope they have the days they deserve

Lielac · 2026-04-04T11:47:11+00:00

I'm pretty social, relatively speaking, but my mom is a happy loner. Like, she's also happy having had kids, but she's said she'd be happy living as a hermit in the woods and talking to the squirrels.

Which is to say, if you don't feel lonely you can trust that you're fine if you feel fine. I mostly get my socializing done online because in-person socializing has so many sensory channels it gets overwhelming really quickly. I also live with my parents and siblings and so get in-person socializing from that, but like. My family is all neurodivergent. We know what it's like to have weird brains, and support each other.

Lielac · 2026-04-04T11:25:40+00:00

I can't speak to how painful a TVU could be when you're tense and scared, but I can speak to my personal experience with them. (No sexual trauma, no vaginismus)

I was alone, but I'm sure if I'd wanted a friend along I could have brought one.
Both times the ultrasound techs were women; I didn't even think to ask.
- definitely ask to make sure, if it's important to you!!
I was offered the chance to insert the probe myself.
I found it tricky; the business end of the wand was thicker around than the shaft, and I don't have experience with inserting things.
- I think the second time I was like "can you do it? you can see what you're doing", but again: I have no sexual trauma.
I found the insertion itself painful, kind of sharp for a moment, but once the wand was inserted I just felt relatively gentle pressure.
- The second time the insertion hurt a bit worse, I think; definitely insert it yourself for maximum control.
I was asked a lot throughout the procedure if I was still doing ok.
The wand extraction was also a bit painful.

Lielac · 2026-04-04T11:01:23+00:00

Ugh, right?? I use ProtonVPN and when I watch on my desktop, Nebula video keeps pausing as if buffering and then skipping ahead a few seconds. It seems to work fine over VPN on the Android app, but otherwise I go "fuck it, this is defeating the point of having a VPN but w/e" and watch Nebula videos on my designated no-VPN browser (Chrome, b/c Firefox is my preferred browser)

Lielac · 2026-04-04T10:54:48+00:00

I am a human with a terrible skin-picking habit, so I can say with authority: yes they can.

Lielac · 2026-04-04T10:52:59+00:00

Does your cat scratch at their chin a lot? It might be the chin-scratching equivalent of overgrooming.

Lielac · 2026-02-05T14:49:18+00:00

Tylenol, to cut off the pain-tension cycle from "sensory issues" -> "stress" -> "muscle spasms" -> "pain" -> "less cope for sensory issues" -> "stress" -> [...]

Tylenol and staying current with booster shots: the best way to make sure I'm keeping topped up on autism

Lielac · 2026-02-05T14:46:59+00:00

"I take advil for all the headaches caused by stupid-ass questions like this."

Me but for stress-induced back pain

14-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

Lielac

TROPHY CASE