Recently, Days Gone Game Director Jeff Ross made a statement regarding the game’s sales numbers and how local management made him and the Bend Studio team feel like the game was a big disappointment. He said that the game sold over 8 million copies and more since he left the studio. This was in a response to the recent news regarding Ghost of Tsushima’s new sales milestone which has reached 8 million. On a recent live stream with John Garvin and David Jaffe, Ross clarified that he got his information from a now-defunct website called Gamestat. The site tracked PlayStation Trophy data.
On the live stream, Ross said “where I got my data from, I had access to a lot of telemetry, and I could see stuff and when we were at 5 million copies – when we were announced at 5 million copies – the telemetry data was at 5.8 [million]. There are basically resells or shared discs. I was actually using an external website – I think they’re offline now – but they were using trophy data and it lined up with our internal telemetry data so for me, it’s like, ‘good enough.” He said that when you are leaving Sony, the company doesn’t necessarily get final numbers for a game’s sales. Ross also said that as his position as a Creative Director, he didn’t have access to the complete and official Sony numbers. “I think [Gamestat] still has the data archived,” Ross continued. “Based off the 8 million mark, it matched our telemetry and so I’m like, ‘good enough.’ So maybe it was 7.7 [million]-ish, maybe it was 8.2 [million]-ish, I don’t know.” The telemetry he is referring to is before Days Gone became a PlayStation Plus title in 2021.
Trophy data does not equate to sales. Players can earn trophies from used copies or as the game as a PlayStation Plus title. Players that earn trophies from a used copy get meshed into those who purchase a new copy which skews the total numbers. So, Ross’s numbers he’s talking about may not be accurate.
Ross also clarified the end of his original statement with who he was referring to as “local management.” Ross said he was referring to upper management within Bend Studio and not necessarily PlayStation or Sony management as one might see it implied to be.