I’m a strong Believer it will do well( probably like everyone else here) A good strategy game is hard to find these days. At best I’m hoping maybe it makes the steam top 10 charts at Number one for maybe 3 weeks
Anyone else want to add why and how successful they think Stonehearth will be?
How successful? Only time can answer that one. It’s had by all accounts a pretty damn successful Kickstarter campaign, how that translates over the next year in terms of sales and success I wouldn’t want to comment on.
Why will it be successful? Team R have a seemingly clear vision, an idea of what they want to produce, and they have a wealth of experience to hopefully create the game they want.
I would argue that It’s also adding something else to this genre gameplay wise and visually as well; I think the really great cute/clean visuals should help entice a few people to at least try a genre they’ve perhaps previously sidestepped?
The modding aspect is also extremely interesting and will hopefully become a hotbed for activity.
To be honest they have a lot of experience, but not in making games. This can be a good thing or a bad thing or both. But either way I have confidence that it will be a succes. Regarding the overly positive comments on this game.
To me it will be succesful if there is a big mod community. Because that makes decent games to great games. From 20 hour games to 200+ hours games.
Agree… also in my eyes the modding-aspect might make the difference here. Especially if we take a look on the longer term. A healthy modding community could provide a lot of value add to Stonehearth. It is so much more rewarding to play a game which you can “influence”. Sometimes all this here makes me feel like a small dev myself 
.
P.S. All your Stonehearth are belong to me! 
thirding @voxel_pirate’s seconding… 
on top of the out of the box experience, the modding aspect will give SH the longevity it needs to gain traction and be (im anticipating) quite successful…
I think it is comparable to the situation of Minecraft. Both games are very open-ended games, with lots of possibilities and own input. But both games would become boring after (quite) a while if they would not have modability. Stonehearth is more focused on modding than Minecraft was, but I believe it will never be as popular as Minecraft, simply because strategy games are less popular than games where you control only one character…
Just my 2 cents 
Key thing about minecraft though is the freedom to create whatever you want (within certain quite large limits), if you want Stonehearth to get anywhere near that it’s got to do 5 things that minecraft did all of which massively helped it’s success. Allow a similar level of freedom in creations (this looks like it might be possible, only catch is ornamentation and decoration but architecture should be fine), allow modding (completely and absolutely it does this), and have the ability for people to play together in the same world (this includes stuff like pvp, coop on building projects, and more, coming sooner or later apparently), don’t have any notable competition (minecraft had barely anything out there like it before it came along and nothing that was particularly notable, Stonehearth is a fair bit more fail-like here), and finally they have to get lucky (May be difficult but possibly already happened).
Yes, yes. This is going on The List for sure. Now to go lament over how long the list is.
Oh my… to make predictions is difficult, especially if they are about the future 
The “why” is obvious, a brilliant team with a clear vision is working on Stonehearth already gathering a devoted fanbase while the game is not even released yet. In a nutshell: Team Radiant and the community together are the why.
As to the how.
If the moddability will be as good as it promises to be, Stonehearth could become nearly anything strategy related like a.e. an eSports framework, a MMO with shards like Ultima back then, a tool collection for pen and paper RPGs oh and maybe even a very enjoyable single player strategy game.
So… the potential is massive.
Regardless, it already raised enough funds for its own development, so it already was a huge success. Would I want to make a game myself this would be a dream come true.
One thing I am certain of is, it will be at least successful in enjoying me for hours to come
It will be the next minecraft.
/topic
Hmmmm… This is an interesting question. Of course, the “how” depends on both the unfortunately bubble-based economy of American entertainment and the seemingly picky (excuse me if this is incorrect) consumer base of Western Europe. For example, if American people suddenly become interested in gaming rather than Kim Kardashian and “dubstep” (again, an unfortunate thing for the majority of us to be calling almost all electronic music “dubstep”.), then this game will sell millions of copies here, and if the Euros like the concept, then it will sell several more millions, and therefore the world will be a better place have utterly smashed all previous records with this game. Otherwise, it’s impossible to tell.
Besides that, economics is a massively complex subject in this day and age, and one that I don’t particularly want to go in depth about right now… maybe another day, but not now…
Anyway, the “why” is simple- as has been said, this team is a very dedicated (and creative, might I add) team, especially shown if they add Trogres, @sdee, and they definitely have the talent to do it right. Also, their message has been clear, and while it might be good to hold off on a few details next time, just to add anticipation (although we don’t need any more anticipation for this game, let me tell you), they have done a very good job at telling the public what to expect from their game/work of art/wondrous world builder.
Thanks for reading, and please excuse the wall of text that I have just dropped in the middle of Forum Drive, but that’s my three cents. No, not two cents, but three cents, considering the size of this wall of text… 
It’s a very interesting point but I’m not sure the success of Stonehearth depends on such factors. I also am not entirely sure Western Europe is a picky consumer base (in gaming terms at least), yes there are differing trends across the globe, but the gaming industries now are so interconnected that it is likely that popular games in the US are going to be popular to Europe, ignoring perhaps NFL or other culturally coded games.
The US, if I’m not mistaken, has the largest video game industry in the world, so a general interest in gaming in it’s entirety is already established, it’s then the interest in the genre which I suppose would be the large factor. Just a really quick google for a sorta similar game shows that Sim City has sold more units in Europe - god knows on the validity of those stats but hey.
[quote=“ManOfRet, post:10, topic:3197”]
then this game will sell millions of copies here, and if the Euros like the concept, then it will sell several more millions, [/quote]
Whilst that would be amazing, we do have to manage expectations 
, if we take Minecraft as setting the bar for success in indie gaming, they’ve shifted 12 million copies for PC since whenever it launched. I don’t think it’s overly beneficial to compare Minecraft with Stonehearth in terms of gameplay, and I personally feel a lot of Minecraft’s success has built upon an innate part of us as humans that loves to create and build things. That’s a discussion for another day though!
Well… don’t we have the largest of almost everything anyway…? But what I mean is, if the general public becomes interested, rather than the gaming cult which a good percent of the population have actually taken up, then this game will go so far beyond the Moon that it would be utter chaos. But anyway, just pointing out the theoreticals. [quote=“Geoffers747, post:11, topic:3197”]
not entirely sure Western Europe is a picky consumer base
[/quote]
I suppose I was mixing up my Europe with my Japan… Excuse me… I’m off to slap myself repeatedly…
Nearly, but not quite .
I would, don’t come back until your face has concaved.
Ok so everyone at this stage thinks SH is gonna be pretty good and it shows a lot of potential
SH 5 years from now?
Still selling? Or just relying on mods to keep it flowing? Another bargain bin indie game (I hope not but you know…speculation)
also slaps man of ret
Europe and Japan are complete different
Even I know that!
Well, I did say almost.
Please forgive me… It won’t happen again. /me weeps silently in dark corner
From the outset of letting the world know about SH they have always stated that this was something they’ve always wanted to do; and that it’s not just a case of getting it out in September and forgetting about it. The way they’ve spoken about the game is that they will work on it as long as makes sense, is that 5 years? If they have the capabilities, and there is the desire, then I would say yes absolutely.
This is where that comparison to Minecraft does come in I think. The Vanilla game will be brilliant, Stonehearth vanilla is sounding like it will be something to occupy you for a long time. If you wish to venture into mods then of course these will add a lot. I mean, if you’ve ever played one of the mod packs for minecraft such as Tekkit or Feed the Beast then you’ll know just how much can be added by modding.
Ultimately these are questions that are silly trying to answer, who knows what will happen between now and 2018, and what the state of Stonehearth will be.
I am obviously hopeful that what will happen is the game will be successful and you’ll still find me haunting this place reminiscing with @SteveAdamo of the glory days in our matching leotards.
based on a census from 2012:
US 
13.6 billion
Japan 7 billion
China 6.8 billion
South Korea 5 billion
UK 3 billion
we will have seen 3 major “expansions” to the game… one consisting of a playable race of wombats…
by the way, we are my fuchsia leotards?
I like how you fixed the missing a from census but the statement that you and @Geoffers747 are actually fuchsia leotards, although it might explain a bit if you were really were animated fuchsia leotards.
Remember that they were made with a system that was never designed to support modding and modding I believe even now consists of essentially decompiling the program and modifying it before recompiling, Java just makes it easier than some. It’s an interesting thought though, if it was made in something like C++ instead it would’ve likely been much faster (particularly multiplayer) but at the same time probably less successful due to it being much harder to change than Java.
thats an excellent point… MC was never intended (from what i’ve gathered as well) to be easily modded… the fact that so many people go to such great lengths speaks to the other strengths of the title…
now just imagine those same creative individuals being able to mod for a game, built from the ground up to encourage their work… 
Imagining… Imagining…
Error: Cannot Not Imagine.
Reason: Too Much Awesome to Imagine.
Rerouting All Power to Mind to Stop From Blowing Up From Too Much Awesome.