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[oldblood]

Great data-driven article. You can't argue with these facts:

https://medium.com/steam-spy/your-target-audience-doesn-t-exist-999b78aa77ae

135 million active users on Steam. 1.3 million who actively buy new games. The market for the small/indie games isn't quite as big as you think...

TL;DR:

Gamers are different. Don’t overgeneralize.
Just because a gamer plays one game doesn’t mean he’ll try other games in this genre or on this platform.
The core audience of PC games market that supports developers with smaller titles is rather tiny.

[J-Snake]

"1.3 million who actively buy new games"

But are the members of this group static, or do some leave while others join this 1.3m group on a daily basis?

The way I roughly see it:
 
Niche games:          Small target audience but little competition -> reasonable sales per effort.
Mainstream games: Big target audience but big competition       -> low sales per effort.

[oldblood]

I see your perspective and I agree, but I think the point of the article is something else entirely.

But are the members of this group static, or do some leave while others join this 1.3m group on a daily basis?

Well, technically-- it's static because thats this data for this exact moment in time. I'm sure that some users eventually quit buying regularly and other new ones join in but I think the point really is that this is about the size of the "active" market of buyers.

There are a lot of misconceptions among indies that assume because they're getting on Steam that they will sell 10-50k copies of their game just because there are so many users on Steam, you only need fractions of a fraction of a fraction of the 130mm+ users to see the game for the "law of big numbers" to kick in. The reality though is that only 1% of the active users on Steam are even actively looking for new niche' games. I think its interesting to get a data-driven look at what the true market is vs. speculating based on how huge Steam is...

[J-Snake]

Well, technically-- it's static because thats this data for this exact moment in time. I'm sure that some users eventually quit buying regularly and other new ones join in but I think the point really is that this is about the size of the "active" market of buyers.

If "active" market means that you regularly see 1.3m users buy games then it is an extremely large market. You cannot expect all the users to buy games all the time.

A problem I see is that discoverability decreases faster than the amount of Steam users can compensate for it, not necessarily the lack of target audience. For example I would probably swim in money with my first Steam game if the visibility would remain like it was during the first few days after its launch.

[everythingever]

Very interesting article. Thanks for posting.

1.3 million doesn't seem too bad though, considering they each own at least 107 games or more and are constantly moving on from game to game. So it's not really competition in the same sense as if you were competing for the attention of MMO players.

Even if those 1.3 million users buy other people's games instead of yours, it doesn't mean they're no longer in the market to buy your game. And even taking into account that those 1.3M users each vary greatly in the type of games they buy, if only 1% of them are into the type of game you're making, that's 13,000 decent probability buys assuming your game was good, well-presented, and well-marketed.

OR

Maybe I'm being an overly optimistic fuckhead.


Probably that last one.

[Myran]

1.3m gamers who actively buy new games doesn't really seem to fit with the hundreds of games that have more than 1.3m owners? I also don't really understand who this article targets, if it's indie devs then 1.3m super active game buying customers seems really good, and if it's AAA devs then he's just obviously wrong since plenty of AAA games sell more than that.

[RudyTheDev]

I don't think I quite agree with the sensationalized conclusions from percentages. It doesn't matter if its 13 M or 130 M or 1300 M total users, if the "core" players are 1.3 M. That's your potential audience then, the 1.3M. So, yes, taking the total number of users at face value is incorrect and anyone assuming their game gets "delivered" to 130 M will be disappointed. Most players are not interested in your game, though I hardly see how it's different from the standard user conversion rate.

[oldblood]

1.3m gamers who actively buy new games doesn't really seem to fit with the hundreds of games that have more than 1.3m owners? I also don't really understand who this article targets, if it's indie devs then 1.3m super active game buying customers seems really good, and if it's AAA devs then he's just obviously wrong since plenty of AAA games sell more than that.

1.3mm sounds like a lot... but its really not. Think about it this way:

-On launch, you get 1,000,000 impressions on Steam.
-The million impressions your game gets on launch date are spread across 130mm active users
-Of the 130mm, only 1% actually are even looking to buy games
-Following those percentages that means on launch day approx. 13,000 people who are actually shopping will see your game
-Those 13,000 are spread across a wide and diverse market (horror, action, puzzle, anime, rpg, strategy etc.)

Depending on your genre, only several hundred or several thousand of may actually be a good "fit" for your game and genre and THEN you need to see how many of those several hundred or several thousand you can actually convert into paying customers by doing a good job of selling your game... What conversion % is good? For some people its just 1-5%, others may convert 10% of the people who see it.

You could end up selling 50 copies out of 1,000,000 impressions on launch day.

And you will burn through the million impressions on launch day, likely even in just a few hours. Unless the game is selling well, in which case- Steam will promote it more which will organically lead to more impressions and more sales and that cycle continues as its sales grow more...  Thats why the best selling games keep selling, they don't fall out of getting promoted. But for 99% of the games launching on Steam, that wont be the case and 5 hours into launch day- they will be out of views.

This all sounds bleak but I think this is great as it paints a realistic picture for developers to prepare for. They hear theres 130mm users and get excited, people are even excited in this thread for 1.3mm users but the reality is that: 1. how many of those million buyers will actually ever see your game is very low... 2. how many of that are even interested in your genre?

[Myran]

1.3mm sounds like a lot... but its really not. Think about it this way:

-On launch, you get 1,000,000 impressions on Steam.
-The million impressions your game gets on launch date are spread across 130mm active users
-Of the 130mm, only 1% actually are even looking to buy games
-Following those percentages that means on launch day approx. 13,000 people who are actually shopping will see your game
-Those 13,000 are spread across a wide and diverse market (horror, action, puzzle, anime, rpg, strategy etc.)

Depending on your genre, only several hundred or several thousand of may actually be a good "fit" for your game and genre and THEN you need to see how many of those several hundred or several thousand you can actually convert into paying customers by doing a good job of selling your game... What conversion % is good? For some people its just 1-5%, others may convert 10% of the people who see it.

You could end up selling 50 copies out of 1,000,000 impressions on launch day.

Those 1m impressions on Steam is not the end of people seeing the game, that's 1m in the 'Featured Games' section, and you can also get an additional 2.5m impressions there via Update Visibility Rounds, but yeah, our clickrate on those impressions have been around .4% so that's not great. But you have to look at Summer Sales, Daily Sales etc, because the numbers from those dwarf those initial impressions.

And you will burn through the million impressions on launch day, likely even in just a few hours. Unless the game is selling well, in which case- Steam will promote it more which will organically lead to more impressions and more sales and that cycle continues as its sales grow more...  Thats why the best selling games keep selling, they don't fall out of getting promoted. But for 99% of the games launching on Steam, that wont be the case and 5 hours into launch day- they will be out of views.

This all sounds bleak but I think this is great as it paints a realistic picture for developers to prepare for. They hear theres 130mm users and get excited, people are even excited in this thread for 1.3mm users but the reality is that: 1. how many of those million buyers will actually ever see your game is very low... 2. how many of that are even interested in your genre?

Sure, if your game can't find an audience then Steam obviously won't promote it, but that's kinda the point, isn't it? Games that people are interested in playing sell better than games noone wants to play.
The last time I released a game on Steam was in 2013, and I'm sure it's a lot harder now, but something is clearly wrong with these numbers because there are plenty of games that sell much better than 13k copies, or even 1.3m for that matter.

[ironbelly]

This information does not match up with my experience, anecdotally. With a good game (this is not inclusive of bad games), you're looking at ~10k units/day during a promotion. In the past we've been able to keep that rate up for 3-5 days per promo event, which then trails off for the final 4-2 days, but maybe 50k units sold in a given week long promo. Lets assume for a moment that we've got a 20 dollar product at half price for the promo... that's 500k gross for the week... every single time the game goes on sale/gets featured. Including launch which can be larger.

If the market is really only 15k people per day spread across all genres we'd never see numbers like that

[oldblood]

1.3mm sounds like a lot... but its really not. Think about it this way:

-On launch, you get 1,000,000 impressions on Steam.
-The million impressions your game gets on launch date are spread across 130mm active users
-Of the 130mm, only 1% actually are even looking to buy games
-Following those percentages that means on launch day approx. 13,000 people who are actually shopping will see your game
-Those 13,000 are spread across a wide and diverse market (horror, action, puzzle, anime, rpg, strategy etc.)

Depending on your genre, only several hundred or several thousand of may actually be a good "fit" for your game and genre and THEN you need to see how many of those several hundred or several thousand you can actually convert into paying customers by doing a good job of selling your game... What conversion % is good? For some people its just 1-5%, others may convert 10% of the people who see it.

You could end up selling 50 copies out of 1,000,000 impressions on launch day.

Those 1m impressions on Steam is not the end of people seeing the game, that's 1m in the 'Featured Games' section, and you can also get an additional 2.5m impressions there via Update Visibility Rounds, but yeah, our clickrate on those impressions have been around .4% so that's not great. But you have to look at Summer Sales, Daily Sales etc, because the numbers from those dwarf those initial impressions.

I know that, but if you will notice I'm referencing "launch day" throughout. Why I said "launch date". The launch date is a great reference point for data like this because its the single biggest day in terms of impressions that most games will ever get and when developers hear they get a million impressions on launch day-- that can create the wrong impression/expectation...

Sure, if your game can't find an audience then Steam obviously won't promote it, but that's kinda the point, isn't it?

Yes, thats why I made the point?

The last time I released a game on Steam was in 2013, and I'm sure it's a lot harder now, but something is clearly wrong with these numbers because there are plenty of games that sell much better than 13k copies, or even 1.3m for that matter.

To answer the first part: Yes, the market in 2015 is quite different than in 2013. Some perspective, there were 582 games released in 2013 and over 1,800 in 2014 and we've already passed 2014 sales in 2015 and its mid-August. Should be well over 2,000 in 2015. A game released in 2015 has 400% more games that its likely competing with for views & buys on launch day than you experienced in 2013 and that gap will likely continue to widen.

As far as the 2nd point about something not being right with the numbers... it's...Steam data? Not sure what other numbers you'd prefer...

I'm clearly not saying a game released on Steam can't sell tens or hundreds of thousands of copies. My point is that I think a lot of indie developers have very preconceived notions of what kind of sales they're going to find when they hit Steam and the simply fact of the matter is that 95% of them will be in for a rude awakening...

I'm not trying to pitch doom and gloom, I don't think it is doom and gloom... this is just data. I think developers need to know and understand what the market is doing. I would have loved to have known about data like this when I launched my first game on Steam.

[Myran]

This information does not match up with my experience, anecdotally. With a good game (this is not inclusive of bad games), you're looking at ~10k units/day during a promotion. In the past we've been able to keep that rate up for 3-5 days per promo event, which then trails off for the final 4-2 days, but maybe 50k units sold in a given week long promo. Lets assume for a moment that we've got a 20 dollar product at half price for the promo... that's 500k gross for the week... every single time the game goes on sale/gets featured. Including launch which can be larger.

If the market is really only 15k people per day spread across all genres we'd never see numbers like that

Exactly, during promotions we've seen much better sales than what this article suggests is possible.

I know that, but if you will notice I'm referencing "launch day" throughout. Why I said "launch date". The launch date is a great reference point for data like this because its the single biggest day in terms of impressions that most games will ever get and when developers hear they get a million impressions on launch day-- that can create the wrong impression/expectation...

But for successful games I don't actually think launch day has to be the single biggest day in terms of impressions, for example if you're picked as one of the promoted deals during a summer or winter sale that's probably going to be bigger. I agree that a lot of indie devs probably have too high hopes, but this article makes it sound like 1.3m sales is the absolute maximum (which obviously isn't true) and your post made it sound much like 10k sales total would be optimistic.

To answer the first part: Yes, the market in 2015 is quite different than in 2013. Some perspective, there were 582 games released in 2013 and over 1,800 in 2014 and we've already passed 2014 sales in 2015 and its mid-August. Should be well over 2,000 in 2015. A game released in 2015 has 400% more games that its likely competing with for views & buys on launch day than you experienced in 2013 and that gap will likely continue to widen.

As far as the 2nd point about something not being right with the numbers... it's...Steam data? Not sure what other numbers you'd prefer...

The market is probably a lot tougher now, yes, but our game from 2013 still sold 80k copies this year. So it's true there are a LOT more games on Steam now, a bunch of those games are very low quality.

Well, it's someones analysis of Steam data, there's a few things that feel a bit weird about it. For example he says 1% of Steam users actively buy new games, but that number includes no one with less than 107 games. So he's saying that someone with 85 games doesn't actively buy games, that might be true, but it might also not be. He also says that those 1% own 33% of all games on Steam, so how did the other 66% get sold, were they all F2P?

I'm clearly not saying a game released on Steam can't sell tens or hundreds of thousands of copies. My point is that I think a lot of indie developers have very preconceived notions of what kind of sales they're going to find when they hit Steam and the simply fact of the matter is that 95% of them will be in for a rude awakening...

I'm not trying to pitch doom and gloom, I don't think it is doom and gloom... this is just data. I think developers need to know and understand what the market is doing. I would have loved to have known about data like this when I launched my first game on Steam.

I agree, and I do think it's great to see this kind of data, I just think it looks a bit worse than it probably is from just reading that article.

[oldblood]

But for successful games I don't actually think launch day has to be the single biggest day in terms of impressions, for example if you're picked as one of the promoted deals during a summer or winter sale that's probably going to be bigger. I agree that a lot of indie devs probably have too high hopes, but this article makes it sound like 1.3m sales is the absolute maximum (which obviously isn't true) and your post made it sound much like 10k sales total would be optimistic.

That's a fair point, the article is slightly leaning towards the bleak side and while I do think most indies need to be aware of the realities of sales and expectations, well-- as I said its not all doom and gloom. Although I do think the number of games that sell less than 10,000 copies is rapidly on the rise and will continue to do so as more and more games appear and the quality of titles diminishes in Greenlight. But that's a whole other topic haha...

The positive as you've alluded is that the long tail is certainly a factor in sales that didn't really exist ten (or really even five) years ago and now gives developers a lot of opportunities outside of launch for both impressions and ongoing sales...