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[ANtY]

Lol, yes I meant that BFG gives you 20-45%, sorry 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

big fish games should create a download client, like steam has

then they'd rule over all of us

anyway i don't really care what % someone takes honestly, as long as they sell enough copies to justify it

e.g. basically i think the answer to 'is a portal worth signing up to?' is 'will my share of the total sales from that portal exceed ~$2000?' (regardless of what % they take)

[TeeGee]

big fish games should create a download client, like steam has

They already have one. Since several years, actually. It's one of the reasons for their dominance over the casual market.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

haha, things are changing too fast for me to keep up

[MattG]

indiecity.com looks cool

[cliffski]

Big fish games take a big percentage because of the commoditisation of casual games. if you fancy playing a hidden object or match 3 games, do you honestly really give a damn which ones? There is not a huge world of difference between them.
Thus if BFG say "we don't need your game", they can just replace it with another, and know that their customers won't care.

With a hardcore game, that isn't true. There are not 100 terraria clones, 100 AAhhhAhhh clones and a hundred AI War clones. If a portal turns one of those games down, then they know that people wanting to play that sort of game will go buy them direct, in which case the portal loses potential revenue. Thus they have to work harder to get each developer onboard.

[Ouren]

  http://steampowered.com/steamworks/

[raistlinthewiz]

http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight/

[Klaim]

Now you know how. Or will.

[Deviator]

Well, a very encouraging news we have here...
Presumably there will be a lot of crap on greenlight but at least more nerds will have a chance to sell their stuff, indie games also will be more popular, what could go wrong?, though me myself still not encouraged enough to start developing "something fun".
A year has passed and now I see that average 2.3 million on Steam is turned into 3 mil.

By very rough calculations, even if you get on steam let's try to count your profit:
1) 2.5 million active people
2) profit from one copy - $1
3) sales percentage - 0.2%. Very arguable parameter but it's based on my small exp. in other niches.
4) And we get 2.500.000*1*0.2=$5000. $5k in a year (presumable development cycle for small game) is something that can be achieved working as a WC cleaner for 1h a day.

Maybe I'm wrong, but based on what I saw in "selling stuff online business" usually your expectations do not exceed by reality. Yes, my friend 1h ago replayed me with example of Minecraf, but how much members are on TigForum? - 18847, and how many of them are Notch?

please tell me that I'm wrong

[Oddball]

You are wrong. Of course it will depend on the quality of the game, but a decent game on Steam will make a lot more than $5k in a year, a lot more.

[Makai]

Deviator,

Your numbers are way off.

Steam is not the app store, you won't and shouldn't be selling your stuff for $1. Steam's cut, even if you get a bad deal, is also nowhere close to 80%.

[moi]

did anyone notice how deviator can't even make a multiplication right?

2.500.000*1*0.2=$5000.

[ANtY]

did anyone notice how deviator can't even make a multiplication right?

2.500.000*1*0.2=$5000.

on top of that he doesn't know how to count percents

sales percentage - 0.2%.

[Moczan]

2 500 000 * 0.002 = 5000, he just wrote it wrong lol.

[moi]

yeah he forgot the "%" sign

[Moczan]

Still, 0.2% conversion rate sounds too low for Steam, with all the sales and impulsive buying stuff I guess most game get more than 5k sales lifetime on Steam.

[moi]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php

[Deviator]

Still, 0.2% conversion rate sounds too low for Steam, with all the sales and impulsive buying stuff I guess most game get more than 5k sales lifetime on Steam.

Oki, so does this number 5k copies applies for average "advertised" game on steam when you see it on the main screen, or for no name game which can be found only by browsing "games under $5" or maybe by searching by "genres->indie"?

Presumably if average quality game makes 5k copies and we sell a game for $5 then we get like $2 profit:
5000*$2 = $10k profit
Your development/promotion time takes 1 year and expenses for an art designers are(from -$2000 to -$5000)
So profit is about $5k a year. (10k-5k=5k)

Please don't think that I can only criticize, since it is the easiest thing to do in business planning, yes, I actually believe that average games like clones of a "tower defense", "puzzle quest" or "dungeon crawler" can earn $20k considering all selling networks.

P.S. Why I don't like examples of "super meat boy"/"the binding of Isaac" and other "good quality games", because it is success stories from the books like "how to get rich and happy in simple 5 steps" - it is a fairy tale (for us - average developers), not a plan which likely will be achieved. In other words be realists.

[TeeGee]

Those numbers are way off. Why $2 (or even $1) profit from a $5 game? Steam cut is usually around 30%, so that would make it $3.5 per copy. Also, $5 would be a very cheap game for Steam standards, unless it's in a sale. Most games there cost at least 10 bucks.

5k copies seems too low for an average okay game too. Christine Love recently said on her twitter that she sold about 20k copies of Analogue. And that's a niche VN, not Super Meat Boy.