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[Leroy Binks]

I have spent what free time I've had over the past two days reading over the video game business information at the top of the business forum page.  I was able to glean some new information, learn a few tips and tricks I hadn't seen before, but was terribly disappointed by the sales statistics found within.  Then I saw the game sales prices and sales dates and would have a hard time taking this outdated information and inserting it into our business plan.

Would anyone be able to point me to some casual gaming sales statistics for 3rd quarter '09 to 1st quarter '11?

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I'm not really sure where to point you, other than that you might learn something useful by trawling through the Gamasutra archives. The indie games space is full of wildly varying business models, and you're more likely to find statistics from the few very successful games than the many who don't really make it off the ground financially. So it's hard to build a general picture of what to expect from selling your game.

My best suggestion would be to be more specific about what it is you want to make, and then perhaps we could find some examples that would help?

[Leroy Binks]

Well, I would rather see successful examples than base my plan off of unsuccessful ones.  Our project is a traditional 2D versus fighter, if that narrows the game examples to reference.  I will check out the link you posted.  Thank you for replying.

[moi]

Don't look at succesful examples, you can only be disappointed.
Just make sure your game is finished and polished and release it and market it and hope for the best.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

Well, I would rather see successful examples than base my plan off of unsuccessful ones.  Our project is a traditional 2D versus fighter, if that narrows the game examples to reference.  I will check out the link you posted.  Thank you for replying.

Indeed. I guess my point is that if you're looking for some kind of expected return from your business model then it's worth keeping that in mind. The return from indie games can vary pretty wildly, and not every successful studio runs based off of the success of one smash hit. Rovio may be making a packet off of Angry Birds alone, but there are also small studios who produce games for a variety of niche audiences and have healthy businesses without being well-known.

Based on your project, I can't think of many indie versus-fighters, but there are plenty of side-scrolling brawlers out there. My suggestion would be to look up Klei, creators of Shank, as I seem to remember they've published their sales figures at some point.

What format are you looking at? How are you planning to sell the game? The sales portal you use can affect the variation in sales volume you can expect. For example, the App Store market has a bit of a reputation for having massive differences in sales between the top-sellers and medium-sellers, but Steam and XBLA sales are supposedly more evenly-spread.

[Leroy Binks]

I don't expect anywhere close to an angry birds. For starters, our game almost completely ignores the biggest part of the casual gaming market, housewives. So we know that going in.

Second, I am focusing on building the business and marketing plans while the programmers do their part. We hope to release to PC and to the Android Marketplace, whether in tandem or staggered, but still so early on I couldn't say which.  Just building our game and our business has been all I've focused on.

 

[Aquin]

You can see a few examples in this forum alone (DHG and Steambirds both have threads based on their results.)  Just take a look is all I can suggest.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I don't expect anywhere close to an angry birds. For starters, our game almost completely ignores the biggest part of the casual gaming market, housewives. So we know that going in.

Second, I am focusing on building the business and marketing plans while the programmers do their part. We hope to release to PC and to the Android Marketplace, whether in tandem or staggered, but still so early on I couldn't say which.  Just building our game and our business has been all I've focused on.

As far as I know the Android marketplace is similar to the App Store in terms of its skew towards the top few. You're likely to find info on how the top-sellers do, but more difficult to find out how a medium-selling game does, and if that's enough to run a business off of. I read an interview with 100 Rogues developer Dinofarm, where they said that while the game was selling moderately well on iOS it wasn't enough to fund their business long-term. I can't find that interview, but this one is pretty interesting.

I found this article on PocketGamer.biz, which may help. PocketGamer should be a good source for articles for you and you could perhaps google the listed games for more information about them.

Regarding PC statistics, I don't know where to look really. A quick google search turned up this page, which dates back to 2009 but might still be useful as I don't think the PC games marketplace has changed dramatically over the past few years.

[Leroy Binks]

I actually found this page, http://www.flashgamelicense.com/report_monthly_site_sales.php, at FGL to be quite useful.  I don't know its reflection on the industry as a whole, but it is data to get me started.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

that is for flash games, though, not game sales

you really do need to be more precise in what you want. e.g. do you want iphone sales for a particular genre, or pc game casual hidden object game sales on sites like big fish games, or whatever else... game sales are way too disperse to just have data about 'game sales'

[moi]

Minecraft made more than 33 millions $$$ gross benefit in around a year.
Now go tell that to your boss, he should give you the greenlight, and start working on your game.