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[Oddball]

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.

I don't really like talking about sales figures, it feels like bragging, but you're just not getting it. My game is far from one of the 'big' indie games and it sold easily in excess of 5,000 units in it's first day on Steam. Even my direct sales are well over 5k, and the game is only six month old. So you don't need to be one of the big boys to make a living from indie games.

[Deviator]

Those numbers are way off. Why $2 (or even $1) profit from a $5 game?

It's just me... I like to understate numbers in process, some other people applying the -50% onto profit after the main calculation, well you know, your results are usually worst then planned.

$5 would be a very cheap game for Steam standards

From what I saw $5 could be an OK price for a game. I also tend to agree that $10 maybe is better as marketing policy, since good indie games are usually around $10. But it's just my first impression.
Also I have no idea how and why Analogue was sold in 20k copies, that is very good news actually

and it sold easily in excess of 5,000 units in it's first day on Steam

wow m8, that is a real accomplishment!  So I see your game name is "Hack, Slash, Loot"... I could never imagine that game without good art designers could be so well sold on Steam, please don't take it as offence, opposite it's like to take part in space race with having $1000 budget , your example is very inspiring. Besides I see like only 6 topics on Steam forum. Summarizing all: Game is not popular but it is still very profitable and therefore successful.

Have Steam placed you on the first page when you started sales (you know, when they announce games on the very fist page of a Store)?

[Oddball]

Have Steam placed you on the first page when you started sales (you know, when they announce games on the very fist page of a Store)?

It didn't go on the top banner, but all new releases go on the front page until they get knocked off by newer releases.

[Deviator]

It didn't go on the top banner, but all new releases go on the front page until they get knocked off by newer releases.

Thank you very much for the info! 
Your whole story with the numbers is very promising. Before that I was bit more pessimistic 

[Camel]

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.

I don't really like talking about sales figures, it feels like bragging, but you're just not getting it. My game is far from one of the 'big' indie games and it sold easily in excess of 5,000 units in it's first day on Steam. Even my direct sales are well over 5k, and the game is only six month old. So you don't need to be one of the big boys to make a living from indie games.

Your direct sales are way over 5k units ? How long is the game on the market ?
I have to say those numbers for direct sales are quite impressive, how did you manage to do that ? the usual route of tryng to get previews/reviews ?
thanks
Bruno

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

5k isn't "high" for direct sales at all. it's good, but there are plenty of games that sell in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of copies through direct sales from their website

this is an extreme example, but minecraft's sales for the PC were *all* direct sales, and it's sold in the millions

[ANtY]

5k isn't "high" for direct sales at all. it's good, but there are plenty of games that sell in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of copies through direct sales from their website

Did you consider that you're talking about the times when you released your tower defence game? I think it could've changed since them, especially when you see thousands of ppl writing "I'll buy it when it'll be on Steam" and so on. Or maybe you're talking about some well-established or well-known indie developers, but I think that in this times for someone unknown before 5k copies from direct sales when he's on Steam too is quite an achievement. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

things could have changed but i don't think they changed in the direction you mean, i think they changed in the opposite direction. i think it's *easier* today to get 5k sales on your site than it was in 2007

[TeeGee]

I'm not sure. What are your reasons for believing so?

- Everyone has Steam now. "I'll buy it when it gets on Steam" is a common feedback indeed.
- If not Steam, then a bundle.
- You have AppStore with cool, cheap games on your phone, Steam and AppStore on your computer, PSN and XBLA on your console. Why scour the internet for games sold directly, when there are so many others available through your favorite channels, and cheaper?

[Camel]

I'm not sure. What are your reasons for believing so?

- Everyone has Steam now. "I'll buy it when it gets on Steam" is a common feedback indeed.
- If not Steam, then a bundle.
- You have AppStore with cool, cheap games on your phone, Steam and AppStore on your computer, PSN and XBLA on your console. Why scour the internet for games sold directly, when there are so many others available through your favorite channels, and cheaper?

The only reason I can imagine for direct sales to work is if it's a niche game, and people will want to support you directly instead of leaving a % to the middle man., the problem with this theory is for people to actually know you exist, and from what I could see he did not had a community following him, so to my eyes 5000 direct sales is quite an achievement , that's why I was asking if he did anything "diferent" so players know he exists.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'm not sure. What are your reasons for believing so?

mainly that indie games are much higher profile today, and people are less scared of buying them than they were in 07. for example, minecraft couldn't have existed in 07 (i don't mean technology-wise, i mean an indie game could not have achieved that number of sales in 07)

[TeeGee]

I don't buy it. Indie games have higher profile, so it means there's more of them (competition) and big companies are also entering the space. More players buy games, but they do it through Steam and such. With so many releases, the big services are able to cover your gaming needs so well that you don't have to actively look for games over the net. Also, people get addicted to collecting their games on their favorite services.

7 years ago I was able to release Magi and sell it directly for $22.95. I don't think it would be possible now, with the average quality being higher, and people used to much lower prices. Even with something as super-niche as Cinders, I still get a ton of: "I'll buy it when it gets on Steam/Bundle/Sale." Those simply didn't play a major role several years ago, and now they do precisely because indie games have higher profile. Even in the last company I worked for, we've noticed that, despite sales growing in general, each year the bigger percentage comes from the portals, while the direct sales decrease. Even fans asked us: "When is this coming out on BigFish Games?" I see the same thing happening with more hardcore indie games now.

All in all, you should finally release SD and see for yourself .

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

but what about games like 'the real texas' which aren't on steam but still well anyway? i hear of more direct from site success stories today than i did back then. and sure there are more people saying i'll buy it when it's on steam, but there are also more people in general who play games for the pc now, and more people willing to buy games through digital distribution than existed back then (back then the % of all games bought as downloads was tiny, now it's much larger)

i think it's always been hard to sell a game successfully on one's site, but i think it's less hard now. it's still really hard, but there are a lot more advantages now

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

here's an analogy which may help:

steam has a bigger piece of the pie than it did before, yes. a larger % of indie games are sold on steam than before

but! the pie is now bigger. so the non-steam part of the pie has still grown, even if steam's % of the pie has grown

[TeeGee]

To be honest, it's hard to prove both yours and mine stance without some actual statistics. But yeah, I see what you mean.

[tametick]

I think the question is not really "is it good to be on steam" (of course it is) or "is it easier now than before" (who cares? we live in the present and that's what matters). It's harder but you can sell stuff without being on steam or humble bundle.

Let me throw in my 2 cents again, as a niche indie that is neither starving nor swimming in a vault full of gold coins: my game didn't get on steam, didn't get on humble bundle, didn't even get on indie royale (not for lack of trying with any of these), and I'm still making a modest living off of it (it sold more than 5k units).

[MrDodo]

The conversation start about steam sales statistics, but what I find more interesting are sales statistics for direct sales. I guess that is more close to reality of most of indie developers than steam (since not so many people can sell their games in steam).
5k direct sales sound excellent to me! I guess that numbers really depend on your past as developer (meaning if you already have some fan base or not, and how big), the genre of your game (meaning how big is the audience), your marketing strategy/skills and, of course, the quality of the game.

I'm an absolute newsomer who can contribute nothing to this, but that's how I see things...

[Oddball]

Your direct sales are way over 5k units ? How long is the game on the market ?
I have to say those numbers for direct sales are quite impressive, how did you manage to do that ? the usual route of tryng to get previews/reviews ?
thanks
Bruno

I started selling direct in January. My marketing strategy was to make the best game I could and then show it to as many people as I could. I made a list of sites and people I wanted to show the game to and went down the list showing them. I got good traffic from the devlog here, Reddit, Twitter, Dtoid, and indiegames.com, but the biggest driver of direct sales was probably the Rock, Paper, Shotgun. They gave it a very favourable review and a lot of other sites took notice after that.

I don't know if my sales are good or bad as I don't have a point of reference, this is my first commercial game. And in regards to marketing I'm just making it up as I go along.

[tametick]

I don't know if my sales are good or bad as I don't have a point of reference, this is my first commercial game. And in regards to marketing I'm just making it up as I go along.

I think that as vague an unhelpful as it sounds, there is really no better advice than "make a game you really want to make/play, polish it as much as you can & try to get the word out about it".

Most people will "fail" (in the financial sense at least), few will succeed, and even fewer will succeed wildly. But even those of us that have found some success, there is no recipe we can give you for replicating it. It's a really complex system that depends on a lot of stuff, much of it outside of our control.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think the question is not really "is it good to be on steam" (of course it is) or "is it easier now than before" (who cares? we live in the present and that's what matters). It's harder but you can sell stuff without being on steam or humble bundle.

Let me throw in my 2 cents again, as a niche indie that is neither starving nor swimming in a vault full of gold coins: my game didn't get on steam, didn't get on humble bundle, didn't even get on indie royale (not for lack of trying with any of these), and I'm still making a modest living off of it (it sold more than 5k units).

hmm, that's weird. did any of those tell you why they rejected your game? it seems at least as good as some of the games they have on those things