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[OryBand]

Hey.

I've found a site which hosts some indie games sales statistics.
It's not really updated today (the stats, the site is being updated), but it still holds some good info.

Featured games are: Gish, Kudos, Democracy, and some other stuff.

Check it out.

http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/

[kyn]

Goddamn, Gish struck a gold mine
$121,000 Sales

[arrogancy]

I was actually surprised at how low Gish sold. An IGF winner that had all kinds of promotion and good reviews only selling that low is kind of surprising. I'd be curious to see what some other games sold.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I have my sales statistics listed on my forums too (although I haven't updated them in months).

http://studioeres.com/forums/index.php?topic=100.0

EDIT: I just updated that thread.

[moi]

To be honnest, the problem with Gish is that it's a bit too dark and depressing. I like to look at pretty screens when I play, but Gish (at least the demo) look too dark and gray and didn't entice me to find out more about it.

[EDIT] Oh, and BTW I'd be curious to have some infos on AQUARIA sales (even if not too detailed, just to have a general idea).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'd be interested in that too. I'd guess, though, that it did about as well as Gish, since it too was an IGF winner.

[Movius]

Gish has been released on Steam since that report was published. I would imagine that would add a large chunk to the sales figures.

[Gainsworthy]

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/indie-game-developer-finds-success-on-xbox-360-est-825k-sales-in-first-week

 


In other news, Gish struck me as charming rather than depressing! But, to each their own. And, yes, would like to see some sales figures from ye other developers. I think N+ did well, too (yay!).

[moi]

From what I understand Jonathan Blow should get between 50 and 70% on the revenue (depending if Msoft wants to "promote" the game or not)
I hope it will be sufficient to get him out of debt and into a well deserved profit 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Don't forget that Blow also had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get through MS's mandatory quality testing phase. He mentioned in an interview mentioned on Kotaku that he hasn't yet made back the money he put into the game (which he reports as $180,000 over the course of three years of his own money).

I suspect he will make it back, but not through XBLA sales alone, the direct PC sales will probably be more significant, because then the developers will be getting around $14 per sale instead of around $4 per sale. Although there probably will be fewer PC sales than XBLA sales, so who knows.

[Melly]

XBLA doesn't seem to be all that attractive for small developers, to be honest. There's the whole validation fee, and on top of that Microsoft gets a big cut of your earnings.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think it's useful for "larger" indie developers (the ones who can afford budgets of ~$100k per game), but less so for smaller indie developers who can only afford a few thousand max. Although it's less attractive even for them now because Microsoft up and changed the royalty rate for no reason, it used to give the developers 70%, now it takes 70%.

Another way of looking at this though is: even if Braid actually lost money on the XBLA (I don't think it will, but even if it did) it'd have been worth it for the popularity boost. Millions of people now know who he is, which will help him with marketing all of his future games. It'll be a lot easier to get a preview of his next game(s) in all the most popular gaming blogs than it'd be for "joe indie".

[moi]

In the comments he admits he will probably make a profit, judging by the theoretical numbers thrown around, it should even be a nice little profit.
Braid is the closest thing to what we could call a "hit" on XBLA.

[Melly]

But seriously, the 70% cut for Microsoft is plain ridiculous. What the hell are they thinking?

[handCraftedRadio]

But seriously, the 70% cut for Microsoft is plain ridiculous. What the hell are they thinking?

It's almost as if all they care about is money...

[arrogancy]

In the comments he admits he will probably make a profit, judging by the theoretical numbers thrown around, it should even be a nice little profit.
Braid is the closest thing to what we could call a "hit" on XBLA.

Alien Hominid made over a million dollars on there. 1.2 is the estimate, I believe. so given Microsoft's 30% cut of that, even still.

edit: There are more than 15 $1,000,000+ sellers on there if you count all titles. The first Geo Wars made like 3.5 million. Braid is middle of the pack (probably, based on projections).

[arrogancy]

But seriously, the 70% cut for Microsoft is plain ridiculous. What the hell are they thinking?

Microsoft doesn't take a 70% cut on any service I know. XBLCG is 40% IF the advertise it front and center, and that's the highest cut they take.

Edit: Oh yeah, there was an article about the pricing that came out a long time ago that mentioned 70%. Well, yeah, if they are the producers of your game as they were with that Smash Bros. ripoff, that may be the case.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Alien Hominid made over a million dollars on there. 1.2 is the estimate, I believe. so given Microsoft's 30% cut of that, even still.

edit: There are more than 15 $1,000,000+ sellers on there if you count all titles. The first Geo Wars made like 3.5 million. Braid is middle of the pack (probably, based on projections).

Yeah, but Alien Hominid also had a *budget* of over a million dollars (it's funny that people call it an indie game considering that), so it's questionable as to whether it made any money.

[arrogancy]

Alien Hominid made over a million dollars on there. 1.2 is the estimate, I believe. so given Microsoft's 30% cut of that, even still.

edit: There are more than 15 $1,000,000+ sellers on there if you count all titles. The first Geo Wars made like 3.5 million. Braid is middle of the pack (probably, based on projections).

Yeah, but Alien Hominid also had a *budget* of over a million dollars (it's funny that people call it an indie game considering that), so it's questionable as to whether it made any money.

No it didn't.

The XBLA port of Alien Hominid was completely indie and the budget wasn't anywhere in the neighborhood of that. That wouldn't even make any sense. Why would that budget be in the million dollar range? It didn't license any engines, the art assets were completely original, the music was done basically for free.

Alien Hominid had a publisher on the GC, etc. The XBLA port was done in house and was self published. It was the definition of indie.

The average sales on an XBLA game is $600,000 and a few of those are indie titles. The average budget for those titles is in the 50,000-100,000 range IF you count in personal expenses and living costs while making the game. Microsoft was taking 30-40% of that on average. That's $300k profit on average. Braid isn't even in the neighborhood of most profitable yet.  There have been tons of successful titles on XBLA, and by successful, I mean profits of 300k plus. That's why the sales of something like Gish are so disappointing in comparison.

[moi]

Yeah but it looks like braid is getting a much bigger buzz than AH (which furthemore benefited of being one of the very early games for XBLA). It looks like Braid will be a strong slow seller and it is surely going to make the same numbers if not better.