next »

[Derek]

Game

Year

Price*

Platform(s)

Sales**

Time Period

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

(2010)

$20

PC/Steam/GOG, Mac

1.4 million copies sold

/ 2 years

Anodyne

(2013)

$10

PC, Mac, Linux, iOS ($5)

40k copies sold

/ 7 months

Beat Hazard

(2009)

$10

Steam, iOS

$2,000,000

/ 3 years

The Binding of Isaac

(2011)

$5

PC/Steam

$2,000,000

/ 2.5 years

Defender's Quest

(2013)

$15

PC/Steam

$286,646 (gross)

/ 1 year

Cinders

(2012)

$23

PC, Mac

$40,000

/ 9 months

Dustforce

(2012)

$10

PC/Steam, Mac, Linux

$153,000 (net)

/ 1 year

Geneforge 4

(2009)

$15

PC, Mac

$111,412 (gross)

/ 3 years

Gentlemen!

(2013)

$5

iOS, Android

1,258 copies sold

/ 3 weeks

Incoboto

(2012)

$10

iOS

30,000 copies sold

/ 1.5 years

Legend of Grimrock

(2012)

$15

PC/Steam/GOG

600k+ copies sold

/ 8 months

Monument Valley

(2014)

$4

iOS/Android

$5,800,000 (gross)

/ 9 months

Proun

(2011)

CYP

PC

$23,043 (gross)

/ 3 months

Retro City Rampage

(2012)

$10

PC/Steam, PSN, XBLA, Wii, 3DS

400k copies sold

/ 2 years

Ridiculous Fishing

(2013)

$3

iOS

300k copies sold

/ 5 months

Shovel Knight

(2014)

$15

PC/Steam, Wii U, 3DS

300k copies sold

/ 5 months

Solipskier

(2010)

$3

iOS

$86,355

/ 2 months

Sword & Sworcery

(2011)

$5

iOS

1.5 million copies sold

/ 2 years

Waves

(2011)

$10

PC/Steam

15,000 copies sold

/ 6 months

World of Goo iPad

(2011)

$5

iPad

125k copies sold

/ 1 month

* CYP = Choose Your Price

** Sales figures are taken from the articles and don't necessarily reflect current figures. Also, they do not take expenses into account.



Want to add to the list? Here's a template for inserting a row into the table:

Code:

[tr]
[td][url=LINK GOES HERE][b]Game Name[/b][/url][/td]
[td][/td][td](2004)[/td]
[td][/td][td]$20[/td]
[td][/td][td]PC/Steam/GOG, Mac, iOS, Linux[/td]
[td][/td][td][/td][td][i]$100,000[/i][/td]
[td][/td][td][/td][td][i]/ 1 year[/i][/td]
[/tr]

Other Links:

• Money and the App Store: A Few Figures That Might Help an Indie Developer

[larsiusprime]

Does OSX mean "Mac compatible" or "sold on the Apple Mac store?"
'cuz DefQ is Mac/Win/Linux, so if it's the former you could stick OSX and Linux in the platform(s) column.

Maybe also add a column for "months on sale" as of the date the article was written, assuming that info is there? Would help "normalize" disparate and/or old data sets a bit.

[Derek]

I'll make it just "Mac", thanks!

Maybe also add a column for "months on sale" as of the date the article was written, assuming that info is there? Would help "normalize" disparate and/or old data sets a bit.

Going to leave that info off for now, because it complicates the list. The list is primarily to give people a ballpark idea and then link them to more detailed info. Also, I think most people do these postmortems after around a year or so. If there's a postmortem that's done after like 10 years or something, I'll add a note next to the figure.

[larsiusprime]

Pixel Prospector's got a giant list o' links here:
http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-game-revenue-sales/

[Derek]

Thanks! Good list.

And you know what, I will add the time frame. That's a good idea.

[Polyphonic Entity]

Defender of the Crown CD32 : around 20 copies

Jim Sachs wrote on youtube

Wow, over 105,000 people have looked at this. I think I sold about 20 copies, all together.
[...] Wrote all new music with full orchestration. Narration is in 5 languages.

[TeeGee]

You can add stats from our Cinders. At this moment: around 2500 sales, $45k in revenue (a year since the release). Here's the full post-mortem article.

[larsiusprime]

Just did a search on Gamasutra

And found some useful articles. I think it's important to get a range of stories, so that we can cover the lower-end sales reports too, and not just the smashing successes.

Game	Year	Platform(s)	Sales	Time Period
Gentlemen!	2013	iOS/Android	1,258 sales	3 weeks
Incoboto	2012	iOS	30,000 sales	1.5 years

I copied the first two into table format, but I've gotta run so I'll grab more later.

Here's one more:

Game	Year	Platform(s)	Sales	Time Period
Waves	2011	PC/Steam	15,000 sales	6 months

[Graham-]

seeing the stats for grimrock and amnesia make me happy.

[Derek]

I added a template that you can use to add to the list.

[melos]

On a phone so I can't Do the template but
Anodyne
Win OSX linux ios
2013
7 months
Price - $5 mobile , $10 pc. most sales at discount tho
Copies 40k

[Derek]

 

[Silvanis]

To add some less-than-successful ones to the mix:

Crystal Collapse

(2013)

$1

iOS

139 copies sold

/ 5 months

Cops 'n Robbers

(2013)

$2

iOS

51 copies sold

/ 1 month

[Graham-]

hahah

[poohshoes]

My game MoonBus has only sold copies to friends and family.  Though I did land my current gig because of it so it has some intrinsic value.

MoonBus

(2013)

$10-$5

PC

7 units

/ 4 months

[melos]

derek,do you have any stats on Aquaria or Spelunky?

asking around twitter'~'!'1'1now

[JtM]

We have site dedicated to our sales for Crabitron called Crabstarter which is styled as a Kickstarter parody.

Crabitron

(2013)

$3

iOS

$22,407

/ 4 Months

[Uykered]

Cool topic, also feel like this will become manbaby central.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

good to see cinders did so well teegee -- you beat immortal defense's sales already. i'll have to beat you again with SD

[Muz]

Heh, the stats are quite sad. Wonder where the median is... most people will rarely make over $100k on a game. A lot of those listed are the cream of the crop.