next »

[io3 creations]

I agree regarding the speculation aspect of the results.  For that reason, I'm more interested in learning about new ideas that people used and then use/try those if I think that those might be relevant.

[VampireSquid]

Thanks for posting Kyzrati.  It is very generous of you to provide these details.

On the steamspy conversation, there absolutely is still value in developers releasing their numbers.  Steamspy is only so accurate and it doesn't take into account sales.  Given that most games will have been 75% off at one point  there is a large margin of error when you try to estimate revenue.  Were 90% of products sold at 75% off, or was it more like 25%, you get a very different number depending on your assumptions.  In some cases it is the difference between a game looking like a hobby project vs a living.

[Kyzrati]

You're welcome! One of the useful aspects of Cogmind's sales history is that for two years now the daily rate has been fairly constant when nothing's going on, and any time something happens I either caused it myself or at least know where it came from (and it's generally only one thing at a time), making it easy to assess how much impact each event has. Like being able to see that simply posting to Greenlight was worth about $750 (and didn't itself incur many additional costs since doing so was easy), although unfortunately that info won't be so useful to anyone else these days--glad I did that before it disappeared

[io3 creations]

You're welcome! One of the useful aspects of Cogmind's sales history is that for two years now the daily rate has been fairly constant when nothing's going on, and any time something happens I either caused it myself or at least know where it came from (and it's generally only one thing at a time), making it easy to assess how much impact each event has. Like being able to see that simply posting to Greenlight was worth about $750 (and didn't itself incur many additional costs since doing so was easy), although unfortunately that info won't be so useful to anyone else these days--glad I did that before it disappeared

Yeah, Greenlight was a decent source of exposure.  But on the other hand, your game was already at a stage where you could sell it but I don't think that would be the case for most games.  Perhaps  for those games, the start of Early Access could be a comparable event in terms of an easily recognizable income spike.

[Kyzrati]

Only $750? I would imagine (hope...) the start of EA would be more valuable to them* than that! (But yes, recognizable, in any case.)

Certainly in my case it was a more specific set of circumstances, in that it's a game already for sale. More games do happen to fall into that category today, though, with the advent of itch.io and a lot of devs putting early builds of their game over there even before going to Steam, for example.

^{(*"Them" referring to others who've spent years on their game, as opposed to something smaller...)}

[PartTimeIndie]

I already wrote it in the forum because I missed the thread. I still figured that it is interesting to post here as well, so it doesn't get lost

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NikolasCrisci/20180108/312400/Will_Glow_the_Wisp__Retrospective.php

Hope you enjoy

[Slapdash]

I already wrote it in the forum because I missed the thread. I still figured that it is interesting to post here as well, so it doesn't get lost

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NikolasCrisci/20180108/312400/Will_Glow_the_Wisp__Retrospective.php

Hope you enjoy

Thanks, it's a real pity this thread is not updated more.

[shrewdacumen]

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

Derek, I love your work!
Your work is greatly appreciated!
I don't like to have the trouble of posting a message on SNS, even on Facebook, twitter, or the like:  that idiosyncrasy of mine led to the blackout in information.