Last week I talked to Brendan Sinclair of GameIndustry.biz regarding the lack of transparency in digital distribution. If you’re a game developer trying to decide whether to make a game for the PC, XBox, Wii U, PS3, iPad, Android, etc. knowing the likely sales outcome is critical. And yet, even at this stage, it’s very difficult to have an idea of how well a game will do on a target platform.
For example, last year, we released a little Christmas game for the XBox Live indie channel called Elf Squad 7. For a couple weeks, it was in their top sellers list. But that meant selling just a few hundred copies. If we had been a start-up targeting XBox Live Indie, we’d be doomed. What is needed is some sort of metric that lets would-be developers gauge what their prospective return on investment is if they are successful on that platform.
As a game developer, I’m a lot less interested in how many copies the #1 game on a platform does than I am what the 100th did. I’m sure Angry Birds on the iPad has sold millions of copies. But I’m not likely to make the next angry birds. Getting into the top 10 or even top 100 sellers on a given platform is a successful achievement. But if my game can make it into the top 10 seller on a given platform by selling only a few hundred units for a given time period, that’s not a good sign to me.
For all the shouts that “PC gaming is d0med” we’ve heard over the years, it strikes me as odd that Galactic Civilizations II, a game released 6 years ago and is almost certainly in the top 100 best sellers on Steam has done over $1 million in the past year alone on that platform. And that’s just Steam and not counting Impulse or direct or retail or anywhere else it’s available. That strikes me as a pretty healthy platform. As a developer, if I know that something that didn’t even crack the top 100 for that year can make 7 figures then that’s a good platform to target.
But until that developer has taken the plunge on a particular platform, there is no readily available way for them to know what kinds of sales their game can expect. If I were making cars, I know exactly how many Chevy Volts or Honda Accords have sold in the past year. But in games? It’s guess work.
It would be really handy if the platform owners would divulge what their 100th best selling game did that year. They don’t need to name the game. Just the # of units sold and its average price point. Understandably, the weaker platforms wouldn’t divulge this but the stronger ones could use this as a competitive advantage. Right now, game developers too often feel like they’re playing the lottery and that’s not a healthy way to run a business.
Elf Squad 7 is a pretty fun little game, just saying.
I never understood why digital sales numbers where so mysterious and secretive. It makes the industry look like they are incompetent and doing shit sales.
Those are some interesting numbers. I can say anecdotally that I've bought exactly one game from Impulse since it was sold. Not because GameStop made some horrible changes to the platform (though they did), but because they no longer have honest-to-goodness sales. I'm continually amazed that digital retailers aren't learning things that brick-and-mortar retailers have known for decades: sales work. When Google Play opened and had music at 50% off, I bought a ton of albums. Since then? About 4 albums total.
It's not just a lack of sales that will put a customer off though.
Bugs with the checkout process? It took me about three or four tries to get Origin to give me a PC download of TS3: Seasons. If the same thing had happened to another customer, I'm sure they would have been put off buying at all, never mind trying again.
There was actually a long while there that I couldn't even see the store at all in Origin.
The lesson to be learned here is, if something can go wrong, it usually will. Don't wait for bugs to start costing you sales, go hunting for them.
I've had technical difficulties with Gamers Gate that has kept me from using them in a long time. Not worth the hassle of figuring out the problem when I can go somewhere else and buy.
As an independent developer, this has bothered me for many years. Its especially true with F2P MMOs... most companies are very secretive about how many players they have, how much they are spending, etc. It makes it almost impossible for a new company to plan out a revenue stream or evaluate how much to spend on marketing.I feel like the only reason for secrecy is so that publishers/distributors can screw over people who don't know what to expect or perhaps cut back room deals with certain companies in a show of favoritism.
I discovered Stardock recently when I bought Galciv 2 on Steam during the thanksgiving sale. I love civilization and scifi. It's really nice to see a merger. Very nicely done. Since then I've read a lot of the Stardock story. Your blog is fascinating. Very neat to learn the story of you and your company. Not many early 90s software companies have lasted without being sold. Also amazed you have time to blog while running the company.
Don't you dare post pics from demigod unless you are giving us dg2. You
side note - I can think of zero reasons that you shouldn't market elf squad again on steam this year and make some more money for a fun game. You are doing that, right?
Seriously, though - don't toy with me with Demigod pics.
I always wondered how much Stardock opening up to Steam would boost sales- and I felt FE would be a good judge, since the Steam-only folks wouldn't have bought WOM, and because of this wouldn't have been influenced too much by the drama around that.
I've heard that developers on Steam are pretty much not allowed to say how much they sell on Steam compared to other platforms? Any truth to that?
Thats not the spirit .
Interesting things though, thanks for sharing.
http://bgr.com/2012/12/05/mobile-app-market-revenue-analysis/
Pretty much exactly what Brad was saying.
I thought digital sellers weren't saying how they sold so they could pay less taxes. I thought they had to say how many copies they sold but they say a very low number to avoid paying lots in tax.
If that's not the case, what is?
competition.
It is a refusal of companies in the industry to compete.
Lets say a business has 3 types of charges that bring a final price to $60.
3 different companies will offer a 20% reduction in a different area of the spectrum to make sure that nobody is losing money from competition.
The days of selling under, reducing prices and driving up quality - has been replaced with constant price increases, driving down quality to a minimum, and profit models that minimize content. (one developer said it would be a waste of time to make a game that provides more than 6 weeks of gameplay)
Back in the day, my town had 3 video game shops and they used to compete - i was happy to get Lufia and the Fortress of Doom at $28. Now, there are 6 game stores in my town, with the same "final price" on every product regardless of sales, and it feels like they are all owned by the same guy because they don't compete with one another, employees have a 'revolving door' from one store to the other; collusion has changed from illegal backroom meetings to unwritten understandings of monopoly with the same result but no illegal meeting.
For myself, I am thinking I need to take a shot-gun blast approach if I want to try and break in.
The tools to do this aren't really available yet. What is needed is an IDE that will allow you to develop once and deploy on every platform everywhere.
HTML5, Javascript and WebGL is what I am betting on.
Pretty much what has kept me out of the industry: I don't want to relocate to a studio for a joe job in the industry (Though I'd be willing to telecommute to one studio for any joe job offered *waves at GPG*). I can't start up a studio and monetize a reasonable indie quality game in a reasonable amount of time on my own with the present tools. I can't convince someone to finance me and a small team for 2-3 years to make a real game (I have a millionaire friend who said he would kick me in the nutz if I brought it up again (quote from him in 1999: "For every id, there are a dozen+ studios lying dead in the gutter")... and yes this is a QFT.
All is not gloom and despair though for people like me (and probably people reading this particular thread intently) who actually have finished designs sitting on a hard drive waiting to be manifested into reality.
We are probably entering another golden age of gaming in the next few years once this "develop once, deploy everywhere" IDE becomes available from someone.
If this tool were to become available tomorrow my strategy would be to.
-Create an indie level game in a genre to test ideas, probe revenue potentials on platforms, and generate confidence in the brand.-Shamelessly Monetize the hell out of the sequel as economically efficiently as possible-Follow up with an "art" version of a game in the genre that hopefully can break even financially and win the hearts and minds of gamers.-Move to next genre, and start again, hopefully this time it will be easier since you should at least be watched by people who like your previous work...-Repeat until death, quantum resurrect and continue, repeat again and so forth until you become a gaming entity that could be construed as a god... then as your worshipers emulate you, quantum resurrect as a gamer, and devolve, discarding your supreme knowledge of everything gaming in exchange for blissful ignorance leading to oblivion... you have until the universe fails, and the race starts right NOW!
The fact now is that retail stores don't sell PC Games any more. Unless you have a "specialty" store that specifically sells them. Like Fry's in California. Or whatever local chain that specializes in that. They are a dying breed though. In reality stores like Walmart that sells PC's, and Laptops has a very small selection of software. The main games i see are The Sims, or the very newest release of CoD, or the BF series. That is about it. The software sections are an absolute joke. Even Best Buy is ridiculous now.
Mediums like Steam on the other hand are the place to shop if you are looking for PC Games. I know nothing about sales figures, but right now Steam is the only game in town, because the competition like Impulse (which was good until GS bought it out), or EA's Origin don't compare. People don't like Steam, because they think big brother is watching, or are afraid their computer is gonna get hijacked by the overlord or something. That is another argument all together for another topic.
The point i am trying to make is that the days of buying a PC game at your favorite retailer are now over. Digital Downloading is the way to get your favorite PC Games. Even classic games that have been long off the shelves can now be acquired through Steam. Pretty much all of the games i have now are through steam. I'm not trying to push steam. I am just pointing out what most already know.
Digital distribution is great because my kids can't find and break my CDs if they don't exist.
Nope, not any more. During the holiday season last year my local Fry's replaced their entire PC Gaming section with stuff like fragrances and children's toys. They were a barely tolerable place to buy games before, but after a move like that I'm done with them, which means all my video game purchases will now be through Steam since currently there is no working alternative (good job selling Impulse, Frogboy!).
If he hadn't sold it, there would be no viable alternative to Impulse.
I have not met anyone yet with any issues of buying games through on-line stores like steam or impulse, it is the 3rd party crap we are forced into using. I would buy all my games through Steam if not for that.
I like Steam games, but lately i prefer Ubisoft
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