I was wondering if anyone would be so kind to share their sales data on Steam for their game? It would surely help many people to plan projects.
You mean Greenlight projects?
Revenue and attention to greenlight games are falling every year; In 2016 expect it to be just like GooglePlay / iOS Store are today.
If you make it big you could hit over a million copies sold in one year, but 99% or more of games coming from greenlight will sell under 5.000 copies, many will sell less than 200~500 copies just like those stories of less than 30 copies sold circulating the internet.
The game I had there in early access pre-alpha state was making 1k copies for the month it was there, but I had a legal battle and the game had to be removed because I couldnāt get to a fair agreement with investors (they wanted to keep IP when I never agreed with that). Expect to see legal battles often as well like already happens to a lot of devs in Greenlight fieldsā¦
I find it pretty sad that Steam has āOpened the flood gateā so to speak, but I guess if they have an opportunity to make more money, theyāll take it
The problem isnāt really on Apple or Google or Valve open the āflood gatesā.
The real problem is at same time the āsolutionā; a gift and a curseā¦ The problem is the internet.
Before internet was a thing, publishers had a way to control the market flow; But internet never forgets.
Every year now thereās more than 100.000 new games published in the internet, but thatās also not the problem. The problem is just that: āinternet never forgetsā. Those games released wonāt be erased like were possible to erase old games from shelves in the past. Consoles are a little safer yet because they still have a physical echosystemā¦
But every year the mountain of games released in digital form grows and those games will be out there forever.
We are heading to a future where you must provide a solid and mobile āserviceā, not just a game, or people wonāt invest their time.
Youāll have to give people a very good reason to pick your game on top of others.
Just have in mind that what they as consumer mean by āfair serviceā wonāt be fair for you as a developer.
If you have tons of money you could corrupt outlets like kotaku to talk about your game two times a week, that works well. You can also buy youtubers and twitch.tv streamers then success is almost certain. To make sure you succeed, you need as well to buy tv ads from Fox during The Simpsons show (Game of War, anyone?!)ā¦ Oh and have celebs in your ads!
But of course, have a bug-almost-free and feature rich game experience (just need that, a āgoodā game isnāt really needed) and your game will have those 15 minutes of fame you need to make money backā¦ But must be feature rich experience, or all that marketing bs will backfire on you.
Notice that this isnāt just for games; any creative/entertainment industry, like books/comics/manga/anime/movies/etc that are directly affected by the internet, are suffering from the same diseases.
I imagine, if anyone manages to create cultural phenomena which can use internet as a tool, but never affected by its drawbacks (like some sports can), that one would be set for life. For any other case, we are all looking for the next Apple Store or next Steam to surviveā¦
Me? I donāt want to get along with any of that bsht anymore; Iām using UE4 to work for coorps from other fields now.
Iāve built an interactive digital book reading app in UE4 so cool that I wish I could shareā¦
If I ever publish another indie game again was because Iāve built something cool in my spare time for the next 10 years or so. Making game systems now just for fun and chill after all the trouble self-publishing got me involved
It looks like you are pretty much disgusted from this market, Bruno. I wouldnāt see the internet as the apocalypse of gaming, but an important information for me is that Steam is not a āgreenlight your game to win a fortuneā machine. If I get it right, its (going to be) all about self-planned proper marketing, just like if you want to sell spoons - it has to be cooler than other spoons and everyone has to know about it.
Thanks Bruno.
Can anyone else give an opinion as well?
Nah, Iām disgusted because Iād like to see every indie dev to succeed. Game development is super hard work and I wish all of you involved could be successful, but the opposite is happenning instead; meanwhile Google, Apple and Valve are milking more and more money from indie dreams and getting richer every year. Thatās how Unity went from a garage studio to a 2 billion company as well: milking indie devsā dreamsā¦ And I find it really sad.
this is exactly right, also the spoons dont really have to be cooler, just repeat they are cooler every time you ram them down peoples throat.
and what i mean by ramming down peoples throat is throwing stupid amounts of money at advertising.
so if you have no money, or an insignificant amount of money, your game will fail commercially no matter how good it is.
The trick is to gain a presence somewhere. Whether is be a few thousand followers for your game on Twitter, 2200+ posts on the UE4 forums, or a few thousand subscribers on YouTube, itās all free advertising.
Great Motivational TOPIC guys!
Should I slit my wrist now or after I publish?
Neither, you should lurk in game development forums and rant on about how hopeless everything is, how the industry is going to crash and tell every new person who even thinks about game development that theyāre going to fail and never going to make any money at all. Then for bonus points remind them that they should be aware of everything ever made by anyone and not to make anything even similar for fear of unknowingly copyright/patent infringing.
Theoretically that would somewhat help the situation of too many games, and not enough buyers.
Yes, I think thatās the secret plan of everyone being so negative, they just want to discourage others so they have less competition.
Most common indie games lacks identity or a good story and background.
You will find lot of the same survival games, again and again, and lot of pixel games, just average.
Is common to think this way; Iād suggest to get your stuff out there and see it for yourself.
Just donāt invest 2~3 years building a single game for greenlight or mobile if you donāt have strong marketing assets in place. Or else youāll bleed moneyā¦
If you manage to make a reasonable game every 6 months, you will have considerable returns from Steam. But this is where the flood will dominate the store from, just like in the mobile stores because you wonāt be the only one re-skinning games (same code, different assets) to sell
Also, keep in mind Iām talking Greenlight. Steamās frontpage store and big banner placements are a whole different story.
I know ppl making more money monthly from Kongregate than they ever did from greenlight.
Just do not develop game as a full time job, & more of a hobby then I guess you will be fine, & keep cost low. Have a day job, & make some scisfices (**** my spelling), no 2 ways about it. Have realistic target.
Also, one tip, do not feel bad about using available asserts (Free or bought via marketplace). Proper use of game asserts can save massive time!
Yes, ātheyā then get discouraged themselves after being so negative everywhereā¦ lol
Karmaā¦
As JC said, if you really want to know the numbers pull the last 50 - 100 games (premium, not including DLCs and free games) by going to Browse ALL Games (not just top sellers) and noting down the names of every game. Mark down the price too.
Then go to www.steamspy.com and look them up / input the value. Keep in mind that this number INCLUDES free copies given away. If you multiply the owned copies by the price then *.7 (30% to Steam) youāll get the maximum each game could have made. I then suggest dividing it by at least 2 to compensate for discounts / gift versions / safety
The results wont be pretty, but youāre likely to come across at least a couple winners!
SteamSpy also ignores the $0.50 game bundles and promotional keys activations. They affect a LOT the average income you expect from those numbers too.