Unhealthy interest in sales figures

[Lurker King]

So how did ToN and Tyranny comparisons influence AoD sales?

 

[laclongquan]

So how did the Codex poll the Best of 2012-2016 influence the AoD sales? It was shared across the internet so one may believe it is possible that new sales were made because of it. But maybe there weren't.

Vault Dweller How much of a spike does that poll give to AoD sale, please? Enquiring minds are curious~

 

[t]

http://steamspy.com/app/230070 not much change lately.

 

[Vault Dweller]

No spike at all. On Steam such things don't really matter.

 

[HoboForEternity]

is it still selling 30-40 copies a day?

 

[Vault Dweller]

11 copies a day average during the last month.

 

[CRD]

Sometimes steam give the games that make huge free updates a spot on the daily deal, maybe you can try that when you push the final patch with the reworked DR combat. A logo with free update and some shit and to the front page, seen it multiple times.

 

[Vault Dweller]

On Dec 7:

AoD: 66,228
DR: 8,924

On Jan 4:

AoD: 82,529, $1,412,614, avg.price $17.12
DR: 14,998, $94,981, avg.price $6.33

On Mar 6:

AoD: 97,612, avg. price $15.29
DR: 19,148, avg. price $6.07

 

[HoboForEternity]

definitely slowing down, but it still beyond your expectation right? it almost sold twice the amount you had hoped for in its lifetime.

and the game hasn't even entered any bundles yet iirc

 

[Urbanolo]

Steamspy shows "Owners: 66,831 ± 7,304". That's not nearly as accurate as I thought it was. But these numbers look really good for a very niche indie game, I hope Colony Ship RPG doubles that in the same time span at least

 

[Vault Dweller]

Steamspy shows "Owners: 66,831 ± 7,304". That's not nearly as accurate as I thought it was. But these numbers look really good for a very niche indie game, I hope Colony Ship RPG doubles that in the same time span at least

The numbers include GOG, GamersGate, and BMT. Our Steam sales are higher than 66k but I assume it takes time for Steamspy to update their numbers as the increase is very recent (over the weekend sale).

 

[t]

Really great to see AoD keeping on selling. Of course it will be heavily discounted at this point, but I really didn't expect it to hit 100k copies when I was starting this thread.

It's also cool to see DR raking in a decent amount. After all, it should by all means appeal only to people who played and liked AoD. 20% conversion rate seems decent enough here.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Really great to see AoD keeping on selling. Of course it will be heavily discounted at this point, but I really didn't expect it to hit 100k copies when I was starting this thread.

Discounts are normal and so are the slowdowns and steadily declining sales. We didn't do any bundles (like Dead State, for example) or massive giveaways and $15 avg (which takes into account not only the discounts but also regional pricing) is better than good. I've never thought we'd hit 100k at a reasonable price and it looks like we're far from done yet.

 

[Goral]

I'm more surprised that DR is selling so well (relatively). I was sure it would sell like 10k copies max. And with additional translations (besides Russian and Spanish also French and Polish) that number will definitely increase.

 

[Lurker King]

What surprises me more is that most developers keep repeating what everyone else is doing without any empirical knowledge or common sense. They put games on bundle, which is basically giving their games for free, try to close threads, don’t engage with their target audience, etc. I wouldn’t even say it is a try and error process, because most of them don’t think about their own practices. Game development seems like a long series of shots in the dark and anecdotes.

 

[laclongquan]

Marketing and sale is an entirely different train of thoughts for game developers. They just dont get into thinking in that mode. That's why they really need pros in that field.

 

[Lurker King]

Sorry, but doing things such as releasing your game next to fucking Zelda? Do you need a pro in marketing to realize that this is not a good idea?

 

[Blaine]

Sorry, but doing things such as releasing your game next to fucking Zelda? Do you need a pro in marketing to realize that this is not a good idea?

At one time I might have said that that doesn't matter for old-school grognard games since the target audiences are completely different, but then we get 300-page Codex threads about the latest popamole shovelware, so...

 

[Lurker King]

But these medium studios need a broader audience to remain in business. Most people who bought PoE were not the real “target audience”. They were just induced to buy a game they don’t know. InXile had their chance to do the same thing and they blew it. Or maybe the result would be the same, I don't know.

 

[Jarpie]

Lurker King You should see what my dev friend says about some of the devs who blatantly says "We don't need to care about customers or keeping customers happy", it's just fucking staggering how arrogant and idiotic game devs can be about just basic business practices.

 

[Jarpie]

Lurker King Can't really quote per se but my friend says that many of the devs, especially indie devs, has quite an arrogance and dislike toward their own audience, and doesn't think they need them, also the thinking that "We don't need to think marketing or selling our games, it's beneath us because we're great artists!" and "MUH VISION!" is quite prevalent.

 

[Lurker King]

Yes, now that you mentioned I noticed this too. I think we should have more self-respect and pay attention to these things because at the end of the day we are the costumers that keep them in business.

 

[vonAchdorf]

What surprises me more is that most developers keep repeating what everyone else is doing without any empirical knowledge or common sense. They put games on bundle, which is basically giving their games for free, try to close threads, don’t engage with their target audience, etc. I wouldn’t even say it is a try and error process, because most of them don’t think about their own practices. Game development seems like a long series of shots in the dark and anecdotes.

I'm always interested in developers' pricing strategies. I already mentioned ad nauseam, that Larian didn't discount D:OS that much over the lifetime and with the EE prolonged the "normal" price phase.

Yacht Club (Shovel Knight) did it similarly but was even more reluctant with discounts. I think their deepest discount so far was about 34% for a 2.5 years old game and just recently, they even increased the base price from $15 to $25 (66%!), to account for the content updates they did so far.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What surprises me more is that most developers keep repeating what everyone else is doing without any empirical knowledge or common sense. They put games on bundle, which is basically giving their games for free, try to close threads, don’t engage with their target audience, etc. I wouldn’t even say it is a try and error process, because most of them don’t think about their own practices. Game development seems like a long series of shots in the dark and anecdotes.

I'm always interested in developers' pricing strategies. I already mentioned ad nauseam, that Larian didn't discount D:OS that much over the lifetime and with the EE prolonged the "normal" price phase.

Depends on a game. If a game is selling well, then there's no reason to discount it. If it's selling well with a modest discount, then there's no reason to offer a deeper one. If there's low interest then even a 90% off discount won't help you. Then there's a value factor (how much people are willing to pay for it). Since D:OS is the highest selling AA(?) RPG (to separate it from AAA RPGs like Witcher 3, Skyrim, Dragon Age that sells many millions of copies) with the best graphics, easily beating Wasteland and Torment, they have absolutely no reason to offer deep discounts.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Lurker King Can't really quote per se but my friend says that many of the devs, especially indie devs, has quite an arrogance and dislike toward their own audience, and doesn't think they need them, also the thinking that "We don't need to think marketing or selling our games, it's beneath us because we're great artists!" and "MUH VISION!" is quite prevalent.

I have noticed this as well. Its common among artists and also developers. This seems to be a regular attitude on the Unity forums.
For some reason many indie game devs that I have observed appear to believe they are practicing some kind of high art.
I find these attitudes arrogant and delusional. Over time this has caused me to grow to dislike indie games and indie games developers.

Funny thing is, rightly or wrongly I then began associating certain engines (like Unity) with these attitudes.