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Unhealthy interest in sales figures

Fenix

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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.

I guess then doesn't think that way, they think - we invest millions of dollars to make fancy graffix and CGI, voice acting, it is WE who gives you want you want, like oasis which give water to dying of thirst.
And no matter what they speak in public, they think like I said.
 
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Self-Ejected

Lurker King

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No, Fenix. It is the other way around. Contrary to the conventional wisdom of the left, big publishers care about the way their customers are treated because they know that this is a key aspect of a successful business. Some developers, on other hand, think they do whatever they want because they are superior to their audience. This became painfully obvious after the kickstarter. The interaction between players and developers grew, but the relationship with players is still unilateral.
 

almondblight

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A lot simply don't seem to realize that they can't just drop a game out there and hope for success. Didn't VD have a post about the importance of having a core group of followers that will spread the word? A lot of teams simply don't understand that this is something they need to put a little bit of effort into.

Stuff like regular updates (even to say "this month we worked on XYZ, and next month we're planning to work on ABC"), a mailing list for people who are interested, and a forum devoid of spambots that has a developer presence can go a long way. Lots of indies do nothing and then seem genuinely surprised when no one notices their game. This is particularly true when they received early attention, and assume that they'll still get the same amount of attention four years later even if they go silent for a couple years.
 

Invictus

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Divinity: Original Sin 2
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.
Yes, you only discount a product in the hopes of sparking interest to sell more copies, if the product is selling by itself (as Skyrim or GTA5 have) there is no reason to discount
If people are willing to pay the game at its current costs then it is a successful strategy to continue to sell it that way
On the other hand you might have a on the fence buyers who might be interested in your product but not enough to pay the "normal" price bit can be incited to buy it at a lower price
 

Fenix

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big publishers care about the way their customers are treated because they know that this is a key aspect of a successful business
Man, where did you get all this loadout of bullshit?
I'm serious, who feed it to you?
Business only care for money, it is its only and ultimate goal.
You think that reputation directly tied to money but it is not.
Look what happend already 10 years - games are cut for few pieces and sold, day 1 DLC, games full of bugs of all kinds.
Business has HOUNDREDS of well-paid people who do damage control for them, specially learned people.
Customers for them are sheeps, which must be cut.
 
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Self-Ejected

Lurker King

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Look, I don't have the time to educate retards that ignore basic stuff because they repeat idiotic prejudices about corporations.
 

Fenix

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I have time to translate one curious artcle about economics, but just fear to do it, because it is big, my skills are weak, and I'm not sure anyone need it.
But it cover actually topics we are discussing.
 
Joined
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Serpent in the Staglands Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Vault Dweller do you have any data on where you get sales from geographically? Just wondering because I was scrolling through the Steam community page and it seems like half the content people post is in Russian. Makes me curious as to how much the Russian translation helped your overall success (and how much the recent Spanish translation might lead to more sales down the line).
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
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Vault Dweller do you have any data on where you get sales from geographically? Just wondering because I was scrolling through the Steam community page and it seems like half the content people post is in Russian. Makes me curious as to how much the Russian translation helped your overall success (and how much the recent Spanish translation might lead to more sales down the line).
Back in March: In the last 12 months we sold about 1,200 copies in Spain (other Spanish-speaking countries didn't make the list), 800 of them in the last 3 months when the translation was released, 378 copies during the last week's 75% off sale. I'm glad that these 800 people were able to play it but it's not a game-changer (not that we expected it to be).

Russia is our second best market but it was our second best market since day 1 (since we started taking pre-orders after releasing the demo), long before the demo was translated. So roughly, out top 10 list goes something like this:

US - 40% of all sales
Russia - half of what we sold in the US
UK - half of what we sold in Russia
Canada - 80% of the UK sales
Then it drops by 10-20% with each step down the ladder: Germany, Australia, France, Norway, Sweden, Spain
Other (the rest of the countries combined) - a bit more than what we sold in Russia
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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Is this sales by number of copies or by revenue? At least for Primordia, regional pricing means that a Russian copy is much less expensive than a ~Russian copy.
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
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Number of copies. Now that you mentioned it, the US sales accounted for 41.6%, Russia - 5.2%, UK - 9.2%, Spain - 1.5%.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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It's pretty cool that a text-heavy RPG has gotten almost 50% of its revenue from non-Anglophone countries. The shift to digital distribution may have some real downsides, but the upsides are amazing.
 

Eyestabber

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So, in other words: the Russian translation DID help. I notice the same trend on my YT analytics. Russians seem to like my AoD videos. And watch them for longer.

You might wanna make official Russian and Spanish localizations for the colony ship game, since those seem to bring the biggest bang for your buck. Leave the rest of the world to volunteers.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
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US - 40% of all sales
Russia - half of what we sold in the US
UK - half of what we sold in Russia
Canada - 80% of the UK sales
Canadian sales on a per capita basis were twice US sales.

canada_day02a.jpg
 

Goral

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Number of copies. Now that you mentioned it, the US sales accounted for 41.6%, Russia - 5.2%, UK - 9.2%, Spain - 1.5%.
Is it for DR + AoD or just AoD (or it's so similar that it's basically the same thing)? Also, is Poland in the top 15 or lower? It used to be in the top 10 but it was during a time when 30 copies was enough for that :D.


http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg84813.html#msg84813 (Poland 2nd)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg84926.html#msg84926 (2nd)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg85225.html#msg85225 (2nd)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg85489.html#msg85489 (2nd)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg85787.html#msg85787 (2nd)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg86398.html#msg86398 (2nd)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg86678.html#msg86678 (2nd)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg87919.html#msg87919 (5th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg88376.html#msg88376 (6th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg89165.html#msg89165 (7th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg89653.html#msg89653 (7th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg91364.html#msg91364 (7th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg92509.html#msg92509 (7th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg93066.html#msg93066 (7th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg94133.html#msg94133 (9th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg95421.html#msg95421 (9th/10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg99003.html#msg99003 (9th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg99568.html#msg99568 (9th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg100806.html#msg100806 (10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg101940.html#msg101940 (10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg102990.html#msg102990 (10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg104350.html#msg104350 (10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg104940.html#msg104940 (10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg106342.html#msg106342 (10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg107487.html#msg107487 (10th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg114229.html#msg114229 (12th)
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg132812.html#msg132812 (15th)

And the newest data where you've published sales by country looks like this:
Total 12,141

United States 233
Russia 60
United Kingdom 51
Canada 48
Australia 47
Germany 44
France 43
Sweden 40
Finland 35
Poland 31
Norway 21
Denmark 17
Italy 17
Netherlands 14
Ukraine 12
Switzerland 9
Brazil 7
Hungary 7
Spain 7
Belgium 6
Croatia 5
Czech Republic 5
Israel 5
New Zealand 5
Portugal 5
Slovenia 4
Austria 3
Estonia 3
Japan 3
Saudi Arabia 3
Singapore 3
Turkey 3
Bulgaria 2
Chile 2
China 2
Greece 2
Hong Kong 2
Iceland 2
India 2
Ireland 2
Latvia 2
Lithuania 2
Malaysia 2
Malta 2
Romania 2
Argentina 1
Belarus 1
Canary Islands 1
Colombia 1
Indonesia 1
Kazakhstan 1
Namibia 1
Peru 1
Philippines 1
Somalia 1
South Africa 1
United Arab Emirates 1

P.S.
Sites visit data as a bonus:
http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,2584.msg89454.html#msg89454
It's a bummer that our translation of DR didn't even give a noticeable spike in the sales but that's what happens when hardly anyone heard about it. The only place where you could read about premiere of Polish localization was this site: http://rpg-center.pl/age-decadence/dungeon-rats-premiera-polskiego-tlumaczenia
And only because Sentenza was (along with Darth Roxor) main translator of DR. He even sent some Polish gaming sites info about it but they weren't interested, instead they prefer to post some shit news...
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
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Messages
28,024
Number of copies. Now that you mentioned it, the US sales accounted for 41.6%, Russia - 5.2%, UK - 9.2%, Spain - 1.5%.
Is it for DR + AoD or just AoD (or it's so similar that it's basically the same thing)?
AoD. DR top 10 countries are:

United States
Russian Federation
United Kingdom
Canada
Germany
Australia
France
Spain
Sweden
China

It's a bummer that our translation of DR didn't even give a noticeable spike in the sales but that's what happens when hardly anyone heard about it.
I'm sure it helped some people who couldn't play it otherwise but overall DR is not a strong sales material. So the translation project was more of a "community service" than a sales booster.
 

CRD

Cipher
Patron
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Dec 23, 2014
Messages
297
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Vault Dweller do you have any data on where you get sales from geographically? Just wondering because I was scrolling through the Steam community page and it seems like half the content people post is in Russian. Makes me curious as to how much the Russian translation helped your overall success (and how much the recent Spanish translation might lead to more sales down the line).
Back in March: In the last 12 months we sold about 1,200 copies in Spain (other Spanish-speaking countries didn't make the list), 800 of them in the last 3 months when the translation was released, 378 copies during the last week's 75% off sale. I'm glad that these 800 people were able to play it but it's not a game-changer (not that we expected it to be).

Russia is our second best market but it was our second best market since day 1 (since we started taking pre-orders after releasing the demo), long before the demo was translated. So roughly, out top 10 list goes something like this:

US - 40% of all sales
Russia - half of what we sold in the US
UK - half of what we sold in Russia
Canada - 80% of the UK sales
Then it drops by 10-20% with each step down the ladder: Germany, Australia, France, Norway, Sweden, Spain
Other (the rest of the countries combined) - a bit more than what we sold in Russia


The thing with Russia, is that they buy your game at 70% discount. I mean, the game costs 28€ in Europe while it cost 8€ in Russia, so even if Russia is 20% of the global sales, the revenue should be half than any of the 10% countries. A single copy sold on EU equals to 3.5 on Russia.

SAIdwcy.png


And also on top of that, there is the problem that you are selling it the game for the same price to germans and spaniards or italians where income is much lower, so its should be considered to see where is the most loyal fanbase. For example the minimum wage on france and germany is about 1500€ while on spain is 600€ but they pay the same for the game.
 
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Goral

Arcane
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. For example the minimum wage on france and germany is about 1500€ while on spain is 600€ but they pay the same for the game.
I see here that average net income is over 1718 euro in Spain, 2270 in Germany, over 2518 in Sweden and 2157 in France while in Poland it's 742 euro. Unless you meant median salaries but that will also lower the numbers for other countries (e.g. for Spain it's over 800 euro and for Poland it's over 550 euro). Or maybe mode (dominant, i.e. the most common value)? In that case in Poland it's only 400 euro.
 

CRD

Cipher
Patron
Joined
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Messages
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Divinity: Original Sin 2
. For example the minimum wage on france and germany is about 1500€ while on spain is 600€ but they pay the same for the game.
I see here that average net income is over 1718 euro in Spain, 2270 in Germany, over 2518 in Sweden and 2157 in France while in Poland it's 742 euro. Unless you meant median salaries but that will also lower the numbers for other countries (e.g. for Spain it's over 800 euro and for Poland it's over 550 euro). Or maybe mode (dominant, i.e. the most common value)? In that case in Poland it's only 400 euro.

I was talking about the minimum wage, but I agree maybe is not a good measure, should be median wage for the most realistic point of view as you say.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income?oldformat=true

What I wanted to say is that in the big picture, when some countries like spain (poland, italy, greece, I just said spain because he mentioned it) with a lower median salary and huge unemployment compared to the big ones have enough copies sold to mention it, that could show that the game or genre have a loyal base and that maybe looking for some options like translations day 1 or lower prices, could bring at the end higher profits for the game, maybe with a long tail distribution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail?oldformat=true

Just that is not so easy to look at the number of sales by country without considering the prices on each one, gdp, translations, marketing and so. Also that Russian sales numbers are usually misleading because of the huge regional pricing differences.
 
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Jarpie

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Messages
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Codex 2012 MCA
Vault Dweller, how are finnish sales altogether and was there anykind of spike on sales to Finland in the last november and december? Finnish gaming magazine published positive review of Age of Decadence last november.
 

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