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Geek Culture / Serious attempts at commercial DB projects

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Fallout
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 17:21
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Just curious to find out how many peeps on here are currently working on a project in DB that they fully intend to sell. There seem to be more and more people working on higher end games, as well as people working on lower end games with a high degree of polish. DB seems stable enough now and there are enough tools available to produce a good quality game. So how many of you are working on something significant to earn yourself some cash, how are you feeling about your project and when's your estimated release time?

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Bahamut
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 17:40
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I hope to eventually reach the standard of ability needed to make a commercial project. However when I do, unless I really need the money I'd like to release anything I make for free. Maybe I'd even release the code aswell for people to learn from. It depends on my financial position when the time comes though.

My project is in the planning/working out how the hell I'm going to code it stage, and estimated release time is at least *looks at watch* two-three years if I'm lucky. More likely to be five. Don't worry though, it's not an MMORPG (almost as ambitious though ).

IceBound Melodic rock/metal band with loads of lead guitar, clean female vocals, and more guitars! What more could you want?
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Kenjar
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 18:19
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I'm working on the RTS Framework which hopefully will become commerical, but mostly it seems what people tend to make and sell are tools to make games with lol. Landscape generators, model viewing tools that sort of thing.

Your signature has been erased by a mod because it's larger than 600x120...
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Matt Rock
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 18:22
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I'm working on a full slew of commercial games created in dbpro. There's no reason why you can't make commercially-viable games using darkBASIC... it's a fully capable programming platform and quite a few other games have made money using DB in various forms.

My team has two games slated for shareware release in august... nothing snazzy, and they won't earn millions of dollars, but they're fun and we'll be releasing them for peanuts. One of them is a text adventure, because the contest has inspired me to make a new one, and I'm mostly just testing to water to see if they're economically viable. A lot of people say they're not, but I don't know because I haven't tried to release one before, so I'm trying to make it as pretty and as high-quality as possible (if it sells, I'll write a full thread on how I got it to do well so that others can do it, too). I'm also releasing a 2D comedy fighting game based on politics, and for that one we have pretty high spirits (if it sells 5,000 units I'll consider it a smash success). I'm hoping to have our company release between six and nine games before January 1st 2007, ranging from text adventures to isometric RPG-ish games to possibly even a 3D FPS title, which we've been working on for eons, although I don't know if we'll get that out within the next year and a half (production has been halted repeatedly and it's nothing if not problematic as heck). But anyway, those are our plans, and to some people it's big thinking, but I honestly think it's possible to make a decent amount of money in the indie market, and you'll never know if you don't try

PS.- For a while last year I was making trivia games and other little 2-week projects for a few companies, and I made a decent amount of money doing it (it definitely didn't make me rich, but the money wasn't too bad). I made trivia games for websites and did small training programs for local businesses, and I averaged between $200 and $400 for each. I'd contact them and offer my talents, and if they were interested, they'd pay $200-$400 for the full ownership of the software and the exclusive right to sell it or otherwise distribute it to their liking. And people said "eh, that won't make money," but seriously last summer it was paying the bills, up until I couldn't find any more clients anyway (at which point I ended up getting into all kinds of money trouble lol). But anyway, yes, it's totally possible to make money selling DBPro games. I assume you could do it with DBC, too. It's just a matter of not setting your sights too high, doing sales gradually to establish a client pool, and spending as much time and effort as you possibly can trying to learn about marketing and stuff. It can be done


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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Van B
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 18:29
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A good example would be TYTT, 7 or so coders working on games to be added to that right now for cash money . My effort is pretty much done, and it does have more polish than anything else I've done, it is a much simpler idea than usual too. The coding style had to be different too, because of the way it was being put together - but as long as you still get to add your own touches it's all good. Not sure I'd like to make someone elses game for them, like I think writing a game to an exact designers brief would be pointless - I program for a living as it is, coding in DB is my hobby and even if I never make another penny from it that'll remain the case.

Smaller games with more polish seem to be the best bet for games - but that's not to say that games are a good way to make money with DB. Applications could do well, and really that's one area where someone could make a big splash.

For example, there was this STOS created package on the ST called Magic Storybook, a 2D book creation package for kids. It had animations and a nice interface, and was very easy to use. That shareware product written in a £20 programming language got endorsed by Rolf Harris!. Must be the most successful STOS product, for the sole reason that people buy this stuff for their kids, grandkids, friends kids, nieces, nephews - it's one of those 'better use for a computer' packages that attract sensible adults.

A product like that could be big, and DBPro is THE language to make something like that with.

People wen't nuts for the movies, for about a week when they realised it couldn't really make the movies they wanted to make. There's a strong demand for machima software that is easy to use - possibilities are out there, just needs someone to invest the time. That seems to be a cop-out, it depends on the person and the project not the timescale though - because when money is involved there's a very different approach to how you do things and what you skimp on.

Aegrescit medendo
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Fallout
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 18:51
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Interesting stuff guys. I also believe DBP is capable of making decent games .... I wouldn't be using it anymore if I didn't. If you choose something attainable and you're the right man for the job (or woman) and dedicated enough, it should be possible. I think my current project is pushing the limits of what I can attain and will hopefully be salable at the end of it.

@Matt

Quote: "I'm also releasing a 2D comedy fighting game based on politics, and for that one we have pretty high spirits (if it sells 5,000 units I'll consider it a smash success). "


What sort of price tag are you thinking about putting on this game and how are you going to market it? The reason I ask is I personally think 5000 units is a huge figure. If I shifted 5000 units of the game I'm working on at the moment, I would be quite literally over the moon. It sounds small in the scale of the internet and game players, but to get 5000 people to part with their cash I'd say you need a very attactive product, well presented and you need at least 50,000 people to view it (assuming it's good enough that 1 in 10 people will actually buy it). This is one of my main areas of concern actually. I'm working hard to make sure my game is emmense. I mean, something that people really want to play, but how I'm going to market it and get the exposure to justify spending 6 months making it is a big worry.

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Chris Franklin
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 18:57
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i might sell my themepark sim sometime or v2 of it

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Manticore Night
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:11
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I'm making a TurnBasedStrategy-Roleplaying-Puzzle-Game(TBSRPPG, I guess). I'm gonna try and sell it.

[center]It's amazing how much TV has raised us. (Bart Simpson)

He's back! With 20% less intelligence!
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Agent Dink
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:30
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Well, my TYTT entry didn't make it into the second stage since I didn't get enough done, but I am sure if they saw if now they would change their mind. I do plan to sell it eventually. I still need to add a bonus level style and clean up a few things and it will be completely ready to go. I've just been casually working on it every now and then since I'm not trying to rush a contest deadline.


[url=http://www.silver-dawn.net]www.Silver-dawn.net[url]
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Megaton Cat
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:31 Edited at: 29th Jun 2006 19:31
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We goan' be rich like a hobo that wins the 150mill lottery. Probably richer.


It's like a Megaton Cat radar, 24 hours a day.
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:32
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Quote: " (assuming it's good enough that 1 in 10 people will actually buy it) "


Given the saturation of the market place online. Between 1-100 and 1-1000 is far more like it.


Play Hard! Play Basic!
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dark coder
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:37
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Well ive been using db/p for about 5years now, and ive come to the stage where making random projects and/or entering compos isnt enough, though making a commercial game using dbp isnt a new idea of mine its only recently that i feel that im actually ready to start, however deciding which game to essentially put all my eggs into wasnt an easy choise to make,but after exploring both the darkbasic limits and my coding skills ive came to the conclution that making an online space combat game would be ideal for many reasons, most importantly there isnt much competition, sure theres eve online which is very good but its just way too complex imo and i wish to go down a similar route to the star wraith series.

Star wraith was probably the first commercial dbc title? or atleast for its size, and if you think about it its obvious why, and you compare it to the countless fps/rpg projects that are ongoing and yet none have been commercially released(to my knowledge) and the main reason of this is because its too hard, im not saying that coders in this community arent skilled enough its just that to make a successfull game of these highly popular genres against the biggest companys in the gaming industry is truly a loosing battle, looking at hl2 which is around a year old since release? currently i dont think dbp is really capable of a game thats so advanced, and hl2 has essentially set milestones that are incredibly high.

However a space sim isnt difficult as they havent really advanced much as there isnt alot more you can add visually and alot less games of this genre are being created, i used to play freelancer quite a bit and its now around 3years old and a game like x3 which was released quite recently, the graphics havent really changed and i believe that with alot of hard work that i can achieve something of that quality, now lets say i get the graphics the same which is probably the most important(lets face it), the other major problem for indi developers is that you cant easily publish it lets say you get a publisher you probably arent going to see it on the shelves unless you goto a big publisher but they probably wont because its made in darkbasic right?, so to overcome this im making it online which automatically cuts out alot of problems since you dont have to loose any limbs through publisher cuts, and making a game online will make the life of the game alot longer than any single player game.

and thats pretty much the plan for my current project, as ive found a neiche that i can fit into and im going for it .

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:39
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Quote: "What sort of price tag are you thinking about putting on this game and how are you going to market it?"

We're talking about selling it for somewhere between $3.99 and $9.99... probably $5.99. Something that indie developers don't seem to understand is that you can't sell your game for $19.99 to $49.99 and expect people to buy it. Some people won't even pay that much for a game in the store. So you really need to aim low until your company builds up a reputation for itself, so people know that your company is professional about stuff and you can be trusted. You need to make people WANT your games... look forward to them, you know? It's totally possible and I think anyone who thinks it isn't is flippin' nuts, lol. And never assume that only 5,000 out of every 50k who see your game will buy it. That can only be true if your price tag is extraordinarily high and your prodcut is extraordinarily weak. In my opinion, if the game is good enough people will buy it, and while it won't make you a millionaire, you can do pretty well in this market


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:56
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Quote: "You need to make people WANT your games. "



That is the 'key' point 99% of producers miss. As developers, if we expect to health return, we have to produce products that people want. If you can create a need, a desire, then price is almost secondary. Without a need, price is an obstacle. As with software, there's virtually always a free alternative.


Play Hard! Play Basic!
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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 19:58
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Now that people are DOOM 3 READY, it has made DB Classic fast enough to make great games. In other words.. If you can run Doom 3, then you can make a good game in DB Classic with quite a few polygons, and faked shader effects. You have enough ram for thousands of rendered plains. Tekken, Wipeout, and nearly all PS1 games are achievable.

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Jeku
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 20:16
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Quote: "As with software, there's virtually always a free alternative."


Yes! Any business app or game can be emulated and released for free.

Right now I'm not really allowed to make my own games on the side and sell them, but I have sold a small amount of copies of my PB game WordZap, so it is definitely possible. For puzzle games, if someone comes up with the next golden formula ala Tetris or Bejewelled, they could easily do that in DBP or PB and make a small fortune.


"I understand creative people. After all, I worked with towel designers." - Ray Kassar, former head of Atari
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SageTech
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 20:35
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Im hoping to get my online game to the point to where it goes semi-commericial. By that I mean alowing users to play for free, but certain things are unavailable unless you pay a one time fee or something of the likes.

Back by unpopular demand!
Battle Legacy has gone MMORPG! Nah, Im just kidding. But seriously, check the WIP

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 21:04
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Quote: "Im hoping to get my online game to the point to where it goes semi-commericial. By that I mean alowing users to play for free, but certain things are unavailable unless you pay a one time fee or something of the likes.
"

My team has talked about doing something like that too, like you pay to open up different areas of the game's world and stuff, but we also considered scrapping that idea because we weren't sure if it would sell very well... still, I personally think it's a good idea regardless of what the rest of my team says. Who needs them, they only do most of the work lol


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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code master
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 21:52
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I'm developing a Utility with VB and DBP. I've already got 20 or more customers lined up, and I forsee many more in the future. I've tapped into a specialty market with only ONE competitor to date, and my product caters to many people. So, I'm expecting 50 sales, but hoping for as much as 2000. I know that's a lot, but I can dream...

Weapon Creator for sale soon!

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Megaton Cat
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 21:54
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Does your "team" consist of yourself, a dog, and two rodeo clowns?


It's like a Megaton Cat radar, 24 hours a day.
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Fallout
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 21:57
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Hmm, Matt, while I respect your enthusiasm and am sure you have a great product, I still think you might be a little optimisitic. It depends what your marketting strategy is, but if you're purely selling from your website, I would think it'll be incredibly hard to get 5000 sales. Getting 5000 unique hits from visitors actually browsing your site in a reasonable period of time can be tricky itself. You have to assume that 90% of those people won't be that interested in the content. They'll have followed a google link (if you're lucky enough to appear high enough up on google), looked about and not found what they were looking for.

There's not many people that will chance upon a site and be so wrapped up in the product they'll part with their cash. Most of your sales, in my opinion, would come from people who have heard of the game and are going there to check it out, play a demo and then buy it. I would guess that'd be less than 10% of your hits, and I'd say 1 in 10 of those people might buy if the product is good enough. To figure Kevin gave above could well be more accurate.

I just really think the marketting is incredibly important, and you can't sit back and assume that a good game at a good price will sell. I really don't think it's that easy.

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RalphY
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 22:50
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I think it depends what you’re trying to achieve. Personally I think (assuming I ever stop being lazy and actually complete something) it's much more important to get your game noticed than to make money - and it's a lot easier to get people to notice something if it's free.

If you have a great game and its free people are going to be more likely to try it, and thus its popularity will grow. If you provide means (in game or out of game) to build up a community around your game then you will already have an audience for the next game you make. I think for an indie developer building a community and a reputation for making great games is most important, once you have that then you can think about money.
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Matt Rock
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 23:29 Edited at: 29th Jun 2006 23:30
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Quote: "Does your "team" consist of yourself, a dog, and two rodeo clowns? "

I don't think we have rodeo clowns where I live. Anyway, my team has about 14 people on it, mostly comprised on my most talented friends, with a small handful of them being people I've never met in person, either from TGC or Gamedev or some other source. Pretty cool for being puny, and I'd certainly hope that with 14 people, each of whom is pulling an equal amount of weight (well, almost), we'd be able to sell 5,000 units

Geurilla advertising is your best friend. You can't just put a website up and expect 5,000 people to even see it... you need to get your hands dirty and hit up every forum and chat room you can find, and have everyone else on your team do the same thing. Purchasing advertisements for bigger projects isn't a bad idea, either, and it's not nearly as expensive as a lot of people think (everyone will tell you that it's a zillion dollars). You don't need a multi-million dollar ad campaign to reach lots of people. As I illustrated numerous times in the past, even with $5k you could advertise your game to no end if you did it the smart way. Also, you have to be willing to lay down a pretty large chunk of your game's profit to advertising, else it'll never get off the ground. Two of our team members have marketing backgrounds now... I think we'll be okay. If you go back and read what I wrote, I said "If we sell 5,000 units we'll consider it a smash success," but we're not really aiming for that many sales... we're probably going to get 1-3 thousand at best, but still, you won't know what your studio is capable of until you actually try it. There's a fine line between thinking realistically and thinking pessimistically. But I've already made some decent money in this industry and I'm planning on making some more hehe


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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Bahamut
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 23:42
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The most important way to get people to view your game is advertising, the best way to get them to buy your game is a good demo. Maybe it could be a couple of levels, or a watered down version of the full product. If it's story based, it might be a good (but cruel) idea to end it on a cliff hanger. I won't buy a game without playing the demo unless I'm 100% sure that I want to take the risk. Which won't happen with DB products.

It's a hard thing to balance though. Not enough content and people won't experience the game properly, too much leads to disappointment with your full product or worse, people will decide that the demo is enough and they don't need the full title.

IceBound Melodic rock/metal band with loads of lead guitar, clean female vocals, and more guitars! What more could you want?
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Fallout
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Posted: 29th Jun 2006 23:44 Edited at: 29th Jun 2006 23:49
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Ok Matt, makes a lot more sense now. You clearly are thinking about marketting and being fairly realistic, so I can see it being successful (assuming the project is good! ) so good luck to you. Marketting is definitely something I'll have to think long and hard about when the deadline draws closer.

Edit: @Bahamut.
Good points there also. I think demo movies are key here also. Good trailer movies, showing off the full scope of the game and showing how well it plays.

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Cash Curtis II
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I definitely have aspirations of selling games. My current project should be adequate enough to move some units.

I imagine that I might make enough money to pay for all of the software I've bought, but not the time I've invested. Mainly, it will all look good on my resume.

The real market potential for indie developers isn't so much games and game making utilities. Those sell, because everyone wants to make a game. Things like FPSC. That's where I believe the money is.

Matt Rock, from everything you've said, it sounds like you're already a software developer, your concern not just that you ship a title, but the number of units that you move. What games have you released? How much money have you made? I'd love the benefit of your experience.


Come see the WIP!
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Jeku
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 00:06
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Quote: "There's a fine line between thinking realistically and thinking pessimistically."


What happened to the Matt Rock that said his next FPS was going to revolutionize the game industry and catapult his team into "id-like" status? I'm still waiting for this MMOFPS that will sell thousands of copies


"I understand creative people. After all, I worked with towel designers." - Ray Kassar, former head of Atari
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Matt Rock
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 02:58
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Quote: "Matt Rock, from everything you've said, it sounds like you're already a software developer, your concern not just that you ship a title, but the number of units that you move. What games have you released? How much money have you made? I'd love the benefit of your experience."

As I said before, the money I made was from those silly little text adventures and business applications. But you have to think about things professionally from the minute you have an idea to run with. If you don't, your entire project might end up being amateur, and amateur doesn't sell. There's a difference between making your games for fun and making them for profit, and if you're going to do the latter you need to run your studio like a full studio.

Quote: "What happened to the Matt Rock that said his next FPS was going to revolutionize the game industry and catapult his team into "id-like" status? I'm still waiting for this MMOFPS that will sell thousands of copies "

That project is still in the works... just severely delayed and on hold for a while until we release a few 2D games to make a name for ourselves. As I promised before Jake, you'll be the very first person who doesn't work for my company who will get to play the game, a credited alpha or beta tester with the sole responsibility of seeing it in all of its grandure


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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Briere
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 03:09 Edited at: 30th Jun 2006 06:37
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I am not right now.
Right now I am working on a game just to make for the sake of having made a game. To learn the concepts behind it etc.

Then I plan to go over my C++ books again, this time getting EVERYTHING mastered, and then purchasing a few newer DirectX books, as well as Winsock, and then making another learning game so to speak, without the help of high level wrappers.

Then I have no idea after that.

Also, if you shipped 5,000 units, I am more than certain you woud be able to get a publisher for your game, and make some real money.

I dont know about you, but if some company offered me $100,000 for a game I made in my bed room, id take it.

If you have shipped $5,000 units, and sold at $10, thats already $50,000 before taxes and stuff.

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 05:33
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As soon as you get a publisher, you run the risk of being taken over by said publisher, and I don't want to take that risk. Besides that, if you know how to manage your money and you're able to market your games properly, you won't need a publisher... you could easily distribute your own games using CD duplication companies and stuff (but not until/ unless you have a few big-name titles). Point is, if you sell 5,000 units, there's literally no point in going with a publisher. Do you know how much money you'd have after 5,000 sales? I've included a Microsoft Works Database file for the lot of you to view... it's a gross profit breakdown. It notes how much GROSS profit you'd earn for the number of units you sell. Please note that these are GROSS profit figures. For those of you who don't know, gross profit is your profit BEFORE you take out all of your expenses. NET profit is the profit you'd earn after covering production costs, which I can't rightly make a database for since almost every project on earth has different expenses, especially in the indie world where we usually tend to pay our team members in percentages of said net profit anyway, take a gander at that and let it fuel your imagination. Don't think something's impossible until you've tried it and you've seen what is and isn't possible Trust me, if I gave up hope every time someone told me something was impossible I'd never have accomplished all of the cool things I'm proud of in my life, including selling those games, or making a band, or anything else. Just take a look at it (if you have works)... it's pretty cool to know how much you might be able to expect. I tried to include as many price points and unit sales milestones as possible and as would be common. If you improve on this database, please let me know.


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"

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Jess T
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 06:16
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Instead of trying to go all-out commercial, why not try something like Utopia had where you pay to get rid of advertisements (and game some other benefits as well, like VIP game area's, etc)?

Understandably, this would probably only work for a browser-based game, and one that has quite a few hits (to make any money from the advertising in the first place), but I'm sure the same idea could be adapted to a shareware title?

And, what about good old open-source?
I've seen quite a few open-source game projects that have a Donate button which get close to $1000 out of it.
It benefits everyone, and the donator can give $5, or $500

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Jeku
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 11:13
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Quote: "As I promised before Jake, you'll be the very first person who doesn't work for my company who will get to play the game"


Booya, respek.


"I understand creative people. After all, I worked with towel designers." - Ray Kassar, former head of Atari
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Fallout
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 11:45
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@Matt - I couldn't open your database file. I don't have Works or even Access installed. I hope you consider tax in your calculations! Definitely important to keep everything above board. Very roughly over here you're looking at 40% of your earnings getting taxed, so if you make £10,000 on game sales, only £6,000 of that ends up in your pocket, if you're doing stuff legally.

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indi
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 11:58
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i have a sleeping commercial product, but im focusing energy to get a year off again like the old days to focus on it.

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Flindiana Jones
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 19:14
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@Fallout: What happened to your website? I tried to visit and get more of your tunes, but all I get is the interesting but mute Claymore Island banner!

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Fallout
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 19:48 Edited at: 30th Jun 2006 19:49
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Mr Jones, with regard to your recent enquirey, www.invisiblechainsaw.com will for the forseeable future be dedicated to game dev related projects and my game dev brand. If you want a bit of Fallout tunage, you'd be best off heading over to Breakbeat Terrorism. That is always more upto date anyway as it's administered by Scienide who actually can be arsed to update websites.

(Edit: Although the site seems to be down at the moment )

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Hawkeye
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 21:04
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Ahhh, but the b/t webhost is so darned slow! It's put me off of downloading more than one Scienide release.


I am but mad north north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw - Hamlet, Hamlet
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Matt Rock
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Posted: 30th Jun 2006 21:11
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Quote: "Booya, respek."

Hey, I'm a man of my word and I promised that to you over a year ago hehe. I'm just hoping we can get over the MMO hurdles with C++, which we're going to need to bring programmers in for to even make it possible (I've all but given up on doing the multiplayer in DBP, although the other programmers on the team seem to still think it's fully possible... not a chance though, not the way we want to do it).

Quote: "I couldn't open your database file. I don't have Works or even Access installed. I hope you consider tax in your calculations! Definitely important to keep everything above board. Very roughly over here you're looking at 40% of your earnings getting taxed, so if you make £10,000 on game sales, only £6,000 of that ends up in your pocket, if you're doing stuff legally."

That sucks... you were the one person that I figured would actually open it lol. It doesn't calculate anything into the figures because everyone has different tax rates, expenses, etc. It's just a list of raw gross profit figures. It's not hard... just multiply the dollar value times the number of units, but a lot of people don't have the patience to do that and more people don't understand the true value of paperwork and how it can help out the professional aspects of your production Hopefully someone else will find a use for those figures, even if only to daydream You guys are getting raped in the taxes department. New York State takes 8%, and Fed takes (I think) 15%, but tax stuff isn't my department hehe. But for online purchases we don't have to charge the NY tax unless the buyer is also in NY. I think for online stuff we only pay federal income tax, in the US anyway.

Quote: "i have a sleeping commercial product, but im focusing energy to get a year off again like the old days to focus on it."

Oh man, I'd give anything to quit the job and work on game development full-time! We'd get so much more work done!


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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Drew Cameron
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Posted: 1st Jul 2006 10:30
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I thought I'd chip in here and tell you all my sell through rate.

I had a selling rate of 0.05%, (1 in ever 2000 downloads - is that the correct percentage?). I've been told 1 in 1000 is a really good rate.

Basically, you need to get ALOT of people to download your game to make one sale. And therefore, you need to spend alot of money on marketing to properly get a game to sell. Tough crowd.

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adr
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Posted: 1st Jul 2006 16:14 Edited at: 1st Jul 2006 16:15
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Drew/Anyone else interested:

Quote: "I had a selling rate of 0.05%"


I believe the marketing terminology you're after is conversion rate. I'm absolutely positive there'll be loads of books on improving conversion rates, not necessarily on software specifically, but the theories carry through.

If I remember correctly, something like 0.5% on any marketing campaign is considered good, and that goes from handing out leaflets for a club night all the way to targetted internet marketing (Pay Per Click).

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Hobgoblin Lord
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Posted: 1st Jul 2006 18:07
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Quote: "Very roughly over here you're looking at 40% of your earnings getting taxed, so if you make £10,000 on game sales, only £6,000 of that ends up in your pocket, if you're doing stuff legally."


Not sure how your tax system works but normally if you make $10,000 in sales you first deduct costs (salaries, contracts, advertising, production costs, etc) to get your net figure then pay taxes on that. so if you have $6200 in costs you pay taxes on $3,800. If your smart you can usually write off more by "reinvesting" some of that money into your company.


Quote: "But for online purchases we don't have to charge the NY tax unless the buyer is also in NY. I think for online stuff we only pay federal income tax, in the US anyway."


Online purchases are generally exempt from state sales tax, however some states require the purchaser to pay tax there for what they buy, of course it is up to them to report it and I bet you can guess how many people do that. As for federal and your state tax (US here) you of course have to have a buisness license and you will be required to pay Estimated Taxes every quarter, basically what you think your tax will be, and probally have to file a 1099 at years end. Warning... Don't put off Estimated taxes you can pay a huge penalty if you do.

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Sid Sinister
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 06:55
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Quote: "but mostly it seems what people tend to make and sell are tools to make games with lol."


Lol, yea. Ironic isn't it? A game maker making a game maker... kind of freaky lol.
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Matt Rock
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 08:39
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It's a vicious cycle Sid. But some of us are trying to break the chains that bind us What we need is a savior. A Jesus. A Neo. Someone to make a game that's timeless, internationally well-known, and sells over a dozen million copies... all using DarbBASIC Pro or some other 1st party independent development kit. It CAN be done and WILL be done, regardless of what our pessimistic sides tell us. The question isn't how, it's when We need an indie developer to release a multi-million unit selling game that isn't a cheasy arcade-style game... a serious, professional-quality game with the perfect design, the perfect assets, the perfect marketing strategy. When that game comes out, people will be looking to indie games for more, and it'll raise the bar for us to put out better games I'm telling you, without question, it'll happen sooner or later (preferably sooner, hehe). Most of the reason why we tend to make silly arcade games and development tools is because we're constantly told by our peers that it's impossible to design, develop, and/ or release a high-quality retail-value game. And the more people like me tell others to ignore that garbage, the more the garbage-spewers lunge at us hehe

Hobgoblin... you an accountant? How do you know this much about tax stuff? I just learned a ton about this stuff from that one post I know about writing stuff off... to an extent anyway, that anything you can use in your business can get you tax breaks. My girlfriend owned a massage therapy business in Idaho and explained that bit to me. But let's say you own a game studio (as most of us do, or try to hehe)... what are some examples of things you can and cannot write off?


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
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Hobgoblin Lord
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 10:09 Edited at: 7th Jul 2006 10:14
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Quote: "Hobgoblin... you an accountant? "


No I'm not..

But I have had to learn alot of the stuff. I "own" a company called Black Arrow Games, and have produced PnP RPG stuff for the last 8 or so years, though I have strayed from it since D20 publishers have risen to insane heights it is easy to get lost. Kinda funny I took my website down last night and I am revamping it lest I point you there. Back to the point, I had to file taxes for the income BAG has generated and had to learn alot about what I could and could not deduct, also my wife is a massage therapist and thus an independant contractor so that was a whole new group of rules to learn.

As for what you can sell as an indi publisher, with no actual advertising I sold just over 7,200 copies of my flagship RPG Interstellar Journeys, I have sold to the US, Canada, Spain, UK, South Africa, and a butload to Japan. I did this by sending out demo copies, travelling to conventions to demo it, writing articles for various RPG mags in exchange for the exposure, and mostly word of mouth, it's pretty neat when a guy in Japan you have never heard of emails an order for 25 copies of your game. Another thing I did that made alot of people happy was a policy of "You will never have to buy a new edition" basically if I had your email address any errata, new rules etc were sent to you automatically and if a previous customer wanted a physical copy of a fully revamped book I always sold it at cost. All the assets in the world will not save you if your customer service stinks, if you can make the people who buy your product never regret that they did they will remember it.


Edit forgot to answer this part.
Quote: "But let's say you own a game studio (as most of us do, or try to hehe)... what are some examples of things you can and cannot write off?"


If you own an actual studio, with employees and the like, even if they are working for nothing but spec on future income your best bet is to talk to an accountant, they can find things you would have no idea to write off, like say toilet paper for the bathroom. I had/have it pretty easy since it is a one man show and when I bought a new printer, ink cartridges etc I knew those were deductable. another good resource is to call the IRS or local Tax Office they can be a great help as can Turbo Tax

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Freddix
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 11:46 Edited at: 7th Jul 2006 12:05
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Quote: "Very roughly over here you're looking at 40% of your earnings getting taxed"

Same here in France ...

Personnally I'll try to sell X-Quad Editor It's not a game but an Advanced Game Maker (like FPSC but able to make not only FPS but arcade, adventude, etc... games) and I'll setup my own company for that ... It makes now 2 years I started this project and it is now near to completion (the main software and game engine are fully working... All things I'll get time to add in are pure bonuses for the software now :p) and my company setup in in WIP :p I have minors products that are also in WIP. A good market study was done and all seem to be possible... but hard

@Matt :
My new name is ..... NEO
My power is ........ X-Quad Editor :p

Quote: "Lol, yea. Ironic isn't it? A game maker making a game maker... kind of freaky lol."

Technically ... All programming langage can allow game making so .. all programming langage are game maker ?

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
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Drew Cameron
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 12:52 Edited at: 7th Jul 2006 12:53
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About Conversion rate from the previous page.

One way to sell more games is to make it EASIER for people to buy your game. I'm going to be implementing a simple unlocking scheme for my game, where the whole game is already there, but the user simply unlocks the rest, rather than downloading a new, full version.

I read somewhere unlocking schemes improve conversion rate drastically because people are lazy.

Of course the flip side to having the full game there all the time is I'll need to cut alot of the file size down. 38mb for an indie demo is a bit steep, me thinks. 20mb is more like it.

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Van B
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 13:36
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I think size is more of a justification thing. If you made a FPS in less than 100mb, then I would most likely download it, as it'll be worth checking out at that size, not a demo of a building and a gun.

If you uploaded 10mb worth of FPS game, then I'd most likely ignore it.

Really, the size of your demo has to be justified - but don't be concearned about people downloading big demos, heck how often do people download massive commercial game demo's that usually have less content and gameplay than indi demos.

It's different being a developer though and forgiving this stuff, because I'm used to how bloated DB projects can get, other people might get twitchy when things go to mad sizes and you don't have a reasonable foundation (like previous demo's etc) though.

Aegrescit medendo
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Fallout
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 14:40
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I'm not a big fan of the unlock method. For me, that's a horrible situation where you know you have the full game on your HD, but you have to pay someone £20 for a little number just to make it available. You know there are loads of other people out there getting the number illegally and unlocking their product for free. I find that very unattractive when it comes to buying it.

I like what Fraps does. You buy the product and get to log into a member area where you have access to a full version download. Obviously with regard to piracy someone can still download the full version from some cheeky P2P network or dodgy website, but it's A LOT easier for someone to throw an unlock code around than a 300MB zip file. As said previously, you can keep the demo file size lower with separate files too.

I'd be surprised if anyone was so lazy that they could be bothered to download a 100MB demo, but not an 800MB full game .... yet would download the 800MB demo and then pay for the full game because they already have it. That makes no logical sense to me. I think minimize demo size to get as many peeps as possible to download it.

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adr
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 15:52 Edited at: 7th Jul 2006 15:54
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Quote: "I read somewhere unlocking schemes improve conversion rate drastically because people are lazy."


What you're talking about now is removing any barrier to entry. Maaaaan, I'm so ashamed of my previous job - it taught me a surprising amount on how to swindle people

Consider that as soon as your customer has to think or do anything in order to receive the product, 50% of them won't bother - and that carries through with each barrier to entry. So if they have to download the "full upgrade" in order to proceed, that's 50% gone. Then if those remaining 50% need to fill in some kind of form, another 50% is gone ...

I agree - unlock codes do present the best route to "impulse purchase", but as you've already pointed out, downloading the entire game for a demo could also be considered problematic for dial-up users.

Perhaps the best of both worlds would be for the game to retrieve the rest of the game media itself - No exiting out of the game to perform some sort of patch, a progress bar appears with some nice images and music in the background to keep the user entertained, while the full version is downloaded.

Of course, in order for that to happen DBPro would need to be incredibly stable in setting up the internet connection. If it couldn't establish it, it would need some kind of graceful backup. You can't assume everyone's got an "always on" connection.

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Fallout
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Posted: 7th Jul 2006 16:04
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Ya know, I can't believe someone who was willing to part with £20 of their hard earned cash would give up if there was a download. Someone with that mentality would never buy ANY games because you have to either download them, or go to a game store or wait for it to arrive from play.com for example. It sounds like you're saying 50% of your audience gets their games by them magically appearing installed on their computer after they've decided to buy them.

If you're willing to spend £20 on a game, you have to be willing to download it. It's only the rich who are so careless with their cash that the idea of waiting 30mins for a download is more abhorent than spending £20. My point being that for your average joe, if he think your game is worth £20 of his earned cash, he's not gonna be fussed about waiting for the download. I'm sure there are 10 times more people who couldn't be bothered to download a huge demo of a game they've never tried than people who couldn't be bothered to download a game they really like.

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