Arcane Labs:

arrogancy:

The sales are pitiful, given the userbase (except maybe for RC Air Sim, for whatever reason, but it's an outlier). Obviously, there aren't many Live users that care about apps, if your logic of "they're buying what they want to play" is true because nobody is buying anything (except RC, I guess).

Many games have a conversion rate of more than 10% which is great tbh. The only problem is that very few people try out these games. If the people get there the games will do just fine if they are worth their price.

arrogancy:

What is being shown is that there's no point to even make original games because nobody is coming to CG to buy them, and nobody wants to cover them.

arrogancy:

And the people with a professional background won't be able to afford to make games on there, meaning you get the quality variance of hobbiests and students as opposed to the quality variance of professionals + hobbiests + students, which is what the service desperately needs.

I have a professional background. I make games as a day job. I know of others here that are current or former professional game developers. But we're not trying to live off of a service that is in its infancy. The problem is less the system and more the expectations of those who thought they'd hop on and make a living right off the bat.

You do realize that almost every developer that has made or was making something approaching 'hardcore' or relatively lengthy is very tenative about the service now, right? I know of 6 or so DBP Top 20ists offhand that have essentially said 'never mind' or '1 more chance' to CG at this point.

I say good riddance. At this point all those devs contribute is a bunch of whining and negativity. From my perspective it looks like this is their mindset:

1) I made a game.
2) I think my game is the best thing ever.
3) My game didn't sell well.
4) It must be Microsoft or the platform's fault.

I'm not saying Microsoft couldn't do things better, but seriously people need to think that maybe your game just isn't as good as you think. Maybe it doesn't have the mass appeal you thought it would. Maybe the market didn't want another game of that genre. Maybe you released at the same time as a similar game on XBLA or retail. Maybe you didn't work to advertise it as well as you could have.

I know personally that a lot of these "great" games being cited I found no interest in. Weapon of Choice, Halfbrick Echoes, etc, while not identical to anything in XBLA, didn't seem to offer me anything new that I cared about. Then I look at Miner Dig Deep and see an amazing little game that gives me an experience I couldn't elsewhere.

If you think the platform is so incredibly broken and are just going to keep saying "we're going to leave", please just leave. It's annoying to see nothing but whining and complaining day in and day out. "Oh the apps are being favored!" "Oh Microsoft hates big projects!" etc etc. Microsoft worked hard to get you the ability to make a game on their home console and the service is only a few months old. Give it some time to mature, for Microsoft to make changes and improvements, or, if you're that impatient and absolutely need to be making money to live on, go to another platform. Nothing is stopping you.

Maybe once all the whiners leave we can all get back to just making and enjoying games instead of obsessing over the money.

Edit: I should add that I'm not saying this from a "agree with Microsoft or leave" standpoint but a pure practical one. If this platform doesn't generate you the money you feel you need or deserve, logic would say you should go to another platform. Maybe check back on this one in a few months and see if it's doing better.

/rant

arrogancy:

Arcane Labs:

arrogancy:

The sales are pitiful, given the userbase (except maybe for RC Air Sim, for whatever reason, but it's an outlier). Obviously, there aren't many Live users that care about apps, if your logic of "they're buying what they want to play" is true because nobody is buying anything (except RC, I guess).

Many games have a conversion rate of more than 10% which is great tbh. The only problem is that very few people try out these games. If the people get there the games will do just fine if they are worth their price.

arrogancy:

What is being shown is that there's no point to even make original games because nobody is coming to CG to buy them, and nobody wants to cover them.

If a shop sells cheap, unreliable, useless goods (even at a low price), people soon get to know what "kind" of show it is.  Right now, Community Games is the "All For 1$" shop of the gaming world.  Once in a while a good game comes along, but the dev is forced to price down to 200pts just to stay in the Most Popular for more than 5 days, but basically people are pig sick of shoddy clones on the channel.  Now even good reviews on popular sites didn't stop us tanking remorelessly in the first 7 days of release.  I take some of the blame for this (the interface is a little naive and there should be more game modes, a 200pt pricepoint would have been more realistic) and I'm setting right what I can with the update I'm working on, and you can bet that Game Number 2 is going to have one hell of a lot of features and almost endless gameplay, because that's what you need - not to compete with most other games, but to have any chance of standing above them.  To be a genuine commercial sucess, you'll HAVE to create a title which could easily have walked over from XBLA, sans the Gs and achievements of course.

If there were a better signal:noise, there would be plenty of coverage.  As it is, most "pro" bloggers are starting to see a trickle better products coming through and is advising people to have a look.  But it's still car-crash TV we've got here.  I've tried to see if there are ways we can improve the community output, but few people want to get involved.  THAT's where the problem is, the main reason for "lack of coverage".  Every crappy game released means we have to wait longer for people to take CG seriously but no-one's willing to pitch in and actually do something.  If the majority of games had some merit, people would be all over Community Games like white on rice.

How about we all surrender 1 week of sales to MS and they can do some campaign to raise public awareness? <Ducks for cover>

Regards,
Mike

George Clingerman:

I can buy any of the games that you guy said are "great!" and "jaw dropping!" on XBLA. And they're better. I can't buy any of the games you guys don't like on XBLA. The jaw dropping games are shades of games already out there.

And again, just because you don't like it as a game developer doesn't mean consumers don't. There's no conspiracy, just make more original games that stand out like the apps do.

Most XBLCG games are poor clones of XBLA games already available.  But what happens when the XBLCG game is the better game?
XBLA -- 1942 Joint Strike trailer
XBLCG -- Duality ZF trailer
Should I not make any games in which others of the same genre are already available on XBLA?  1942 is one of the lamest shmups ever, and I'm a fan of the series.  If this prevents any shmup from ever doing well on XBLCG, then I need to move to another market.  Duality ZF is 10 times the shmup that 1942 is, and I'm not sure how much better it would have to be to break through this barrier.  Exactly how much effort is required to make a game 10 times better than an XBLA game of the same genre JUST to have a fighting chance?  It's so clear to me that the playing field is not level.  If Duality ZF doesn't do well, then I will shoot for an XBLA contract and/or move to another market.  I'll only be able to return when leaderboards, achievements, and Gamerscore pts are made available.

(EDIT: I realize that 1942 has a fan base, and the game can suck as much as the original 1980's version in comparison to today's shmups, and it would still sell well.  I was just trying to make a point above without getting into all the details.  Furthermore, I agree that most of our games aren't as great as the developers believe, and I am trying to ensure I don't make that same mistake, which the above may sound like I am making.  The XBLA contract would be a Duality II game with technology far superior to what you see in Duality ZF.)

Ok people. If the title isn't clear enough, this thread is about "sharing sales data". Please get back on topic, or take the discussion in a new (or some other already existing one) thread about "what's wrong with XBLCG" or "What can MS do better" or "What should we do better".
Leave this thread for sharing sales data.

I second that. I think people misunderstand the whole market mechanics. Companies like EA can make titles sell well by advertising the hell out of them. Any current AAA title has a marketing budget of almost as much money as the development costs, which can be up to 20 million dollar. So who of you spent even close to the actual development costs on his game? If you don't do that it's pretty much random whether your game becomes a success or fails. If you know your limits you can still make money and generate a steady income. But don't expect to get rich. That's something only very few developers ever achieve.

I'm really interested in Duality's sales once it's released because that is the first game with noticeable advertising and a constant support of the community with trailers and tech videos. And blog entries and forum messages. So they do pretty much everything that can be done for marketing. I'm pretty sure it will pay off.

And another general note: If your four preview screenshots suck, don't expect people to actually download your trial version. With 260+ titles on the platform already people use what they have to select the few games they want to try. Be it screenshots, box art, game title or game description. If any of these is not up to high standards you lose trial downloads.

Edit: Reply to Nick, and now back to topic. :)

Sorry Nick, you posted as I was composing.

I have to agree with the majority of what you say.  There are plenty of unrealistic expectations of how well a given game will do.  I have said in several places both here, on other sites, and in an interview I gave a while ago, that I feel real gratitude to MS for making XNA available for a bargain price.  I wouild also conceed that I allowed myself to get a little carried away in my last post, but I would stand by the basic premise that general low quality product negatively effects the image of the channel.  I recon, use your first couple of projects to establish your "name", hone your skills as a coder/designer/marketer, and wait for the dust to settle.  Once more people realise that it's not just a matter of banging sprites together like how they dun in the 1980s I think things will settle.  But at the moment things are a little tougher than many of us allowed ourselves to believe.  Not the fault of MS, not the fault of the customer.  Our fault.

But yea, you're basically right.  The only other thing I'll say is that of course my game is the best ever written - at least, it's the best ever written in my house ;0)  I honestly don't want it to sound like I got a case of sour grapes, and I am trying to learn from my (now all-too-obvious) mistakes with Carrum.  "Good enough" seldom is and I expect I'll end up with that on my tombstone!

Regards, Mike

hamsteralliance, Thanks for your detailed breakdown of you PR push for ezmuze! That's great info, and pretty similar experience to what we felt with Hieronymus Bash. We also had our "MP only" barrier that really hurt, and kept a few sites from reviewing us that said they otherwise would have... but we generally felt all the same successes and failures. We didn't do the GiantBomb thing though... thanks for sharing all that!

We sent out a blast to every game related site we could think of that could possibly care. We also had success with GameTrialers, though I just posted it as a user video and they put it on the front page. Other than that, it's only been community created and driven sites that have mentioned us at all, and even some of them ignored us. (not complaining, just stating our experience)

Also, a week and a half ago the issue of OXM with our little half page write up came out, so I thought it'd be worth sharing what impact that has seemed to have... so far, pretty much nothing. We had about 40 trial downloads last weekend instead of 30 like the last couple weekends, but that could have just been us sending out a bunch of e-mails about our single player update. Also, maybe it takes a while for people who pick up the magazine to make it to the end where the write up is (I think it's page 95 or something), so it may be more of a slow trickle rather than an observable spike. How did the other folks who got in the XNA Underground section of OXM see it affect their sales? Were any of you already released when the article came out, or was it just a preview for you?

Basically, since we fell off the most popular and new arrivals lists after our 1.5-2 weeks, the numbers have been very steady... On average, 10-15 trial downloads a day and less than 10 sales a day. Since we added single player the conversion rate went from 5% to 17%. Take it for what it's worth.

I know a lot of this stuff seems "off topic" if you're thinking the thread is for posting only sales numbers, but I think it's cool to intersperse PR success/failure experiences along with sales data as the two go hand in hand. Although I don't mind some discussion of why some games/apps are doing well and some aren't, or even some of the "what's succeeding and failing about CG in general", hopefully we can at least allow these relevant PR posts to stay.

And Nick, please don't tell people to leave. I'd really rather they stay and contribute to the community, and I appreciate getting to read their observations, "whiny" or otherwise.

OK, now that my numbers are dropping to where the last few days I have 2 sold per day, I figured I'd post my numbers.  Don't expect them to go up from here :)

Wordzy
Days released: 18
Trial Downloads: 2593
Sales: 298
Conversion: ~11.5
Price: 200 points

I have to say it is pretty cool that 297 other people are playing my game (at least once) on the xbox!

Kindling:

intersperse PR success/failure experiences along with sales data as the two go hand in hand

that's ok

Kindling:

I don't mind some discussion of why some games/apps are doing well and some aren't, or even some of the "what's succeeding and failing about CG in general"

That's for other threads, not this one.

Some updated numbers for Aria... I've broken it down with before and after I made the IGN picks.

Prior: April 12 - April 28
Total downloads prior: 4434
Purchases prior: 236
Conversion rate: 5.32%
Earnings (if I understand this right): $413

After: April 29 - May 13
Total downloads after: 4459
Purchases after: 349
Conversion rate: 7.82%
Earnings: $610.75

Total:
8893 downloads
585 purchases
$1023.75

A few additional observations:
Before the IGN picks I was down to single digits every day... with sales as low as three units.
Since going on the list I've been a little over 20 most days, though for the last few days it has been in the teens.
Essentially the exposure from the IGN picks is definately helping.  I expect to drop back to very low levels once the picks cycle.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it.  This was a hobby and I never expected to get much cash with my very first project.  I doubled what I paid for the subscription and my XBox 360.  I won't make enough to pay for a new PC to replace my horrendous five year old laptop (my machine won't even run the robot game sample!) but hopefully my next project will cover those costs.
Even more than that I'm happy to have people playing my game, and it's exciting to see even the small buzz my game generated.  Reviews have been mixed, but I'm glad some like it.

I'll probably try an app next, just for my own satisfaction to compare the relative demand.

SRH:

Earnings (if I understand this right)

Which you don't actually :) Each MS point is worth $0.0121. Yes, you buy them at $0.0125 but that's so some profits can be made, they're worth is $0.0121 for our intents and purposes.

So 585 * 200 points * 0.0121 $/points * 0.7 = $990.99

It's been 5 days since I posted numbers for ezmuze+ Hamst3r edition, so here's an update:

Days on Market: 10
Trials: 14465
Sales: 1568
Conversion Rate 10.84%
Earnings: $10,624.77

Also, perhaps this might be useful. My observations on community responsiveness:

Giant Bomb: No one seems upset by me posting what are essentially ezmuze+ advertisements. First, make a page for your game. You can do this by going to the Help tab and clicking, "Add a Game". This will create a forum for your game too. Also, your user profile has its own blog. When you make a new blog, you can associate it with your game and have it post your blog into the forum for your game. The good thing about this is that your post will show up in the root of the Giant Bomb forums as a new topic. For some people this means it will also show up on the front page.

GameTrailers: These blogs don't show up anywhere relevant and advertising your blog on the forums will get you banned. BUT, having a profile there means you can comment on the videos for your game. If the association between your username and the game is obvious then people clicking on your name will bring them to your blog. Thus, sign up and make sure your blog is filled out properly. It might also be a good idea to make a blog poster out of your cover art as it shows up quite large on your blog.

Destructoid: Posting to the Community Blogs section seems to get your blogs on the front page. The response I got seem to only be people who already knew about the game and some of them didn't appreciate me using the Community Blogs for that. Perhaps I'm just not, "in" with the community here, but that wasn't a problem on Giant Bomb. I wasn't "in" there either when I started posting ezmuze+ stuff in the same manner. Also, there are no view stats, so I don't know how many people have clicked on it.

I'm testing out a few more ideas. I'll let you know how they go. :)

hamsteralliance:

It's been 5 days since I posted numbers for ezmuze+ Hamst3r edition, so here's an update:

Days on Market: 10
Trials: 14465
Sales: 1568
Conversion Rate 10.84%
Earnings: $10,624.77

It looks like some games are finally starting to sell, as ezmuze hasn't even been at the top of the charts and has sold fairly well.

19 days on market, $26,000 in gross sales. ezmuze+ has clearly proved theres money to be made if you invest the time in making a quality product. ezmuze 1 was 200pts, and sold under $5000 worth in the first quarter - but was a much lower quality product - ezmuze+ took nearly 7 months to complete with a team twice the size of ezmuze 1.

Wow, Just Wow!

madninjaskillz:

19 days on market, $26,000 in gross sales. ezmuze+ has clearly proved theres money to be made if you invest the time in making a quality product. ezmuze 1 was 200pts, and sold under $5000 worth in the first quarter - but was a much lower quality product - ezmuze+ took nearly 7 months to complete with a team twice the size of ezmuze 1.

Congratulations on your success.

madninjaskillz:

19 days on market, $26,000 in gross sales. ezmuze+ has clearly proved theres money to be made if you invest the time in making a quality product. ezmuze 1 was 200pts, and sold under $5000 worth in the first quarter - but was a much lower quality product - ezmuze+ took nearly 7 months to complete with a team twice the size of ezmuze 1.

Let us know what the dropoff in a month is, as that's the most important thing, since games make the vast majority of their sales in the first month or two. For instance, Braid made $300,000-$400,000ish in around 20 days estimated and ended up at around the $500,000 area probably since its been out.

The long tail will show if making as low as $25,000 for the first month is worthwhile for a title that takes 6+ months development (and thus $50,000+ in dev costs).

arrogancy:

For instance, Braid made $300,000-$400,000ish in around 20 days estimated and ended up at around the $500,000 area probably since its been out.

Where are you getting your sales numbers for Braid from?  VGCharts show's Braid at $4,509,848 as of April (likely not accurate, but also not an order of magnitude off as your number would indicate.)

Reality Shift:

arrogancy:

For instance, Braid made $300,000-$400,000ish in around 20 days estimated and ended up at around the $500,000 area probably since its been out.

Where are you getting your sales numbers for Braid from?  VGCharts show's Braid at $4,509,848 as of April (likely not accurate, but also not an order of magnitude off as your number would indicate.)

Was mentioning something else and typed Braid; had Braid on the brain for some reason.

[mod: removed off-topic discussion]

@hamsteralliance: That is just amazing. It really goes to show that XBLCG can be profitable. Great job you guys, you're an inspiration to us all! ;-)

OXM Report featured Jonny Crush, Stream Line, Dock'em, Ultra Dual X racer and Grav Sheep it would be good to know what extra sales this has created.

Edit: this was on the UK Dashboard

GloryHornetEmmo:

OXM Report featured Jonny Crush, Stream Line, Dock'em, Ultra Dual X racer and Grav Sheep it would be good to know what extra sales this has created.

Showing up on the OXM Report in the UK was a major boost to our sales in the UK and a very big THANK YOU goes out to the OXM team for doing this. Our UK downloads were averaging 180/day and after the report came out we jumped to 2500 and are still getting around 1000/day thanks to the report. I really wish the US would do a broadcast like this since it really makes a difference! 

I really hate posting these numbers after seeing exmuze sales figures but here it goes for Jonny Crush so far:

May 10-25th - 16 days
Downloads - 28,268
Purchases - 479
Points - 383,200
Total US - $4,790
Conversion - ~1.7%

We are seeing pretty good downloads but our conversion rate is killing us and I'm sure that it has a lot to do with the fact that we decided to charge 800 points for the game. Overall we are happy with the results since the game was just a fun project with my kids and myself and has taught us a lot about the game development business.

John

Fantastic. Thanks Oesis, I think that proves two things:

1) 800 points is not an impossible price point as some have previously thought.
2) Actual games can do very well too, not just apps.