Night of Doom sales so far:

Thank you for informing me of this.

It looks like someone at MS took a shine to my dodgy art work!

I just hope people like it.

:p

cheers,
phill

LOL Runner

Trials: 1899
Purchases: 76
Purchase/Trial Ratio: 4.00 %

I originally "did it for the lulz" then decided to turn it from a joke into an actual decent game and put it on the marketplace.
I think it could have sold a lot better with graphics from an actual artist. But I was guessing it would get a 5% conversion rate so it did about as well as I expected.

I am happy to see some people found it fun. And I have found the experience making the game to be quite valuable in my current project. Which will be my first somewhat large (few hundred hours development (I guess being unemployed has some advantages)) and serious project.

Rough month for the 400 point priced Nasty this October was.

The first two weeks of the month were actually good in terms of conversion rate (download numbers still really low) but the month ended with a two week period with about 2 sales that killed that completely. Ended up with nearly the same conversion rate as in September.

Working on an update that I hope to push to review in the next week or two that cleans up some collission detection stuff, adds a countdown for when the doom enemy appears (makes the final moments more hectic), and maybe a few other little features here and there. Probably not as drastic changes as were in the first update I did but still enough that I should be able to generate some press and maybe increase overall downloads. When i push Abudction! out to the marketplace (December or January), i also will include an "Other Games" screen that will showoff Nasty so hopefully that will result in a few more downloads.

Then on the 24th of this month I'll be allowed to change the pricepoint... still not sure what to do though... sales were really low last month but to make the same profits at 80 points I would need to sell five times more (45 sales, 17.45% conversion rate assuming similar download numbers). I'm not sure that's feesible, expecially after reading here of several people dropping prices and having conversion rates stay the same. I guess I've given up on the idea of Nasty making me any serious money so maybe I'll just do it anyways so I can get it in the hands of as many gamers as possible.

From what I've seen in IncaBlocks, press doesn't drive sales after you're buried in the full list.  We've been getting some pretty consistent coverage in the last few weeks between reviews, podcasts and giveaways.  However, look at your hand - you have more fingers than we have trials in a day (even if you had a shop "incident").

I'd be interested in knowing what affect Abduction! has on Nasty since you can't make a direct link to the other title.

Kris Steele:

When i push Abudction! out to the marketplace (December or January), i also will include an "Other Games" screen that will showoff Nasty so hopefully that will result in a few more downloads.

This the same bouncing-cow Abduction! as on Android?

FuncWorks LLC:

From what I've seen in IncaBlocks, press doesn't drive sales after you're buried in the full list.  We've been getting some pretty consistent coverage in the last few weeks between reviews, podcasts and giveaways.  However, look at your hand - you have more fingers than we have trials in a day (even if you had a shop "incident").

I'd be interested in knowing what affect Abduction! has on Nasty since you can't make a direct link to the other title.

I know the press releases do drive more traffic to my website (which is the one thing I can track)... I don't suspect they drive much new traffic to the marketplace, but I still feel the increased website traffic makes my game more visible and might help out some day in the future (I haven't ruled out a PC release for Nasty).

My downloads during each day during the first couple weeks of release were easily more than i get in an entire month now... which is why I'm hopful an in-game ad for Nasty in a new release will ultimately help out Nasty too... I'll let everyone know how that works out. I definately don't think it can hurt.

This the same bouncing-cow Abduction! as on Android?

No, it's not... that game though is the reason Abduction! has become a working title for my game though. I did a LOT of searching and didn't find that game until about a month and a half into development of my Abduction! game. That game has not done a good job of being visible and I only found it because i was searching for a good cow image to draw inspiration from and Google Images happened to show a cow image from that game. I'll be changing my name before release though it will likely be something similar to Abduction!. FYI if you want to see my game, here is the link: http://www.funinfused.com/abduction

Epiphany in Spaaace! (80 MS)

Oct (about 10 days)
2418 Trials
322 Purchases
13.32% Conversion

November (3 days)
41 Trials
18 Purchases
43.9% Conversion Rate

The game came out on October 20th, but it was too late in the day to register any sales. October 21st - 25th was where it got most of its sales. Sales plummeted sharply after this (coinciding with the game losing exposure from the New Releases lineup) eventually dropping as low as 4 copies a day for a couple of days. After this, sales went up slightly to 6-7 a day and seems to have stabilized there (7 copies on Oct 31, 6 copies every day in November so far).

If it manages to maintain this slow but steady number of sales, I'll be quite pleased. Plus, I think my future games will help to drive additional sales to my first game as well. In any case, I think it's pretty impressive for a text-based game on a modern system and it leaves me optimistic for my future text-based game - my next game being another interactive novel (Molly the Were-Zompire) and my third game which will probably end up as Resident Evil if Resident Evil was a text-based, turn-based RPG.

If my first text-based game managed to sell a few hundred copies out of nowhere, then I can only imagine that my future games, with a higher level of quality & a few built-in fans, will sell even better. :)

This is for sales of Weapon of Choice for October 2009 which includes dropping the price from 400 MS Points to 240 MS Points.

Trial downloads: 13,118
Total sales: 870
165 at 400 MS Points
705 at 240 MS Points
Conversion rate: 6.6%

There's also a pretty graph here with daily sales and a graphical representation of what our 240 point sales meant in terms of 400 point sales.
http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2009/11/october-09-numbers.html

MommysBest:

This is for sales of Weapon of Choice for October 2009 which includes dropping the price from 400 MS Points to 240 MS Points.

Trial downloads: 13,118
Total sales: 870
165 at 400 MS Points
705 at 240 MS Points
Conversion rate: 6.6%

There's also a pretty graph here with daily sales and a graphical representation of what our 240 point sales meant in terms of 400 point sales.
http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2009/11/october-09-numbers.html

Thanks for the info... any idea what your conversion rate was for 400 points vs 240 points? I suspect it's more than double, otherwise the pricedrop wouldn't really be worthwhile (and your post seems to indicate it was).

How about download numbers... did those change when the price changed or did they stay largely static?

I've updated the blog post to include the conversions and trial downloads per price period. In short it was 400/240 at 3.9%/7.9%.

MommysBest:

I've updated the blog post to include the conversions and trial downloads per price period. In short it was 400/240 at 3.9%/7.9%.

Thanks for the info! Looks like your trial downloads stayed pretty similar (I wish mine were half that good) while you doubled up on your conversions. Since you're selling at a little more than half the previous price (240 instead of 200), you've made some increase in overall profits though not by a huge measure. That's good news to hear and something that hasn't been the case for others I've seen posting here.

I had really hoped trial downloads would go up with a price change, but for you at least that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps longterm they will though as more people realize the lower price. There isn't really a good mechanic now for notifying people of a price drop though (through the Xbox interface) so my hopes of that is really more wishful thinking.

Nathan, thanks so much for sharing this.  It's cool that WoC is still seeing a positive effect from a price drop long after the initial hype.  Nothing bad at all about more gamers buying your game and making more money, all-in-one!

Curious if anyone has similar figures that show this same effect from 240pts to 80pts?  400pts to 240pts is quite a drop in price, but 240pts to 80pts is more extreme.  I wonder if the same thing would happen (more sales + more profits)?

Kris Steele:

Thanks for the info! Looks like your trial downloads stayed pretty similar (I wish mine were half that good) while you doubled up on your conversions. Since you're selling at a little more than half the previous price (240 instead of 200), you've made some increase in overall profits though not by a huge measure. That's good news to hear and something that hasn't been the case for others I've seen posting here.

I had really hoped trial downloads would go up with a price change, but for you at least that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps longterm they will though as more people realize the lower price. There isn't really a good mechanic now for notifying people of a price drop though (through the Xbox interface) so my hopes of that is really more wishful thinking.

You're welcome! I hope it's useful.
I think there's a little misunderstanding (or I'm confused by what you're saying). Either way I added a little more analysis to the sales on the devlog again. http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2009/11/october-09-numbers.html
We saw about 1.4 times the trial downloads after the price change so, the trial downloads definitely increased. And we saw about 1.38 times the revenue.

MommysBest:

Kris Steele:

Thanks for the info! Looks like your trial downloads stayed pretty similar (I wish mine were half that good) while you doubled up on your conversions. Since you're selling at a little more than half the previous price (240 instead of 200), you've made some increase in overall profits though not by a huge measure. That's good news to hear and something that hasn't been the case for others I've seen posting here.

I had really hoped trial downloads would go up with a price change, but for you at least that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps longterm they will though as more people realize the lower price. There isn't really a good mechanic now for notifying people of a price drop though (through the Xbox interface) so my hopes of that is really more wishful thinking.

You're welcome! I hope it's useful.
I think there's a little misunderstanding (or I'm confused by what you're saying). Either way I added a little more analysis to the sales on the devlog again. http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2009/11/october-09-numbers.html
We saw about 1.4 times the trial downloads after the price change so, the trial downloads definitely increased. And we saw about 1.38 times the revenue.

Thanks for the further clarrification... that's good news that your download numbers went up in addition to a higher conversion rate. I'll probably be changing the price of my game too when I can... just not sure if I want to go down to 240 like you or all the way down to 80... even if I make less money, I almost want to just go with 80 so I can maximize the number of sales I get and get more people playing my game.

Should I be worried that my game only sold 5 copies in the last 4 days, or is it because Modern Warfare 2 has come out?

I've noticed a dip in sales too, even though my game is roughly in the same position on the Xbox.com Best Selling list.

It's the same thing as when ODST came out. Everyone runs off to buy and play it, but things balance out again eventually. Although now that we're entering the holiday release period, this will happen more frequently...

DeadlyEvilRyu:

Should I be worried that my game only sold 5 copies in the last 4 days,

What can you go about it if it's not because MW2 has come out? The answer in either case is "No. Sales are what they are." :D

Kris Steele:

MommysBest:

Kris Steele:

Thanks for the info! Looks like your trial downloads stayed pretty similar (I wish mine were half that good) while you doubled up on your conversions. Since you're selling at a little more than half the previous price (240 instead of 200), you've made some increase in overall profits though not by a huge measure. That's good news to hear and something that hasn't been the case for others I've seen posting here.

I had really hoped trial downloads would go up with a price change, but for you at least that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps longterm they will though as more people realize the lower price. There isn't really a good mechanic now for notifying people of a price drop though (through the Xbox interface) so my hopes of that is really more wishful thinking.

You're welcome! I hope it's useful.
I think there's a little misunderstanding (or I'm confused by what you're saying). Either way I added a little more analysis to the sales on the devlog again. http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2009/11/october-09-numbers.html
We saw about 1.4 times the trial downloads after the price change so, the trial downloads definitely increased. And we saw about 1.38 times the revenue.

Thanks for the further clarrification... that's good news that your download numbers went up in addition to a higher conversion rate. I'll probably be changing the price of my game too when I can... just not sure if I want to go down to 240 like you or all the way down to 80... even if I make less money, I almost want to just go with 80 so I can maximize the number of sales I get and get more people playing my game.

So far for me 80 points is working out better than 200. It's not a big difference income-wise, but it's nice to see a really high conversion rate :)

WoC's sales dropped by about 50% two days a go as well, but are back up to relative normalcy. I also figure it was probably MW2 (at least as it effects action games and the gamers that buy and play them.)

Kissy Poo has had just under 200 sales in 3 days... 8% conversion. Its a niche audience so 2400 trials is not bad. It'll buy George and me some dinner and a beer ;-)

We've had several reports of kids asking to play the game so making the kids happy seems to have worked.

ezmuze+:

Trials: 83757
Sales: 11989
Conversion Rate: 14.31%

and some other random numbers:

Most sales in a day: 234
Least sales in a day: 12

The original ezmuze has done around 4000 sales.

The ZMan:

Kissy Poo has had just under 200 sales in 3 days... 8% conversion. Its a niche audience so 2400 trials is not bad. It'll buy George and me some dinner and a beer ;-)

We've had several reports of kids asking to play the game so making the kids happy seems to have worked.

Kissy Poo!! Wheeeeeee! I've always wanted to make a kids game.

Looks like Pumpkin Chop is pretty much done selling now, 1-2/day with < 10 trials at this point.  Had a fairly good run though:

---

http://www.gamerbytes.com/2009/11/the_impact_of_modern_warfare_2.php

Pretty sure it affected Avatar Golf too.

So with the holidays coming up and all I'm thinking my game won't get bought until maybe after Christmas or at least a few weeks before.