So I suppose it should be I got my estimated sales numbers and want to cry, but he-ho. Organon was always supposed to be throw away, but I am still disappointed. I would have posted them if they were half way decent(and I was setting a low bar), they are not.

Just let it out (;_;)

Ours were considerably lower than expected as well. Most surprising was that all the press coverage and reviews we received in February didn't visibly do anything to impact our sales or demo download numbers.

I'm really disappointed...

with two games on the service, and one on the top for three weeks we did... not enough to recoup nothing, there's no business here. (really sad)

I've got to go to sleep soon, but I think that if the conversion rate was higher I wouldn't be disappointed. When I am off work(Monday) I may post the download not sales numbers.

This may actually be an opportunity for me, I had thought that I shouldn't update my game, I would be breaking a principle but the numbers are so low if they get upset I could just pay them all back, lol.
I will think about it and not be rash, but I think I may pull it, so I cannot have anymore potentially peeved customers.
I want to pull it now.

Question to the technical guys.

Theres is a delete button and a remove from Marketplace button, what is the difference, also if I do remove it from the market place will I still be able to browse the sales info.

Why would you take your game down? There is no need to unless you really don't want anyone buying it ever again - which doesn't seem sane ;-) Perhaps get that sleep you were thinking about 30 minutes ago. If you are looking to update it, there is still no need to remove it. You can submit your update and it'll replace the one on marketplace once it's approved through peer review.


If you really want to take your game down, you'll need to first remove it from marketplace. However, you cannot ever delete the game from your account since it's been published and will have downloads and (hopefully) purchases against it.

I want to change a lot about the levels and the gameplay, but don't want to totally redo everything like music and graphics and make an Organon 2 anymore. So I just thought that I should take it off the marketplace now, seeing as I think that I should make major changes. I would be annoyed if I bought something and then it was changed under my nose.

At the rate it is selling I could update it next year sometime and still pay back peeved customers  ;_; :-D

Jenkmeister:

If you really want to take your game down, you'll need to first remove it from marketplace. However, you cannot ever delete the game from your account since it's been published and will have downloads and (hopefully) purchases against it.

Could you please explain? I can't delete a game from my account? I want to remove and delete a game that is doing pretty nothing.

Hey hey don't be rash, I want to make it better for new customers and hopefully eventually a ratings system and not run the risk of annoying people, unless you are thinking this way too, I think you shouldn't do it.

Once a game has been approved, you can never delete the game from your list of 8 projects. That's just the way the system works right now.

If you want to remove the game so that it's no longer available for sale on Xbox Live Community Games, go into the Submit Game page (from the Games menu), View the appropriate game, scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Remove from Marketplace. That will take the game down so that no one else can purchase the game.

DarthCheesiest:

I want to change a lot about the levels and the gameplay, but don't want to totally redo everything like music and graphics and make an Organon 2 anymore. So I just thought that I should take it off the marketplace now, seeing as I think that I should make major changes. I would be annoyed if I bought something and then it was changed under my nose.

At the rate it is selling I could update it next year sometime and still pay back peeved customers  ;_; :-D

If you make the game an update, then people will be able to download the update for free. We announced earlier in the week that update notification is coming to the system in the future, so if I buy the game now and then I get a better version for free, that seems great to me.

If you make v2 or if you (could) delete the game and put out a new one, I have to buy a whole new game. So just make v2 that much better.

Jenkmeister:

Once a game has been approved, you can never delete the game from your list of 8 projects. That's just the way the system works right now.

If you want to remove the game so that it's no longer available for sale on Xbox Live Community Games, go into the Submit Game page (from the Games menu), View the appropriate game, scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Remove from Marketplace. That will take the game down so that no one else can purchase the game.

Just to expand upon that, we allow you guys to say "I no longer want to sell this on marketplace". What isn't supported is to pull it from marketplace so the people who have purchased the game are no longer able to redownload the game they've paid for

DarthCheesiest:

I want to change a lot about the levels and the gameplay, but don't want to totally redo everything like music and graphics and make an Organon 2 anymore. So I just thought that I should take it off the marketplace now, seeing as I think that I should make major changes. I would be annoyed if I bought something and then it was changed under my nose.

At the rate it is selling I could update it next year sometime and still pay back peeved customers  ;_; :-D

Also, who says your customers weren't happy purchasing the game? They got to play a trial version of the game and must have enjoyed it enough to have bought it. Maybe the people who bought your game were actually glad to buy it?

"so if I buy the game now and then I get a better version for free, that seems great to me."

I would be happy as well if I thought it was better, but who says they will think it is better and I would still think that it is odd.

Jenkmeister:

Once a game has been approved, you can never delete the game from your list of 8 projects. That's just the way the system works right now.

Wow... for life?
So if I have a game doing nothing is that place wasted?

Wasted, I guess that's one way to look at it...

It's 8 games right now but we will probably increase that limit in the future.

Learning experience! I now know exactly what needs to be done in my next project. Anything that makes you a better; Coder, Businessman, Game Developer, Game Designer is never a waste.

I was off by .25 cents what I expected to make from my project, which made everyone in my house hold laugh.

Here is where I went wrong, and I knew it. I left the trial mode open, basically depending on the 4 minute limit to always be, well, 4 minutes. The moment the trial was extended to 8 minutes my downloads remained the same but my actual sales fell right through the floor, which was expected.

I am excited about my next project. I've been hashing it out for months and this weekend I begin ground work on it.

Everyone should keep their chin up, this was the best learning experience of my life and the only chance I had to release a game into a massive market. Thank you Microsoft, be prepared to write a much bigger check for my next game!!!!!!!

- JDP

I got my sales numbers, and I don't want to cry.  Am I doing something wrong?

Seriously, it won't pay my bills, but it's still a nice chunk of change that will help pay my bills, and this is from less than a week at around ninth place on the charts.  I'm cool with that, and if there's a big long tail effect, it suggests that you actually could make a living off of this, if you're one of the top several sellers.

Also, if you were expecting this to be more than a hobby/secondary income for most developers, you probably had your hopes too high.

The numbers certainly aren't as large as I was hoping but considering I did Groov on no budget whatsoever I can't complain.

I'm certainly happy, my game was simply a learning c# and xna project, I decided to release on here as anoter learning curve, my only costs were the price of the membership, and ive easily recouped that, along with somemore for a nice bottle of whiskey =]

Anchorcast:

Also, if you were expecting this to be more than a hobby/secondary income for most developers, you probably had your hopes too high.

I strongly agree. I got some pretty decent sales with my latest game, but really low for three weeks on the top10 charts.
I showed these sales to a friend of mine that does things for the appstore and it is laughing like a mad...

FunkMasonry Industries:

Compare that to the iTunes App Store, where the number 4 game sells 10 times that in a single day, and the results aren't too pretty. Maybe the number one game sold ten times that,

edit: the reason cause my friend is laughing...

I think people are crying because they wished for more money...of course. You have to think about alot of factors when comparing this platform to others. XBLCG is SHARING space with XBLA and regular Xbox 360 games. With it not being promoted as much as we want, we are not going to get great exposure. Secondly, ALOT of the games on the space itself isn't something to go running to your friend about. Yes, there are games that are great, but the number of games that aren't far outweigh those that are. Then, publicity, CG already has those numbers of "bad" games but then add that on media outlets that everytime we see something about it, it's more of "MS is charging me money for this..." type of reaction. So I will say that those games that are making "good" money are beating the odds and are making great games no matter what.

Comparing this platform to the App Store is not 1 to 1 in my opinion just because:
1. Apple pimps the app store every other commercial.
2. App Store isn't "sharing" it's space with other platforms.
3. The Media really loves the App Store in general.
4. The customers that you are luring in on XBCG are mostly hardcore gamers who are looking for great games (not mediocre) unlike App Store customers are MOSTLY casual gamers.

Put all those in consideration when thinking about your game sales. I know I will.

i want to cry but mostly because im an optimist and expected my numbers to be much larger ;) i got a decent amount of money in reality.

i think all the time that screensavers and 'massagers' dominate the marketplace, real gems will get overlooked. i know that despite early in the service i bought a lot of games, but nowadays i dont actually check the community games section because most of the charts/new releases are just clearly people trying to cash in.

The good news is that all the professional developer studios will not land here, there's not enough money for them.