Anchorcast:

Just to make calculation a little easier for developers...

One sale at:
200 MS points = $1.694
400 MS points = $3.388
800 MS points = $6.776

(Points * 0.0121 * 0.7)

So if your 200-point game sold 500 copies, that's 500 * $1.694 = $847.00 in revenue.

How did A Fading Melody go?

Murudai:

Anchorcast:

Just to make calculation a little easier for developers...

One sale at:
200 MS points = $1.694
400 MS points = $3.388
800 MS points = $6.776

(Points * 0.0121 * 0.7)

So if your 200-point game sold 500 copies, that's 500 * $1.694 = $847.00 in revenue.

How did A Fading Melody go?

Still not sure I want to share specific sales figures (been mulling it over), but the conversion rate is around 6-7% and I've made decent money off it.  Not nearly as much as you have, though!

Anchorcast:

Just to make calculation a little easier for developers...

One sale at:
200 MS points = $1.694
400 MS points = $3.388
800 MS points = $6.776

(Points * 0.0121 * 0.7)

So if your 200-point game sold 500 copies, that's 500 * $1.694 = $847.00 in revenue.

I don't get it; why 0.0121? Wouldn't it be easier just to multiply sales by $2.50, $5 or $10 depending on what your price point is?

Dark Madder:

Murudai, i love the music in Solar, who or what is Rig?

Rig is his screen name. In the update for the game that's still going through review I've put his real name :) He doesn't have a site yet but he mainly loiters around newgrounds: http://rig.newgrounds.com/ You can listen to most of his music for free there, lots of good stuff!


But anyway, thanks for the support! Word of mouth is one of the main ways our games get out there, so go out on all the sites and share not just our games, but Community Games in general!

Anchorcast:

Still not sure I want to share specific sales figures (been mulling it over), but the conversion rate is around 6-7% and I've made decent money off it.  Not nearly as much as you have, though!

You've been on Nelson's Top 10 and been quite popular, couldn't be any worse than a lot of the titles around here :)

Adrian Tsai:

Anchorcast:

Just to make calculation a little easier for developers...

One sale at:
200 MS points = $1.694
400 MS points = $3.388
800 MS points = $6.776

(Points * 0.0121 * 0.7)

So if your 200-point game sold 500 copies, that's 500 * $1.694 = $847.00 in revenue.

I don't get it; why 0.0121? Wouldn't it be easier just to multiply sales by $2.50, $5 or $10 depending on what your price point is?

$0.0121 is the point remittance rate that you agree to when you submit a game. Each point that is earned by a community game is worth $0.0121 (of which MS keeps 30%).

You can not simply take the costs of point for the consumer (that would be the $0.0125 per point you quote) because those costs vary. For example, the $0.0125 per point applies only in the US. In Canada, UK or the Euro-zone, points have different prices. Factor into this the fact that gamers buy their points in various currencies, which first need to be exchanged to US$ when the money arrives at MS (so that MS can in turn pay it out to the developer), and also factor in the uncertain exchange rates that can change at any time, then probably also factor in some other stuff only an expert accountant knows about, and what you get is the remittance rate.

Doc

Game (app actually): Calculator360
Price: 200 MS Points
Release date: 21-March-2009
Total downloads: ~4700
Total sales: ~130
Conversion rate: 2.7%

Hello there.

Firt of all, thank you all for sharing your data. It's much appreciated. For now, I can see one shouldn't enter into the service with the intention of living from his games sales, but I think the number of sales is pretty decent for the rest (in which I'll be included if I make a game).

Now a have a question for all of you. Can you please post any data which could let us know how well your games are selling in the different regions? For example, what % of your sales have been made in X region or, in all regions with X language? If so, please, specify if your game is localized into that region's language. I'm really curious to know such information, as yesterday I read a Spanish developer in a Spanish online videogame magazine "complaining" about the low number of sales his game had had in Spain so far, despite being localized into Spanish.

@Abel Garcia Plaza

For Calculator360 download split by country is:
US - 80%
UK - 10-12%
Canada - 5-6%
France\Italy\Spain - 2-5% combined.

After seeing this data we decided against any localization efforts for our upcoming game. The only language we consider is French to cover Canada\France, but this is low priority too and most probably we'll cancel that.

The Drum Kit had over 50k downloads, They broke out like this, US-66%, UK-21%, Canada-9%, France-2%, Italy-1%, Spain-1%. Spain was actually less than Italy however Excel still calls it 1%.

Anchorcast:

Just to make calculation a little easier for developers...

One sale at:
200 MS points = $1.694
400 MS points = $3.388
800 MS points = $6.776

(Points * 0.0121 * 0.7)

So if your 200-point game sold 500 copies, that's 500 * $1.694 = $847.00 in revenue.

Am I getting old or is that math incorrect?

200 points is $2.50 right?

Wouldn't you just do:

(500 * $2.5) * .7 = $875

Barkers Crest:

Anchorcast:

Just to make calculation a little easier for developers...

One sale at:
200 MS points = $1.694
400 MS points = $3.388
800 MS points = $6.776

(Points * 0.0121 * 0.7)

So if your 200-point game sold 500 copies, that's 500 * $1.694 = $847.00 in revenue.

Am I getting old or is that math incorrect?

200 points is $2.50 right?

Wouldn't you just do:

(500 * $2.5) * .7 = $875

Anchorcast's math was right, because each MS Point = $0.0121 apparently.  So 200 MS Points ~= $2.42.

JeBuS:

because each MS Point = $0.0121 apparently.  So 200 MS Points ~= $2.42.

I thought each MS Point = $0.0125 and 200 MS Points = $2.50.

If 100 MS Points = $1.25 wouldn't 200 = $2.50?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Points

If someone buys a 1600 point card for $20.00, then 20 / 1600 = .0125.

Barkers Crest:

JeBuS:

because each MS Point = $0.0121 apparently.  So 200 MS Points ~= $2.42.

I thought each MS Point = $0.0125 and 200 MS Points = $2.50.

If 100 MS Points = $1.25 wouldn't 200 = $2.50?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Points

If someone buys a 1600 point card for $20.00, then 20 / 1600 = .0125.

Trust me and read back several posts.

To purchase MS Points, they are $2.50 for 200 points. But that's not the conversion when paying out to developers. If you read the submission agreement you agreed to when submitting your game, it says that you compute the total at the rate of $0.0121 per MS Point. Then you take off the 30% for Microsoft (and potentially in the future a larger percent based on whatever they decide to do with their promotional stuff).

Still don't wanna give exact numbers, but here is where we stand.

Game Released : 27 FEB 09
Approximate Trials : More than 6500
Approximate Sales : More than 250
Approximate Conversion : 3.85%
Approximate Gross: 2420$
Approximate Take Home : 1694$

Hope this helps those crunching numbers, espcially for 800 point games as I think we are the only 800 point game to release any sales data as of yet. 

Not bad for 30 days, but need to keep up sales rate for a few months to recoup production costs.

So you basically get $1.69 for each 200 point game you sell?  I can live with that.

Take the point discussion  here http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/28386.aspx lets keep this thread on sales nubmer sharing... the mods are getting fed up with locking off topic threads..

Abel Garcia Plaza:

Now a have a question for all of you. Can you please post any data which could let us know how well your games are selling in the different regions?

I just reran my numbers, and sorted by country.  I did no localization.  These numbers go through March 30, 2009.

Trials:

Canada: 767
France: 175
Italy: 87
Spain: 114
United Kingdom: 1097
United States: 6844
Total: 9084

Sales and conversion rates:

Canada: 33 (4.3%)
France: 4 (2.3%)
Italy: 4 (4.6%)
Spain: 5 (4.4%)
United Kingdom: 66 (6.0%)
United States: 373 (5.5%)
Total: 485 (5.3%)

DecapodStudios:

Game (app actually): Calculator360
Price: 200 MS Points
Release date: 21-March-2009
Total downloads: ~4700
Total sales: ~130
Conversion rate: 2.7%

I truly do not mean this in a rude way whatsoever, but I never would have guessed that there would be 100+ people out there who would pay to have a calculator on their 360 -- especially within the span of only one week.  Clearly you know your audience better than I!  Congrats :)

From an interview with the maker of The Dishwasher: Undead Samurai:

"How do you feel your Xbox LIVE: Community Games, ZSX4: Guitarpocalypse and ZP2K9 performed?

So, ZP2K9 did better. A lot better! If I did the math right I'll end up making around $9K. Awesome for me, not so spectacular for those who hired artists and coders, rented an office suite, went on lavish vacations in anticipation of the big money, etc. I think it's wonderful. I made ZSX4 as a "let's see how this works" project with XNA, and once Xbox LIVE Community Games went live I decided to put some finishing touches on it and just see how it does, and the two odd days of work I put into that extra mile earned me about six months worth of rent. I can live with that!"

So some people are rather pleased with the service.  It really looks like working on your own is the key to making XNA Community Games work as a business venture at this point.

RainbowDespair:

From an interview with the maker of The Dishwasher: Undead Samurai:

"How do you feel your Xbox LIVE: Community Games, ZSX4: Guitarpocalypse and ZP2K9 performed?

So, ZP2K9 did better. A lot better! If I did the math right I'll end up making around $9K. Awesome for me, not so spectacular for those who hired artists and coders, rented an office suite, went on lavish vacations in anticipation of the big money, etc. I think it's wonderful. I made ZSX4 as a "let's see how this works" project with XNA, and once Xbox LIVE Community Games went live I decided to put some finishing touches on it and just see how it does, and the two odd days of work I put into that extra mile earned me about six months worth of rent. I can live with that!"

So some people are rather pleased with the service.  It really looks like working on your own is the key to making XNA Community Games work as a business venture at this point.

I would tend to agree.  If you must put together a "studio" you must set your sights higher than community games.  I, for one, only hired one other guy, my best friend, to do sound effects and music for Alchemist.  I did most of the artwork with stock photos and freeware backdrops and even had permission to use some avatars from an old game for which I purchased for very little.  I have since changed them to use gamer pics (which was a good move cause with 3.1 we have access to Avatars!) but I didn't spend more than $400 on my game.  Nor did I spend more than a month in solid development.  I did spend some extra time ironing out bugs and stuff which is why I had to pull it (uber crash bug, not a good thing) and will be putting it back up this weekend.

I think people who spent 6 months on levels neglected one key aspect to game development.  No matter how many levels you have, if your game mechanics aren't good, it's not going to sell.

People who put their cheese into making Snake clones, or Pong clones, or even Match-3 clones (that's me right there) shouldn't be expecting huge returns.

*edit* i know, off topic, i'm sorry, please don't lock it cause of me ;)

What reasons do people have for not sharing their numbers?

J Force Games:

What reasons do people have for not sharing their numbers?

Plenty, they could have promised a percentage to people therefore want to keep it private.
They could have not done as well as they boasted?
They could have done way better than others and didn't want the world to know.
Or, they could simply keep it secret because, after all, it's business.

My numbers for Groov:

Funkmasonry Industries:

My numbers for Groov:

Trials: 12,380

Full Games Bought: 2,480

Conversion Rate: 20%

For March, my conversion rate was 37.1%, which I'm pretty happy about.

37.1% is fantastic!!!  Obviously you sir are doing something right here, what it is one can only speculate but good job on the conversion rate as it shows that more people download your game and purchase than most other games here combined.