You don''t see how people will mis-interpret this ?
"Reasonable expectations are for you to receive royalty checks from us each month in the range of US $1000 to $10,000. This income will normally last for several years."
To me that says you send out cheques in the range of $1000 to $10,000 every month over several years.
I''m sure I''m not the only one that thinks you''ve worded it so it sounds alot better than it actually is.
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Downloads -> Sales, How many pieces do shareware games sell ?
I think people would be suprised how much money simple mass maket appeal games can make. Here''s a list of successful sharware developers who see sales in the 1000-10000 a month range.
Pretty Good Solitare
Silver Creek (I think these guys won an IGDA award for Hardwood Hearts)
Spiderweb Software
Another Card Game company
Pretty Good Solitare
Silver Creek (I think these guys won an IGDA award for Hardwood Hearts)
Spiderweb Software
Another Card Game company
quote: Original post by granat
3 years = $5000 x 12 x 3 = $180.000 (and that''s just YOUR cut).
To take this calculation a step further, according to the web site, you get 35% of retail sales. So, that means
total revenue = $180,000/0.35 = approx $514,000
Thats 1/2 a million dollars in revenue. Sounds pretty ambitious.
Even if you take the low end of the scale ($1000/month), thats $36,000 in royalties over 3 years, and over $100,000 in revenues. Still seems a bit ambitious to me. Broken down by sale price, thats:
10,000 units @ $10 each (280 units/month)
5,000 @ $20 each (140 units/month)
2,500 @ $40 each (70 units/month)
While I cant seem to find any actual statistics on shareware sales (maybe someone else can do it for me...) these number do seem a bit high for the average game. And again, this is the low end of the scale...for the high end, multiply these number by 10.
quote: Original post by Ironside
Here''s a list of successful sharware developers who see sales in the 1000-10000 a month range.
Not sure where you get those numbers, but I''ll assume you are accurate. Are these number per game or for the whole company, because I noticed the companies you listed all have 4 or more games for sale (one has 13).
I dont know if the sale numbers are for the individual games or the company as a whole and I cant prove Dexterity's projected sales numbers. I'm developing a puzzle game right now that I plan to pitch to dexterity and if they agree to publish it I will let you (and the community know) what the sales numbers are like.
I would like to say that in my communications with dexterity they have been nothing but helpful and despite my persistant questioning have done/said nothing that would lead me to doubt their honesty.
They have been around for a while, i remember when they were just a developer a few years ago. I imagine it would be hard to stay in business that long if you were ripping people off or marketing falsley. Bad news travels fast.
I think the problem here is that we in the indi game dev community seem to think it's impossible for shareware to make money and anywone claiming to make money in shareware we approach very skeptically. Even though our own heros ID, Epic etc. came out of sharware.
I like to approach it this way, we can sit around and debate if the sales numbers are accurate or not, or we can go out make some games get them published and find out for ourselves. Even if you didn't sell a copy, you'd at least have completed game, and that's solid resume material to get you into the industry.
No matter how it turns out, I think the developer wins in the end.
Edited by - ironside on February 12, 2002 3:22:17 PM
I would like to say that in my communications with dexterity they have been nothing but helpful and despite my persistant questioning have done/said nothing that would lead me to doubt their honesty.
They have been around for a while, i remember when they were just a developer a few years ago. I imagine it would be hard to stay in business that long if you were ripping people off or marketing falsley. Bad news travels fast.
I think the problem here is that we in the indi game dev community seem to think it's impossible for shareware to make money and anywone claiming to make money in shareware we approach very skeptically. Even though our own heros ID, Epic etc. came out of sharware.
I like to approach it this way, we can sit around and debate if the sales numbers are accurate or not, or we can go out make some games get them published and find out for ourselves. Even if you didn't sell a copy, you'd at least have completed game, and that's solid resume material to get you into the industry.
No matter how it turns out, I think the developer wins in the end.
Edited by - ironside on February 12, 2002 3:22:17 PM
I listed Exile series (part of spiderweb software) as successful shareware earlier on in the thread.
I have no doubt of the abilities of Shareware or the sales numbers, just the wording used in that paragraph is quite questionable as I''m sure quite a few people mis-interpret it.
I have no doubt of the abilities of Shareware or the sales numbers, just the wording used in that paragraph is quite questionable as I''m sure quite a few people mis-interpret it.
Ironside:
Yes, you are right. They have been around for a while, and I havent really heard much (if anything) bad about them. It just seemed to me that their numbers seemed a bit high. Especially $10000/month. I would imagine that $1000-$10000 per month thing to be more like the upper 50 percentile of shareware games. Then again, I hope (and pray...always gotta have faith) that my game would be in that upper 50 percentile, so for me hopefully that would fit. And then, there is always the question of how selective they are in who they publish. Maybe they are extra picky and/or have a good intuition for which games will sell, which would definitely push their average numbers up.
The other good thing (from looking at their site) is that they are open to non-exclusive contracts, and they say if you are not satisfied you may end the contract at any time on 120 days notice, so thats a positive. Obviously they have faith that they can make enough sales fast enough to make you happy, otherwise they lose out since a decent portion of expenses are incurred upfront (QA, manufacturing, sales negotiations, etc).
All in all, I think they DO look like one of the more promising options at this point.
Yes, you are right. They have been around for a while, and I havent really heard much (if anything) bad about them. It just seemed to me that their numbers seemed a bit high. Especially $10000/month. I would imagine that $1000-$10000 per month thing to be more like the upper 50 percentile of shareware games. Then again, I hope (and pray...always gotta have faith) that my game would be in that upper 50 percentile, so for me hopefully that would fit. And then, there is always the question of how selective they are in who they publish. Maybe they are extra picky and/or have a good intuition for which games will sell, which would definitely push their average numbers up.
The other good thing (from looking at their site) is that they are open to non-exclusive contracts, and they say if you are not satisfied you may end the contract at any time on 120 days notice, so thats a positive. Obviously they have faith that they can make enough sales fast enough to make you happy, otherwise they lose out since a decent portion of expenses are incurred upfront (QA, manufacturing, sales negotiations, etc).
All in all, I think they DO look like one of the more promising options at this point.
Hi,
I''m Steve Pavlina, founder of Dexterity Software, and I just thought I''d help answer any questions you may have about us as a publisher. There''s a detailed FAQ at www.dexterity.com/developer/faq.htm that answers our most common questions. If you read every page of that FAQ, it should give you a good picture of what we do and why we believe we can do it.
So first, yes -- the $1000 to $10,000 per month is for real. And that''s per month, not per year. Our game Dweep, for instance, is well into the six figure $ range in sales. My guess is that its lifetime sales will fall between $250,000 and $500,000, but I wouldn''t be surprised if it did better than that. Most of this is from direct sales, but we also do licensing. For instance, this week I''m negotiating a $10,000 flat fee nonexclusive license for Dweep Gold with an Asian publisher. So that would have put an extra $3500 into the developer''s pocket (except that I''m the developer for that game). Even though I released the original Dweep back in 1999, it''s selling much better today than it was back then, partly due to releasing two expansion packs and a gold version with a level editor. More than half the levels in the current gold version were created by players.
There are many indies who are doing great financially ($10,000+ per month), but my guess is that many of you don''t know them because you run in different circles. For one, they don''t seem to hang out here. The most successful indies I personally know are all ASP members, and many are active in the members-only ASP newsgroups. I think that because the $100 ASP dues keeps many hobbyists out, the newsgroups tend to be more attractive to the very successful developers, and those successful developers bring in more successful developers. I''ve brought at least half a dozen indies into the ASP over the past couple years. Many of these people also go to the Shareware Industry Conference each year. Several have sales in the range of $10,000 to $50,000 per month. You don''t get into this range simply by making a great game. I''ve spent far more time marketing Dweep than I did developing it, for instance. This month we''ll spend about $950 on online advertising alone, none of which is banner advertising. For instance, Dweep Gold and Fitznik are both being featured at Tucows in their own subsection (http://games.tucows.com/download/mindbenders.html). Those features cost $50 per month each, and we keep renewing them because they generate about $150 in sales each month. To launch a new game, we''ll spend about $3000 on marketing and distribution in the first two weeks. So there are good reasons why we generate a lot more sales than developers who focus mainly on development instead of marketing. It takes an enormous amount of work to build your sales to this level, but it most certainly can be done. I know because I''ve done it. When I first started in shareware, I kept *developing* new games but was only making $300 per month from four products. When I switched my focus to marketing instead of just developing, it made all the difference. My goal for this year is to reach $100,000 in sales per month, sustainable, by the end of the year. It will take a lot of hard work, but I believe this is an attainable goal for us. That means we''re going to be paying out roughly $35,000 per month in developer royalties.
Can we make you a lot of money with a Pacman or Tetris clone? Heck, no! At least, I seriously doubt it. As explained in our FAQ, we''re looking for good quality *original* games, the top 10% of shareware games. For the most part, this means good 2D or 3D DirectX games with nice art, good sound, decent music, etc. The game doesn''t have to be retail-quality of course, but it has to be nicely executed. Dweep, for instance, took six months to complete and involved the efforts of myself and one artist (who worked for royalties only). There was also a contract musician who did the music for free in exchange for credit in the game. So the actual out-of-pocket money spent on developing the game was $0 (unless you include the pizza budget).
The indies I know who are making the most money aren''t trying to compete with the retail publishers by making Quake clones. They''re hitting the gap in the market that the retail publishers are missing. That means high-quality card games, puzzle games, board games, and small action games (like 2D shooters). Kyodai Mahjongg is a great example. A simple concept, very easy gameplay, but *nice* execution. These customers are the types of people who aren''t going into retail software stores, mostly people in their 30s and 40s with families.
So while we probably can''t sell the Pacman clone you wrote in Visual Basic in a weekend, we can sell something unique and interesting. Marketing-wise, we need something that we can position to stand out from the crowd. Usually this means a clever design, not the most advanced technology.
Dexterity.com currently gets about 330,000 page views per month and about 120,000 unique visitors. That''s not too big compared to a site like GameDev.net, but when you consider that our site is focused on selling games (no banner ads, etc), I think you can see how that could lead to a decent number of sales just by itself. Plus our free newsletter is getting over 1000 new subscribers per month, and every subscriber will be informed about each new game we release. Because of this, it''s actually pretty easy for us to hit the first $10,000 in sales in the first 30 days.
Our biggest problem is that we''ve got thousands of customers with money in their pockets, wanting to buy our next release, but we''ve got nothing new to sell them. It takes us 6-12 months on average to develop a new game, so typically we release only 1-2 new games per year. Many of our customers have already bought every game we sell (and some even bought extra copies to give as gifts). That''s why we expanded into publishing -- so we can greatly increase our capacity to release new games. We already have the demand -- we just need to increase the supply to meet it. Our customers tend to be very loyal. For one, our site puts forth a friendly, non-corporate attitude. Also, we offer an unconditional 60-day money back guarantee on every purchase. So if you don''t like a game you bought for any reason, just let us know, and you get a full refund, no questions asked. I don''t know too many other game publishers who guarantee that their games are fun. Yet our return rate is only about 0.2% (two returns out of every thousand sales).
We''ve gotten a flood of new game submissions in the past two weeks (since my interview was posted here), and a few of them look very promising, so I think we''ll be releasing several new games in the next few months. The nice thing about online publishing (our primary focus) is that virtual shelf space is unlimited. It''s going to be a long time before we need to worry about oversaturing the market.
Ok, enough rambling -- I''ll hang out here for a few days, so please feel free to ask me anything you want, and I''ll give you a frank, honest answer. Or if you prefer email, just email me at steve@dexterity.com.
Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
I''m Steve Pavlina, founder of Dexterity Software, and I just thought I''d help answer any questions you may have about us as a publisher. There''s a detailed FAQ at www.dexterity.com/developer/faq.htm that answers our most common questions. If you read every page of that FAQ, it should give you a good picture of what we do and why we believe we can do it.
So first, yes -- the $1000 to $10,000 per month is for real. And that''s per month, not per year. Our game Dweep, for instance, is well into the six figure $ range in sales. My guess is that its lifetime sales will fall between $250,000 and $500,000, but I wouldn''t be surprised if it did better than that. Most of this is from direct sales, but we also do licensing. For instance, this week I''m negotiating a $10,000 flat fee nonexclusive license for Dweep Gold with an Asian publisher. So that would have put an extra $3500 into the developer''s pocket (except that I''m the developer for that game). Even though I released the original Dweep back in 1999, it''s selling much better today than it was back then, partly due to releasing two expansion packs and a gold version with a level editor. More than half the levels in the current gold version were created by players.
There are many indies who are doing great financially ($10,000+ per month), but my guess is that many of you don''t know them because you run in different circles. For one, they don''t seem to hang out here. The most successful indies I personally know are all ASP members, and many are active in the members-only ASP newsgroups. I think that because the $100 ASP dues keeps many hobbyists out, the newsgroups tend to be more attractive to the very successful developers, and those successful developers bring in more successful developers. I''ve brought at least half a dozen indies into the ASP over the past couple years. Many of these people also go to the Shareware Industry Conference each year. Several have sales in the range of $10,000 to $50,000 per month. You don''t get into this range simply by making a great game. I''ve spent far more time marketing Dweep than I did developing it, for instance. This month we''ll spend about $950 on online advertising alone, none of which is banner advertising. For instance, Dweep Gold and Fitznik are both being featured at Tucows in their own subsection (http://games.tucows.com/download/mindbenders.html). Those features cost $50 per month each, and we keep renewing them because they generate about $150 in sales each month. To launch a new game, we''ll spend about $3000 on marketing and distribution in the first two weeks. So there are good reasons why we generate a lot more sales than developers who focus mainly on development instead of marketing. It takes an enormous amount of work to build your sales to this level, but it most certainly can be done. I know because I''ve done it. When I first started in shareware, I kept *developing* new games but was only making $300 per month from four products. When I switched my focus to marketing instead of just developing, it made all the difference. My goal for this year is to reach $100,000 in sales per month, sustainable, by the end of the year. It will take a lot of hard work, but I believe this is an attainable goal for us. That means we''re going to be paying out roughly $35,000 per month in developer royalties.
Can we make you a lot of money with a Pacman or Tetris clone? Heck, no! At least, I seriously doubt it. As explained in our FAQ, we''re looking for good quality *original* games, the top 10% of shareware games. For the most part, this means good 2D or 3D DirectX games with nice art, good sound, decent music, etc. The game doesn''t have to be retail-quality of course, but it has to be nicely executed. Dweep, for instance, took six months to complete and involved the efforts of myself and one artist (who worked for royalties only). There was also a contract musician who did the music for free in exchange for credit in the game. So the actual out-of-pocket money spent on developing the game was $0 (unless you include the pizza budget).
The indies I know who are making the most money aren''t trying to compete with the retail publishers by making Quake clones. They''re hitting the gap in the market that the retail publishers are missing. That means high-quality card games, puzzle games, board games, and small action games (like 2D shooters). Kyodai Mahjongg is a great example. A simple concept, very easy gameplay, but *nice* execution. These customers are the types of people who aren''t going into retail software stores, mostly people in their 30s and 40s with families.
So while we probably can''t sell the Pacman clone you wrote in Visual Basic in a weekend, we can sell something unique and interesting. Marketing-wise, we need something that we can position to stand out from the crowd. Usually this means a clever design, not the most advanced technology.
Dexterity.com currently gets about 330,000 page views per month and about 120,000 unique visitors. That''s not too big compared to a site like GameDev.net, but when you consider that our site is focused on selling games (no banner ads, etc), I think you can see how that could lead to a decent number of sales just by itself. Plus our free newsletter is getting over 1000 new subscribers per month, and every subscriber will be informed about each new game we release. Because of this, it''s actually pretty easy for us to hit the first $10,000 in sales in the first 30 days.
Our biggest problem is that we''ve got thousands of customers with money in their pockets, wanting to buy our next release, but we''ve got nothing new to sell them. It takes us 6-12 months on average to develop a new game, so typically we release only 1-2 new games per year. Many of our customers have already bought every game we sell (and some even bought extra copies to give as gifts). That''s why we expanded into publishing -- so we can greatly increase our capacity to release new games. We already have the demand -- we just need to increase the supply to meet it. Our customers tend to be very loyal. For one, our site puts forth a friendly, non-corporate attitude. Also, we offer an unconditional 60-day money back guarantee on every purchase. So if you don''t like a game you bought for any reason, just let us know, and you get a full refund, no questions asked. I don''t know too many other game publishers who guarantee that their games are fun. Yet our return rate is only about 0.2% (two returns out of every thousand sales).
We''ve gotten a flood of new game submissions in the past two weeks (since my interview was posted here), and a few of them look very promising, so I think we''ll be releasing several new games in the next few months. The nice thing about online publishing (our primary focus) is that virtual shelf space is unlimited. It''s going to be a long time before we need to worry about oversaturing the market.
Ok, enough rambling -- I''ll hang out here for a few days, so please feel free to ask me anything you want, and I''ll give you a frank, honest answer. Or if you prefer email, just email me at steve@dexterity.com.
Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
By the way, I had the reportedly confusing text on our site changed to read:
"Reasonable expectations are for you to receive royalty checks from us in the range of US $1000 to $10,000 per month. This $1000 to $10,000 monthly income will normally last for several years."
Is that clearer or is it still confusing?
Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
"Reasonable expectations are for you to receive royalty checks from us in the range of US $1000 to $10,000 per month. This $1000 to $10,000 monthly income will normally last for several years."
Is that clearer or is it still confusing?
Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
There was nothing wrong with the original text. I did not misunderstand it. I just doubted it. But what do I know ??
Anyway I enjoyed reading your post.
Anyway I enjoyed reading your post.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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