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Penny Arcade Game Sees Record Breaking Numbers
Kotaku is reporting that the new Penny Arcade game is showing record breaking numbers, earning $330,000 in the first three days, surpassing previous record holder Worms HD. Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik was very pleased with the result saying: "Given that our price point was double the other games on that list I'm pretty f***ing happy. We fully expected some people to complain about the $20 price tag but we honestly felt like our game was worth it. Pricing something like this is tricky. Obviously you have to look at the length of time it will take someone to complete the game but you also need to factor in the quality of the experience."
It's great that an indie game can be developed in a relatively short time with relatively small costs and released to a wide for a meaningful profit. Penny Arcade shouldn't just be proud of making a good and financially successful title; they also proved the viability of the business model.
Will their example inspire less visible developers to explore distribution? I hope so.
I really liked the battle system. It's kind of a cross between Paper Mario's timing based mechanics and Final Fantasy's active time battle system.
It shows some symptoms of fetch quest syndrome, but the combat, art style, and shear volume of amusing things to see kept it from dragging.
Overall it's a very enjoyable game and I'm looking forward to the next episode.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
I just purchased it today... with a Xbox Live Points card from Target. Until Saturday, Target is selling $20 Point cards for $15. So, in essence, you can purchase Precipice for only $15 - 25% off!
... are purchase copies of low-budget games developed in relatively short time frames which were released by someone without a pre-existing audience of millions of rabid fans?
Its not like Penny Arcade descended down from heaven yesterday and declared "And let it be possible to sell video games, for money, over the Internet! So it is written, so shall it be done!" Its been done. The overwhelming majority of folks who do it fail to make any significant amount of money relative to the fair-market value of the time invested.
http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/
Those statistics aren't representative -- everyone likes hearing about the success stories (hint: most of the ones with numbers in the title). Vastly more numerous are results like these folks:
http://www.gameproducer.net/2006/09/20/sales-statistics-pharaohs-curse-gold-2000-yearly-sales/
Several man months of labor. $2,000 worth of sales.
Games are just a tough, tough market to make money in. Your core customers don't want to spend money and fly the Jolly Roger by default. Your product will be obsolete in 3 to 6 months, even for "casual" gaming. You have enormous expenditures for assets to remain competitive. Your customers have rather little loyalty and it is difficult to turn them into ongoing revenue streams.
Compare this to selling software on the shareware model: your core customers have problems and are willign to pay to solve them. Your core customers don't have LimeWire installed. Your product will last for years. Your expenditures on assets may cost less than a date (I started my software business with $60... working on hitting $20k this year, on about 2 hours a week). Your customers provide a built-in base of people to sell upgrades and new related products to, and they are often fanatically loyal to you.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.