The Realities of Selling Independently Developed PC Games

Not long ago, we discussed the realities of selling a game on the iPhone App Store. Now, spidweb sends in his experiences with a realistic level of success as an independent PC game developer. He writes "There is a lot of excitement about casual gaming and Indie game development these days, but there's also very little public information about how many games actually get sold, or the sort of income one can reasonably expect in this line of work. We've released full sales figures for a recent product to illustrate what sort of earnings can be generated by a quality niche product that isn't a massive hit. From the post: 'I am not the first Indie developer to reveal this sort of information. However, most public sales figures come from projects that were either blockbusters or disasters. Our games have never landed in either pool. I have been doing this for a living for almost fifteen years.'"

Comments

additional data

[Trepidity]

A few indie game studios have been forthcoming with data, although as he points out not a lot apart from the real blockbusters or bankrupt ones. One I'm familiar with, though, Chronic Logic, has released some numbers.

One of their more high-profile games was the platformer Gish, since it won the 2005 IGF grand prize (an indie-game award); it sold 4,500 copies at $20 apiece, netting about $121,000 after expenses. Slightly under half of those were in the first year out, a bit over a quarter the second year, and the rest trailing in in subsequent years. The puzzle game Triptych (2002), sold 1,000 copies at $15 apiece, netting about $25,000 after expenses. Again about half were in the first year out, but sales straggled in more slowly but consistently after that, with about 15% of the total in each of the following 3 years.

I haven't been able to find sales stats for probably their best-known game, Bridge Builder, though; pointers would be interesting.

Re:additional data

[Trepidity]

Haha yeah, I should've explained that better; the linked post has more detailed numbers. They made a more numerically accurate $81,176 on those 4,500 direct sales, after credit-card/paypal fees. The additional income was $16,000 from the IGF prize money, $6,200 from other sites that resold the game and gave a cut, and $17,500 from small retail publishers who licensed the game to sell in Europe and Asia brick&mortar.

Re:additional data

[Trepidity]

Seems like they might almost agree with you, since their most recent game is $14, so getting closer to that price point.

As far as demos, they do actually have free demos for all their games; that's one thing I think Chronic Logic does right versus a lot of other indie game publishers.

(Perhaps I'm sounding like a shill here, but I spent a good portion of my youth hooked on Bridge Builder, despite the relatively small size of the game.)

Re:additional data

[Trepidity]

Oh, I forgot the other, rather important reason I'm a fan besides Bridge Builder: all their games are available for Linux.

Re:Some games just don't make a profit.

[montyzooooma]

That's such a flamebait of a post. Nowhere in the article/blog post does Jeff BLAME piracy for his games not selling. In fact he quite clearly says he's made a living at it for the past 15 years. He mentions piracy, yes, but it's a tiny part of the overall article.

Re:Interesting/Disappointing

[Clover_Kicker]

Spiderweb games have a plot. People buy them for the plot, not the graphics.

The people who buy the latest Geneforge game have already played NWN and Oblivion.