GunRaven first month sales

[techbear]

Product examined: GunRaven (http://www.aggressivegames.com)
Period examined: 10/22/04 to 11/22/04

GunRaven Price: $9.95us
GunRaven sales processor: RegNow
GunRaven affiliate percentage: 35%
GunRaven total copies sold: 65
GunRaven affilate sales : 49
Gross profit (including various taxes) : $681.69 us
Net Profit (after taxes, regnow fees, and affilate cut) : $322.18 us

I started officially selling GunRaven on 10/19, when I finished the website update and put the full version on RegNow's download system (which would cost me $0.07 per download). On that day, I also e-mailed a press release (found below) to a dozen gaming sites, including www.gamexzone.com.

Later that same day, the owner of www.gamexzone.com e-mailed me and asked for a custom version. I provided it immediately.

On 10/21, I bought a one-month license for SharewareTracker, and spent the next 2 and 1/2 days running though its database, submitting my PAD file. At this time, that's all the advertising I did for GunRaven. Also, I have not paid to put GunRaven on download.com.

As you can see from this graph (http://www.exegame.com/salesGraph1.jpg), I experienced a huge but short bump starting on 10/23. I later found out, by e-mailing my first customers, that www.gamexzone.com had sent out an e-mail newsletter which featured GunRaven prominently (though I never actually got a copy to see for myself). Almost all of that initial bump was affiliate sales from www.gamexzone.com.

The graph also shows that the initial sales have dropped off quickly, leaving me grumpy. :)

Affilate sales also made me go OUCH! Of my $9.95 product, RegNow took a $2.00 flat fee, plus a $0.07 download fee. The affilate took took 35% (of the original $9.95), PLUS RegNow took an extra 15% of the %35 precent, leaving me with under $4! I'm not angry at RegNow or the affilates, I just got some sticker shock is all. :)

I wanted to share this data with everyone to 1) give some hard info to a community generally starved for it, and 2) seek help in how to sell more GunRaven!

Thanks!



********************
sale date Price Profit
11/20/2004 $11.69 $3.88
11/15/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/15/2004 $12.14 $7.88
11/13/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/13/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/13/2004 $9.95 $3.95
11/11/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/11/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/11/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/10/2004 $11.69 $3.88
11/9/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/7/2004 $14.44 $7.88
11/7/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/5/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/5/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/4/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/4/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/4/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/3/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/3/2004 $9.95 $3.88
11/3/2004 $9.95 $7.81
11/3/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/2/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/2/2004 $9.95 $5.59
11/2/2004 $11.69 $3.88
11/1/2004 $9.95 $5.59
11/1/2004 $9.95 $7.88
11/1/2004 $9.95 $7.95
10/31/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/28/2004 $9.95 $7.88
10/28/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/28/2004 $11.69 $5.66
10/28/2004 $9.95 $3.95
10/27/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/27/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/27/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/27/2004 $9.95 $3.95
10/27/2004 $11.90 $7.88
10/27/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/26/2004 $9.95 $3.95
10/26/2004 $11.69 $3.88
10/25/2004 $9.95 $3.95
10/25/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/25/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/25/2004 $11.69 $3.88
10/25/2004 $11.69 $3.95
10/25/2004 $14.63 $7.95
10/24/2004 $9.95 $3.95
10/24/2004 $9.95 $3.81
10/24/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/24/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/24/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/24/2004 $9.95 $3.74
10/24/2004 $12.44 $3.81
10/24/2004 $11.84 $3.88
10/24/2004 $11.69 $3.88
10/23/2004 $9.95 $3.81
10/23/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/23/2004 $9.95 $3.95
10/23/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/23/2004 $11.69 $3.88
10/23/2004 $11.54 $3.88
10/23/2004 $9.95 $3.81
10/23/2004 $9.95 $3.88
10/22/2004 $9.95 $4.45

total price $681.69
total profit $322.18

********************
GunRaven released!

Aggressive Game Designs releases intense new arcade game

Austin, TX - Aggressive Game Designs has released GunRaven,
an intense top-scrolling arcade action game for the PC. Made
especially for DirectX-enabled machines, GunRaven uses a
high-res screen and hardware acceleration to achieve
amazing effects.

Anyone can download the demo version of GunRaven from
http://www.aggressivegames.com . The demo is a surprisingly
small self-extracting program that can be downloaded quickly.

GunRaven offers hours of traditional addictive fun wrapped
in a completely new and updated package, with outstanding
graphics, bone-rattling sounds, and a thumping soundtrack.

The player becomes a captain of the Empire, using their
powerful fighters to crush the rebellion and destroy dirty
alien scum. Put down the Krite and their clumsy industry
ships. Explore the Flame Nebula, fighting off the enigmatic
aliens that infest it. Bring Count Contarro and the
Deep Belt miners to their knees. Crush the Pic'arok
slave rebellion.

Unlike most shooters, each mission in GunRaven unlocks two
more, allowing the player to choose which mission they want to
attempt next. Finish entire sectors to unlock new, more
powerful player ships. Unlock all 28 player ships and use them to
destroy sixteen different alien fleets in 128 unique missions.

GunRaven features 128 missions in 16 sectors, 48 unique
bosses and 96 unique enemies. 28 individual players ships
can be unlocked.

"I've had lots of experience creating top-scrolling shooters,"
said Thom Robertson, the game's creator. "But after pursuing
some new hardware-accelerated technology, I realized I could
revisit the genre with new and amazing special effects."

"I was also impressed with Burnout 3, the console racing
game," He continued. "Its meta-game and method of unlocks was
a blast, and I began to imagine something similar being used
for an otherwise traditional shooter. Thus was GunRaven born."

The rapid development of GunRaven is mostly due to the solid
engineering that Aggressive Game Designs uses in all its
products. The 3D DirectX engine was created in-house,
and has been used on other complex projects.

"The technology GunRaven uses allows us to offer the brightest,
most kenetic graphics to PC game players," said Anna McCollum,
marketing manager. "We continue to focus on technology as
the solid basis for our unique game visions."

The latest version of the game can be downloaded from
http://www.aggressivegames.com . The web site also has other
great games, and a forum.

Aggressive Game Designs is a small, independent game
development studio in Austin, TX, infused with the
single-minded goal of making great games. Building upon
years of experience in game design and coding,
Aggressive Game Designs is poised to achieve financial and
critical success in the new Internet Age.

********************

[Sirrus]

Great data Thom, thanks for sharing!

[BigZaphod]

Nice press release. I like it. :) Unfortunately I don't have any experience selling games, but I would suggest some bigger screenshots on your site. I visited the game's page and the 5 screenshots there were too small to get a good feel for the look and detail of the game. I tried to click on them to enlarge them, but to no avail. :)

(I can't run the demo because I'm using a Mac, but it looks fun! I love the old-school top down shooters.)

[Jack Norton]

Of my $9.95 product, RegNow took a $2.00 flat fee, plus a $0.07 download fee. The affilate took took 35% (of the original $9.95), PLUS RegNow took an extra 15% of the %35 precent, leaving me with under $4! I'm not angry at RegNow or the affilates, I just got some sticker shock is all
If you had used Plimus or eSellerate, you would have saved about 2$ for each copy, with a net gain of 130$ (not bad)... :eek:

[Davaris]

Have you tried Plimus? They have great service and I think they charge 10% of your sale. I agree with you affiliates are expensive. Perhaps I should be come one. :)

BTW who did the logo for your company? Its very good.

[terin]

Question 1) Why reg now download system? Surely you could find a cheaper place than .07 per download.

Question 2) What was the total number of downloads?

[Andy]

I suppose good game and selling good really. What would you expect techbear - One million in a month? :)

Common. I got the answer on your second question - how to sell more GunRaven - just sell it longer. And I'm not sure if I'm kidding really.

1. WebSite - I wasn't able to find links to any screenshots or that's just my stupidity? It wouldn't be too bad to show the download size as well.

2. Price is too low - I'd be warned to buy something with such a low price. May be to pronounce it as Promo price or something at least?

My.... :confused: ...half of cent.

[tolik]

Are you going to try publishing it through indie-friendly BigFishGames or Reflexive?

[cliffski]

fantastic post. agreed about screenshots and download size, and you should up the price to at least $15. switching to plimus goes without saying ;)

[someone]

I think the setup wizard of GunRaven has a small bug. While setup is copying files, the "next" button is enabled. When I click it, it say "installiation is complete", but actually some of the files are missing.

Thanks for the info.

[tafty]

I also experienced a bug in the set up wizard - neither next or cancel buttons were visible at all. It appeared I could tab to some buttons though. Pressing Tab once when I had focus on the instructions followed by Enter resulted in a blank box. Pressing Tab twice when I had focus on the instructions followed by Enter resulted in the 'Are you sure you want to exit setup' confirmation dialog.

<edit>
OS: Win2K
</edit>

[SteveZ]

Thanks for the info, very insightful.

Here are some suggestions:

1) Use FileBurst, they charge $1//Gb bw. Your game is 4.4Mb, which equates to 227 downloads / Gb = $0.004 per download vs $0.07 from Regnow. You are essentially cutting download cost by 94%.

2) I agree with others here, get Plimus for sales on your site. (Something I need to do as well =) )

3) Increasing the cost of the game. $14.95 seems like a good start.

4) Redo your order page or add a small image. Help users associate the order page to your game / site.

[DangerCode]

I wanted to share this data with everyone to 1) give some hard info to a community generally starved for it, and 2) seek help in how to sell more GunRaven!

First of all, congratulations on your product. I hope it does you well.

Thanks a lot for sharing this data with us. I really was starving for this kind of data. ;)

For selling more GunRaven? Well, keep in mind I'm not really in a position to talk, but ...

1) The installer needs some work. It flickered horribly and the last stage of the install said ...

"You can access the program by choosing "$[group]" from the Start Menu and clicking the Program Icon."

Small bugs to be sure, but the installer is the very first thing I see as a potential customer.

2) I don't care for the explosions that look like a celtic ribbon. It just seems weird and misplaced.

3) Join the Association of Shareware Professionals if you haven't already. They'll help you bring in the $$ to be sure.

Good luck from a fellow Austinite.

[Jason Chong]

Thank you for sharing. Very much appreciate it!

Congratulations on a successful first month launch! :-)

[Martoon]

Absolutely brilliant game! I love the think-on-your-feet strategy involved in picking up (or avoiding) the different powerups, especially the way the primary and secondary weapons accumulate, but are mutually exclusive with everything else (including repairs). The laser weapon is huge fun to use (one of the more tactically interesting weapons I've seen in a shmup).

One problem I have with the "unlocking ships" incentive is that some of the ships are clearly superior to others, and often I would unlock a weaker ship after already having better ships, so the newly unlocked ship doesn't really give me anything. It might be better if the various ships were more balanced, but certain ships were better on certain missions.

But the actual gameplay within the missions is tremendously fun. Some of the best mouse control I've seen in a shmup. Nice work!

[Valkilos]

Mmmm... data. Tasty data... *crunch* Mmmm...

Er... *ahem*. Anyhow, many people here have more experience than me when it comes to selling games, so you may want to take what I say with a grain of salt. That being said, I've got a few suggestions.

Your affiliate commission seems abnormally high, and your price seems abnormally low. Lowering the affiliate % while bumping up the price would definitely juice your profit-per-sale while not messing up your affiliates' profits, but I don't know how that will affect your overall sales numbers. Still, if the market rate for most downloadable games is the $15-25 range, as it seems to be, pricing yourself below that may actually reduce sales, since potential customers will think that the deal is too good to be true. You may want to bump the price to $12.95 or $14.95 for a little bit and see how that affects your sales numbers.

When I took a quick look at your website, it doesn't seem like it would rate very high on search engines under pretty much any term. You have the obligatory "Free Game Downloads" text at the top, but with it being repeated nowhere in your copy (and nowhere in your title tag) you're not going to show up anywhere in the top 250 on any of the big players, at least not for such a commonly sought term. Getting in the top five of a handful of lesser-used search terms is better than barely cracking the top 200 of a more commonly searched term. A quick check on Overture for "shoot-em-up" and "download shooting game" shows each get over 1,000 searches a month, with little competition for the top spot - and I'm sure there are better results you could aim for if you look harder than the three or four terms I punched in (Overture and WordTracker are your best friends for looking up stuff like this, IMHO).

You probably want to look at your numbers for conversion rate, download rate, and web traffic. Figure out which is your weakest link, and improve it. If your CR is way below 1%, maybe you're giving away too much in the free demo. If your download rate is low, maybe people aren't being led to the game properly on your website. If your web traffic is weak, you may need to get more links to your page and get higher on search engines. Personally, I'd work on CR and downloads before web traffic - getting those down first will naturally make your attempts at increasing web traffic much more effective. But look at your numbers and figure out where the weak link is, because everyone's results will vary.

Like I said, my advice should be taken with a grain of salt. But I hope it helps you out anyway :D

[Vectrex]

3) Join the Association of Shareware Professionals if you haven't already. They'll help you bring in the $$ to be sure.

- why exactly are they worth the money? Does it make that much difference?

[Mithril Studios]

Thanks Techbear for the info!

Anthony

[Emmanuel]

Nice info techbear, appreciated !

In terms of increasing sales, first, as others said, you are definitely pricing your product too low. It sends a signal of being "cheap". Now that you've set a price point, you don't want to be unfair to the customers that have already bought it. I would suggest that you add a bonus pack of levels and features, to justify a price increase, and sell it bundled at $19.95 with a special offer rebate of $5.00 or so for instance.

Secondly, I think your marketing message focuses too much on technical achievement. As a programmer, I understand where you are coming from, but as a player, I could't care less about how your technical achievements. So I think first, you should take out "design notes" and such from your GunRaven sales page at aggressivegames.com, and second, if technology is your differentiator, you should explain it differently.

Thirdly, a good exercise is to summarize your product down to one word. What is it? Not three words, or two words - one. Once you have it, try to own that word. (sorry if that's marketing 101 !!) An original feature of your game is being able to chose from different missions once you complete one. How would you summarize it and spin it so that it makes you game 'unmissable' ?

This said, your game is REALLY good, I think if you work really hard at marketing it, and resist the temptation of doing more programming in the meantime (I know that temptation, trust me!) your sales will take off much more.

As other said wisely, be patient. Sales take a while. Don't just sit and wait though, you have to actively market your game every single day. The reward of being successful at publishing your own games is worth it !

Product examined: GunRaven (http://www.aggressivegames.com)
Period examined: 10/22/04 to 11/22/04

GunRaven Price: $9.95us
GunRaven sales processor: RegNow
GunRaven affiliate percentage: 35%
GunRaven total copies sold: 65
GunRaven affilate sales : 49
Gross profit (including various taxes) : $681.69 us
Net Profit (after taxes, regnow fees, and affilate cut) : $322.18 us
********************

[DangerCode]

3) Join the Association of Shareware Professionals if you haven't already. They'll help you bring in the $$ to be sure.

- why exactly are they worth the money? Does it make that much difference?

Steve Pavlina had a great thread about this on his old forums, I can try to dig it up. Basically he said the ASP helped him go from $500/month to $3500/month (or was it $2500?) over the span of half a year.

I haven't released my own shareware yet, but I've been a member for a while now and I think it's worth it.

EDIT: I couldn't find the thread, but Steve talks about the ASP here Steve's Blog (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/index.php?p=16). Basically he says he went from $300 to $3000 in a matter of months.

[techbear]

Wow, lots of great feedback! Thank you!

So, it looks like everyone agrees on these changes:

1) a better, more professional installer.

2) add full-size screenshots and download sizes to the website.

3) Move to Plimus.

4) Work on modifying the website to place higher in the search engines.

5) Raise my price!

I'll get to work! Thanks again.

[Andy]

Basically he says he went from $300 to $3000 in a matter of months.

... I'm just wondering $300 in July and $3000 let's say in December?.. ;)

Statistics... :rolleyes:

[Promaginy]

[QUOTE=techbear]5) Raise my price!QUOTE]

Ouch! Don't do this without having a good reason to do so. You should throw in some extra levels or something with the price increase. Or at least say that $9.95 was an introductory price.

You will piss off some potential customers who were thinking of buying but delayed.

Thanks for the great info! Good luck and don't lose patience.

[StormcloudCreations]

I agree with the above...don't suddenly raise your price without adding something. Otherwise, it will put up a big flashing sign to some early customers "I'm not sure what i'm doing" and you'll make later adopters or people that were waiting to get paid to buy your product pretty annoyed. :)

[Mark Fassett]

Heh - so he pisses off 30 people that would have netted him $4 a piece - he'd only have to get 10-12 others to make up the difference (assuming he went to $19.95) and it's a temporary problem. Nobody who sees it for the first time three months from now will have any idea.

[StormcloudCreations]

Heh - so he pisses off 30 people that would have netted him $4 a piece - he'd only have to get 10-12 others to make up the difference (assuming he went to $19.95) and it's a temporary problem. Nobody who sees it for the first time three months from now will have any idea.

The problem is that with a usually lower volume business like indie games, angering 30 people isn't very smart. :)

Those are 30 (or maybe 25, since a few may forgive and forget) people who probably won't ever feel comfortable buying from you again. You multiply that by the amount of products that you may come out with later on, not to mention the bad word of mouth from those 30 people to their friends and gaming pals that may alienate other potential customers as well, and things like this really cost you in the end. The internet is a very exponential thing.

It wouldn't matter as much if the company were selling EA or Microsoft type numbers, but if they aren't, every lost customer hurts and has more than just an immediate effect. All IMHO of course. :)

[Mark Fassett]

I seriously doubt all 30 people would make such a big fuss as to cause any problems. Most people go "dammit" and either pay up or give up. It's not like he's made Half-Life 3, found people were buying it, and raised the price from $50 to $75. You make the mistake of thinking that these people are going to be passionate enough about it to care. I don't think they will be. If you're really worried about it, put a message on the website for a week saying "the price is going up next week!" But he shouldn't let it stop him from doing what needs to be done. Making $4 a copy is not going to get it done unless he sells 500-600 copies a month.

[Emmanuel]

Don't piss off any customer. Your reputation is one of your assets. Another thread discusses the values of indie developers. Having respect for your customers and giving excellent service should be part of these values.

There's even no need to piss them off. Throw in bonus levels and raise the price. Send an e-mail to the people who already bought the game, and tell them that as a special offer for having bought your game early, they can download the bonus levels for free. I don't know anyone who's unhappy to get more than he or she paid for originally. The new players will think nothing of paying up $14.95 ($19.95 minus a $5 special offer rebate for instance) for a great game.

[Mark Fassett]

The thing here is that your not pissing off customers, your just disappointing "some" potential customers. Anyone that's already paid will feel like they got lucky. You don't need to add content to make them happy. And I think, this early, adding content to justify a price hike will make him look even more like he didn't know what he was doing that just raising the price. After all, if he released it, and then a month later, adds content and raises the price, why didn't he just do it all at once? Just give a weeks warning, and then do it. If anybody complains, just give them the old price.

[Andy]

I've already PM'ed techbear but want to say two words here as well.

Emmanuel! - Why?! :confused: Miracle...
They already got pretty nice game (that got the right to be priced not less than "standard" 19.95) for $9.95. Why you require to develop additional levels to make them feel happier with their already $10 prize? :confused:
This is not a business decision at all. I suppose Thom made mistake with price and that could be easy fixed - just replace it by correct one in the order form and on the site. (OK - May be to resubmit the game in download archives).

What else is disturbing you in this question?

PS Hell Mark. Sure :mad: You are American and typing faster than me on your language. :D OK. This thread is yours - I see we really got similar experience and repeat the same things by each other. ;-)

[Sillysoft]

I have raised my price twice so far, and am thinking about doing it again. The method that I find works well:

Put on your website right now "MYGAME will be increasing in price from X to Y when the next update is completed. Buy now to ensure you get the lowered price". Put it in bold, or red, make it stand out.

This gives fair warning to anyone considering buying, and it even encourages them to buy it.

[Emmanuel]

I've already PM'ed techbear but want to say two words here as well.

Emmanuel! - Why?! :confused: What else is disturbing you in this question?


I'd throw some stuff in myself, but he's not me :) Mark makes a good argument for not doing it. In any case, the most important thing is that he does raise his price.

[Promaginy]

The thing here is that your not pissing off customers, your just disappointing "some" potential customers.

You make the mistake of thinking that these people are going to be passionate enough about it to care. I don't think they will be.


I can't ever fathom why you would want to disappoint any potential customers! I am assuming that potential customers means those people who would be in his target market - not just anybody with the potential to play his game.

Whether the customers are pissed off is beyond his control. He cannot control how they will react to his game or to his price change, but the facts are if you raise a price, then you need to have a good reason to do so.

If one person tells ten others to not buy his game because he raised his price for no benefit to the customer, then that is ten others who will have a less than positive impression of the company.

Finally, the ultimate goal of any indie developer is to find and retain passionate customers. If you don't care whether your customers are passionate about what you create, then it will show in your end result. You want to nurture a relationship, they give you money and you give them value in terms of fun. A person who drops $15 to buy your game and never plays it is not as valuable as one who "invests" $15 (or even $10) and becomes one your game's promoters.

[Promaginy]

I have raised my price twice so far, and am thinking about doing it again. <snip> This gives fair warning to anyone considering buying, and it even encourages them to buy it.

Interesting! Do you see a spike in purchases before the price is increased?

[Mark Fassett]

I can't ever fathom why you would want to disappoint any potential customers!

You don't want to disappoint them, but it's inevitable. If they call you on it, give 'em the old price. You can't let fear of disappointing someone stop you from doing what needs to be done.

If one person tells ten others to not buy his game because he raised his price for no benefit to the customer, then that is ten others who will have a less than positive impression of the company.

That's assuming that one person tells ten others. That one person may just not say anything to anyone because buying the game was just a way to be diverted for awhile. Until they've actually plunked down money, they're just not going to be that passionate about it. Not for an indie game, anyway. It's not like any of us are making Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 and have a million people waiting three years for the game to come out.

Finally, the ultimate goal of any indie developer is to find and retain passionate customers.

I'm sorry - the ultimate goal of an indie developer should be to sell games and make a living for as many people as are involved in the company. Finding and retaining passionate customers is one part of what's required to do this, but it's not the only thing. Another part is making sure you are getting enough out of every sale. If you're not, you need to solve the problem. Price hikes will always disappoint some people. You can't let fear of what a couple might say stop you from doing what you need to do.

[Sillysoft]

Interesting! Do you see a spike in purchases before the price is increased?

Advertising a price raise did spike sales a little bit. Then I increased the price when I released a new update, and there wasn't a huge sales valley when that happened. After a while sales with the new higher price are above what they were with the old lower price.

All this talk of pissing your customers off is a little silly IMHO. The majority of your customers will have no idea what your past prices were. They find your game somewhere and then however much it costs right then is all the info they will ever have.

[DavidRM]

I agree with Mark and SillySoft: raise the price, and don't apologize for it.

Here's the fact of the matter: There are *billions* more people on this planet that have never heard of you than you've ever had the chance to offend.

Keep that in mind when
You raise your price.
You make a release that blows up on installation, requiring an emergency update.
You otherwise screw up or make an unpopular decision.


And of the ones you do offend, you can usually apologize or otherwise mollify them into a disgruntled silence.

Look at your own experience, with friends and/or retailers. Friends annoy you constantly and you'll still hang out with them. Stores raise prices all the time and you still shop from them. You might whine that you should've bought that new gizmo while it was on sale, but you don't boycott the store because the sale ended.

Keep up the good work, techbear. :)

-David

[princec]

Yeah, it's dead easy really.
Customer: But you said this game was only $9.95 last week!
You: It was, but the offer has expired. Now it's the normal price of $19.95.
Customer: I don't care, I saw it for $9.95 and I know someone who bought it for $9.95 too.
You: Well that's no problem. I'll extend the offer specially just for you, and you can have it for $9.95 as well.
Customer: I r so happy! I will buy all ur games.
etc.

Cas :)

[Teq]

Yeah, it's dead easy really.
Customer: But you said this game was only $9.95 last week!
You: It was, but the offer has expired. Now it's the normal price of $19.95.
Customer: I don't care, I saw it for $9.95 and I know someone who bought it for $9.95 too.
You: Well that's no problem. I'll extend the offer specially just for you, and you can have it for $9.95 as well.
Customer: I r so happy! I will buy all ur games.
etc.

Cas :)

tsk, I want some customers like that, well any customers would be nice ;)

Good work techbear, its nice to see someone with a product success and for what its worth $14.95, or even $19.95 would still be great value for money.

[zoombapup]

Ok, not wanting to rock the boat here. But I'm going to suggest something things that I think would REALLY help. Aside from the obvious changes people have mentioned.


1) The graphics of the game are a bit poor. I realise that this is usually something us programmers cant do much about. But if you look at graphics from other top shoot-em-up games like ikaruga and some of the shooters you can get via mame, I think you'll see a difference in quality.

2) The choice of a shoot-em-up game is a bit of a risky one. I dont know how well shooters in general sell, but I'd suspect not THAT well.

3) The presentation of the game is lacking in a number of area's, for instance the installer, but also some of the fonts look pretty poor.

4) The game itself seems a little bit wishy-washy to play. Its fairly easy and forgiving, which is maybe good for a casual game, but seems a bit TOO easy for a shooter (which are non casual by definition).

Basically, I would suggest comparing what you have produced to the better shoot-em-ups out there, realistically evaluate your effort versus thiers and then decide wether you feel you arent selling well enough..

For instance, look at Tyrian, which is a game released a LONG time ago, by epic. A vertical scrolling shooter with great graphics, great gameplay and I'm reasonably sure did ok sales wise. THAT was a shareware game. Essentially an indie game. If I were writing a shooter, I would aim to do significantly better than that game.

All I'm saying is that if you want more sales, make a better product. No matter all the other issues (which I think youre aware of), be more critical of your own product.

Sorry if it comes across as harsh. But obviously you HAVE the codebase there, just a bunch more polish could have a huge effect for you.

[princec]

Well, here's a counter-review.


1) The graphics of the game are a bit poor. I realise that this is usually something us programmers cant do much about. But if you look at graphics from other top shoot-em-up games like ikaruga and some of the shooters you can get via mame, I think you'll see a difference in quality.

The graphics are simple, effective, and to the point and convey the game's primary purpose perfectly, as do the sound effects.


2) The choice of a shoot-em-up game is a bit of a risky one. I dont know how well shooters in general sell, but I'd suspect not THAT well.

That's entirely hearsay. The market for shooters if anything is currently experiencing a rise. They sell as well as any other product.


3) The presentation of the game is lacking in a number of area's, for instance the installer, but also some of the fonts look pretty poor.

Agreed. I think the installer was particularly freaky.


4) The game itself seems a little bit wishy-washy to play. Its fairly easy and forgiving, which is maybe good for a casual game, but seems a bit TOO easy for a shooter (which are non casual by definition).

This is another mis-perception of what a shooter actually is. A shooter is generally a game that involves plotting the paths of projectiles to either make or avoid collisions. They can very from the brain-death simplicity of Chicken Invaders through to the incredible difficulty of Jets & Guns via all sorts of strangeness like, ahem, Super Elvis. You can make them as casual and easy as you like or hardcore if you so please. This game's casual and easy.


If I were writing a shooter, I would aim to do significantly better than that game.

This isn't necessarily an ideal strategy! My next game is a vertical shooter. My plan is to make the most money possible from the absolute least effort whilst still maintaining our own standards of presentation. I'm not aiming to be better than anyone else's games - I'm aiming to make more money selling it than I spent making it. If it succeeds in this it has met its business objectives. If I were to try and make a better shooter than Ikaruga I'd spend 100x more effort on it, but in the process of doing so, I'd have 100x the risk - and I could quite easily still end up with the same amount of sales through some other part of the business equation. Disaster!


Sorry if it comes across as harsh. But obviously you HAVE the codebase there, just a bunch more polish could have a huge effect for you.

To continue from my last paragraph - the law of diminishing returns is in effect here, as well as increasing risk. You could spend twice the time on the game polishing it but only increase sales by 10%. The effort is most likely better spent elsewhere.

My 2p of worthless advice and commentary :)

Cas :)

[Promaginy]

You don't want to disappoint them, but it's inevitable. If they call you on it, give 'em the old price. You can't let fear of disappointing someone stop you from doing what needs to be done.

I'm sorry - the ultimate goal of an indie developer should be to sell games and make a living for as many people as are involved in the company. Finding and retaining passionate customers is one part of what's required to do this, but it's not the only thing. Another part is making sure you are getting enough out of every sale. If you're not, you need to solve the problem. Price hikes will always disappoint some people. You can't let fear of what a couple might say stop you from doing what you need to do.

You are completely right. I was pontificating too much! :o The ultimate objective is to pay the bills - satisfying the customer is the best way to do this of course.

I am fascinated that price hikes are not seen as negatives by customers. I guess being low profile has its benefits!

[Mark Fassett]

Well, customers will see it as a negative if they know about the earlier price. But the reality is, at the time that you are changing the price, there are a limited number of people that are considering purchasing the game, and those people aren't likely to care enough about it to make a big stink because, A) you're an indie and no one knows about you so they aren't likely to have a huge emotional investment, and B) they haven't paid for it yet, so don't have any monetary investment. If they care enough, they'll send you mail, and you just give it to 'em for the earlier price. No big deal. As long as you didn't put the price of the game in the game itself, the period of time where you're likely to have these issues could be relatively short, as long as you go update all the download sites.

[Nexic]

I would be proud of Gun Raven. It is lacking in graphic and sound quality but it has great gameplay. Any idea what your download to sale conversion rate is yet?