Levels of exposure within big portals

[Stu]

I've been lurking here for awhile and have found this forum to be a wealth of information. Thanks to all of you for that.

I am still trying to get some perspective as to what kind of renenue is being generated by games listed on major portals based on their level of exposure in those portals. For instance, at RA, a game may be listed in the top ten list, it may be listed as a featured game, or it may only appear in the "all games" list. It may also indicate that it is a best seller in which case it is also located in the top ten or featured game list.

Can some of you provide some generalizations regarding copies sold per level of exposure within the big portals? Are those listed in the top ten selling dozens per month, hundreds per month, or thousands per month? (copies, not dollars) Once they drop off the top ten but remain in the "featured games" list how dramatically did that impact their sales? Were sales of that game by that portal reduced by half? Reduced by 90%? Once they drop off the "featured games" list and now only appear on the "all games" list, what are they seeing now? Are they lucky to be selling 5 per month or more routinely see 50ish?

I realize there is no magic formula that perfectly accounts for sales generated within the big portals. Still, some perspective is surely available. I have seen little snippets here and there which offer a bit. I just saw a comment here a couple of days ago that would suggest that games within the top ten list are selling as many as 2000 copies per month. I don't want to just take that comment out of context or even assume it to be true. So, any perspective on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

Stu

[cliffski]

a game at the bottom of the lists may sell 10-20 a month. But the real problem is the roaylty rate. you have zero control over the price, or what special deals and bundles are done. If I sell 5 copies of my game direct I normally make the equiv of a months RA sales.
That RA income is still welcome, but I certainly wouldnt want to build my business around it, especially as I don't really make portal-style casual games.

[James C. Smith]

The top selling games on the top portals sell hundreds of copies per day of each game. When a game gets featured it doesn’t necessarily do any better than that. But really great games, like the ones that stay in the top 3 for many, many weeks, can do over a thousand units per day for a couple of days when they are first featured but then they settle into the normal hundreds per day. Games near the bottom of the top 10, or good games not in the top 10 at all, sell an order of magnitude less. These are just broad generalizations. Other people may have specific knowledge of situations that didn’t fallow this pattern.

Some big portals have drastically different pricing. For example, the average selling price of games on RealArcade can be as low as $11 when all the discounts and game pass credits are factored in. Then the developer gets a small percent of that for their royalty.

[JoeMaru]

The agreements one signs with the portals prevents them from giving out this information. Based on our experience, what James says is pretty accurate.. the first day you ship, if you are on the front page, expect tens of thousands of downloads and possibly hundreds of sales...

If you are on one ofthe back pages, expect hundreds of downloads a day and a few sales..