Non-windows sales surprisingly common?

[Graeme]

After reading the comments of several developers on and off of these forums it seems as though a surprisingly large number sales for casual games are to customers using Mac or Linux, especially Mac.

So what I'd like to know is, first of all, is this accurate? Do Windows sales really only account for only two thirds to a half of the total sales of a casual game in most cases?

And more importantly: If the above is true, does it apply to indie games in general, or just casual games.

I would assume that the high profile game developers sell a vast majority of their games to Windows users, but it seems like casual (and indie?) games don't follow that trend.

Is there any truth to my speculation?

[papillon]

Well, the old wisdom goes that there aren't very many games *available* for Mac/Linux, so those that are have a much better chance of selling to M/L users than to Win.

(Linux people are more likely to either not be using that machine for games or to not be interested in paying for software. Not 100% of users feel that way, but plenty do.)

If you *can* produce a Mac port, it's probably a good idea.

[cyodine]

I've also noticed a large percentage of sales that come from Mac users, at least based on posted sales stats from games that work in both Windows and Mac. The percentage is far greater than the percent of computers that are Macs. (i.e. 50% of sales being Mac). My guess is that the average Joe can walk into WalMart and pick up a lot of Windows games, but since he can't pick up Mac games as readily, he has to go elsewhere for them - the internet.

[Graeme]

My .NET/DirectX approach suddenly doesn't seem so smart :)

[Ryan Clark]

50% of Professor Fizzwizzle sales from our website have been for the Mac. Sales of Fizzwizzle on the portals are obviously far more windows-centric, since most portal sites don't cater to Mac users (however, ArcadeTown does, as does BigFish).

Anyway, I believe there are two reasons for this. One, as mentioned above: There aren't many Mac games out there. Mac gamers tend to be very supportive of Mac game developers, and are quite happy to give you $20 to reward you for supporting the Mac platform.

Second: Mac users are easier to reach. When you get your game listed on Apple.com, MacUpdate, and VersionTracker, you're reaching a large percentage of Mac gamers, and you're doing it for free. To reach Windows users is much more difficult... there's no one-stop-shop for Windows games these days (download.com used to be...), so you really need to work a number of avenues to get the attention of Windows users. Solicit reviews, press releases, advertising, etc.

[Graeme]

Your second point is a good one, I had never considered that it's easier to get the attention of mac users.

[Savant]

Dr.Germ does at least 80% of it's sales on the Mac. It's totally worth doing a port if you can.

[Davaris]

So how do you guys test your Mac port if you don't own or have access to a Mac?

[Savant]

I bought an iBook for about $1000 when I was ready to do the port. Cas will jump in here now and tell you that he doesn't own a Mac and has never even seen his games running on one - yet they still work due to the magic of Java. :)

[Ryan Clark]

So how do you guys test your Mac port if you don't own or have access to a Mac?
I bought a bare-bones Mac Mini. You can find one used for dirt cheap, I'm sure!

I wanted a low-end machine, in fact, for the purposes of testing minimum system requirements. This sort of thing really shouldn't cost you much.

[James C. Smith]

Do Windows sales really only account for only two thirds to a half of the total sales of a casual game in most cases?

I think that statement would be more true for ‘Indie’ games than it is for ‘casual’ games. I know of many small Indie developers reporting 50% of their sales for non-Windows platforms. But for larger companies with popular causal games, 10% is the highest number I have ever seen reported for non-Windows sales.

[arcadetown]

Note big % #s are typically reported from developer sites that don't have a lot of traffic to begin with thus exposure on apple's site for example can drive a big % increase in sales. Here we typically see around 20 - 40% additional mac version sales for games that have them. Interestingly mac users are just 2 - 4% of our users and sales increase appears to be higher than most other largish portals. For successful games with wide distribution I believe James' 10% max statement is pretty correct.

[val]

Our estimates about the volume of Mac market were also about 3% of Windows one. But the actual online sales for Tank-o-Box 1.2 Mac Edition were greater than on Windows.

We stay #1 in game downloads on Apple.com for two weeks, and it is ended only because Apple launched Mac OS X Tiger that caused replacement of all top-downloads to titles that required OS 10.4.

But when we ported Bubble Bobble Nostalgie clone from Game-OverGames we found that Mac users are tend to purchase Bub and Bob 2 for Mac OSX rather than our BBN Mac Edition. Since we lose money on this title we decided to put new graphics and try to re-launch this game - maybe with another name.

Indeed, Mac users are easier to reach online. The market is smaller and portals do not fight for it. But you should go first and check if your product is unique for that niche.

You can launch new clones every month on Win market and on Mac this model doesn't work. Mac users are more rich maybe, but have exacting requirements for the game.

[princec]

I'm still getting around 50/50 Mac:Windows sales.

Cas :)

[val]

One more thing: Windows market is broader for potential CD publishing.

[tentons]

Note big % #s are typically reported from developer sites that don't have a lot of traffic to begin with thus exposure on apple's site for example can drive a big % increase in sales.
For anyone who isn't a portal site or is just starting out, that's good to hear. :) About 50% of my sales are for Mac.