Venture Africa sales, one year later

[DrWilloughby]

I've just posted some sales stats on my blog over at Qatfish (http://www.qatfish.com). Venture Africa came out around 10PM on Oct 31, 2005. I've learned a fair amount in the last year. This post gives a few details on sales and the strategy/outlook moving forwards.

THE POST (http://www.pocketwatchgames.com/blog/?p=42)

[val]

So you made about $12000 on direct and affiliate sales, and this is far from projected volume of sales, as I understand. Did you pay back your expences? I do not know if you published the costs of development, expences for trade mark etc.


p.s. please, fix URLs in your blog, they miss "http://".

[Davaris]

Wow! I was going to make a game like that next!

My idea was inspired by Cliffski's political game and something I thought would appeal to ordinary Joes.

At first I thought I'd make a board game where you go on Safari as an 18th Century White Hunter. But then I thought it wouldn't be accepted because it wouldn't be politically correct. :rolleyes: Then when Steve Erwin died I thought of managing a wildlife park in Africa. It just goes to show there are no new ideas under the sun. :)

[DrWilloughby]

Thanks for the note regarding the links... carelessness.

Why is that far from the projected volume of sales? In the post I actually say that the units sold online is very much within what I expected. Retail sales are significantly higher than that, which is great.

Yes, I funded the whole thing. Expenses were around 8000 dollars for the whole thing, not including lost salary. So if you amortize the amount made over the 1.75 years of development/sales, I've made enough to live on a very low-budget salary. Not bad for a first attempt. I hope the next one will be a lot better, of course!

[Grey Alien]

very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Great number of direct sales. Interesting idea about getting the max number of exclusive sales and cross selling, before putting it on the portals for max coverage.

[electronicStar]

Good stuff.
I'm glad you tried something original and didn't end up on a loss.
good luck for next game.