Reflexive/Amazon new pricing results

[Jack Norton]

With only 3 days left to this month, I think I can share my results of this new pricing.
Of course I can't post the figures, but I can say by which percentage the new pricing has affected my AFFILIATE sales only:
from january 2009 to february 2009, so far, I experienced about -60% less revenues. Total sales are higher by small percentage but since price is half, the revenues are much lower.
Even with an optimistic estimate, if this month had 30 days, I could maybe reach -50% of revenues.

To be fair I need to add: this month has been bad for my direct sales too, even if not so bad.

I know several other affiliate/developers that had similar results, or even worse than mine. But I invite everyone who wants to post here and share their results, so it doesn't seem a personal attack to Reflexive / Amazon because it isn't

My only goal is to demonstrate that low pricing is good for developers for time limited deals and not as a permanent solution.

[Desktop Gaming]

I've noticed an improvement but my site also relaunched in February, so I don't know how much of the improvement I can attribute to the price shift alone.

My sales figures are so low anyway that I can't say with any certainty that its the start of a new trend. I'm looking at it as a 'spike' at the moment. We'll see what happens through March.

[Escapee]

Almost same here Jack,

Comparison between January and February 09

After change effect
1) Average sales(Reflexive) revenue per day down by 30-35%

2) Average download per day declines by 10-15% as hundreds of game titles were shifted to other programs.

3) Conversion rate up by 50%.

Price change (ie 6.99) is a big factor for the drop of average sales revenue(Reflexive)/day.

I miss the good time

[princec]

Don't worry about it all too much... I strongly suspect Reflexive will notice their massive decrease in revenues after a few months and do something about it to get them back on track.

Cas

[Dark Octave]

Yeah, like further increase their percentage and lower developers.

Sounds about on par with their strategy so far.

[hippocoder]

Well we're not stupid people. If they want to shaft us, we'll move on.

[Maupin]

I'll post numbers at the end of the month, but so far it looks like I'll match or slightly increase my revenue compared to January. With three days left to go, number of sales this month are 172% of what they were in January, revenue is 92%.

[princec]

Reflexive won't shaft their vendors.

Cas

[DFG]

Of course I can't post the figures, but I can say by which percentage the new pricing has affected my AFFILIATE sales only:
from january 2009 to february 2009, so far, I experienced about -60% less revenues. Total sales are higher by small percentage but since price is half, the revenues are much lower.

Similar trends on the titles we have tested but I am going to give it some more time. You can do all kinds of things to make conversion rates jump but this really isn't the metric we are all in business for.

[Executrix]

Originally Posted by princec

Don't worry about it all too much... I strongly suspect Reflexive will notice their massive decrease in revenues after a few months and do something about it to get them back on track.

Cas

Remember that Reflexive was bought out, they don't have to care about sales anymore, they just must do their new master's bidding.

[Desktop Gaming]

Originally Posted by Executrix

Remember that Reflexive was bought out, they don't have to care about sales anymore, they just must do their new master's bidding.

You might want to consider that several of Reflexive's staff are frequent visitors to this forum before you go speaking on their behalf.

[Maupin]

Was thinking something similar, especially in regards to Dark Octave's comment.

[JGOware]

I still wonder what's more important in the long run for amazon, the "Amazon Casual Games" branding or the "Reflexive" branding for casual games? Will they both live in harmony forever?

[Warlock]

Originally Posted by Jack Norton

With only 3 days left to this month, I think I can share my results of this new pricing.
Of course I can't post the figures, but I can say by which percentage the new pricing has affected my AFFILIATE sales only:
from january 2009 to february 2009, so far, I experienced about -60% less revenues.

The same things.
As affiliate revenue ~ -50%
As developer revenue ~ -50%

[princec]

There's no way James or Russell or anyone else at Reflexive will be happy to watch it turn to shit. If it doesn't start making more money they'll change it, simple as that.

Cas

[Pyabo]

Slight derailment of thread, but... does anyone else think Amazon's game "store" is a steaming pile? It is just really no good... compare it to a site like Big Fish where they are all about converting eyeballs into sales. They don't even show you screenshots unless you click on the "show all images" link below the title picture.

Works for books... video games? Not so much. I'm willing to bet they're not exactly overflowing with sales. I'm sure it made sense to slot this product into their software the same way everything else is sold, but it just seems so sterile to me. Good thing Reflexive's main site is still around.

To be fair, maybe I'm just used to drowning in graphics on Big Fish's site, or being accosted by screenshots as soon as I click a game link... I certainly do a lot of book shopping on Amazon and I think it's fine there.

[Andrej Vojtas]

I wondered about the difference between paying on indie sites and Amazon: ease of checkout, perceived security.

With lower prices they go for impulse buying. Lower prices and impulse buying work well on one click checkout platforms (iPhone, XBLA, Steam,...) As far as I know it's extremely easy to checkout for Amazon existing customers.

It could happen Amazon/Reflexive sell well and make more money with the lower price level and affiliate sites with complicated checkouts and lower perceived security don't.

Anyone has a statistics about how many people actually click the Buy button and then give up on filling in the forms?

[Jack Norton]

Originally Posted by Andrej Vojtas

It could happen Amazon/Reflexive sell well and make more money with the lower price level and affiliate sites with complicated checkouts and lower perceived security don't.

Yes, that's why I made this thread. So far only BMT is working on that (no surprise, since the other vendors really doesn't seem much interested in listening to any kind of suggestions).

[Indiepath]

Wrong forum .. sorry

[amaranth]

I wonder... have the cookies changed at all? Are they only being recognized through Reflexive sales and not through Amazon sales?

[Maupin]

No and yes, because (if I understand you correctly) the Amazon sales are outside of Reflexive's affiliate network. (Which generates custom installers/executables for each affiliate, not cookies.)

[Maupin]

Here are my results after almost a month of lower prices in Reflexive's affiliate system:

                 January  February

total sales       100%     193%
revenue           100%     106%

conversion rate   0.55%    1.17%

buy now sales    33.13%   51.77%
returns by vol    3.13%    0.97%

From what others have mentioned, my results may be atypical. (Also, this is comparing a 28 day month with a 31 day month, and it wasn't until Feb 3rd that the lower prices went into effect.)

According to Quantcast, my site is popular with teens in lower income families (don't know how Quantcast knows that).

I noticed a lot more "impulse" buys of games I never heard of before. Also, fewer returns/refunds. I haven't run any numbers to see what percentage of customers bought more than one game, but I expect it will be higher than January. (I had expected my newsletter address list to more or less doubly increase along with sales, however disappointingly I got just a slightly higher number of new contacts compared to January. This leads me to believe I had a similar number of customers - they just bought more games. On the other hand, maybe the kind of person who is more willing to buy a cheaper game is more likely to uncheck "send me a newsletter" boxes.)

I'm still optimistic, and I think lowering prices to more closely match what other portals sell at was necessary for Reflexive to stay competitive. Reflexive's new prices are still higher than what most Big Fish Games customers pay.

Unfortunately the price drop kind of ruins Reflexive as an option for indies seeking to fill out their niche game site with extra content. If you developed an RPG, for example, you could pop a few RPGs from Reflexive's network on your site to create more of a draw for fans of the genre. And brand them with your logo. However now those games are likely to be half as expensive as your own, which isn't good. (Maybe allow affiliates an "anti-discount" option?)

[Jack Norton]

Originally Posted by Maupin

Unfortunately the price drop kind of ruins Reflexive as an option for indies seeking to fill out their niche game site with extra content.

yes I think this is the main problem, indeed I was selling mostly the niche games on reflexive. I remember when I announced Harvest: Massive encounter in december 2008 and got 8 sales in 10 days, or Kivi's Underworld or other niche games which were selling just fine at fullprice.
For those kind of games the $9.99 pricing is a complete suicide for developers.

[Executrix]

Originally Posted by Maupin

However now those games are likely to be half as expensive as your own, which isn't good. (Maybe allow affiliates an "anti-discount" option?)

I like this idea.

[Sybixsus]

Originally Posted by princec

There's no way James or Russell or anyone else at Reflexive will be happy to watch it turn to shit. If it doesn't start making more money they'll change it, simple as that.

Yes, but what will they be happy to do if it's making them a lot more money directly through Amazon and a lot less money through affiliates?

[jmc]

Originally Posted by princec

Don't worry about it all too much... I strongly suspect Reflexive will notice their massive decrease in revenues after a few months and do something about it to get them back on track.

Cas

I think Amazon is interested in gathering email addresses of people who are buyers ( so potential buyers for amazon ), so that they can send out amazon newsletters, they don't really care about the amount of revenue reflexive generates imho. So my guess is that they're even going to lower the prices even more in the next months...

Jmc.

[Desktop Gaming]

Originally Posted by jmc

So my guess is that they're even going to lower the prices even more in the next months...

If that did happen (which I doubt it will), then they won't have any products left to lower the price of, because everyone will be jumping ship, and rightly so.

[princec]

Seems like an awfully risky way to glean a few email addresses. After all ... I have a sneaky suspicion almost everyone who's bought a Reflexive game either already knows who Amazon are, or have already bought a book from them... so I suspect that it's just a big price war experiment.

Particularly I wonder about the fact that Amazon chose Reflexive. If I were Amazon, I simply wouldn't have bothered with the niche titles Reflexive carry, and either bought out BFG or Popcap or something along those lines. Not a relative minnow like Reflexive.

Cas

[rioka]

It's possible Amazon is trying to get a foothold in the downloadable area regardless of what the content is. Think about it; Amazon created their own e-book reader (Kindle) and is heavily promoting it in their site. Why not just support one of readers out there like Adobe's Digital Editions which is free? They have video-on-demand, mp3 music, and now games. Digital downloads is the next frontier and whoever jumps in first and hits all the right notes (pricing, products, customer service, and so on) is going to get a chunk of the market.

[princec]

Originally Posted by rioka

It's possible Amazon is trying to get a foothold in the downloadable area regardless of what the content is. Think about it; Amazon created their own e-book reader (Kindle) and is heavily promoting it in their site. Why not just support one of readers out there like Adobe's Digital Editions which is free? They have video-on-demand, mp3 music, and now games. Digital downloads is the next frontier and whoever jumps in first and hits all the right notes (pricing, products, customer service, and so on) is going to get a chunk of the market.

That is quite possible.. but again I'd say, why Reflexive? They'd have been far better of with casual games if that was their plan. Wider market, Kindle-friendly interfaces, low system requirements. Reflexive's catalogue has tons of more, erm, eclectic games in it.

Cas