Share your sales/downloads stats!

[Camille]

Looking at Lore's stats, I didn't know you could just hide files, I just deleted all the older builds :')

I used to do that, but then I realized it deleted the download stats for those files, so now I just hide them. |D There's a checkbox under each uploaded file that says "Hide this file and prevent from being downloaded" that I check for older builds once I upload new stuff.

I will note that we've made slightly more money on Blind Griffin compared to previous PWYW games we released and I think at least part of that stems from the suggested price. Before, the service would just ask the person to put in whatever they want. For TBG, itch.io says something like "The devs think this game is worth $5, what would you like to pay?" While a lot of people still just chip in $1, quite a few do stick with the $5 and we're at a 2% pay rate compared to our previous rates of about 1-1.5%.

[TeeGee]

Cool thread! And good to see so many people not afraid to share their stats. I wish more developers shared the sentiment.

As for our own, this summer Cinders crossed $150k of profit between Steam, direct sales, and Humble Bundle (in order of importance). Should give some orientation on what to expect from a semi-successful commercial indie VN.

[Steamgirl]

Wow! This is so interesting! I did wonder if My Cup of Coffee had done better/worse than more traditional VNs, but it seems like for pwyw we're all fairly similar. For the record, I didn't expect any tips at all so I'm well chuffed that people did tip (even if one of them was a very generous close friend)! And if the pwyw model didn't exist I would've put the game up for free, because ultimately I just wanted people to play it. ^_^

Steamgirl: 580 downloads - 0.03 per download - $1.50 suggested
saguaro: 223 downloads - 0.05 per download - $1 suggested
Fox Lee: 1,546 downloads - 0.01 per download - $1 suggested
sendo: 408 downloads - 0.01 per download - $1 suggested
ibukichan: 763 downloads - 0.02 per download - $1 suggested
Camille: 12,646 - 0.11 per download - $5 suggested
Kuroonehalf: 1,383 - 0.04 per download - $1 suggested

The Blind Griffin's an interesting outlier - clearly the various decisions made (such as making the suggested price $5, other things mentioned, etc) have made a difference. But also (and I hope no one else takes offense to this) I think it's probably a more polished, bigger game than the others. It's kind of a shame to see so little reward for the creators.

It would be really interesting to find out what the stats are like for VNs which charge something, say $1. Do they still get the same number of sales? More? Less?
And then for people who give an incentive, like soundtrack, or artbook or something extra.

As for Cinders - it's truly amazing! The best selling EVN of all time, right? I really loved the game. Shame I can't find the article by Tom which originally mentioned the power of being able to share sales stats. I wonder how much the art style helped bring it to a broader audience? Many people I know find the anime aesthetic creepy/weird, but the aesthetic of Cinders beautiful...

[trooper6]

The Blind Griffin's an interesting outlier - clearly the various decisions made (such as making the suggested price $5, other things mentioned, etc) have made a difference. But also (and I hope no one else takes offense to this) I think it's probably a more polished, bigger game than the others. It's kind of a shame to see so little reward for the creators.

...

As for Cinders - it's truly amazing! The best selling EVN of all time, right? I really loved the game. Shame I can't find the article by Tom which originally mentioned the power of being able to share sales stats. I wonder how much the art style helped bring it to a broader audience? Many people I know find the anime aesthetic creepy/weird, but the aesthetic of Cinders beautiful...

Side note, I paid for The Blind Griffin for a number of reasons:
1) The team has made a lot of free games I enjoyed, so I wanted to give them money as a token of appreciation for all their previous works as well (and $1 didn't seem right)
2) It was not a game set in a Japanese high school
3) Race and body type diversity.

Cinders did well economically, I think, yes because the art is gorgeous...but also it wan't PWYW. They charged money for that game. If you wanted to play that well reviewed game...you had to pay.

I'd be interested in seeing sales stats for other game you had to pay for, like Magical Diary or Analogue: A Hate Story.

[Steamgirl]

Cinders did well economically, I think, yes because the art is gorgeous...but also it wan't PWYW. They charged money for that game. If you wanted to play that well reviewed game...you had to pay.

Nonetheless it was the best-selling EVN of all times, so it must've done something right compared to other paid-for EVNs. I don't know if it was the art style or something else or just plain luck. I'm don't think pwyw games can really be counted in the same league as paid games, to be honest.

I'd be interested in seeing sales stats for other game you had to pay for, like Magical Diary or Analogue: A Hate Story.

This would be great to know! I hope Hanako Games & Christine Love consider sharing their stats too! <3

[TeeGee]

Thanks for the kind words, but it's definitely not the best selling EVN of all time. There are games like Analogue, Long Live The Queen or Loren which did much better. And then there are all those quasi-eroges and Japanese ports that seem to be a league of their own.

You can use http://steamspy.com/ to get some ballpark figures for Steam. Just remember it also includes copies given away or sold in bundles.

Overall, I find Cinders results to be a bit bittersweet. Here in Poland, it's a respectable amount of money to keep a tiny indie studio afloat. Nothing excessive, but definitely better than if we kept our day jobs. However, for someone in the Western EU or US, getting $150k after 1.5 year of development and 3 years of sales wouldn't even be comparable to a "normal" IT salary. Especially if you share it between a few people. So, while we're definitely happy, it seems that VNs -- even rather successful ones -- aren't quite exactly money makers.

As for art/luck/whatever -- it's hard to tell and it's always a combination of this and that. IMHO, three things worked in our favor:
- Premise was interesting yet familiar. People love fairytales (and Disney!), people love to question their simplified messages (especially Disney's!). This one has been sort of lucky -- we didn't realize it's such a catchy theme before we released it.
- The art is nice, so if anyone got interested in it in the first place, screenshots and videos didn't scare them off. This is purely Gracjana's merit.
- Word of mouth has been really good, especially on tumblr. I'm really proud of the amount of choices we've put in -- people seemed to appreciate it and recommended the game to their friends.

We also released right when VNs started getting more popular, but before Steam got swamped with super high-quality Japanese ports. It could have some effect and it was pure dumb luck.

[Steamgirl]

Thanks for the kind words, but it's definitely not the best selling EVN of all time. There are games like Analogue, Long Live The Queen or Loren which did much better. And then there are all those quasi-eroges and Japanese ports that seem to be a league of their own.

Gosh I'm so embarassed! I swear I read that somewhere and sort of just assumed it was true!! Just shows what a fangirl I am!

[papillon]

I actually can't share sales stats for a lot of my titles because my bookkeeping just isn't good enough to do it. I have too many games and too many sales points. Figuring out how much I made in a year requires days of paperwork and a professional accountant. Trying to break that down by game, for games that have been on sale for several years? Sorry.

I know rough estimates but not details.

[trooper6]

You can use http://steamspy.com/ to get some ballpark figures for Steam. Just remember it also includes copies given away or sold in bundles.

Well that is interesting! Thanks for sharing that site, I didn't know about it.

*Pokes around a bit*

So...on Steam only
-Analogue: A Hate Story has 147,358 ± 9,922 Owners at theoretically $9.99
-Hate Plus has 77,704 ±7,206 Owners at theoretically $9.99
-Long Live the Queen has 319,568 ±14,606 Owners at theoretically $9.99
-Magical Diary has 73,154 ±6,991 Owners at theoretically $8.99
-Loren The Amazon Princess has 53,903 ±6,002 Owners at theoretically $19.99
-Roommates has 41,827 ±5,287 Owners at theoretically $24.99

Very Interesting!

[papillon]

For your 'theoretical' note, you're largely listing the base price but you're listing the current week's sale price on Magical Diary - that's not its standard pricetag.

The theoretical is EXTREMELY theoretical anyway, considering bundles, regional pricing, discounts, steamwide sales, giveaways, etc. It's more of a theoretical maximum bound.

[trooper6]

For your 'theoretical' note, you're largely listing the base price but you're listing the current week's sale price on Magical Diary - that's not its standard pricetag.

The theoretical is EXTREMELY theoretical anyway, considering bundles, regional pricing, discounts, steamwide sales, giveaways, etc.

I figured it was extremely theoretical, but I also imagine it is much better than the PWYW folks who are averaging $00.01 per download.

[TeeGee]

Yeah, it can be used as a ballpark measure of success, but not a way to deduce revenue with any degree of accuracy.

For instance, Cinders shows as 51k owners. At $20, that would give a gross revenue of $1mln -- MUCH larger than the actual numbers. Actual purchases are around 8k, and many come from discounts. All the rest are from Humble Bundle and keys given away to our existing players.

[trooper6]

Yeah, it can be used as a ballpark measure of success, but not a way to deduce revenue with any degree of accuracy.

For instance, Cinders shows as 51k owners. At $20, that would give a gross revenue of $1mln -- MUCH larger than the actual numbers. Actual purchases are around 8k, and many come from discounts. All the rest are from Humble Bundle and keys given away to our existing players.

Do you make anything from Humble Bundles?

[TeeGee]

Of course. Bundle revenue is split between charity, Humble itself, and all the developers involved. But it's pay-what-you-want, so price per copy is very low.

[Lesleigh63]

House of Dolls, 4856 views and 232 downloads.

English Yaoi Games tumblr mentioned it, I mentioned it on a BJD (ball jointed doll) group on Deviant Art, I also had the artwork and a link on my DA account and I loaded it up to Renpy. I noticed it's in the Visual Novel Database.

So I haven't really done much to promote it.