Sales stats for Silverfish & Silverfish MAX

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by ChaoticBox, Nov 9, 2012.

  1. ChaoticBox

    ChaoticBox Well-Known Member

    Oct 8, 2008
    878
    6
    18
    Male
    Developer
    Toronto Canada
    A Touch Arcade forum member asked nicely so I've posted my sales stats for Silverfish and Silverfish MAX. The games were released in 2010 and 2011 respectively, and featured by Apple in one fashion or another (e.g. Silverfish MAX had a banner feature). Thought this might be of interest to other developers: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2525512&postcount=57
     
  2. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
    1,869
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    hmm interesting, thanks for posting. I am curious how did sales for Match Panic fare, by comparison (if you are at liberty to say)
     
  3. I bought both the sd and hd versions of your game, and your games need more love cause they are great! Thanks for the insights!
     
  4. Ovogame

    Ovogame Well-Known Member

    Sep 25, 2010
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    Game Developer
    Morestel, France
    >"YOU GREEDY BASTARD!" - a quote literally taken from an iTunes review

    I don't have such rude reviews but I do have people complaining about the fact that you have to paid for carrying on playing JBJ. Or that 2 chapters out of 7 isn't enough in the demo version. I just ignore them.

    JC
     
  5. ChaoticBox

    ChaoticBox Well-Known Member

    Oct 8, 2008
    878
    6
    18
    Male
    Developer
    Toronto Canada
    Sure what the hell...

    Paid downloads: 11,546
    Free downloads: 108,780 (3 separate, 2-3 day promos)

    Despite selling more copies than the iPhone version of Silverfish, Match Panic has actually made less money, a bit over $8,000 CAD. It launched at 99ยข for iPhone only, hit New & Noteworthy and basically made all its money during that week. It's now universal and averages around 4 copies a day at $1.99. It does have a few zero days every month, plus the occasional "freak" day where it sells 10+ - somehow sold a dozen copies just yesterday in fact.

    Development time on Match Panic was much shorter and more structured than Silverfish. 5 weeks for version 1.0, pretty much crunch mode from day 1. Another week went into the universal update, and maybe a couple weeks total for all other updates, including the recent 4" screen update.

    So Match Panic is approaching break-even territory, but I'm actually more disappointed in its performance compared to the Silverfishes. I knew going in that Silverfish was a niche game (even if I was lead to believe that niche was significantly more lucrative). On the other hand almost everyone who plays Match Panic loves it, but convincing people that they'll like it is nigh impossible :/ Not sure if it's the name, or the icon/graphics, or what.

    tl;dr: A little over $8,000 CAD for around 2 months work (before tax, not including marketing, support etc.). Approaching break-even territory, but only due to a New & Noteworthy feature. Would've been a complete disaster without that!
     
  6. Ovogame

    Ovogame Well-Known Member

    Sep 25, 2010
    570
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    Game Developer
    Morestel, France
    @ChaoticBox

    I think you should go multi-platform. That's how I am able to be full time. I don't know what engine/tools you have been using but porting a game is always cheaper than creating them from scratch and in the long term, (with experience) having your games on more platform would only add a tiny amount of work compared to have it in just 1.

    JC
     
  7. antony.thai

    antony.thai Well-Known Member

    @Ovogame: Can you share some experience while being with other platform (Android, PSN or Window Phone 8)? I'm planning to do some porting but really don't know where to start.

    Antony
     
  8. ChaoticBox

    ChaoticBox Well-Known Member

    Oct 8, 2008
    878
    6
    18
    Male
    Developer
    Toronto Canada
    I'm using my own from-scratch code base and although it's 90% portable C code I just don't have the energy to learn/tackle Android - or an accounting department to deal with Google Play's shitty payment service. I've thought about Mac ports, but I'm convinced they won't pay off and'll just be time sinks. I'd rather work on new games.
     
  9. Ovogame

    Ovogame Well-Known Member

    Sep 25, 2010
    570
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    Game Developer
    Morestel, France
    I'm using my own c++ engine (started on the PC), then I ported the engine to iOS, then Mac and lately BB10. On my todo list, I have Android written in Big and red, and Win8.

    I'm creating all my games on my PC (even the touch based one) and my goal is that it take absolutely no effort to bring a game on any other platform. I'm extremely close from that goal (I share 100% of the data and 100% of the code now). Whatever is the next platform, I'll be supporting (Android or Win8), after porting the engine, it will takes absolutely no time and no cost to have ALL my games running on them immediately (the engine isl adapting to whatever resolution and the game also knows that it might be able to display more on left/right or top/down depending on the orientation). It took me a while to get there but it is SO worth it for the future.

    Obviously, you wanted to know more about the market (sorry can't help yet with Android/Win8) but having my games on many platforms has always bring a constant stream of incomes, some are tiny but in the long term its always a win (long tail do exist as long as you can revive it time to time and if you have a lot of tails, well the better). I try to wider my distributions/revenue streams as much as I can. For example, I localize my games in a lot of languages, that open me unexpected distributions channels all other the world...

    From now on, when creating/designing an App, I try to be as platform "agnostic" as possible.

    JC
     
  10. Ovogame

    Ovogame Well-Known Member

    Sep 25, 2010
    570
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    Game Developer
    Morestel, France
    In the long term, you are wrong. it was painful at the beginning to have my heavy PC engine specific being ported to iOS, but during the years, I stripped down my engine to the bare minimal. Now, the platform specific files are tiny (and I am only updating then on very rare cases).

    Obviously, it is just an example but I did released Best Spider Solitaire on iOS. It tanks badly. So, I decided to release it too on Mac, after all, it couldn't take me long (actually less than 1 day: I had to add a button to activate fullscreen, do some testing and do all the submission stuff). So, far Best Spider Solitaire earned me more than $2.5k on the mac (that was extremely unexpected) but for 1 days worth of work, I'll do that everyday :)
    Oh, I also send the PC version (no work needed, the "computer" customization was already done for the Mac version) to some Russian distributors, that did brings me some more $.

    What I am trying to say is that going multi-platform will benefits you in the long run. That's for granted.

    BTW, I'm selling my src code for $150, if you are interested. With that, you should be able to re-work your own very quickly to support: PC/Mac/BB10. :)

    JC
     
  11. antony.thai

    antony.thai Well-Known Member


    I one time saw a localize effort from you to some other langues already, I guess you gonna stick with iOS for a while but why selling your source code for such a low price like that?

    And thanks for all other data, they're very helpful for me honestly.

    Antony
     
  12. Ovogame

    Ovogame Well-Known Member

    Sep 25, 2010
    570
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    Game Developer
    Morestel, France
    The true value is in the IP, not the technology.

    My tech is awesome, seriously for 2D cross-platform games, there's nothing better for a C++ programmer. But I don't want to spend the time to make it full fledged engine with docs/support and everything... Not interested, I want to do games now not engine/tech like in my previous life.

    So, if I can help someone else, I'm happy to "give" it away at such a ridiculous low price. And even at that price, some people will still point at you that Coco2d is free for example... Not realizing, they don't get the same things.

    PS:
    <I one time saw a localize effort from you to some other langues already, I guess you gonna stick with iOS for a while
    I don't understand what this sentence means :)

    JC
     
  13. headcaseGames

    headcaseGames Well-Known Member

    Jun 26, 2009
    1,869
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    Mobile Game Developer
    Hollywood, CA
    Chaotic, thanks again for sharing. Your games are excellent and absolutely deserving of more attention, with the press/feature you got I was surprised you didn't move more sales for MP. I do agree that the name is no good however.

    +1 vote for porting to Android: I am happy to help if you want to get some attention on some markets over there. TBH at this point I'd prefer to dev on Android than elsewhere, personally.. also, your avatar icon always reminds me of this

    [​IMG]
     

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