Hi guys, I promised to share some sales stats on DEO as soon as I've had the chance to put something together and here it is! DEO Sales Stats I tried to be to the point and only talk about the things I've been asked about. If you have any other questions, I'm more than happy to answer 'em here! Enjoy
Man, I really hope the update puts you guys into the black for the DEO. I'm surprised it was only 4000 units sold! I dropped ya an email, but I think it's seriously worth considering turning the game F2P. The more I read, study, and talk with developers, the more I am coming to believe it's the only way to survive as an indie these days. It seems like the low barrier to entry on the App store has caused so many people to be stingy with their .99 these days thanks to all the crApps out there. So unless you are an established brand with near AAA quality and a marketing budget to burn through, I seriously wonder how viable the premium model is anymore.
I'd have to agree with you there, I really don't see the premium model being very effective for non AAA's. Even the AAA's are doing freemium type content games now too, which kinda makes sense. This way users get some free content, if they like the game and want more content they can simply purchase it via things like IAP.
Yeah not a problem, guys! And to those that pointed out the 30k vs. 4k, yeah would we have preferred ROI? Definitely! But it isn't over yet. It took Angry Birds several updates before they were even noticed. But what's most important to me is how many friends I've made because of DEO. No 30k marketing budget would have ever done that. We've learned a lot that needs changing and so we'll go back and do just that. Hopefully with an update we can bring it back up and more important, keep it there. We have considered in-game purchase mechanism but honestly, I think a lot of us as indie devs. give up on ourselves way too easy! Sure we can't compete with the big dogs but can we? We're open to in-game stuff if we can think of a good incentive for the users and we'll definitely explore it Thanks guys!!
Yes! I feel like we could have done it in under 20k but lack of experience comes with a price sometimes...
Thanks for sharing your numbers. It's very disappointing that you've only sold 4000 units so far despite such a polished title with a great look. As you pointed out however, sometimes it takes a while before people notice the product. We've seen similar curves with some of our releases in the past, eg. only sold 1000 copies in first month, but eventually sold over 50k+ over the coming months. Best of luck!
Thanks for sharing! Any chance you can explain to us how the 30K was spent, as in. How much of it was time, music, etc.
Thank you, very encouraging! We're working on a major update and I hope to really revive things with it since we're putting A LOT of focus on game mechanics this time (where in the first release, it was more about design). Sure. We are a small studio of 8 ppl (although only 4 ppl work per project). Almost everyone is full-time employed. We have a sound guy, level design guy, a developer, art director, etc. Most of the cost was just salary to be honest. Our lead developer left in the middle of development and that cost us a lot of time that we didn't count on. None of the work was contracted out, everything was done in-house.
That's sad... You had one of the most memorable trailers and most original graphics I've seen for quite some time On the other hand - that could have been the main problem, top games are colorful, vibrant and cute
Good for you -- I'm glad this hasn't gotten you guys down. When you have something you believe in, it's worth re-evaluating based on the feedback you've received and make the game even better. Sometimes even minor changes can improve the gameplay in a big way and make it appealing to a wider audience. In a way, it's actually good if a game does not skyrocket in the first month. There are always tweaks that need to be made after release, and this gives you the opportunity to do that before a larger set of people get their hands on it. At the end of the day it's all about visibility, and if you have a good product, sometimes it just takes a little bit of time to get noticed before it starts accelerating up the charts. Question: Looking at your sales data -- was your app featured in one of Apple's lists? Was it the week of the 21st? Was it only for that week?
"Puts hand up also" - But, how does one come by this experience? Yep, the hard way and there is nothing like failing, picking yourself up again and trying again, and again and again. It's how we learn, and really if we got everything right all the time would this be any fun? Like a roller coaster with no ups and downs :-(
Consider porting it to other platforms. Get it on Android. Get it on Amazon's app store. Get it on Windows Phone. Each time you port you only have to worry about the programming language, not designing the game and graphics, so your ROI will be larger.
