Very interesting thread so far, I have been following and re-reading it as I have been thinking quite deeply about this in recent weeks. I’m trying to also think about what would be the best way to release my next WIP (adverts vs paid, etc), and I regularly check how all the other CoGs and Hosted Games do. I’m also trying to keep data of the number of downloads, scores and reviews… so far my conclusion is that (on google play, as its difficult to get any data on iphone, and my game is not on steam) you get about 1 review per 16-20 downloads (at least for my game, which has the first two chapters free). But I also wonder what people make of ratings, and whether they focus more on downloads or score…
Also, what do you think is the influence of the cover art in all this? (I went for manga style, and I guess this greatly influences the target public, downloads and ratings…)
Interesting thread here…I hope to see more input from existing authors as I am an aspiring new author and revenue is well…important!
If I see a game on google play that has 5000-10,000 downloads and its selling for $5…can I assume that if it has received 7500 downloads then the math looks like the following?
7500 * $5 = $37,500 - 30% to google - 75% to COG = $6562.50?
Downloading the free chapters counts as a download, though, so you can’t extrapolate from the 5000-10000 download range to cash, unfortunately.
You obviously want to have a good conversation rate, which is the ratio of downloads to purchases. But you need to get that from Choice Of, unfortunately–I can’t see my own conversation rate.
But one thing is clear: you need an absolutely spectacular couple of demo chapters.
Yes you can only draw a fairly accurate conclusion on a game’s sales on Google Play if the game has a set price. As @Gower said, with the free trial games, you just have no idea of the conversion rate.
CCH had around a 40% conversion rate when it released I think…which I viewed as low but the CoG folks said was strong. I think my rate has dropped since though.
But yeah for a game on Google Play selling for a set price of 4.99 with between 5,000-10,000 downloads, you can safely calculate that the author has earned at least $4,366.25 from that platform. ($4.99 x .175 * 5,000). Yes the sales could be higher, but I’m just using the floor. Also consider that many (all?) games these days are released at a lower initial price to spike up sales, so the $4,366.25 is probably a little high, since first month sales form a big chunk of total sales.
No I don’t have to assume anything with games with set prices. With a game with a set price, a download equals a sale. There’s no difference.
We only have to think about conversion rates for those games with free downloads. Look at one of the best sellers, Samurai of Hyuga 1, for example. It has between 50,000 and 100,000 downloads, but since the game is set up as a free trial, those downloads don’t mean sales. They just mean downloads. So without knowing that game’s conversion rate, you can’t know how many of those 50,000-100,000 downloads became sales.
When I get home tonight I will look at my CCH data and post a rough estimate of my conversation rate for the past year to give you a better idea.
My conversion rate for Midsummer was about 40%, same as Eric. The average conversion rate for iOS and Android is 10% for apps overall, I believe. I don’t know what the average is for CoG, though.
Great comments everyone! 40% conversion seems pretty good on the “free” revenue model.
I noticed a COG game with 10k-50,000 downloads using the free model…and then after a few chapters a user could purchase the game. If it received 20,000 downloads with 40% conversion that would mean 16,000 sales. This particular game is priced at about $6 so thats $96,000 x .175 = $16,800 to the author thus far. I wonder how it would be doing if it charged right away?
So many variables though…but still good to see some rough metrics.
8,000 sales on just ONE platform would still be VERY strong. If anyone has sold 16,000 copies of just one game on just one platform, I would like to take them to dinner and pick their brain. But not in a zombie/cannibal type of way. It would be elegant and classy.
I’d be really interested in knowing what a good CoG/HG game brings in for the author. Does anyone have data to at least roughly estimate what they made from their game overall? I am not sure if you guys can talk about that, but I’d really love to know what kind of ‘pocket money’ the author can expect from a well selling, roughly 200k words long game.
Choice Of label is easy–it earns the advance, which is now 10K. Particularly successful games will earn royalties over and above the advance, but that is what I would expect to be the rare exception.
Making fifty cents on each game for a, say $5 game, means you have to sell 20 thousand copies before you earn one cent more than the advance.
That actually doesn’t seem bad! I’m not sure if that can keep you afloat if you depend on that as your income money (due to the time it takes to write and code the game, which of course can vary), but as something that you do on the side that sounds like a very good outcome. =)
I’m sorry,but people who give games a 1 to 2 star review simply for costing money are absolute fucking morons (pardon my French).It clearly says right below the Install button that there are In App Purchases (at least on Android.I don’t know about Apple).And even if they do cost money,the majority of them cost either 3 or 4 dollars! Seriously,even if you think the game was crap,you’re not really losing anything.[/quote]
Sorry, but saying that there are in-app purchases does not get a game off the hook when it claims to be free. In-app purchases could be anything and often aren’t required to play the game itself. So when it’s only a preview or the first chapter or three of the game that’s free then the game should clearly say so. This way there are no surprises or disappointments due to unmet expectations, and as a result, fewer negative ratings.
But don’t most of the CoG/HGs say clearly on the first page that you can play the first few chapters free as a demo and then have to pay for the rest? It doesn’t seem to warrant the outrage from some reviewers, especially given as they didn’t spend any money.
