Hey, I’m right there with you. NPT was a work of love because sci-fi comedy is my favorite and my best, as Charlie and Lola would say. I didn’t worry about how unmarketable it was at the time. And I don’t know as I would do anything different. It had to stumble so Parenting could…well, not run. More like speed walk.
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I really need to get my proper numbers up to date, I used to be so good at statistics, now I am so behind…
EDIT: Basic statistics at least.
Fallen Hero: Rebirth has sold 68 341 copies since 2018.
Fallen Hero: Retribution has sold 34 641 copies since 2023
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I had representation for a bit, but most of the jobs I’ve had haven’t actually required it - though it helps a lot, just because it’s a shorthand way of saying you are good at writing for potential new employers. I have got almost all of my work for a bunch of different mediums and employers by word of mouth. Getting scriptwriting work is literally 30% networking.
I haven’t exactly moved away - I have always been interested in working across lots of genres and in lots of mediums. I like to keep my hand in with a lot of things. I’ve written audio drama for various delightfully nerdy companies, bits of short fiction, a few plays. And frankly, it’s essential for me at present because the entire industry sort of fell into the sea a couple of years ago. It was never an easy profession to make a living out of for most people, but at present it’s almost impossible. I would have had to diversify whether I wanted to or not.
But the other side of it is that honestly, the older I get, the more important it is to me that I spend my precious time writing what I really love and want to put out into the world. And since what I really love is stories about magic/ships/spaceships/adventure/queer romance/found family/time travel/heists, I am increasingly trying to find places that will let me write what I love, and then trying to make it work financially.
And the other-other side is that I really, really care about getting to hear what people actually think of my work. When I write a film, it disappears off to American daytime TV, and I pretty much never hear of it again. Something I wasn’t expecting when I decided to try this medium is that you get genuine, live feedback and a ready-made community to jump into. I have never had anything like this before. I have screenwriter friends of course, but no other medium I’ve worked in has anything like this community. If you want to talk about any aspect of this craft, people will want to talk about it with you. There is no question so niche and specific that someone hasn’t wanted to discuss it with me. It’s absolutely incredible, and I think when I next write in another medium, it is going to feel extremely lonely.
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That was exactly my experience when I moved to write here! An author’s life is a lonely one, and this place is honestly a kinda magic.
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STATISTICS!
It was long overdue, thanks for giving me an excuse. So this is the current sales chart, with blue being Rebirth and orange being Retribution (as it should be)
And since the launch spikes distort the smaller fluctuations, here it is in more detail.
What I had not expected was how close Rebirth and Retribution mirrored each other. I suspect that follows the economy of sales in general.
In the diagram below we can see that for Rebirth (which has the most data). The Red line is the original launch year (Mar 2018) where we have the launch spike, then the dip, then then first word of mouth spike once the early adopters started talking about it. The Orange line is the launch year for Retribution (February 2023), and the anomaly year is Green 2019, which was the year that word of mouth really started to spread, so we can basically see a new spike every time a particular tumblr artist found it and started making fanart. The rest of the years follows a similar sales cycle.
Ah. Feels good to be back on my statistics bullshit.
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I think this conversation is missing a recent addition to the ranks. All of the numbers here are from releases from years ago, but my game released in early April. Dawn of Heroes in its opening month, sold 3089 copies, making $3536. This, of course, is before taxes, which I’ll need to pay next year.
Dawn of Heroes has had mixed reviews at best, and terrible ones most of the time. I’m honestly surprised by how many copies sold when the reviews of it have been so bad. I’m guessing a lot of it has to do with the genre.
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First off, thanks everyone for the responses 
@Valda_Reehux i think I’ll go ahead and start a wip. I really want to try my hand at writing and this is probably one of the best places to start.
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Crazy numbers. But then again, you’re kind of the GOAT around here so…
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@Dvalor53 this is what I’ve been looking for, stats on recent releases. Thanks for sharing by the way.
Over $3000 isn’t bad at all. Funny thing is in my country, I could live comfortably on that amount for a year
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For what it’s worth, my first game (released May 2024) had net negative reviews on steam and a 4.3 omnibus rating right after sale week. Still, it has improved on both metrics since, getting more positive reviews on steam over time after the initial string of negative reviews and going up to a 4.5 rating on the omnibus. It sold 2.5k copies and made $1.7k on its first month.
I’ve two completed games now (480k and 180k words), but I just don’t think I’ll be submitting them anytime soon.
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One important thing if you want to write for profit! Check if your country has a tax treaty with the US, because if not it’s going to get a lot harder to get paid if you publish. I think at least one author has ended up in trouble because of that.
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Thanks for the heads up
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Well keep in mind a few things.
- Dawn of Heroes is a Superhero game, they sell better on average. Your genre has an impact on sales.
- I got a Steam release because of my genre, length, and art assets. Granted the Steam sales were only about 10% of my sales. Most were from Android and iOS.
- There is a delay in sales to receiving pay and invoices. I only have April’s numbers right now and have no data for sales of May or June yet. I suspect I’ll get May’s numbers in July and June’s in August. So I know there is a fall off, but I can’t give you better numbers right now.
I can only hope for something like this, but for now I’m taking it as a learning opportunity and working on improving my writing.
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Oh, do games not always get a Steam release then?
Also, does anyone have specifics on how the different finances play out for CoG vs HG? In CoG, you get $10K over the course of the commission, then 25% royalties after you pay back the advance (if you pay back the advance). Is HG similar but you do all the work up front and get your royalties from the start? I am getting the impression they sell about the same overall??
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CoG and HC titles will always receive a steam release. HG titles receive a steam release at the company’s discretion, although there is a minimum 150k word requirement to be considered.
For HG, you only sign a contract with the company once you finish your game and have submitted it. Before that, you don’t get any money from HG, but at the same time, you are free to complete the game at your own pace and however you wish. You’re basically a free agent who answers to nobody until submission day.
You get royalties for a HG title as soon as it’s out on the storefronts, and since there is no advance to pay back, you start earning royalties on your first statement (however high or low that number ends up being). HG authors can request an advance if they want, but it’s very rare and something entirely at the company’s discretion.
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Yep. It’s all royalties from sales one, but you are (mostly) on your own when writing it. In essence, if you write for CoG you always have a floor where you know the minimum you will earn, but you also have more editorial oversight for good or bad.
If a Hosted game and a Choice of game sells exactly the same number, and the CoG has outsold their advance, the numbers should be the same.
Hosted games only get it if the company thinks it will sell on Steam and appeal to the gamers there. It requires more work and editing from the company to put things out on Steam, so they don#t to it to everyone.
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That’s hard to say since we don’t see the numbers of everything. My guess is that HG sell under CoG, if only because of advertising. While it might seem minor, CoG titles get build up. We know about them months in advance and can get excited for them, HG don’t get that as often. Mine, for example, got none that wasn’t from me, so most of my sales were from people reading CoG’s mass email about it’s release.
Keep in mind you also need to provide your own art assets for HG and they will not pay for an editor to review your work unless they want to release it on Steam.
The main site explains a lot of this for further reading: Writing for Hosted Games
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Also more storefront fees.
My guess is CoG sells more reliably on average, while HG has both the most and least selling titles since the ones that seem to have the biggest fanbases are mostly HG but there’s also titles that probably don’t sell very many copies.
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The steam fee is only $100, and you’ll get the money back if your game hits $1k in adjusted gross revenue. While my game didn’t sell that well on steam, it still managed to cross this threshold.
Interestingly, VG Insights estimates that HG’s average steam revenue is $9.14k and CoG’s average steam revenue is $9.56k. (HC takes a distant third place at $1.30k.)
These are just estimates and not actual backend data, so take it with a tub of salt, but it does suggest that the gap might not be huge.
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Right, but that’s an average of total sells, not the probability of any given title’s sells, which was what I meant by selling-reliably-in-average. Also all the big ones are on Steam, while the opposite end is not true, and if the big ones sell big enough, they may carry that average a lot.
Anyway this is all guesswork based on something I can’t remember anymore, so I may very well be way off base.
(I know the Steam fee isn’t a lot, but I felt leaving it out of the “additional expenses on Steam releases” column was wrong nonetheless.)
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