Hi - I’ve been working on a game for a little while and finally signed up here. Its fairytale based middle reader and I’m having a good time working on it. However, my mind does wander sometimes thinking beyond the immediate coding to the next steps. There isn’t a lot of discussion on the board about what happens after your game is complete. I know sales data can be personal, but if there is any insight that any of you out there could add, I’m very curious!
Are any of you open to sharing monthly/annually/lifetime sales projections/realities?
On which platform do you see the most sales?
What do you do to market your game? I’m guessing similar things as the self-published crowd - contact potential reviewers, blog, etc.?
An interesting topic, kudos… I can’t really say much myself though, as I’ve yet to publicly announce (let alone release) a game.
But yeah with most devs on the forums here being indie and first-timers, I think social networks: twitter, facebook, forums, youtube and the like are pretty standard marketing tools.
I would imagine you see sales on the app stores highest, android/iPhone, I can’t really see Chrome Web Store apps selling that well, but that might just be me.
I am part of the free, Hosted Games group, though subsequent updates cost $0.99. Most revenue comes from in-app advertising which can be great during the release but trails off. Obviously the more downloads you get, the more chances at someone clicking an ad and generating revenue.
iPhone seems to give more sales but I don’t have hard numbers, just some conversations with CoG.
To market, I found the best results from building a good Web site and making it search engine friendly. Also, getting reviews from book blogs and sites really helps. I also tried pay-per-click advertising but it can be costly and it is difficult to assess return on investment.
