While talking to other devs, all did agree that November and December are the worst months for sales.

I don't sell a lot in general so I am not be a good example, but I still haven't got my first sale of November, and since it's 7th, if the average is this one, I'd be lucky to sell 5 copies this month :D

Why do you think that ppl buy less in those two months (if you're already experiencing that)? maybe because of the incoming Christmas?

Got only 2 sales this month. In september and october i got around 10 sales/week. Hope this will get better again. Didn't know that november is a bad sales month.

I wonder if it isn't a marketing thing that needs to be addressed. We know that people will be buying retail PC Games as gifts (the industry practically builds its whole schedule around this time of year) so logically there's no reason why they shouldn't buy shareware at this time as well. I think it's because shareware is mostly something a person buys for themselves, I don't know that game developers have done anything to convince users that our games could be given as gifts.

Just a thought - what about developing a plan where the person paying for the game can designate someone else to receive an e-card or mail saying they have a free game waiting for them? Or offer to ship a physical christmas card or something with the unlock code in it? Or offer to ship on CD and let them know they would receive it before Christmas?

Side note: This is the best time of year for my texture collections (sold on-line only). I think it may have to do with industry crunch time but whatever the reason Urban Jungle always sells well during Oct - Dec.

I have thought about that CD-thing too.
In fact my uncle want to give my USM as a gift to some of her friends, and she asked me to burn some CD with the game :p
It may be worth to try, even if that would raise the cost a little.

Your uncle is female?

Erhm... :D
My aunt !! :p
I've to pay attention when I write in english ;)

maybe its because the hollidays are coming and people have less casual gaming time?

if your primary market is students it could be because midterms/finals are coming up:) I dont even touch my poor xbox round this time of year (till my 3 week long holiday binge)

:D:D

IMX, November is the back half of the "Fall Meltdown" (October generally sucks the worst), but December is a great month.

Not only do people buy presents for each other (and games are valid presents, even downloadable games you can't wrap up), but the Xmas holidays (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) are the winter months. People are stuck in doors and need something to do.

So, no, I don't consider them bad months at all.

Use November to promote your game for the holidays and winter months. Get out a new update/release in November so that you have a very recent "last updated" date when people go surfing the Web for entertainment during holiday downtime. Offer an option to burn the game on CD and ship it (for a fee, of course) to capitalize on the gift-giving. And so on.

-David

Nov & Dec are usually very good months for us, well above average. Our worst sales months are usually Sep & Feb.

For every month you could name though, I bet you could find at least one indie for which it's the best month and another for which it's the worst.

I really don't think seasonal effects are too noticeable or significant unless your sales are beyond... say ... $3-5K per month. Below that level even a tiny bit of extra press could turn a bad month into a good one. For instance, if an extra $200 would make the difference between a good month and a bad one, that's really not significant, since it's only a handful of sales which could be due to a temporary surge or drop that isn't seasonal at all but rather situational.

I really don't think seasonal effects are too noticeable or significant unless your sales are beyond... say ... $3-5K per month

eheh, well... I think that 95% of the ppl reading this post fall into that category ;)
Anyway, I'll wait the end of the month. As I have learnt, shareware sales are unpredictable. Sometimes you sell zero for 15 days and then you sell 5 in 2 days... and so on :P

Aye, no sales at all here, not even affiliates.

Cas :)

Heh, each month I get one sale, should I expect no sales this month :D

Im the same as SteveP on this one. Nov and Dec are good months for us. The slowest time seems to be mid summer picking up around august and staying decent till april or so...

14.nov: got 7 sales this month.
Last month i had 20 at this point.
How are your's doing?

Got about 10% of last month's sales until now... :(
I think that ppl that keep doing well even this months are only the largest ones (5% of all ppl doing indie dev)...

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
Got about 10% of last month's sales until now... :(
I think that ppl that keep doing well even this months are only the largest ones (5% of all ppl doing indie dev)...
And what about downloads? Has the CR dropped or only the sales? If it's sales, a possible explanation is that your game is no longer in the "what's new" pages and it's lower and lower in the listings ordered by date...

Is Alien Flux in resubmit-limbo or did it get pulled off Download.com? THere was a bit of category shuffling lately but I can't find it in a search (Yes, I regularly search for certain things to see how they're doing and what feedback they've gotten. :) )

If it's sales, a possible explanation is that your game is no longer in the "what's new" pages and it's lower and lower in the listings ordered by date...

Well, yes that is for sure.
My CR has increased slightly since I got less download than before (about 50-70 a day).
Hmm well maybe I must first improve it again before complaining :P

I pulled it completely from download.com - I don't think I want to perpetuate download.com's business any more. They're really not doing us any good. We've placed them in a monopoly position by making it "the" place to find games, and now surprise surprise, we have to pay for it. Doh! So looking at my conversion rates I'm shifting the emphasis away from download.com and giving it back to my affiliates and puppygames directly.

Cas :)

I think you're doing a good move.
I think that's best to get rid of that "download.com tax" ;)

You have pulled it from download.com?
After having paid 80$ to get listed?
Crazy idealistic move.
The world needs more people like you ;-)

Not that idealistic... I just don't want to attract any more customers from download.com.

Cas :)