Probably the final update of sales, but I know everyone loves to hear encouraging figures ;)

Dope Farmer:
We have been doing paid advertising usually every other month (not going to go into too many details, no need) and usually noticed a flux of a sale or two extra/day than normal. So on average we would see about 2 sales/day but during a paid time period (about a week) we would see +2/day or so.
This advertising was done with a text link (10,000 clicks avg) on site targetted with our audience.

After we adjusted the marketing campaign to consist of a 120x120 animated image, as opposed to text link most people click on (11 million impressions), we noticed a decrease in clicks but a big increase in sales. This allowed for us to target the players much more specifically. At present, since starting the new image campaign, we have received on average 6 sales/day.

This is very encouraging and shows two things:
1) "Mass" niche market is a very nice way to enter into the business and can be the start for expansion (Building with a niche product, and then moving into other areas - our next released product is actually an action puzzler aimed at a more mainstream audience)
2) Marketing, specifically targetted marketing, is vital. If your game geared toward an older crowd, do not simply post it on download.com and hope for the best - advertise on sites that suit your audience. This means putting money towards advertising, whatever you can afford.

Just don't be afraid of developing a bizarre or unconventinal game. Thats what independants are free to do. Differentiation is key if we are going to do well in the online arena!
Remember that even if your first game does not do very well (this is not the first product released), keep at it until you find the formula that fits you best.

Thanks guys,

Alex

Thanks for the info :) Did you have any secrets on finding the best places to advertise for your target market? I never thought a simple text link would be all that effective, food for thought.

So I take it Dope Farmer is by far your primary seller, do you still manage to sell your other games? Do you advertise them at all?

Thanks again!

Thanks Sirrus! You are our pride :D

Why do you sell at $8? I suspect 16$ wouldn't change sales much. Am I wrong?

ergas

KNau, not all textlinks are effective. It just so happens that the site I advertise on has daily "hot" links, which most of the visitors simply click on every single one just to see what the neat links are. Most of the time, the people do not care what pops up, so it did not really target the people I need, but still helped some.
Dope Farmer is the primary seller. Every once in a while (maybe every 1-2 months) I will get an order for Tokyo War (our first game released). I stopped advertising TW a long time ago (made about $300) so I do not really suspect much in way of sales for it. The two others that are listed on the website aren't for sale. Teddy Trubble is being completely redone (graphically) right now and Goliath will probably be released as freeware.

Ergas, $8 seems to be the sweet spot for us. Our audience is generally younger with less money, and I feel that our game is best priced at $8 to encourage buying and make the customer feel that they got the best value. It seems that the price perception theory is more suited toward an older crowd with a larger disposible income. So this is not true for everyone.
$8 isnt $10, so its not a huge commitment, but $8 is also not $5 so it isnt valued lower. Its a good price for us.

Thanks,

Alex

Yeah, that's probably right, younger would pay less.

What about the game concept? As I see there is quite a variance in violent or adult vs non-violent games. Steve Pavlina's slogan is non-violent, and he succeeds, and Dope Farmer and many other violent or adult game draw good figures in the market. Probably the adult type is more interesting for younger people. Which one do you think has more chance to get profit?

ergas

Well adult or taboo topics in any form is a two sided chance. If done tastefully (as we felt Dope Farmer was able to portray - nonviolent, does not encourage illegal use nor simulate any sort of drug use, cartoony, and in a humorous manner) then it can work well and not stir up too much controversy. If you go the more edgy route, as games like GTA or spin offs of Dope Wars that depict violence, crime, etc., then its unsure.

As for non-violent games in general, I feel that it holds one of the biggest segments of the downloadable market. Most *money holding* potential players that do engage in downloadable games, usually prefer non-violent games over violent and fast paced. The former tends toward console gaming.

So why I feel we are doing well is because we combined both. Non-violent and relaxed gameplay, with an edgy theme that attracts many college aged and early 20s players. I really feel that some of the games that do try to grab the shock value and grab youth's desire to try something illegal are pretty much rubish.

Evaluate the market, dont follow the pack, keep it tasteful and see how it turns out. :)

Alex

Okay - thread-derailing tangent here:

Back in the days of BBS's, when we were all dreaming of the World Wide Web, the BBS sysop for a very popular local board decided to add an "adults only" forum and a "teens only" forum. This was in response to some people complaining about her censoring of threads because minors were involved. This way - if the minors were all talking to each other, and the adults were all talking to each other, she could be less of a bad guy and let threads go uncensored. With the exception of Sysops, nobody could be in both groups at the same time (though I suppose if you were REALLY interested you could create a second account and pretend to be a different age.

My wife and I were both in the "adult" category, and at first we were a little hesitant to join the forum. What might be there? Finally, after the Sysop told us of some of the discussions going on there (she was a personal friend of ours), we joined - and found it was surprisingly tame. There were maybe two explicitly "adult" threads, but most of the threads were things like the discussion of the latest Disney movie.

The sysop later told us that the "Teens Only" forum seemed a LOT more "adult" and tended to scorch her eyeballs a bit.

Anyway, this just occured to me when I was reading here about how the audience for "Dope Farmer" (certainly not what I'd expect as a "kids' game") being younger. I guess kids do have a fascination with the forbidden (I guess we all do). That probably explains much of the success of Dope Farmer, and GTA III. Though it doesn't explain why Acclaim's BMX XXX failed - maybe the majority of kids actually DO have some sense of taste after all :)

Interesting infos as always.
Has anyone noticed a good revenue from advertising? I have thought of putting some ads for my game, and it isn't really a problem to find a soccer-related website :)
However I am still dubious that advertising is a good move, expecially for someone who just started like me.
If I have to invest even a small sum of 250$/month, and I don't DOUBLE the sales, I lose money :p
So I guess that advertising works better if you already have a good selling game...

Originally posted by Sirrus
Probably the final update of sales, but I know everyone loves to hear encouraging figures ;)

Dope Farmer:
We have been doing paid advertising usually every other month (not going to go into too many details, no need) and usually noticed a flux of a sale or two extra/day than normal. So on average we would see about 2 sales/day but during a paid time period (about a week) we would see +2/day or so.
This advertising was done with a text link (10,000 clicks avg) on site targetted with our audience.

After we adjusted the marketing campaign to consist of a 120x120 animated image, as opposed to text link most people click on (11 million impressions), we noticed a decrease in clicks but a big increase in sales. This allowed for us to target the players much more specifically. At present, since starting the new image campaign, we have received on average 6 sales/day.

Alex

>At present, since starting the new image campaign, we have received on average 6 sales/day.

Is dope farmer selling 6 sales/day with image advertising. What I was wondering how much did it sell average sales a day, without any advertisiment?

Thanks in advance!

About 2 sales/day prior.

Thanks!

Alex

Yeah we found pricing to be a very tricky. Most of our online try/buy games are nice simple solid games that when tried above $10 or below $8 they sold very poorly. Eventually found $9.99 to be sweet spot for them. Note these games aren't like popcap's with enhanced c++ offline version. Other titles worked at higher price of $15 such as BLOX or $18 - $20 such as ZBall or Best Friends however others at that price range sold very poorly and simply lowering price by a few $ increased sales 5x. BLOX is selling well however I suspect at $9.99 would double or triple sales, we keep higher price to attract other attention.

Well done, Alex - even 2/day is pretty good, let alone 6/day!

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
Interesting infos as always.
Has anyone noticed a good revenue from advertising? I have thought of putting some ads for my game, and it isn't really a problem to find a soccer-related website :)
However I am still dubious that advertising is a good move, expecially for someone who just started like me.
If I have to invest even a small sum of 250$/month, and I don't DOUBLE the sales, I lose money :p
So I guess that advertising works better if you already have a good selling game...

I found that advertising in football mags for New Star Soccer hasn't been as productive as i thought it would. Over 3-4 months towards the end of last year i advertised in World Soccer, 4-4-2 and Shoot. A few orders came in saying they had seen/heard about NSS from these mags but there was no noticable increase in sales. Next time round i'll try advertising in computer game magazines (if the cost isn't too high), as football mag readers aren't necessarily PC owners.

BTW, just downloading the USM demo now. Looks awesome.

Thank you.
Unfortunately it doesn't sell as well as it looks :D
I'm quite far from the Dope Farmer sales!!! ;)