HunterSD
07-16-2003, 02:27 AM
Hi,
I recently had the pleasure of trying out Dope Farmer. I seem to recall that the developer frequents these boards and he posted a report of Dope Farmer sales which I believe was lost in the Hard Drive crash (the search feature doesn't come up with anything).
I am very interested in how well the game sold, so if whoever wrote it is willing to give out that information again, I would be very grateful.
LordKronos
07-16-2003, 02:51 AM
Posted by Sirrus at 05-30-2003 06:55 PM
As I promised before, I am posting this week's sales figures for my game Dope Farmer.
Release: March
Added to Download.com: May 19th
Downloads on download.com: 6000+
Downloads on own website: 5000
Today: 6 units
Yesterday: 14
day before: 3
day before: 9
day before: 1
day before: 5
day before: 3
day before: 7
Sales seem to fluctuate, primarily on the weekends. I get more sales on weekdays as opposed to weekends. Ratio between male/female customers is pretty much 50/50.
www.dopefarmer.com
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by thisisme at 05-30-2003 08:14 PM
Thank you for posting your sales figures. I agree, along with many here, that such information can be both a big help and a morale boost.
I was very impressed with Dope farmer. My compliments go to you. I am curious though: what software did you use to make the theme song, and what program did you use to make the opening splash screen. I think both of these are really cool and fit your theme very well. And I didn't find them in the MMF libraries
Posted by Gmicek at 05-30-2003 08:37 PM
Thanks for posting the sales figures, nice to see someone else has a big enough pair to post them I'll take two or three people posting figures over no one doing it. Hopefully one day we'll have enough people volunteering their sales figures that DIY Games can actually do a "Top selling games of" article each month. Even if we didn't include exact figures in the piece, it would give people some perspective, something that hiding sales figures robs people of.
As far as the weekend thing goes, I've seen that with traffic at DIY Games as well. We get a lot more traffic monday through friday than we do on the weekends. Wonder if it's because of people gooding off on the internet at work or something.
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Posted by Sirrus at 05-30-2003 08:39 PM
Thanks...
The song was made by our musician, which used a combination of midi keyboard and various input programs.
The splash screen is just fade-ins between the frames...
I believe that more people do spend time on the internet at work and school. The weekends give them more time to go out and spend less time on the net.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by Luggage at 05-30-2003 09:57 PM
Hello
Another thanks for the sales figures. It's a HUGE help for us as we're currently deciding wether to dip our toe in the shareware waters.
Thanks again.
Scott
Posted by KNau at 05-31-2003 01:41 AM
I'm curious how Dope Farmer does in relation to your other products. Are you still selling copies of Tokyo War for example?
Has the traffic generated by Dope Farmer increased sales of your other games?
As for having the guts to post numbers - talk to the publishers who usually won't let you discuss sales publicly.
Posted by Sirrus at 05-31-2003 01:48 AM
Tokyo War sales trickle in every now and then, but does not generate much. The prime reason is that I have stopped advertising the game. Its better to put my efforts into Dope Farmer.
As for Dope Farmer traffic affecting the other games, not so much. But who knows where it will go.
Being able to make the decision whether or not to share sales figures is a liberty you get from self publication of your games.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by Pyabo at 05-31-2003 04:38 AM
Awesome Sirrus, thanks!
And congrats! I think your sales numbres are very good.
Posted by morpheus at 05-31-2003 05:31 AM
Why do you say you have 5000 downloads on your website?
Your site counter displays that there's only been 2751 visitors!
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Posted by Thomas Veil at 05-31-2003 05:40 AM
Thanks alot
Posted by cliffski at 05-31-2003 07:24 AM
counters dont equate to downloads. loads of people can download the .exe from a direct link without ever hitting the index page of a site. I know this happens to me.
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Posted by Sirrus at 05-31-2003 11:15 AM
For one, morpheus, you are looking at the Weapon Studios website. Dope Farmer has a seperate domain (www.dopefarmer.com) which has had over 7000 hits (I am pretty sure my counter is broken for both sites anyway...I do not really keep up with them anymore).
Cliffski is right, but I am not including any 3rd party website downloads in that 5000 figure. My download counter only keeps track of downloads directly from the link on my website...so its probably much more if you count other websites than download.com
Thanks guys.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by johnson at 06-01-2003 02:41 PM
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Sirrus
As I promised before, I am posting this week's sales figures for my game Dope Farmer.
Release: March
Added to Download.com: May 19th
Downloads on download.com: 6000+
Downloads on own website: 5000
Today: 6 units
Yesterday: 14
day before: 3
day before: 9
day before: 1
day before: 5
day before: 3
day before: 7
Sales seem to fluctuate, primarily on the weekends. I get more sales on weekdays as opposed to weekends. Ratio between male/female customers is pretty much 50/50.
www.dopefarmer.com
Alex
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How long did it take to develop Dope Farmer (from start date to end date + indication of total hours)?
Is it possible to develop the game alone? I saw in the credits other people were involved in the development.
How long did it take to market Dope Farmer? Did you pay Download.com for submitting the game, which agreement did you use and how much did you pay? What is your experience with download.com?
Do you expect to live from the sales of Dope Farmer? Because the sales are not bad at all. This are nice sales figures, 8 days = 48 units. 48 * $8 = $384 is not bad for about one week. If the sales are stable like this it's possible in most countries to live from it.
Do you plan to make the price higher in the future? For instance prices like $14.95 or $19.95 are mostly used.
Thanks for your information!
Posted by johnson at 06-01-2003 02:56 PM
How long did it take to develop the website?
Can you also give an indication of your totale costs, like webhosting, domain, hired game artist, audio composer etc. ?
Thanks!
Posted by Sirrus at 06-01-2003 03:06 PM
The game took 2 months to develop.
I did most of the programming and then hired another programmer to help clean everything up (adding a grid system for the game, fixing alot of bugs, etc.).
My artist did all the art.
The musician did the song.
I contracted out for sound effects.
So 4 total people, 1 contracted.
Marketing took afew weeks. Download.com was the biggest revenue generator, although Dope Farmer was submitted to almost every shareware site. In my personal opinion, other sites do not generate near the traffic as Download.com does.
Paid $79 for one time submission at download.com
I developed the website myself and it did not take too long. Domain + forwarding cost $50. Hosting is $5/month with unlimited bandwidth because im hosting with a friend.
I retain 40% of profit because of the extra people that helped the game (music, graphics, additional programming), therefore I dont see living off of the game (Im in the US).
If sales continue like this, who knows.
I do not plan to raise the price. If all goes well, I do plan on releasing a much larger Dope Farmer game, that plays more like Harvest Moon with a story, perhaps combat, and many more features. If I did so, I would release for $14.95
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by Davaris at 06-01-2003 08:08 PM
Have you spent any money on advertising the game yet?
Posted by Sirrus at 06-01-2003 08:50 PM
The $79 fee for download.com is the only "marketing" cost.
We plan to spend $140 on advertising on www.collegehumor.com soon.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by morpheus at 06-02-2003 03:03 PM
"although Dope Farmer was submitted to almost every shareware site"
How many shareware sites would that be?
Can you give a quick number plz?
Greets
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Morpheus
Posted by Sirrus at 06-02-2003 03:37 PM
Honestly I do not know.
I would say 50+
Of course this is not all the shareware sites around, but I think that submitting to anymore is truly a waste of time. The only ones you usually get any traffic from are the top ones.
Like I said before, my sales conversion have primarily come from download.com, not any other sites.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by robleong at 06-02-2003 03:41 PM
Sirrus,
I just wanted to thank you for sharing those numbers with us - it is very encouraging for me, as a newbie, seeing how well you are doing with your game.
Apart from the quality of your game itself that made people buy it, would other people here recommend the utility of spending the $79 on download.com to achieve such good exposure?
Thanks.
Robert.
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Posted by morpheus at 06-02-2003 04:22 PM
And how long did your development carreer take to get where you are now? (years, months???)
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Morpheus
Posted by morpheus at 06-02-2003 04:23 PM
And how long did your development "carreer" take to get where you are now? (years, months???)
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Morpheus
Posted by morpheus at 06-02-2003 04:24 PM
Sorry,
posted twice
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Morpheus
Posted by Sirrus at 06-02-2003 04:33 PM
I got interested probably 5-6 years ago. I learned alot from the countless failures I had, from being too ambitious to being crooked. It of course doesnt take 6 years to finally make a game that gets decent sales, but you have to build experience slowly. Never be too ambitious with your first few projects, they never get finished. Start small and you will learn alot. Not only how to make a game, but the business side of what sells and how to sell it.
Robert, despite the figures from Dope Farmer, I highly recommend the fee required to be on download.com. My other game, Tokyo War, has 14000+ downloads, which it surely could not have achieved without download.com. Most developers on here have had good conversion from posting their game on the site.
Alex
__________________
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by Jack_Norton at 06-03-2003 03:54 AM
Don't say it too loud, or they will immediatly change the fee from $79 to $99!
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Posted by Closer2Sky at 06-03-2003 08:20 PM
Sirrus,
Thank you very much.
I find that your game Teddy Trubble is published by Alawar.com. Could you tell me something about it?
Posted by Sirrus at 06-03-2003 08:30 PM
Not much to mention.
I have a distro deal with Alawar, but only had 1 sale so far.
I am considering turning the game around into something larger, more mario-esque, but I have to evaluate if the work is worth the effort.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by FusionLab at 06-04-2003 07:18 AM
Thanks for sharing that info Alex, it sure spurs on those of us who are still at the development stage.
Dope Farmer was a great idea for a game (maybe you should have it sponsored by the rapper Afroman, lol). What's next for Weapon Studios?
Posted by Sirrus at 06-04-2003 10:07 AM
Ha I dunno about that.
A few ideas are brewing in the works.
Our next planned game title is on the larger scale, being a 3d action/adventure game with a strong anime ninja theme and classic japanese humor.
I will keep you guys posted.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!
Posted by Dan MacDonald at 06-04-2003 11:05 AM
"Ninja Games Rock!" (TM)
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Posted by thisisme at 06-04-2003 11:08 AM
A 3D action game! Sounds really neat.
Are you using MMF for this? I can't see how you could be!
Posted by robleong at 06-04-2003 12:27 PM
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Sirrus
Robert, despite the figures from Dope Farmer, I highly recommend the fee required to be on download.com. My other game, Tokyo War, has 14000+ downloads, which it surely could not have achieved without download.com. Most developers on here have had good conversion from posting their game on the site.
Alex
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the advice, Alex, and good luck with your 3D game!
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Posted by Sirrus at 06-04-2003 10:14 PM
Thanks guys.
Not using MMF, using Reality Factory for development.
Alex
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Now featuring Dope Farmer!