Sales Stats and Venture Africa, 1 year later
by Andy Schatz · 11/01/2006 (3:30 pm) · 31 comments
It's been 365 days and about 10 hours since Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa made its first sale via Trymedia to Josiah Pisciotta. Within 24 hours we had sold (only) 7 copies. A terribly stressful period, but exciting at the same time.
Original Sales Expectations: 1,000-10,000 units sold
Actual online sales (direct): 344
Additional affiliate sales: Can't say but it is a good bit more than 344.
ORIGINAL EXPECTATIONS MET (exceeded significantly when including retail sales)
My original sales expectations for the title (generated from pure guesswork) was 1,000 to 10,000 units sold. Add in affiliate sales and these numbers appear be pretty accurate. The retail version is helping us push the upper bound significantly upwards, though.
What does this suggest?
Since we make a higher percentage on our direct sales, we have been making similar amounts of money with our affiliate vs. direct sales. However, the affiliate sales are generally less work to make. Now that we have a second product going on sale, though, direct sales may increase since we can cross-sell the two titles.
Conclusion: For a first title, find as broad an audience as possible (re: affiliates). Once you can start to cross-sell, it's worth it to push the direct sales and build traffic to your site. Until then, a bare bones site is probably good enough.
For Venture Arctic, we'll be attempting to build significant traffic to our site so we can cross sell Venture Africa. When we initially launch the product, we'll be selling there exclusively. The thought is that we can find the market of people that WOULD HAVE bought the game from an affiliate and get them to buy it from our site instead.
Russ Carroll (of GameTunnel) is always saying that you are an idiot not to go with as broad a market as possible since the audiences of the portals often don't shop anywhere but their preferred portal. Our first two months of selling Venture Arctic should help to prove whether or not exclusive distribution can be successful.
Keep in mind that any strategic advice here is borne not from a successful title, but a somewhat unsuccesful one (online). Most companys that are truly "making it" receive a much higher percentage of their revenue from affiliates, though in my opinion, this isn't the only way to go.
More to come on sales, strategy, and shortcomings of the last year at Pocketwatch Games...
Original Sales Expectations: 1,000-10,000 units sold
Actual online sales (direct): 344
Additional affiliate sales: Can't say but it is a good bit more than 344.
ORIGINAL EXPECTATIONS MET (exceeded significantly when including retail sales)
My original sales expectations for the title (generated from pure guesswork) was 1,000 to 10,000 units sold. Add in affiliate sales and these numbers appear be pretty accurate. The retail version is helping us push the upper bound significantly upwards, though.
What does this suggest?
Since we make a higher percentage on our direct sales, we have been making similar amounts of money with our affiliate vs. direct sales. However, the affiliate sales are generally less work to make. Now that we have a second product going on sale, though, direct sales may increase since we can cross-sell the two titles.
Conclusion: For a first title, find as broad an audience as possible (re: affiliates). Once you can start to cross-sell, it's worth it to push the direct sales and build traffic to your site. Until then, a bare bones site is probably good enough.
For Venture Arctic, we'll be attempting to build significant traffic to our site so we can cross sell Venture Africa. When we initially launch the product, we'll be selling there exclusively. The thought is that we can find the market of people that WOULD HAVE bought the game from an affiliate and get them to buy it from our site instead.
Russ Carroll (of GameTunnel) is always saying that you are an idiot not to go with as broad a market as possible since the audiences of the portals often don't shop anywhere but their preferred portal. Our first two months of selling Venture Arctic should help to prove whether or not exclusive distribution can be successful.
Keep in mind that any strategic advice here is borne not from a successful title, but a somewhat unsuccesful one (online). Most companys that are truly "making it" receive a much higher percentage of their revenue from affiliates, though in my opinion, this isn't the only way to go.
More to come on sales, strategy, and shortcomings of the last year at Pocketwatch Games...
About the author
#22
11/02/2006 (4:02 pm)
@J Sears - Andy knows how many sales he's getting, he just can't publish that number. 
#23
11/02/2006 (4:04 pm)
@ J Sears; I'm sure he does know just exactly how many copies have been sold, however standard selling agreements normally won't allow you to tell anyone else how many copies you've sold.
#24
Speaking of info....
Can you please elaborate on what you consider "direct sales"? How much of the direct sales do you actually handle yourself (file hosting, online transactions, etc.)? What is the relationship between direct sales and the distributor? and how much of a cut do they take?
Thanks.
11/02/2006 (9:41 pm)
@Andy Schatz - First off... congrats on your success with Venture Africa! You have helped pave the way for us who will be following in your footsteps. We are very grateful for the info that you provide and wish you continued success! :) Speaking of info....
Can you please elaborate on what you consider "direct sales"? How much of the direct sales do you actually handle yourself (file hosting, online transactions, etc.)? What is the relationship between direct sales and the distributor? and how much of a cut do they take?
Thanks.
#25
11/03/2006 (8:12 am)
@Alex- Direct sales are sales we make from our own website. Our distributor still does file hosting, security, payment processing, but that will be different given different distributors. We provide support for the product through our forums. They take a much smaller cut, I can't say, but it's generally between 30-10 percent for services like this.
#26
How are they tracked? You have the "buy now" option on your website which leads to the trymedia checkout site in your browser and that is obviously a direct sale. However, you have an option for the free trial download on your site which you can later choose to purchase the game through the Trymedia packaging utility. So, I'm wondering... do sales from the packaging utitlity count as direct sales even if they got the packaged game from a friend or another website? As long as it is using the default trymedia packaging utility as opposed to a portal packaging utility does it result in a direct sale?
11/03/2006 (3:41 pm)
Thanks Andy. Very useful information :) Just a few more things I would like to know about direct sales....How are they tracked? You have the "buy now" option on your website which leads to the trymedia checkout site in your browser and that is obviously a direct sale. However, you have an option for the free trial download on your site which you can later choose to purchase the game through the Trymedia packaging utility. So, I'm wondering... do sales from the packaging utitlity count as direct sales even if they got the packaged game from a friend or another website? As long as it is using the default trymedia packaging utility as opposed to a portal packaging utility does it result in a direct sale?
#27
11/03/2006 (4:17 pm)
@Alex- Trymedia has maybe the most powerful packaging/trial/sale tracking software out there. I'm not sure how much I really should say about how it works, but suffice it to say that when the user downloads the trial, the trial software keeps track of where it came from and credits the appropriate parties. Their system allows for tracking coversion rates among different portals and a number of other stats broken down by portal. Very powerful and very cool and definitely the most positive aspect of my experience with Trymedia.
#28
11/03/2006 (4:34 pm)
Ok, so If I were to sign a deal with Trymedia as my distributor like you did. Then I setup my site for downloading the game and then download the game to my computer. Then I manually upload that file to hosting sites like fileplanet or fileshack who do not take a percentage. Then someone downloads that file from the free hosting site and buys the game through the trymedia packing software... would that result in a direct sale because the original packaged game was downloaded from my website?
#29
11/03/2006 (4:41 pm)
@Alex- That's correct. ( how bout a 5 rating :) )
#30
Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my questions though. I really appreciate it. I am sure it has helped others as well. :)
11/03/2006 (4:52 pm)
A 5 indeed! I would give you a 100 rating if i could. :)Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer my questions though. I really appreciate it. I am sure it has helped others as well. :)
#31
11/03/2006 (5:11 pm)
haha, I'm not above begging :) (so this post gets bumped into the Popular category, which gives it a longer lifespan)
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