Average sell rate for online games

Business and Project Management Discussions
#1

Hi dudes,

This maybe is a question for Cas to answer, being the one who produced Ultratron, which I imagine is a success as a commercial Java game. I would like to know, if allowed to, an estimate average sell rate for small online games such as Ultratron. Being the internet so wide, I’m wondering how much money can one make with good - yet easily distributable games - like those of Puppy Games =D

I ask so because some friends and I are studying the probability of taking game developing in our lives more seriously :wink:

Thanks in advance,

Son Of Cain

#2

Very very litte, usually. Ultratron has sold 290 units in the last 9 months or so.

By contrast, Titan Attacks, which is rather more accessible, has sold… 340 units in the last 3 weeks, something of a hit game apparently. CR is 4.8%. It’ll rapidly tail off unless I can find some distribution partners. Sun don’t appear very interested unfortunately :frowning:

Cas :slight_smile:

#3

Thanks Cas!

Seems like you need some advertising, eh? No offense intended, but here in Brazil, the only ones who know about your game are Java Game Developers. If it were on the press - internet or anything with mass access - that number would go high. So I should consider a more aggressive marketting plan in our business plan =D

Thanks Cas,
Cya!

#4

i think that should be some marketplace for java desktop games, some web page like shockwave.com but only related to java where people would be able to download games, play online, buy them etc. So java developers could have some place where they will be able to post their job and we could benefit from it all, becouse java games listed in one place could achive much more clients

#5

Like http://www.java.com/en/games/

Kev

#6

Yes Kev, just like that =D

Java.com does a great job at helping out developers, however, that is not enough IMHO. But I’m afraid it’s not Sun’s responsibility to give us what we’re lacking - they already did so much for us (web start?). What we lack is a big hit, a ‘AAA’ title to get attention on the language. Please, does not translate my ‘AAA’ to ‘big-budget game’, but to ‘top quality game’. I know we have Tribal Trouble, etc… but we can’t live off of these examples forever. We must risk to develop a top notch game in order to get a decent publisher advertising it, opening the market for Java developers, getting proper advertising over our products, and so on.

How would the language be promoted by a single ‘AAA’ success? Hell, don’t ask me, I just feel that’s what would happen if we had such a title to showcase =D

#7

So, have you finsihed it yet? :slight_smile:

Kev

#8

Ah, c’mon, you’re evil! :stuck_out_tongue:

I do not have the skills… you do! ;D

If I were a VC, I would lovely invest into a team to do a Java-based MMO, for example. I think Java has all the requirements to support such a game, from server side code, to client-side top quality graphics. Such a game would make money, since it would cost less to maintain, it would be easier to add content than a C++ based system, would benefit from portability to reach more clients under different O.Systems… etc… :wink:

But unfortunately, I am not a VC =D

Son Of Cain

[edit: bad english grammar - english is not my native language =]

#9

The point is, the type of people who produce really great games, don’t talk about it first - they just do it - then they tell the world. :slight_smile:

Hence, why I never get anything done :slight_smile:

Kev

#10

I understand.

All I can do now is cheer for better days. And, gather a group of friends and start our own “company” to sell our little ideas. Perhaps someday we come up with the guts to finance and sell this so called MMO type of game :slight_smile:

Thanks for the information, and the nice debate!

Son Of Cain

#11

That was part of the point of the javagamesfactory, but as a free-time hobby project it was never going to be easy. Right now its languishing with some endemic problems, waiting for me to sacrifice a week of holiday to get things back on track.

FWIW, I’m at the stage where I know exactly what code to rip and replace, and what to replace it with - its just waiting for me to have the time to actually do that.

#12

[quote]All I can do now is cheer for better days. And, gather a group of friends and start our own “company” to sell our little ideas. Perhaps someday we come up with the guts to finance and sell this so called MMO type of game :slight_smile:
[/quote]
The other aspect is also: do you have enough time to develop a game? And after that how do you finance you game dev? Because you’ll need to pay graphics and sound designers. I say pay because you’ll probably won’t be able to find commited artists to do these jobs based on a potential revenue share. This is exactly the situation I’m facing. A lot of people say in the begining “yes! it’ll be cool to develop your game” but after some time they always find a more or less valid reason to give up in the end. You know the classic situation like: How far have you progress on your side this week? Well, I was too busy this week by my job…etc. Kind of frustrating and recurring situation. You, as a developer can do great things but do you have time and the team to support you??? Sorry for being so pessimistic. Maybe I’m in a bad mood…

#13

Making a commercially viable game takes a lot more than just having a talented developer. We’ve produced a few games in the space recently, and the art budget always been as large, if not larger than the development cost. As far as coding goes, we have found the last 5% takes as much time as the first 95%. Working out the quirky issues one beta tester is seeing that no one else does can put a lot of stress on these small teams. Which leads to the biggest problem, and that’s after the sale support. And don’t even make the mistake we made by dabbling in physical product, my garage begs you… :wink:

I’m currently exploring Java for mutliplayer RTS space trader design we have. After producing a handful of titles in Windows/DirectX/C++, I’m hopefully that Java won’t only expand our target market, but provide a base reliability that you don’t get with C++.

#14

Runescape anyone!

#15

How about just making money from the ads off the web game page? IMHO, if the game is really good, it can make thousands of bucks in a month…

#16

From the point of view of a games player they don’t care if it’s written in Flash, Java, or even hand-optimised assembler. All they care about is what it looks like on their screen, how easy it is to get into, etc. That’s one thing Flash did very right - they made it so easy to embed things into the web page and it is all just so painless for the gamer.

Putting out a really good java game won’t help promote java other than to other developers. What is needed is a website that people go to looking for good games - that happens to be hosting java games…a subtle but important distinction :wink:

#17

Sorry for the necro but since it’s only half way down the front page it doesn’t really feel like a necro :stuck_out_tongue: