[casual_games] Sales, Exposure and Profitability

[Ben Lewis]

Hi Gorm,

Let's look at your model again -- at $4,000 per month for 5 months, that's $20,000 *per person*, not total. Let's also assume you have two programmers and two artists on the project, all salaries being equal in this example. That's $80,000 in salaries, assuming you can make a really polished, fun game in 5 months with a 4-man team. Then add your overhead, any legal fees, post-development, weeks/months spent negotiating contracts and waiting to launch on the portals.

These days, you're more likely to spend 6-12 months with a team of 7+ if you're making a polished title with a chance to land in the Top 10 lists. Your costs in Denmark may be far less than a US-based studio, though.

The numbers look absolutely dismal at first, but if you've got a great game with wide distribution and front-page promo, hundreds of thousands of people will download. And if you're on portals that offer in-game advertising in downloads, even better!


Ben Lewis
Yatec Games
Marketing and Sales
(225)274-1550  Ext. 149
www.yatecgames.com 


________________________________________
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf Of Gorm Lai
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 2:53 PM
To: casual_games at igda.org
Subject: [casual_games] Sales, Exposure and Profitability

Hi,

I have been doing some serious calculations that I would like to run through you guys.

First, having worked in casual games before (for set top boxes), I did an estimate that a good polished casual game can be completed in 4 to 5 man month, including programmer and artist hours.
At a low starting income of around $4000 dollars a month, expenses totals to approx $20.000.

Selling a game at $20, with 30% going to the developer this means an income of 6$ pr. sold unit. Thus, selling _just_ 3500 units will give a surplus. At this realization, my eyes gleamed with a golden tint!

However, assuming a conversion rate of just 1 to 2%, selling 3500 units will require 175,000 to 350,000 downloads.
This seems like larger numbers. If portals take on new games each day, it must be close to impossible to gather the necessary exposure required to get the required amount of downloads, not just talking about getting on the portal in the first place..

What do you guys say? Are my assumptions correct?
Thanks for your time.

Cheers,
Gorm
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IGDA Denmark Chapter Committee Member
Core Engine Programmer @ Deadline Games