[casual_games] After the Honeymoon

[James C. Smith]

Here is some related data that I prepared for the "Top 10 Vs. Long Tail"
session I participated in at GDC.

 

Below is how much relative revenue Reflexive received from Big Kahuna Reef
(BKR) each month from all distribution partners combined.  BKR was a hit
game released in January of 2005. .   According to Game Sales Charts, BKR
was in the top 10 on Real for 16 week.
http://beta.game-sales-charts.com/games/detail/bigkahunareef  It was also in
the top 10 of places like MSN, Big Fish, Shockwave, and Yahoo but the Game
Sales Charts data does not go back to 2005 for those portals. Being a little
older means that we have 3 years of revenue data to look at.  But it also
means that this pattern may no longer be true for current games and that it
is harder to look up the top 10 data on Game Sales Charts.

 


Month

Revenue


1

5.2%


2

9.8%


3

10.3%


4

5.8%


5

5.3%


6

4.1%


7

3.2%


8

3.1%


9

4.4%


10

3.5%


11

3.8%


12

6.9%


13

3.5%


14

2.2%


15

6.2%


16

3.1%


17

2.3%


18

1.9%


19

1.2%


20

0.5%


21

3.1%


22

1.2%


23

0.5%


24

1.6%


25

0.8%


26

0.7%


27

1.5%


28

0.6%


29

0.5%


30

0.9%


31

0.6%


32

0.5%


33

0.8%


34

0.3%

 

The Revenue % is showing what percent of the game's "lifetime" (to date)
revenue came during each particular month.  In other words, of all the
revenue Reflexive received from BKR in the first 3 years, 5.2% of it came in
the first month.  There are many different spikes in this data as the game
was launched into different distribution channels at different times

 

If you add up those numbers you will find that 65% of the games revenue came
in the first year, 27% in the second year and 7% in the 3rd year. Of course,
all of this is based on data about the first 3 years of the game's life.  If
the game continues to sell at its current pace for another 10 years
(unlikely) then that first year will only account for 38% of the game's
lifetimes sales rather than 65%.

 

Another way to look at it is that the second year generated 42% as much
revenue as the first year and 3rd year generated 10% as much as the 1st
year.  

 

I am not sure how typical this one game is but it is at least one real word
example of how a hit game's revenue peeked and tapered off over time. In
this particular case, it continued to do very well even after it was no
longer in the weekly top 10 lists.

 

James C. Smith

Producer & Co-founder: Reflexive Entertainment

Editor-in-chief: Game-Sales-Charts.com

 

From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Donald
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 9:06 PM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: [casual_games] After the Honeymoon

 

Hi everyone!

 

I've recently bumped into this issue and wondered if anyone else has also.
My question is somewhat simple and has to do with predicting potential sales
after a game has fallen from the Top 10 lists.

 

I have become a custom to using our wonderful little database for game sales
charts: http://www.game-sales-charts.com/cms/index.php; to keep up with
what's moving and it really is a great tool.  After many hours of pouring
over the data, I have managed to come up with a formula that gives me a
pretty good idea of product revenue.  But these are all numbers based on
games that are hot...sometimes super hot and stays on the Top 10 lists for a
while.

 

So my question remains, is there a "fall-off" rate and/or a product life
cycle average from which to predict revenue after Top 10.  For example, if
Game "A", Click-Management mechanic, does good and remains in the top 10 for
8 weeks.  It generates about $2 million in revenue.  So what will a game
like this typically do in the later part of its cycle?  ($1 mln, $500k, ...)
And how long typically is that cycle? (6 months, 1-2 yrs, ...)

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks everyone.

 

Cheers!

 

Don

xBlitz Entertainment

 

 

 

 

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