Sell More Games

Sales stats are always interesting to watch. This time I decided to repost sales stats of Pure Sudoku from Mochek (he posted them on Indiegamer Forums). Highlights are mine. Comments below.

Pure Sudoku was released in January 2006. Initially it was a completely free game, I added functionality and then I made a deluxe version for sale (the old school shareware model!). Simultaneously I have made improvements to the free version, maybe this has harmed overall sales but I think it made marketing easier.

I’ve made several versions over the years, the latest being released in December 2008.

It’s sold 640 copies over it’s life, mostly at the price point of $9.99. For the next few weeks I’m experimenting with a $5.99 price point.

The Free Version of the game has been downloaded around 250,000 times over the years (mostly from download.com where I host the file, and another 50,000 from various download sites and the early days when I hosted the game on my site.) Currently it is downloaded about 2000 times a week.

The original version took me about 1 month to make part time with Game Maker. Add another month, maybe 2 months of part time development work for improvements over the years.

My marketing efforts have included putting the game on as many download sites as possible and sending so many emails to get the game reviewed or linked to it’s unbelievable. On Google.com if you search for Free Sudoku I’m in the top 10. Add another 2 or 3 months (part time) for this marketing effort.

Of those who download the free version about 2000 to 2200 appear on the deluxe (purchased version) information page. Hence the price reduction experiment.

In January the game sold 21 copies and February 27 copies. It generally hovers between 20 to 25 copies each month at this point and seems pretty consistent for a while now. I guess this consistency is an advantage of being popular for a half decent search term.

I also make a little extra money using Google Adsense – worth maybe the equivalent of 2 or 3 extra sales each month.

And finally if any body wants to exchange links please email. I’ve learned that marketing efforts never really end.

The most important thing in the whole post I marked red. Marketing never ends and if you continue to do it your game will continue to sell. His post also shows that it’s better to have something small finished then something big in production forever.

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