Sell More Games

On April 15th 2008, Big Fish Games released Runes of Avalon 2 (RoA 2). This event led me to watch the top 100 chart even more closely than I did before and brought me to a few interesting conclusions. Now I am sure that whether you “get in the top 10 or die” is even less correlated with how high the production values of your game are or how polished it is. It is strongly correlated with… game genre.

Stoneloops! of Jurassica launched one day before Runes of Avalon 2. This game was developed by my friends at Codeminion so I watched both releases very closely.

Both Stoneloops! and RoA 2 have very high production values and are very polished. RoA 2 was put in the match-3 category, Stoneloops! in the marble poppers category.

The top 100 chart is updated daily. Stoneloops! debuted on 81st place. The next day RoA 2 debuted on 73rd place, but Stoneloops! fell out of the top 100 chart. After another day RoA dropped 8 spots to 81st place, but Stoneloops! made it back into the top 100 chart with a climb of 27 places (ranked at #90). One day later RoA 2 made it back to position #73 and Stoneloops! peaked to #81.

While I was happy that we stayed in top 100, I was wondering how high both games are ranked in assigned genres. To my surprise… they ranked quite highly. Stoneloops! is the #3 game amongst marble poppers. RoA 2 was #7 amongst match-3 games, then #10, and then #6. That was quite a shock to me. Games ranked at #3 in the marble poppers category can sell worse than games ranked at #7 or even #10 in the match-3 game category.

The top 3 marble games are (as of April 16):

The top 10 match-3 games (as of April 16):

While the #1 marble popper and #1 match-3 games are ranked on very similar positions, the #2 marble popper sells a lot worse than the second and third highest ranked match-3 games. Its potential is close to the fourth place match-3 game. The #3 marble popper sales are even worse… its sales potential is about equal to the #13 match-3 game. To make things look even worse, Stoneloops was the #3 marble popper on April 15, but was not even in the top 100 chart.

So lets check some other genres. The #1 brain-teaser game (IQ: Identity Quest) is ranked at just #51 on the top 100 (peak at #35), the second (JigSaw365) is at #65 (peak at #6), and #3 is… not on the top 100 chart.

Are you working on the best platformer game right now? I’ve got bad news for you. The #1 platformer game – Supercow – is not on the top 100 chart. #2 (Super Granny 4, which I have heard was a successful game) is not on this list either…

Hottest genres?
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When you go to the Big Fish Games website don’t you feel depressed? Almost every game there is a hidden-object game… at least that’s the first impression. But I bet you’ll be surprised when I tell you that hidden-object games state only 35% of top 100 games. Still, it is the largest group. Here’s a full break down of top 100 games on Big Fish Games.

I put all action, strategy, RPG and other games that doesn’t fit into 4 major categories categories.

There are also two interesting colums on the list: peak and weeks in. I was very curious what is the lowest peak for a game to get into top 100. If you are aiming to make an average game you better give up before you become disappointed… or change your thinking and aim higher.

Wonder what is average peak position for games in top 100? Try to guess… Read the rest of this entry »

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Last week I featured Tom’s Hen House and Maggie the Gardener 2 on MacZOT (Nov 3rd). I made it a bundle with retail price at $22.94 and the discounted price at $13.65. My bundle was featured for 24 hours and it managed to get 12 orders. Not much, but that 12 orders I didn’t have to pay to get them.

Besides 12 orderers I received 89 visitors from MacZOT (yes, you can link to your website) with 27% convertion to download ratio (though most of people downloaded the game directly via MacZOT download links).

MacZOT is a website that offers great Mac apps at great prices. We work with independent Mac developers to bring you special ZOT discounts on some of the best Mac applications available today. We have a new offer just about every day. The offer period is for 24 hours only (or as indicated on the time clock on the main page), during which time you can download and demo the featured product by clicking on the TRY button. If you decide to go for it, you simply return to the main page and click the BUY button. We use PayPal to process our payments, and it is very simple and quick. You do not need a PayPal account to purchase using PayPal.

MacZOT takes a fair share of the price (40-60%), but you can get all custumer emails if you need/want to (you need to send them serials or links to full version somehow). On most portals you earn much less than that.

I’ve spoken with Lisa Biskup from MacZOT to find out more about their service:

Probably only sold that many because the games are not well known already and because of that, not that many people downloaded them to try. Also, game bundles are good, if the games are well known, but maybe not so much if not.

The games that do the best are like Monopoly, Scrabble, Bejeweled 2, etc. when they are discounted down to about $10.95 or $11.95.

Anything that is $9.95 sells way more than $13.95. Our customers are definitely looking for a great deal. And they will buy it even if they don’t have a chance to try it because what’s $10.

Also, our audience likes games but we sell a lot more of productivity type apps, so apps that help people make more money or make their job easier. We only do games on the weekends for that reason.

I’d love it if you’d share your experience with macZOT. For some developers 12 in one day is a lot and for others it is nothing. We have had several 1000s sell in one day of bundles and of single apps over 1000 as well. It just really depends on how great the deal is and what the app is.

It is a good way to promote your app and we obviously like to make some too in order to keep our business alive. We can’t just run apps that will make us $50 per day.

Do you have a great Mac game? If so, contact me and contact MacZOT :)

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