Once Artifact was finished how did you go about letting the public know it existed ??
Did you give the first licences away for free to get some players ??
How many have licensed Artifact so far? If this is a secret forget I asked
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Living of Games
DavidRM >>
Once Artifact was finished how did you go about letting the public know it existed ??
Did you give the first licences away for free to get some players ??
How many have licensed Artifact so far? If this is a secret forget I asked
Once Artifact was finished how did you go about letting the public know it existed ??
Did you give the first licences away for free to get some players ??
How many have licensed Artifact so far? If this is a secret forget I asked
Internet sales generally do smaller volume than retail sales. But retail sales require a distributer, and usually a publisher, both of which reduce profit margins significantly.
With Internet sales, you seldom lose more than about 20% of the gross sale price to payment overhead (credit card processing, refund handling, etc.). So you will make more with fewer sales.
For example, with The Journal, I lose $4.16 out of the $34.95 unit price to DigiBuy. That''s 11.9% given up for the payment processing, and the only slice of the $34.95 that I give up.
Compare that to your average retail sale at $34.95...most likely the retailed only paid the distributer about $25.00, who only paid the publisher about $15.00-$20.00, who only pays the developer a royalty of about 15%-20%...or about $2.00-$3.00.
The promise of retail is huge volume, which would then make up for the pitiful royalty payment. 1000 units over the Internet with the above numbers yields $30K, but 100,000 units at retail would yield $200K-$300K. The former is OK money, the latter will get your attention and keep it. Hence, the popularity of retail sales. Of course, as other people have already commented, getting an actual royalty payment on a shipping game is rare.
DavidRM
Samu Games
With Internet sales, you seldom lose more than about 20% of the gross sale price to payment overhead (credit card processing, refund handling, etc.). So you will make more with fewer sales.
For example, with The Journal, I lose $4.16 out of the $34.95 unit price to DigiBuy. That''s 11.9% given up for the payment processing, and the only slice of the $34.95 that I give up.
Compare that to your average retail sale at $34.95...most likely the retailed only paid the distributer about $25.00, who only paid the publisher about $15.00-$20.00, who only pays the developer a royalty of about 15%-20%...or about $2.00-$3.00.
The promise of retail is huge volume, which would then make up for the pitiful royalty payment. 1000 units over the Internet with the above numbers yields $30K, but 100,000 units at retail would yield $200K-$300K. The former is OK money, the latter will get your attention and keep it. Hence, the popularity of retail sales. Of course, as other people have already commented, getting an actual royalty payment on a shipping game is rare.
DavidRM
Samu Games
The thing that concerns me about a one-time payment system like Artifact uses is what happens if/when it stops becoming profitable. i.e., when the ISP payments exceed the amount of revenue from new memberships. Obviously the intelligent thing to do would be to figure out how to drum up more business, or cease the service.
If you cease the service, though, what kind of obligation are you under to the people who made the one-time payment? I did not see anything in the Artifact ToS about discontinuing the service.
One possibility I have thought of is to create a corporation for each service. If the service ceases to be profitable, disband (or whatever) the corporation, effectively isolating you from legal obligations. Is this legal? It seems like bigger corporations pull this all the time, but they generally have tons of money.
This may not concern you; it is certainly possible for Artifact to remain profitable for an indefinite period of time (especially as bandwidth gets cheaper and more accessible). But perhaps you have thought about this.
This is why I would prefer to use a periodic renewal fee. But generally I think the game probably has to be much more attractive in order to attract the same amount of business as a one-time fee.
If you cease the service, though, what kind of obligation are you under to the people who made the one-time payment? I did not see anything in the Artifact ToS about discontinuing the service.
One possibility I have thought of is to create a corporation for each service. If the service ceases to be profitable, disband (or whatever) the corporation, effectively isolating you from legal obligations. Is this legal? It seems like bigger corporations pull this all the time, but they generally have tons of money.
This may not concern you; it is certainly possible for Artifact to remain profitable for an indefinite period of time (especially as bandwidth gets cheaper and more accessible). But perhaps you have thought about this.
This is why I would prefer to use a periodic renewal fee. But generally I think the game probably has to be much more attractive in order to attract the same amount of business as a one-time fee.
When Artifact was first released in October, 1999, we sent email press releases to a number of game-related web-pages. Plus we went around hunting pages that list online games, like MPOGD, and add the game.
We pay for advertising on some pages, but only on fairly high-traffic online-game-only pages.
Our biggest referrer, though, is other players. Which is cool.
As for the total sales of Artifact...as of Q1 2001, we''ve sold over 1000 "Citizenships", plus about 400 upgrades.
We''re not getting rich, but we''re still growing, and looking forward to the summer months, which are always our busiest time of year. Our "Christmas", in a way.
It''s an advantage of non-retail release of a game that it''s "life cycle" is significantly lengthened. In retail, the shelf-life of a game seldom extends beyond 6 months. Via the Internet, with regular updates keeping it viable, a product can continue to be sold, and continue to grow, for years.
DavidRM
Samu Games
We pay for advertising on some pages, but only on fairly high-traffic online-game-only pages.
Our biggest referrer, though, is other players. Which is cool.
As for the total sales of Artifact...as of Q1 2001, we''ve sold over 1000 "Citizenships", plus about 400 upgrades.
We''re not getting rich, but we''re still growing, and looking forward to the summer months, which are always our busiest time of year. Our "Christmas", in a way.
It''s an advantage of non-retail release of a game that it''s "life cycle" is significantly lengthened. In retail, the shelf-life of a game seldom extends beyond 6 months. Via the Internet, with regular updates keeping it viable, a product can continue to be sold, and continue to grow, for years.
DavidRM
Samu Games
quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
If you cease the service, though, what kind of obligation are you under to the people who made the one-time payment? I did not see anything in the Artifact ToS about discontinuing the service.
Is this what Happened to PBN, David ?
quote:
One possibility I have thought of is to create a corporation for each service. If the service ceases to be profitable, disband (or whatever) the corporation, effectively isolating you from legal obligations. Is this legal? It seems like bigger corporations pull this all the time, but they generally have tons of money.
When Dug and David''s game Paintball-Net went offline, there was about 4-6 months warning/announcement (?)
Of course the game had been operating for about 5 year''s.
Other then that, there was no obligation since I don''t think it was ever promised that the game would run until the end of time.
Even though the game is badly missed.
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