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[RinkuHero]

Low relative to what it should sell? Maybe, but that's hard to judge. Low relative to what my target sales are? No, because I had no target really, since it's the first game I'm selling anything more than 0 is high. I originally predicted 100 sales in a year; it's been less than 6 months and there's been 150 sales, so it's high relative to my original expectations when I decided to sell it.

Could it be higher? Probably. There are likely many small things I could do that would double or triple the sales, I just haven't found them experimentally yet. For example, it could be that the better trailer would lead to a higher percent of the people who visit the site downloading it; it could be that using banner advertising would double the sales, or perhaps what would do that would be simply putting in a "nag window" when a player exits the game, asking them to remember to support us; I can't really know until I try those things.

Perhaps sales are already at their near-maximum, with the number of people who like abstract plot-driven tower defense games being low enough that this is about as high as it gets. Perhaps the level editor will help. It's all speculation really, I suspect most marketing people pretend to know more than they do, the marketplace is way too complex for a human to understand. It's best to just create the best things you can and accept what results appear (a tenet of Karma Yoga).

I am still planning on doing the marketing strategies though; getting it on a portal like Manifesto is one of those. Marketing work too is creative work. I also did Google Ads back in September (which didn't amount to anything useful at all, something like 100$+ spent for 300 clicks, which is next to worthless), which was a success because I learned that it didn't work, at least in the ways that I used it (I heard it's useful if you use it to gather a large newsletter and then sell to that newsletter, but I don't plan to use that method to sell games in the foreseeable future). I'm going to continue with the other marketing methods too but am behind schedule; I think a new one a month is more sustainable than a new one a week as I originally planned (easier to measure the results of too).

[JohnyZuper]

It's true that it's all quite impossible to predict. Until you try it.

We have Google Ads for The Endless Forest on their "content network" (regular searches are out of our league pricewise). We get about 500 hits per month (for which we pay 30 Euros). I guess that that is kind of expensive. It's just a test really, to prepare for when we release a commercial game.
We ran an ad on Deviant Art last month. That was amazing: 2000 hits in a day (cost us only 70 USD because it was for a free art project).

You seem to be sceptical about the commercial appeal of Immortal Defense. I can imagine it's difficult to choose between pushing its marketing or simply putting your energy in a new project with more (perceived) potential...

Good luck with Manifesto! Hope Immortal Defense does well there!

[RinkuHero]

I'm not skeptical exactly; I think it might be able to sell better, it might not, I just have no expectations either way and no strong feelings either way. I think 20 sales a month is more than fine financially; if stays that way indefinitely and if I could reach that with every game I release I'd be making the average US salary about five games from now.

But it's true that I'm not particularly emotionally attached to any one game -- for instance, the artist on the team hates reading negative reviews, he's more attached to his work, I'm far more disassociated and find negative reviews fun and agree with them a lot of the time. Unfortunately not too many have overly been negative so far -- you should write one ^_^

I wouldn't say my next game has more (perceived) potential -- if anything it'll have a narrower audience than this game. It might be a better game if only due to maturing of talents, but it'll appeal mainly to people who enjoy early console games (such as RPGs or Zelda or Metroid games, though hopefully with a more interesting story and characters). I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't sell as well as this one. It might, might not, but I never really thought about whether it has more or less potential than this one.

[RinkuHero]

Although I do think that you personally may like my next game better than this one, because there's much more focus on the environment and world and a living setting.

[M_W_]

We also entered the IGF, but that was mainly on a lark, I don't expect to win.

You're probably right there, but I would expect you to have one of the two or three best games there...  by my own standards anyway.  Darwinia, pshh!  Maybe dude will finally finish Braid though, that one's supposed to be the real thing....

Personally, I tend to think that the way to make this kind of game is to find some other source for money and then do pretty much what you're doing.  Somebody prodded you in one of these threads for doing what seemed to be rather little marketing, and I think they were right--you may be doing as much marketing as you have inspiration for, but there is certainly more to be done.  Or there would be, if increasing sales were a strong goal of yours.  But the real way to increase sales is to make a crappier game, and we've got plenty of people on that duty already so why bother.

[TeeGee]

But the real way to increase sales is to make a crappier game, and we've got plenty of people on that duty already so why bother.

I'll have to completely disagree here - making crappier games is never a good way to increase sales.

[M_W_]

Well it's probably not a very good strategy to consciously take, especially in the absence of other strategies, but I think it actually would help Rinku if he were into that, by drastically decreasing the amount of work he has to do per game.  As I understand the matter (which I mostly don't, since like Rinku I focus on the creative side), the major way smallish, puzzlish, PC games like this make money is by appealing to the huge number of folks who want to kill a bit of time without thinking about it too much, and most of Immortal Defense will go right by those people.  That's not the most efficient way to make money.  OH THE GRAND ETERNAL STRUGGLE BETWIXT ART AND COMMERCE

I'll be less bitter once I get some of my own games out. 

[RinkuHero]

It's true that simple casual games have a larger market, but I don't think it's true that they're crappier -- they just aren't very deep. But for a lot of people they bring a lot of comfort. I wouldn't say Immortal Defense would go right by them either, it's just that the people who play casual games often don't have time or energy or experience with games to learn a more complex game or read through pages of story, they use games to kill time at work and escape from the stress of their kids and such.

It's also not true that I'd make more money that way. It's true that those games make more money but it isn't true that someone who knows how to make games like the games I make would be good at making casual games. And there are tons of mediocre casual games that make no money, it's only the top few that make a lot, and I probably wouldn't make one that would get into the top few because I don't play that type of game myself very often so I wouldn't know how to make a great casual game. There are hundreds of programmers who think "I'll make a simple casual game and strike it rich!" only to be disappointed that it doesn't work like that, it takes a lot of skill to make something so simple and addictive that someone who never played a game before could enjoy it.

[glow]

YOu know i checked out the videos at youtube....
uh they suck, the weakness is that the sounds of the game isn't bad...but it's not pleasing... i suggest a dual layer audio with a nice song in the first one and the effects at 50% on the second audio track.

This is just my opinion.
i do video editing so i you don't and want someone to do so... email me

i respect your work, it's depth, it's non-casual story(i love non happy endings), and the fact that it dares to be the first path tower defense

[RinkuHero]

I do plan to make a new video trailer eventually. But just as a note, I believe YouTube itself reduces the sound quality for anything uploaded to mono; I also currently have no way to reduce the sound effects but not the music. But when I begin working on the new trailer I can have you take a look at it before I use it.

[RinkuHero]

9 sales in November (our lowest yet D:). Downloads in November were 2300, which is actually above average. The conversion rate is 0.4%, which is pretty low. I'm not sure what can explain that the downloads went up but the sales went down. I suspect it's just random.

I've begun advertising on projectwonderful.com -- I'm devoting 100$ to it. It's interesting so far, you bid on different spots. It's gotten an increase in traffic so far over the last two days. I've heard that it's an easy way to increase traffic but that the types of people who click on the ads (mostly people who read webcomics and anime blogs and the like) are not usually old enough to buy anything. Still, worth trying out.

[glow]

about you tube.. i can run the dual track and record it as a mono track or simply export it as a mono track
and by music i mean non game music

[Zer0]

Hey I just joined for this topic and this game. Unfortunately I do not have an income yet and cannot purchase the game but playing the demo will help me decide that. Even without touching the game yet I can see the effort put into making this game a success both as a game and commercially.

As far as marketing strategy goes, I would definitely like to see a trailer on the ID site that showcases its features. Subtitles in a video can make all the difference. You know where text moves across the screen saying "Phenomenal Story by critically acclaimed Author" and "Breathtaking Original Soundtrack" really makes people want to see it for themselves. I'd even add some of the summary narrated into the trailer as I've heard the story is one of the ID's greatest strengths. Then of course at the end (or maybe the beginning) throw the tagline "Is there anything you would give up everything to defend?" That's just my idea but I think if you showed gamers exactly why they should try and buy the game it would most definitely increase your sales and presence in the market.

Ooh oh, another thing I'd suggest is that the unique gameplay style should definitely be shown. Whether it be a separate gameplay trailer it will help a potential buyer decide whether or not to actually click 'Buy'

I'll be trying out the demo soon and I'll tell you what I think! Good job RPGCreations!

[RinkuHero]

Thanks! I agree about the trailer, good suggestions. Maybe I'll use quotes from the reviews the game has gotten.

[Zer0]

Oh wow that was freaky quick.

I'd also like to suggest that the videos on the ID site should be larger. They differ quite vastly from size to the ones actually viewed on YouTube. It's way too tiny to do the game any justice. That and they're striking the short side and being unguided as I mentioned above.

Best of luck! Keep up the good work!