Most games on Steam will make less than minimum wage

If someone is turned off by the title ‘Where the Water Tastes Like Wine’, and think it’s just pretentious, then he also would be turned off by the game itself (an experimental narrative game in the Great Depression), he surely would call the game itself pretentious.

So then it’s actually a very appropriate, representative title. The problem is that obviously, this was always going to be a niche title.

I think he is just talking profits, not gross revenue. He said it sold 5K copies.

Right. As @Rod_Humble correctly notes, this game as a ton going against it based on setting, art and just general bleakness. There are a LOT of people who are immediately turned off by that and it takes a game or genre fan to even get the slightest bit interested in even taking a look. For the most part, gamers are at a point where I think they fly right past bleak games without a second glance.

It’s arguably another reason Fortnite is crushing PUBG. One is a bright, colorful, whimsical take on Battle Royale while the other is a serious, brown/grey/red fight for your life kind of thing. There is a much larger appeal when you make things … welll… look appealing!

As long as your expectations are in line with what you’re creating though, then you can make something like this game and be successful.

To prove your point: Fortnite does nothing for me while I love the aesthetics of PUBG. I’d go so far as to say I’ve been avoiding Fortnite because of its artistic direction.

I’d also say that Fortnite is free and available on PS4. PUBG is not.

Like I said though, it’s “another reason”. There are many.

You say crushing PUBG as though that game were not a huge and storied success in its own right.

A.k.a, “the Blizzard principal.”

Not trying to take anything away from its success, but @CLWheeljack’s the Blizzard Principle is a truism of gaming. We’ve seen it a number of times in the past. I think Epic beat Blizzard to it with Fortnite.

Also, console exclusivity on the Xbox One isn’t doing PUBG any favors right now.

Fortnite is a great game, not just a popular game.

Cheerful graphics definitely have their attraction, but I’ve done the math on this, several PhD’s have checked my work, and I can say with confidence of precisely ±0.0041% that 98.1% of why Fortnite is crushing PUBG is that it’s frickin’ free.

While PUBG remains quite popular through sheer inertia, it is obviously on a downswing.

It’s definitely the number one factor. Yes. That said, I think the majority of players in my matches have Battle Pass gear on. So you could argue it’s $9.99 quarterly.

Well sure, while the cost of entry is $0 they still have to monetize it somehow. But that entry cost really matters.

I have an. . . interesting connection to someone who was on the Fortnight team for a long time. I dunno if they’re publicizing their earnings figures or not, so I’m not gonna drop any numbers, but I heard a ballpark figure for a recent weekend’s earnings and choked.

Turns out swiftly cloning the flavor of the week and undercutting them on price is a profitable strategy, who knew?

Difference here is that Epic cloned PUBG at truly unprecedented speed. They got that battle royale mode out fast, once it was clear the original Fortnite was a loser and PUBG was doing well. Usually it would take around a year to clone a game like that, minimum. So Epic managed to cut in on the Battle Royale fervor when it was still in the initial honeymoon phase.

It’s like if Dark Age of Camelot managed to release in Q1 2000, or Star Wars: Dark Forces released in Q1 1994, and they both cost zero dollars. Everquest and DOOM would have been kicked right in the balls.

don’t want to go OT but here

Some of the numbers for hit games are astonishing when you see them. Even more eye popping on mobile because it goes so deep on the charts. Even a top 50 game is often bringing in about a hundred thousand a day. Top ten gets even more crazy.

Since I almost accidentally minored in Classics in college, this is super goddamn interesting to me. Like I am ever gonna play a digital game again, but man, I just wanna pay money for this as thanks for making it exist.

I’m too lazy (and about to leave work) to find the article that said it, but there was an article that in February alone they made $126m. That’s probably gone up like crazy since as they have now released the mobile versions.

In regards to Where the Water Tastes like Wine…

The game was released one month a go and, goign by SteamSpy, is probably at 6k-7k sales right now (the post mortem and added press focus seems to have helped). That, by Steam indie standards, is doing quite well already. Fantastic, really. We are talking the game has generated (so far, quick napkin calculation) $67k net earnings on it’s first month, which is twice what the original article this thread is about quotes, and will probably be well over 100k after one year on sale. In one platform. It’s going to make 3 to 4 times the median at least.

While the game might not look suited for consoles, in general you can expect a indie game to sell on average twice the Steam numbers among the three main console platforms combined. With an off-beat game like this, maybe cut that to half (could work very well on Switch) but the game should start paying itself in terms of net revenue in a year if it goes multi platform (of course, expenting a windfall of $120k profits per year is unrealistic, as it is basing your indie studio in SF, but that’s another discussion). It should end up in the black, not making anybody a millionaire but far for a finantial failure.

What really baffles me is the $0 income from the first 6k sales the developer quotes. It seems he went for a publishing contract in which the publisher recoups their whole investment before sharing profict with the developer. That, in the current indie climate, is a big, big, BIG no-no. If the developer invested $140K in contractors to develop the game, why would a publisher that certainly will invest less than that in marketing get preferential access to profit share? No indie publisher brings enough value to the market nowadays to justify those conditions.

Again, I don’t know if that’s the case, but it might be judging by the postmortem. Anyways, I just wanted to state that such a contract like the one I describe is by no means an honest proposal nowadays.

Tldr: The game did ok and will do ok, is way above median for Steam and for an indie game and it should be considered a moderate success economically given its budget (that is, a game that will make more than it costs). If it’s not for the developers, it’s not due to the game sales, but due to whatever finantial arrangements do not channel the profits to the developer. Also, do not sign predatory contracts with publishers in this market climate.

This still seems like a bizarre question to me. The “best place out there” for genre films isn’t a store either. It’s an enthusiast website, or back in the day a magazine like Fangoria. Asking a store to do your curation for you is never going to be optimal, though the likes of Steam do in principle have a better chance of getting it right by virtue of knowing your purchase history.