

I made a game for Xbox Live Indie Games. Here are the sales stats. - noneTheHacker
http://nonegames.net/2011/05/07/tug-of-fours-sales-numbers/

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scottchin
I may have missed this in the article, but I am wondering how much this game
sells for. I am not familiar with the pricing of indie games on xbox live.

Congrats btw for releasing your game! Very interesting article!

Edit: Ok I poked around a bit and found that the game is listed for 80
Microsoft Points. On my account it is $14.50 (not sure if this is Canadian or
USD as my account is Canadian) for 1000 points, making the game cost about
$1.16.

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dangero
Agreed. Sales data is meaningless without price. I'm assuming that was
discussed in a prior blog, but I'm too lazy to search through them all to find
it.

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noneTheHacker
Sorry. I didn't think to put the translation in. I updated the post to mention
that.

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beaumartinez
Congratulations―especially on _releasing_ your game; having a quick look on
your blog, I've seen you go into detail how difficult it has been―something we
can all relate to. The first of many releases, I'd hope. I'll at least
download the game later today (from the Spanish Marketplace, if they have it).

You don't specify anywhere on the post what Tug Of Four is about―at the very
least, a missed opportunity for a _quick_ sales pitch.

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noneTheHacker
I didn't even think about a sales pitch. Thank you for the idea and I will try
to remember that going forward!

The game is a party game meant for four people to play together in a room.
There is a single ball that everyone controls. You don't want the ball to go
in your goal. So you have to manipulate your friends into scoring on each
other while trying not to get scored on yourself.

Edit: Here is the trailer on youtube.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxsKPd29rZ8>

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biot
I love the trailer... it doesn't get any clearer that this is a party game.
Any plans for online multiplayer?

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noneTheHacker
Probably not. There were two reasons why I didn't add multiplayer. First (and
most importantly) I felt that their wouldn't be a tension between the players.
It would be hard for people to yell over each other to try to get others to do
what they want to do. Secondly, I didn't think it would add enough value to
delay the game longer.

However, if the game gets popular enough and enough people want it, I would be
willing to add it.

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citricsquid
If you're interested in this you might also be interested in a talk that the
developer of Fortress Craft gave. Fortress Craft is (in its simplest form) a
clone of Minecraft for the xbox 360 indie game thing, he gave a talk at an
event a few weeks ago and he explained all the sales figures. It's the biggest
grossing game on the indie game thing so far.

[http://www.fileplay.net/channels/iseries//13607/fortresscraf...](http://www.fileplay.net/channels/iseries//13607/fortresscraft-
developer-talk-insomnia42)

He starts talking about sales at 16:00.

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noneTheHacker
Thanks for the link. The game released 2 days before mine and I was curious
how that game was doing.

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JMiao
I love designing local multiplayer games. It's only niche because the big
publishers/developers won't figure out how to market a non-music, local coop
game.

You should try to get in touch with the Co-Optimus guys. Looking forward to
downloading this when I get home.

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noneTheHacker
Thanks for the tip. I had never heard of Co-Optimus before but I check them
out and try to show them my game.

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keyle
You talked a lot about advertising and its effects on sales.

I think it's worth mentioning that spending money on a designer might really
help your sales.

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noneTheHacker
My graphic designer buddy from work helped clean up my original art. He didn't
have a good chance to try his own thing because he came into the process late.
Originally, I was going to do it all on my own but he expressed interest in
helping after seeing an play test of the game.

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sshumaker
There's stats across several different XBLIG, along with analysis, from one of
the top XBL indie game developers at: <http://radiangames.com>

If you read his most recent posts, it appears the recent XBLIG spamming of
ratings (which lowered average game ratings across the board) has cost him
huge numbers of sales - enough so that he's now looking at other platforms.

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6ren
Xbox Live Indie Games is not available in Australia. :(

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noneTheHacker
That's a bummer. I wonder if it's because of the laws around games in
Australia.

