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Thread: Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

  1. #1
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    I figured I'd create this thread to continue the conversation I inadvertently started with this post.


    ReCap:

    To quote Eric Behme, when I asked about how many copies he managed to sell for both Commando Xenidis and Tomb Climber he replied...
    Quote Originally Posted by Firlefanz
    We got our costs back (Delphi 7 Pro, Truespace 6 and 7) but nothing for our time, it is a hobby and we have fun.

    Okay no scret 5 of CX and about 50 of TombClimber.

    Of course we hope for more with our current Project 'The Innominate'.
    I think this is great information for those of us looking at going shareware with a new project as it gives us some things to consider as we try our hand at marketing and selling our own games.


    So Eric, just to continue our conversation, my next question is what did you do to 'sell' or market/advertize your games and what was different between how you did it for each one?
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  2. #2

    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    Will, I'm not Eric, but here you can find a lot of interesting information about indie games marketing and sales statistics:
    http://www.gameproducer.net/category/sales-statistics/

  3. #3

    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    I just went and had a look at the thread, haven't seen tombclimber but the one in that thread looks quite nice and quite a bit of effort put behind.

    From just the screenshots, I like the idea of it alone (just reminds me of some older arcade games I used to sit infront of for hours when I was younger, pity they aren't around anymore).

  4. #4

    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    Hey folks,

    arrrgh now it got its own topic what a shame :?

    Okay no problem

    On my homepage I have a project page where you can see and reach every game we made:
    http://www.ericbehme.de/magicstorm/
    (there is also some team info, the other members are new, TombClimber was only done by me and Oliver, J?ērgen joined us CX)

    This page leads to each game's page. And each game's page has their description, screenshots & order page which leads to a ShareIT online shop for this game.

    We did it the same way for all the games, trying to get the game and it's own side to as many shareware and gaming sides as possible, then see what happens

    The games were also tested on some pages, like here CX okay and TombClimber good review:
    http://www.bytten.com/

    See ya
    Firle (Eric)

  5. #5

    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    i see in your project's page that you would like multilanguage support. If you want i can translate english to italian on the free time.
    Will: "Before you learn how to cook a fish you must first learn how to catch a fish." coolest

  6. #6

    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    Thanks for the offer, that is very nice of you

    I'll come back to you later. Cool

    Firle

  7. #7
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    Here are the direct links to the reviews:
    Tomb Climber
    Commando Xenidis

    Well this was a great way to get your game noticed. I was listening to one of the recent GDC Radio round tables where they were talking all about game reviews. It had some great information about this.

    I personally think it's good to try for as many game review sites as possible. And even if one gives you a not-so-great review, [size=9px](give 'em heck if they mis-represent your game! :evil[/size], but also try putting your game out to other sites as well, as not all sites have the same standards and opinions about games. Some reviews will be better than others thats just a fact.

    Plus it's more exposure! And that in the end is how well you've advertised your game I believe.

    :?: How many of these reviews did you guys get make up for your each of games?


    I'm going to pick on Tomb Climber only because it did the best out of all of your projects even if only about $400 US in total sales. If I where to fathom a guess as to why it did so well, I'd have to say that it was because of a few things:

    1) It's early arcade game and shareware look and feel!

    2) The low $8 price tag made it a realistic purchase for the casual gaming crowd.

    3) It's fun theme.

    4) Intuitive game concept. The game makes you think a bit.

    I would think that 1 & 2 really drew them in to try the game, but 3 & 4 would have sold on paying for it.

    I believe that if you stick to this formula for Tomb Climber 2, keep the same gameplay, but add some real nice featuring you'll have another success on your hands. Though you will probably want to try to get even more done for advertising. Maybe place some ads around as a suggestion.


    :?: Also, what kind of feedback did you get from your players? Did anyone write back and if so how many and what did they say generally?
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  8. #8

    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    Hi Will,

    from our players we got for Tomb one very good review and one buyer was dissatisfied because of the later full-version levels which are harder.

    I posted some maps in my forum for levels where some players had problems.

    But we have more than one player I know of who played it complete.

    For CX we got no players review.

    But I think most people don't give a feddback...
    so I hope they are mostly satisfied.

    TombClimber was reviewed also on a german site and got a good score.

    Instead of Bytten no other reviews I know of, only some shareware sites give some stars and stuff but they don't take a closer look and we always got good reviews from those, but I think the reviews are nearly always good or very good on those sites...

    All games were in some german magazines on their CDs/DVDs.

    I hope we will do much better with Innominate.

    Go ahead and pick it we are happy about everyone who plays (and buys) one of our games.

    We still dream of being more succesfull...

    Firle

  9. #9
    Co-Founder / PGD Elder WILL's Avatar
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    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    Quote Originally Posted by Firlefanz
    from our players we got for Tomb one very good review and one buyer was dissatisfied because of the later full-version levels which are harder.
    First time I've hear of that. You'd expect the higher levels to be at least a little bit harder, wouldn't you?

    Quote Originally Posted by Firlefanz
    TombClimber was reviewed also on a german site and got a good score.

    Instead of Bytten no other reviews I know of, only some shareware sites give some stars and stuff but they don't take a closer look and we always got good reviews from those, but I think the reviews are nearly always good or very good on those sites...

    All games were in some german magazines on their CDs/DVDs.
    Ah ok... well I'm sure that there is more that you can do the next time around. ie. look for more Game Review sites (English, German, etc) Maybe it would be handy to round up some indie game reviewer sites and such. Might add this to the ]I hope we will do much better with Innominate.

    Go ahead and pick it we are happy about everyone who plays (and buys) one of our games.

    We still dream of being more succesfull...[/quote]

    Well, I hope you guys do well too.

    Be sure to post all about it in the My Projects forum when you're ready to start showing off your work. And who knows, maybe a game review will popup on PGD in the future.


    :?: As a teaser though, what can we expect as far as genre, size of the game, story and theme?
    Jason McMillen
    Pascal Game Development
    Co-Founder





  10. #10

    Trials & Triumps of Magic Storm in the Shareware Market

    I will add a new project in the section very soon.

    Of course it would always be interesting to have review links and other stuff that might help when it comes to merchandising publishing etc.

    Firle

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