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General discussionInfographic: the sales of Machinarium(39 posts)(39 posts)
(39 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 19, 2016
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blotunga: Humble because the game was on HB several times if I remember well. And it's hard to sell extra copies on GOG when everyone already has it from bundles.
Exactly.
By the time Machinarium entered GOG catalog, I had already bought it from the developer as well as received extra copies from some bundles.

I have managed to recommend the game to some other people, so I have somehow contributed to GOG sales too, but as great a game as Machinarium is, I really have no incentive to buy an N+1 copy for myself.

(As a hint, I would love to see this game available in GOG Connect promotion to transfer it here...)


Otherwise it's kind of depressing to see how low GOG percentage is. Especially in comparison with such services as Steam and Mac App Store, which are more or less synonyms for all sorts of DRM and user restrictions.

The graphs are interesting though. GOG units and revenue percentage is the same, whereas Steam and Mac App Store have higher revenue percentage than unit percentage. Sadly from a business point of view, it hardly makes sense to have games on GOG, if this is applicable to games in general. Even though I dislike the way Apple does its things, I am impressed by the revenue percentage being twice the units percentage.
Posted July 19, 2016
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PixelBoy: The graphs are interesting though. GOG units and revenue percentage is the same, whereas Steam and Mac App Store have higher revenue percentage than unit percentage. Sadly from a business point of view, it hardly makes sense to have games on GOG, if this is applicable to games in general. Even though I dislike the way Apple does its things, I am impressed by the revenue percentage being twice the units percentage.
The sales from the Amanita website are more spectacular in that regard. :P

I thinks the fact than 1/3 of the PC units were sold for peanuts (the Humble ones) kind of heavily distorts the picture. My guess is that almost everybody that bought the game directly form Amanita, and most of those who did it at the Mac store, paid full price for it (and thus their weight gets greatly increased when moving from units to generated revenue). The sales both on Steam and on GOG, on the other hand, must have been distributed more evenly between people paying full price and others waiting for a bargain, and so their respective weights are roughly the same in both pie charts.
Posted July 19, 2016
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nightcraw1er.488: Maybe I miss something, but I got:
GOG 2% of units, 2% of net revenue
Humble 35% of units, 7% of net revenue

Why would any publisher use Humble if they get virtually nothing in terms of net revenue from them? Surely it would be more beneficial for them to release here, make their money then wack it out in bundles?
I guess as a developer you have to consider the tradeoff between long term revenue and publicity and readily available cash that Humble provides. Now I'm speculating because I don't know when Machinarium was included in the bundles, but it was Amanita's first "proper" game and, as the author said, it allowed them to finance their following games. Surely at that time every source of cash was very welcome, even if it implied losing future sales at a higher price.

I'd like to see the data of Botanicula, to see if they followed a similar strategy when supposedly they were not in need of cash and that much publicity.

Well, actually I'd like to see the data of pretty much every game, but I guess that's something completely out of our reach :-)
Posted July 19, 2016
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PixelBoy: ... Otherwise it's kind of depressing to see how low GOG percentage is. ...
As you said yourself: This is by far an exceptional case with coming late and having lots of competition from the Humble Bundle. 2% of 4 million is still 80,000 copies sold and compared to the low profit yield of Humble Bundle compared to its number of sales, it's still okay.

We would need some other, better examples to really judge the GOG market share, although I think the Steam vs. GOG ratio of approximately 10 : 1 might be realistic.

What I really learned from this nice infographics: Always buy Indie games from the dev site if possible.
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nepundo: ... even if it implied losing future sales at a higher price. ...
And it might have been that it even didn't imply this. After all not every customer values a game equally. There might be customers who only buy below a certain price and then at some point in time you might be willing to sell your product to them for that price (eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination). That way everyone wins and they even maximize the profit.
Post edited July 19, 2016 by Trilarion
Posted July 19, 2016
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PixelBoy: Sadly from a business point of view, it hardly makes sense to have games on GOG, if this is applicable to games in general.
Not necessarily. Digital retail gives you more incentive to diversify compared to brick&mortar stores. Because the overhead is minimal, so every purchase counts and thus every service, whereas with retail stores you have a very real problem of overproducing and underselling, and the overhead + disc manufacturing costs are entry level hurdles.

Only if you have an exclusivity deal this wouldn't hold true, but then you're betting against diversifying to reap a larger profit from streamlining your areas of approach.
Posted July 19, 2016
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Trilarion: As you said yourself: This is by far an exceptional case with coming late and having lots of competition from the Humble Bundle. 2% of 4 million is still 80,000 copies sold and compared to the low profit yield of Humble Bundle compared to its number of sales, it's still okay.
2% of GOG copies is just in the PC pie. The real number is about 40.000 copies.
Posted July 19, 2016
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Tyrrhia: Some people value quantity over quality, I guess. Maybe they wanted to have impressive numbers, instead of getting a better revenue.
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muntdefems: Their revenue from Humble is still better than the one from GOG. You don't really think the same amount of people would have gotten Machinarium on Humble if they had to pay full price for it, do you?
Well, it makes sense their Humble revenue is better than their GOG revenue, they've sold almost twenty times more copies on Humble.

The thing is, Humble's 35% of units sold only netted them 7% of their revenue (whereas GOG's 2% units sold netted them 2% of their revenue), most likely because of absurdly cheap bundles. They may have chosen to devalue their product by placing it in bundles to get an impressive number of units sold and gain popularity. But, you're right, they've probably gained more money by doing that than if they had chosen not to include the game in any bundle (so that's a "no" to your question, I understand some people don't buy games at full price and wait for a more affordable price point)—even though it really didn't make a lot of money compared to GOG, only about three times more.

Personally, I would rather sell 40,000 copies at $10 piece with occasional sales than sell 800,000 copies at $7 [average amount of a Humble Bundle purchase] / 5 [low average amount of games per Humble Bundle] each. I know I would get less money in the end, but I would pretty much be assured that my customers cared for the game, instead of them buying it because it was dirty cheap. I regard this much higher than total income.
Posted July 19, 2016
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JudasIscariot: >Polish devs

LOL, they're Czech :P
Less polish. Check.
More Czech. Check.
Posted July 19, 2016
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Tyrrhia: Some people value quantity over quality, I guess. Maybe they wanted to have impressive numbers, instead of getting a better revenue.
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muntdefems: Their revenue from Humble is still better than the one from GOG. You don't really think the same amount of people would have gotten Machinarium on Humble if they had to pay full price for it, do you?
But isn't that the point, if they hadn't put it on Humble first, then there would have been at least some of that percentage who may have paid more for it. Makes sense to me, you don't put a product on bargain bin site then afterward sell it full price?
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nightcraw1er.488: Maybe I miss something, but I got:
GOG 2% of units, 2% of net revenue
Humble 35% of units, 7% of net revenue

Why would any publisher use Humble if they get virtually nothing in terms of net revenue from them? Surely it would be more beneficial for them to release here, make their money then wack it out in bundles?
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nepundo: I guess as a developer you have to consider the tradeoff between long term revenue and publicity and readily available cash that Humble provides. Now I'm speculating because I don't know when Machinarium was included in the bundles, but it was Amanita's first "proper" game and, as the author said, it allowed them to finance their following games. Surely at that time every source of cash was very welcome, even if it implied losing future sales at a higher price.

I'd like to see the data of Botanicula, to see if they followed a similar strategy when supposedly they were not in need of cash and that much publicity.

Well, actually I'd like to see the data of pretty much every game, but I guess that's something completely out of our reach :-)
Yes, ok, maybe I can see that.
Post edited July 19, 2016 by nightcraw1er.488
Posted July 19, 2016
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PixelBoy: Sadly from a business point of view, it hardly makes sense to have games on GOG, if this is applicable to games in general.
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Titanium: Not necessarily. Digital retail gives you more incentive to diversify compared to brick&mortar stores. Because the overhead is minimal, so every purchase counts and thus every service, whereas with retail stores you have a very real problem of overproducing and underselling, and the overhead + disc manufacturing costs are entry level hurdles.
Even with digital distribution less can be more.
The more digital stores are selling the game, the more competition a given game has against itself.

There are some customers who use only a certain store, but many customers go for the cheapest price. There are many sites on the net where you can compare game prices in different online stores, so it only takes a second or two, which is convenient enough for most people.

So, if somebody wants to buy Machinarium, and compares for instance Steam and GOG and buys from whichever store has the cheapest price, the only true winner is either Steam or GOG, as it's a question of realised sales vs. lost sales. The developer, on the other hand, is losing, because presumably lower sales price means lower cut for the developer too.

Buying from the developer is in a sense pure profit for the developer, as once the store is in place and fixed costs taken care of, any extra copy sold is simply profit (not counting taxes).
I have no idea how the overall cost/profit thing looks like, but as a guess, the developer probably earns more from selling something -50% off on their site vs. some store (Steam, GOG, etc.) selling full price, as they take their cut from it all.

It would be interesting to know more about the threshold where having more exposure (as in having the game available in more competing stores) means undeniably more profit and where it simply means less profit per sold unit.
Posted July 19, 2016
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nightcraw1er.488: But isn't that the point, if they hadn't put it on Humble first, then there would have been at least some of that percentage who may have paid more for it. Makes sense to me, you don't put a product on bargain bin site then afterward sell it full price?
Of course, but still I'm sure their revenue would have been lower should Machinarium never have been included in the Humble Bundles. But anyway, as I said in my other post, the fact that this game was indeed included in those bundles heavily distorts those piecharts. As others have pointed out, we would get a clearer picture of the digital games distribution situation if they did the same for more recent games like Botanicula or Samorost 3...


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Tyrrhia: Personally, I would rather sell 40,000 copies at $10 piece with occasional sales than sell 800,000 copies at $7 [average amount of a Humble Bundle purchase] / 5 [low average amount of games per Humble Bundle] each. I know I would get less money in the end, but I would pretty much be assured that my customers cared for the game, instead of them buying it because it was dirty cheap. I regard this much higher than total income.
I admire your ideals, and I share them to some extent, but I'm afraid they won't make you a successful businessman anytime soon. :P
Posted July 19, 2016
The release window between Steam, Humble and GOG should also be taken into consideration as well.

Steam (and Amanita's website) - October 16, 2009

Humble Indie Bundle 2: December 14, 2010

GOG Release: March 29, 2012

The game was included in two more Humble Bundles in 2012 and once more in 2014. With GOG getting the game 2 and 1/2 years after Steam and a little over a year after it appeared in a Humble Bundle, is it really any surprise that GOG makes up the smallest percentage of units sold?

I would be much more interested to see the sales figures for a game released on all platforms on the same day.
Posted July 19, 2016
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PixelBoy: There are some customers who use only a certain store, but many customers go for the cheapest price. There are many sites on the net where you can compare game prices in different online stores, so it only takes a second or two, which is convenient enough for most people.
[What a nice theory, shame if something happened to it.]

Rightsholders set their own prices.
Posted July 19, 2016
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Tekkaman-James: The release window between Steam, Humble and GOG should also be taken into consideration as well.

Steam (and Amanita's website) - October 16, 2009

Humble Indie Bundle 2: December 14, 2010

GOG Release: March 29, 2012

The game was included in two more Humble Bundles in 2012 and once more in 2014. With GOG getting the game 2 and 1/2 years after Steam and a little over a year after it appeared in a Humble Bundle, is it really any surprise that GOG makes up the smallest percentage of units sold?

I would be much more interested to see the sales figures for a game released on all platforms on the same day.
Yeah, this is what I was thinking too. Witcher 3 for example would be interesting.
Posted July 19, 2016
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JudasIscariot: >Polish devs
LOL, they're Czech :P
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catpower1980: mmmmm, time for an edit then :o)
Guess they forgot to.....Czech the details.

I'll see myself out.
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Community
General discussionInfographic: the sales of Machinarium(39 posts)(39 posts)
(39 posts)