Pre-release phear
It's not *that* long until there is a (closed) beta of Kudos, and I'm hoping to have a finished game within a month or so of that. So we are looking at actually being on sale soon.
Thats totally terrifying.
I know a lot of people who say "Im sure game X will sell at least 100,000" or sometimes even higher. Marketing people often spout gems like "worst case situation for us is 50,000 sales. but thats not a likely outcome"
as luke would say "your overconfidence is your weakness". The worst case situation for ANY product is ZERO sales. None, nada, Zip, Nil. There is no magic wand that means *anyone* will buy it. Have I made games that had trouble selling in the double digits? yes I have. In fact, more of my games have been flops than successes.
Weighed against that, the 'production values' on kudos are higher than any of my previous games, the amount of pre-release publicity is higher, and the stability of the code is also higher. This all helps towards it being a success. But there are no guarantees. I've worked hard on it for 6 and a bit months, with no pay, just living off the dwindling royalties of previous games, whilst paying for the art, sound and contractor costs as well.
I'll probably know within a week of it being on sale if it's going to do well or badly. It's like taking 6 months of your salary and betting it on a horse race.
scary...
Having said that, I think it's the best game I've ever made, so I'm still damned optimistic.
Thats totally terrifying.
I know a lot of people who say "Im sure game X will sell at least 100,000" or sometimes even higher. Marketing people often spout gems like "worst case situation for us is 50,000 sales. but thats not a likely outcome"
as luke would say "your overconfidence is your weakness". The worst case situation for ANY product is ZERO sales. None, nada, Zip, Nil. There is no magic wand that means *anyone* will buy it. Have I made games that had trouble selling in the double digits? yes I have. In fact, more of my games have been flops than successes.
Weighed against that, the 'production values' on kudos are higher than any of my previous games, the amount of pre-release publicity is higher, and the stability of the code is also higher. This all helps towards it being a success. But there are no guarantees. I've worked hard on it for 6 and a bit months, with no pay, just living off the dwindling royalties of previous games, whilst paying for the art, sound and contractor costs as well.
I'll probably know within a week of it being on sale if it's going to do well or badly. It's like taking 6 months of your salary and betting it on a horse race.
scary...
Having said that, I think it's the best game I've ever made, so I'm still damned optimistic.
posted by cliff at
6:26 PM
