Thoughts about sales volume

November 18, 2008 | Filed under: business

When I was on holiday, i was flying over some big city, looking down at all the tens of thousands of buildings, and thinking  “This is just one city, in one state, in one country, in one part of the world, and yet if I could sell a game to just one person in every street in this city, I’d be doing much better than I am”.

Of course, it’s not as easy as that. But That’s how I think. I hear that Fable II sold 800,000 copies last month. That’s pretty awesome, and that’s at a higher price, and just one month. Surely overall, the game will shift 1.5 million copies, maybe 3 million in total. Equating it to copies of Kudos 2, it’s like maybe 5 million copies. (huge congrats to everyone I know back at LH working on that game btw)

Now obviously I haven’t sold 5 million copies, and obviously I only need to sell maybe half of one percent of Fables II’s sales to make the same ROI (which would be very nice) , given that it’s mainly just me. But even taking this into account, it occurs to me that it would be entirely feasible to sell double or four times the number of copies I’ve sold so far.

Some people assume I sell hardly any copies of my games. A lot of the people who admitted to piracy who emailed me gave me helpful hints on how to sell a few copies a month if I did X. Thanks guys! Some other people assume I sell a LOT more than I do. These tend to be people who see my games on sites like Stardock and yahoo, and assume all games on such platforms make people rich. My Mother is convinced I drive a Ferrari, because I gave her a boxed copy of one of my games. All things that get into shops make people rich according to her. (no they don’t).

So I’m curious. How many copies of Kudos 2 do you think I’ve sold so far? How many copies of Democracy 2? (It’s been out a year).

12 Responses to “Thoughts about sales volume”

  1. CaesarsGhost says:

    50k? 80?

    Will you tell us if we’re close?

  2. Chris Evans says:

    I’d say a few thousand, closing in on 10K for Kudos 2 and slightly higher for Democracy.

    I bought my Kudos 2 last night so the sales of that have already gone up a bit more than what they were :P

  3. Michael says:

    I’d say over 5000 for Democracy 2 but not sure about Kudos 2, i would expect less than that at the moment although as i’m a huge Cliffski fan, i hope you’ve sold loads more than i have stated.

  4. Paul Eres says:

    I’d say you’re in the 1000-10000 range per game. Which is a lot better than my 100-1000 range per game. :D

  5. Mark G says:

    Do we get a prize if we guess correctly? Like a free Positech game? :D

    Anyway, guessing Kudos 2 has probably sold 9,000 already.

  6. Chris says:

    I’m thinking Kudos 2 Sold 4,836 and Democracy 2 sold 12,258.

    I didn’t buy either. I purchased a copy of the Real Arcade Branded Starship tycoon and Democracy 1. I really really really enjoyed Starship Tycoon (I’m unable to reinstall it from now that they changed from the software installer and that saddens me) but I found Democracy a bit lacking in depth and difficulty.

    If you ever get back to doing Starship Tycoon 2 I’ll purchase it.

  7. Hmm says:

    Democracy 2: 2000-3000
    Kudos 2: 500-1000

  8. Pele says:

    Democracy 2: 3000-4000
    Kudos 2: 1000-2000

    Will you tell us the actual numbers – or a ballpark figure? Either one would be really interesting. Anyways, I hope you’ve sold a lot more games than my guesses.

  9. Juuso says:

    Democracy 2: 5000 (based on Democracy 1 sales: )

    Kudos 2: 3000 (totally guesswork, based on Kudos Rock Legend sales: )

    You better give those numbers! :)

  10. Glajan says:

    Democracy 2: 10000

    Kudos 2: 3000

    I also want to see the stats, like Juuso

  11. Groove says:

    Democracy 2: Not a clue really but I’ll hazard 25K units. You live in an expensive part of the country, have a car, go out for evening, so unless your wife earns truckloads of cash (which is not out of the question) I think you’ve probably done quite well.

    Kudos: <1000.
    I don’t know why I’ve guessed so low but I suspect that I’ve taken what you’ve written and though about what I’d need to sell to make me feel like that.
    Actually that’s a total lie. If it’s based on reality, I’d be very happy if I sold 100 copies of something I’d written, although I think that my wife would be slightly less happy!

    Of course you might have done really badly and it’s just your wife is more then happy to finance your “expensive hobby”. ;)

  12. Paul Eres says:

    Does Cliffski even have a wife?