Unhealthy interest in sales figures

[BlackAdderBG]

I struggle to imagine people that are in hardcore rpgs wanting to play them in other language than English.Maybe Germans as they had a lot of rpgs they made themselves, but I find it very hard to navigate Windows in my language for example, let alone trust some schmuck with the translation of decently written game.Not to mention a lot of word play, jokes, cultural references etc. will be lost and impossible to translate.

 

[CRD]

I struggle to imagine people that are in hardcore rpgs wanting to play them in other language than English.

I though the same for a lot of time, but after opening threads of Age of decadence, underrail, shadowrun, or any crpg you can imagine on one of the biggest spanish forums, I always find on the first 3 post of any thread the same question "Is the game translated? If not I pass".

Seriously, it is probably the number 1 question there, and when the game is released yes, a lot of people still buy it and play, but every few post the question comes again from people who want to play but doesn't understand english.

Just looking now at the AoD thread now,

Post #2 > "translated to spanish?"
Post #4 > "shame its only in english, maybe in the future".

and goes on.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The thing with Russia, is that they buy your game at 70% discount.

Well aware as I said earlier. Even though Russia is the second biggest market, it accounts for 5.2% of sales.

And also on top of that, there is the problem that you are selling it the game for the same price to germans and spaniards or italians where income is much lower, so its should be considered to see where is the most loyal fanbase. For example the minimum wage on france and germany is about 1500€ while on spain is 600€ but they pay the same for the game.

We use the currency matrix provided by Steam. While we can submit our own regional prices for approval (i.e. they may or may not get approved), I'm sure that Steam knows better simply because they have a lot more data whereas all we have is a guesstimate based on how we imagine things should be. In some European countries the price includes VAT. For example, Norway decided to slap a 25% tax on digital goods, which is now included in the price. Spain charges 21%, so Steam gets 27.99 euros from a Spanish customer, gives Spain $5.88 for all the hard work it did to make this transaction possible. US, Canada, and Australia don't charge a tax on digital goods (yet), so we get the most revenue from these countries. Russia didn't charge the tax until Jan this year (now 18%).

Overall though, in the gaming industry where bundles (i.e. selling your games for pennies but at large volumes) are a thing, selling it for $7-8 without VAT on a low-wage market is not too bad at all.

Vault Dweller, how are finnish sales altogether and was there anykind of spike on sales to Finland in the last november and december? Finnish gaming magazine published positive review of Age of Decadence last november.

If there was, it was lost in the Nov-Dec sales spikes that would dwarf any article's spike.

I struggle to imagine people that are in hardcore rpgs wanting to play them in other language than English.

I though the same for a lot of time, but after opening threads of Age of decadence, underrail, shadowrun, or any crpg you can imagine on one of the biggest spanish forums, I always find on the first 3 post of any thread the same question "Is the game translated? If not I pass".

Seriously, it is probably the number 1 question there, and when the game is released yes, a lot of people still buy it and play, but every few post the question comes again from people who want to play but doesn't understand english.

Just looking now at the AoD thread now,

Post #2 > "translated to spanish?"
Post #4 > "shame its only in english, maybe in the future".

and goes on.

As I said earlier, "in the last 12 months we sold about 1,200 copies in Spain (other Spanish-speaking countries didn't make the list), 800 of them in the last 3 months when the translation was released, 378 copies during the last week's 75% off sale. I'm glad that these 800 people were able to play it but it's not a game-changer (not that we expected it to be)."

So just because dozens of people ask for translations on various forums doesn't mean there is a strong market for hardcore indie RPGs there. Localization rate is around 10 cents per word. We have 600,000 words so we're looking at 60k per localization. If we sell the game at full price in Spain, we get $16.5 after Spain and Steam get their cut. At this rate we'd need to sell 3,600 at full price just to get even. Considering that we sold only 378 copies in Spain at 75% off...

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Spanish isn't just spoken in Spain, tho.

Nevermind.

other Spanish-speaking countries didn't make the list

No interest in South America? I would've thought there'd be a bigger audience considering all the Brazilians here (who, of course, don't speak Spanish.)

 

[Baardhaas]

No interest in South America? I would've thought there'd be a bigger audience considering all the Brazilians here (who, of course, don't speak Spanish.)

I assume that most people who take an interest in niche-games like AoD speak English and have no interest in localization. Coming from a country where translating games is relatively new, I usually set the game to English even if my own language is available. Typical RPG-jargon like 'damage', 'armor class', 'hit points', all sound alien when translated.

 

[HoboForEternity]

How much copies sold in indonesia? I would be proud to be the sole owner of this game in this country ( a weird achievement, but what the hell, it is still interesting)

 

[Vault Dweller]

How much copies sold in indonesia? I would be proud to be the sole owner of this game in this country ( a weird achievement, but what the hell, it is still interesting)

197 copies.

 

[laclongquan]

That is a salute

 

[Black Angel]

How much copies sold in indonesia? I would be proud to be the sole owner of this game in this country ( a weird achievement, but what the hell, it is still interesting)

197 copies.

Wonder if the rest of 195 owners is in the Codex.

Come out, come out, where ever you are~

 

[HoboForEternity]

How much copies sold in indonesia? I would be proud to be the sole owner of this game in this country ( a weird achievement, but what the hell, it is still interesting)

197 copies.

Wonder if the rest of 195 owners is in the Codex.

Come out, come out, where ever you are~

i totally forgot about u dude

so sorry

 

[Goral]

How much copies sold in indonesia? I would be proud to be the sole owner of this game in this country ( a weird achievement, but what the hell, it is still interesting)

197 copies.

Wonder if the rest of 195 owners is in the Codex.

Come out, come out, where ever you are~

i totally forgot about u dude

so sorry

I thought that BA is from Poland? Or is he living in Indonesia?

 

[Fenix]

Hm, I thought he was Russian. :D

 

[Tigranes]

As an ethnic Korean, I'm always surprised that hardcore low-profile RPGs have at least a few players in Korea.

AOD even has an entry in Korea's namuwiki, basically what wikipedia would look like if written by Korean Codexers. Some highlights (my quick and dirty translation):

1. Introduction
Isometric RPG released after 12 years of development.

The first thing the game tells you is that the protagonist is basically Random Passer-by #1. Combat is generally super dangerous, and it is wiser to use your brain and avoid taking risks. Most NPCs lie all day long, and are extremely self-interested [... for example,] they'll sell you something for 800 gold saying it is a treasured heirloom then it turns out it's a piece of shit worth 100.

--------------------

One blogger, a fan of Europa Universalis, shows a weird difference in language - dude talks about immershun and says game's unfriendly, but then seems to understand a lot of what makes AOD good.

This game is very unfriendly and rustic. Basically, almost every event happens like the real old school games:

<Portrait> <Shitload of dialogue and description>
<Shitload of dialogue and description>
<Shitload of dialogue and description>
<Shitload of dialogue and description>
<Shitload of dialogue and description>

<Choice A>
<B>
<C>

So if you're bad at English, well... wait for a Korean patch, I guess.

The game design in general exudes unfriendliness and, in turn, a shitload of hardcore. E.g. if you just go with the default stats on the backgrounds, then your character is going to be pretty suboptimal - and nobody will tell you until you figure it out yourself [...]

This unfriendliness is both a pro and a con. A lot of the good things going for this game has to do with how hardcore it is, and that hardcore difficulty comes from being unfriendly and sadistic - something which fits well with the post-apocalyptic setting to give you a certain immersion. You meet someone in a wasteland offering you a drink? Dude is probably a robber and the drink is probably laced with poison [...] Once you get fucked a few times you're going to go fuck this shit, but that makes players think more, and also to get more into the spirit of the game.

Another key to immersion is how realistic the game has been designed. The gameworld is visually and setting-wise very believable (even if it's almost a waste of breath to even say the graphics sucks), and is designed very carefully. E.g. the ruins of an old empire's walls still remain, but current denizens do not have the wherewithal to repair it, so it is mostly held up with wooden scaffolding, and since the copper nameplate on the statue at the plaza was pilfered, there is debate today about what the statue even means. [...]

[in conclusion,] The unfriendliness sometimes makes you think, do you actualy want me to play this game FFS, but for me this was quite a good game.

-------------------

Of course, Koreans being Koreans, they all probably pirated the game

 

[Vault Dweller]

Of course, Koreans being Koreans, they all probably pirated the game

634 people didn't.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

And what about Japanese?

 

[Black Angel]

I thought that BA is from Poland? Or is he living in Indonesia?

From where did you get an impression that I'm a Potato? And yes, I'm an Indonesian and live in Indonesia.

Hm, I thought he was Russian. :D

And you too. Did any of you not read my thread in The Gazebo subforum?

 

[Fenix]

No, I rarely browsing forum, for me it is hard to orientate/unswrstand what is about in subforums.

 

[Vault Dweller]

And what about Japanese?

395 copies.

 

[laclongquan]

Shamefur dispray! They lose out to the Koreans!

 

[Cadmus]

Nice. How many people in Czech bought the game if you can share?

 

[axedice]

And us roaches too! I've been campaigning for AoD in our old Ultima community since beta, but aside from 5-10 people from there and some lurkers from codex, I wonder how much it sold in turkey in total.

Maybe you could share a county based sales list, even including who bought before release - at release full price and in sales?

 

[covr]

Whoa, this thread turned out to be really unheathy. Let the guy work on his new game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Nice. How many people in Czech bought the game if you can share?

514.

And us roaches too! I've been campaigning for AoD in our old Ultima community since beta, but aside from 5-10 people from there and some lurkers from codex, I wonder how much it sold in turkey in total.

951.

Maybe you could share a county based sales list, even including who bought before release - at release full price and in sales?

The data is available but it would take too long to sort it out. Overall, we got 121 pre-orders from Turkey, quite a few at a higher price ($35-50), so Turkey is definitely a patron of the arts.

 

[Morality Games]

Whoa, this thread turned out to be really unheathy. Let the guy work on his new game.

People love putting a measurable statistic to things they care about. It is pretty much the entire basis of sports.

 

[MRY]

This thread is like the Olympic medal count! Enjoy your bronze in judo, Czech Republic!
:kwafuckyeah: