It?s been just over a year since the release of their third XBLIG title and Camille Guermonprez, owner of Arkedo, have been discussing their journey since then over at the NeoGAF forums. It was such a fascinating read that we?ve gathered the entire thing into a more formally written piece.
In this article Camille discusses the Arkedo Series as they delved into the Xbox Live Indie Games service, the development and the sales, as well as what the real winnings were post development.
The Costs
Each piece of the Arkedo series took approximately 4-6 weeks for a team of 2 guys (or girl, for 02-SWAP!). So depending on where you are located, cost of labor and such it can vary quite a lot, but let's say that in France it was something around ?10K in wages and taxes per Arkedo Series title. A little more for 03-PIXEL!, but you get the idea.
The Revenue
Here are the raw numbers:
01-JUMP, (launched 09/09, take that, Dreamcast 2!)
- Trials: 42,974
- Purchases: 4,990
- Purchase/Trial Ratio: 11.61%
02-SWAP, (launched 10/09)
- Trials: 20 278
- Purchases: 4 369
- Purchase/Trial Ratio: 21.55%
During September '10 SWAP was featured for as a deal of the week for 80MSP instead of 240MSP. For that month these were the statistics:
- Trials: 3987
- Purchases: 2334
- Purchase/Trial Ratio: 58.54%
It sold more during this single week, when it was featured much higher in the dashboard, than rest of its lifetime combined. We got the same cut on sales as usual (70%), but as the game went from 240MSP to 8MSP our share was a third of what we usually get.
Also, half of the people who tried the game bought it during this period. It is very interesting to see such price elasticity when the game is showcased to a broader audience like that. But again, happy problem. The game was selling just a few units per week, being a year from launch and all, then it got a taste of XBLA.
03-PIXEL, (launched 11/09)
- Trials: 62 636
- Purchases: 11 432
- Purchase/Trial Ratio: 18.25 %
So how much money did you guys make?
The Arkedo Series are priced 240 MS moints, which are approx $3, same in Euros (haha). Microsoft takes around 30% off the 240 MS Points, so 2 Eurodollars left!
But wait! If you are a non-US studio and your country has a tax treaty with the US, there is an additional minigame for you if you want: try and not pay taxes twice (once in the US, once in your own country).
If you don't do this, another 30% is deducted from your royalties, so you have got a pretty good incentive to use the proposed workaround. It looks quite horrible (I... have to fill all these forms, call the IRS and enroll on something and maybe be wrong and then get US Tax Ninja fly to my home?) but in the end it's a simple form, and the IRS is pretty friendly after all, at least when you call from abroad with a horrible French accent and you have blatantly no idea what you are talking about.
So Arkedo made between ?1.50 ? 2.00 per Arkedo Series. Approximately 20,000 Arkedo Series were sold on the Indie Games. So we made between ?30K and ?40K. ($40K to $50K USD). Profit!
The Continuation Of The Arkedo Series
The original plan was to create a fourth Arkedo Series title ? 04-SLASH!, but has since been postponed sine die. We want to do it, and will -- there will be soon some news about the Arkedo Series. No new Series yet, but new platforms to play them!
But we are on something else right now, it is taking all our time and mojo, and there is nothing on Earth we would rather do than what we are currently doing (more on this in a year I guess). Hopefully it'll be worth the wait.
The XNA Experience
I'll try and explain why using XNA for a small studio can be a smart move, even if the direct sales first look weak. Because you know, it's important. You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, PEOPLE LOVE YOU.
In a nutshell, it's all about having your studio being noticed by gamers, and help it appear on the industry radar.
Back to the initial statement: The 3 Arkedo Series cost approx $50K altogether to make and XNA sales went approx. $50K combined. Costs and revenue are comparable in this example. So having 3 games on the Xbox, even on the Indie Games section (which must be less than 1% of the general traffic) does help you get noticed. Note that "noticed" does not necessarily mean "liked?, it just means more people will react to your game. Good or bad.
What the REAL winnings were
The first batch of Arkedo Series gave us a chance to:
- Get another paid deal with Microsoft Games Studios for the launch of Windows Phone 7, with OMG - Our Manic Game.
- To convince a very nice Japanese Publisher we could make their new installment for XBLA and PSN (that was pretty awesome, actually) [Ed note: oooo?]
-To convince Intel that the Arkedo Series could be a nice addition to their AppUp platform (basically, an Appstore/Steam for PC notebooks, launching in France next week)
- To seriously consider being ported to PC in general. More in a in a few weeks!
- To seriously consider being ported to PSN, too. More in a in a (small) couple of months! [Ed note: Pasta Games? Pix?n Luv Rush, is currently coming to PSN as a Minis title.]
- To dramatically push our own -quite expensive- XBLA/PSN project. We are now finishing the "first third" phase for this project.
So in a nutshell, what looked like "only" $50K turned out in the end being a few hundred thousand eurodollars in indirect -yet closely related- sales, and built some hype around our current "big" game.
So thank you Indie Games on Xbox, thank you XNA, and more importantly, thank you A LOT to everyone who tried our games. There have been some rather grim times for us in 2009 (this badge was a bitch to get), but the rather consistent flow of incoming love mail we got helped us keep a big smile on our faces and just STFU and go back to work.
I really recommend XNA for everyone. It's simple, it's easy, and it allows you to have a new audience while getting some attention from the industry. It's awesome. As soon as we can resume our Series, we will. Hopefully you'll agree next year that we had to focus almost exclusively on our current "big" project.
Hopefully, a new game by us, done for others, will be revealed shortly now (we are just putting the final touch to the reference build right now, then there are ports planned for XBLA, PSN, and PC).
[Big thanks to Camille for allowing us to repost his information regarding the sales of the Arkedo Series, and wish him the best for the future.]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamerbytes/~3/kIaVEtfRRTc/indepth_arkedo_studios_journey.php
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