Mobile and PC are not the best platforms for publishing indie games today. This conclusion can be drawn from the speech of the president of Capybara Games Nathan Vella (Nathan Vella) at Gaming Insiders last week.
However, Vell’s main thesis was different. The author of such games as Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP and Super Time Force Ultra spoke about the need to be present on the maximum number of platforms. In favor of this thesis, he shared not only the sales figures of his games, but also the data of colleagues from other companies.
However, the figures released in 2011 by Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP do not raise any special questions. The project then made a lot of noise on iOS.
Distribution of Superbrothers Revenue: Sword & Sworcery EP by Platform
The same is true with respect to the Broken Age indicators from Double Fine Productions, whose main merit is to popularize the Kickstarter platform, and not at all to create a cute, but lacking adventure stars.
Although, it is curious here that, it would seem, such platforms that are not popular for independent game developers as PlayStation 4/Vita/Mac accounted for almost a quarter of revenues.
Broken Age revenue distribution by platform
We were most surprised by something else.
Firstly, the fact that most of the money Super Time Force Ultra earned from consoles (via SteamSpy). Classic indie on Steam, popular for such games, received only 19% of all revenue. This is despite the fact that the game has a good 85 thousand installations on the Valve platform.
Distribution of Super Time Force Ultra revenue across platforms
Secondly, I was surprised by the fact that the Shovel Knight platformer from Yacht Club Games earned almost as much on Nintendo 3DS as on Steam, where the number of copies of the game sold was about 270 thousand users (via SteamSpy).
Wii U accounted for another 20% of total sales.
Shovel Knight revenue distribution by Platform
Vella also pointed out the following important point: while prices for games on Steam are traditionally low, plus, its users are used to sales, prices for digital games are growing on consoles and users do not grumble about it.
As for mobile, making games for this platform, according to Vell, is very difficult for independent teams.
A source: http://venturebeat.com
You will be able to learn about the latest trends in the gaming industry first-hand, personally meet and discuss working issues with leading companies in the game development and publishing market at White Nights Moscow 2015, which will be held on October 13-14.