How many games do you want to sell for developers to earn money?

How many games do you want to sell for developers to earn money?

3:04 AM

How many games do you want to sell for developers to earn money?


The above three sentences are from the first month of the "Women's Battle Flag" production team. Connecting them will have some wonderful contrast: the production team has no money, and it has not yet made a profit, but in the independent developers, it is good.

In the domestic games of the past two months, the market feedback of "The Flag of the Virgin" is really good.






In the first week of the game, the game was ranked second in the Steam Country's “Hot Sale” and once led the “Jesus Survival” on the list, second only to “Comprehensive War: Three Kingdoms”; currently there are more than 2,100 players. Evaluation, the overall favorable rate of 86%, the recent favorable rate is 96%. In the games produced by domestic small and medium-sized developers, the popularity, exposure, and praise of "The Flag of the Virgin" is at the forefront.

Last month, there was another domestic game that attracted much attention, which was "hardcore mech". The game is also available for sale for a month. The PS4 version won the first best-selling list of PSN Daywear. The Steam version currently has nearly 1400 reviews, with a favorable rate of 81%. But a few days ago, the production team was interviewed by the media, talking about the current sales of the game, saying that the distance can let them live well, "still far away."

"The Virgin Battle Flag" and "Hard Core Mech" are all on the line for about one month. From the number of Steam evaluations, they are all concerned by the players. The current favorable rate is over 80%. In the independent game, it is quite good. But they also suffered from profit and survival problems at the same time.

This question is not only about the cost of the game development, but also about the most basic calculation: a game that sells 68 yuan, and finally how much is the developer's hand?

We contacted many domestic manufacturers or developers including the above two production groups, and we hope to clarify this issue on the specific situation of each Steam domestic game.

In terms of pricing, the price of Steam domestic games is generally divided into several files, such as 18, 36, 58, 68, 98 yuan. This is the official price suggested by Steam. Among them, 68 yuan is a relatively common price. The "Saint Virgin Flag" belongs to this file. The "hardcore mech" is higher, and the national price is 80 yuan.

Last year, domestic games ushered in a small explosion on Steam and a few heads sold several million products, becoming a phenomenal product. However, this year's market is generally worse. There are only a few hundred thousand of them, and there are still a lot of people who can't go up.

We are optimistic here, and we calculate it based on 100,000 sales. The price of 68 yuan, multiplied by 100,000, the result is 6.8 million yuan. This is a considerable amount for the player. So many players will imagine, "The developers have already made a lot of money."

But in the eyes of developers, this figure is hard to represent their actual income. After the game of 68 yuan is sold, it will inevitably be like a cake, and it will be difficult to ignore. In the end, likely, even the team will not be able to live.

Platform share and publisher share

There are two maximum heads, one is the platform share, 30%; the other is the publisher share if the game has a publisher.

More and more players already know that Steam has a 30% platform share. This year, EPIC has been criticizing the criticism of Steam's high share, and it has taken a 12% ratio. However, EPIC has not become the developer's first choice for the time being. Another PC platform that the domestic small and medium-sized team chooses more is Tencent WeGame. According to the official WeGame news, the platform is also divided into 30%.

In general, platform sharing is a top priority. Steam will take 30% first, and the publisher will extract its share from the remaining 70%. But some publishers cut the total sales, not the revenue after Steam is drawn.



If only the calculation platform is drawn, then 68 yuan will be deducted by 30%, which is 47.6 yuan. If a game has a publisher, the remaining 40 yuan will be given to developers and publishers.

Because the small and medium-sized teams themselves are very nervous in developing games, they have no energy or the ability to make their announcements. The main significance of the publishers is to help them to promote and promote the game. The division is generally divided into 37 according to industry practice. , 46 divided, 55 divided, and so on. But the specifics, but also depends on how to talk about development and distribution, not necessarily following the usual practice.

If the calculation is divided into relatively low 55 after the platform takes 30%, the publisher will take half of the remaining 70%, and 68 yuan will have 23.8 yuan; if it is 37, it will be 49%, which is 33.32. yuan.

So, can developers get at least 23.8 yuan from a 68 yuan game?

Easy to ignore discounts

So far, we have not considered a very critical factor in the The steam platform, discounts.

The impact of G's fat smile on the developer's income cannot be ignored. A $68 game, the average price of the life cycle often does not reach this amount. Only the strongest, never discounted games, the developer's amount range is between 23.8~47.6 yuan. We have not found such an example in domestic games for the time being.

Take the "Women's Battle Flag" as an example. The game is sold for one month. Most of the sales are concentrated on the first discount, which is about 90% of the original price, and 61 yuan. Then all the above divisions are more accurate according to the base of 61 yuan. If they are divided into 55s with the publisher, the actual range is 21.35~29.89 yuan.



The same issue of the "hardcore armor" for one month, although the price is 80, the initial discount is 85% of the original price, 68 yuan. In general, a large portion of the game's sales will be concentrated in the first month, while the first month sales are concentrated on the first discount.

Another example, Passia, the developer of Persia Time, is a relatively old-fashioned domestic developer who can calculate the impact of Steam discounts on revenue over a longer period. According to their statistics, after taking part in the daily and holiday promotion, they often need to reduce the platform and tax deduction by 25%~30%.

This ratio is not too small and cannot be ignored. However, due to the different discounts of various manufacturers, discounts at the right time will also increase game sales. Discounts do not mean an absolute reduction in total game revenue, but only affect the income of a single game.

Steam has chosen not to disclose or share behind the door for many platform data. However, the domestic WeGame has previously disclosed some discount data, which can be used as a reference.

At present, the domestic single-player games on WeGame account for more than 50%; nearly 70% of the players have only bought games below 60 yuan; and after the game is online for 1-3 months, the promotion can still, drive sales; 5~6 percent is The optimal discount scheme for running water; also, WeGame itself has certain support for the games that participate in discount sales, and will make up a certain discount.

In other words, domestic games below 60 yuan, playing 5 to 6 fold, not counting platform support, selling in the 30-36 yuan range, is likely to be the majority of WeGame sales. Combining this data and information, we can also roughly estimate the impact of discounts on the revenue of a single game.

Complex withholding income tax

The other is the same as the discount, which can be inferred based on the total income, but it is difficult to accurately count the expenditure, that is, the “withholding income tax”. This tax does not exist on domestic platforms such as WeGame, but it is a must on overseas platforms such as Steam.

This is actually a top priority, which is the same as the platform share and is also based on a certain percentage of the game pricing, up to 30%.

But for domestic developers, the final result is certainly not as much as 30%, but it will not be at all.

Steam provides a very convenient set of services, as long as you follow the process, they will help you prove your non-US citizenship to the US Taxation Office, you can get a tax rate reduction. At the same time, because the meaning of withholding income tax is to avoid tax evasion, some countries' withholding tax can apply for tax reduction or refund in the country to avoid double taxation.

In a specific example, Pasiya chose to apply in the country and withdraw some of the withholding tax. From the results of their comprehensive calculations, the final withholding tax will account for 6% of the total income.

That is to say before the distributors are divided, their income must calculate 30% of the platform, 6% of the withholding tax, and then deduct 20% of the discount, leaving about 51.2% of the original income, less than 50%.

But this can't be regarded as 51.2% of 68 yuan. It is based on total income and is affected by different pricing in different countries. Another example is the "Taiwu Painted Scrolls" developer, who has not been able to apply for a 10% withholding income tax in the United States. This is another situation. These circumstances have made it difficult for us to accurately calculate how much the withholding tax has been cut off by 68 yuan.

Therefore, we do not temporarily include the withholding tax income in the calculation of 68 yuan, but we need to remember its existence. It will be divided into the same platform, deducting a certain percentage of revenue based on game pricing.

“Every time you sell one, the production team’s income is less than 30 yuan.”

Although withholding income tax will reduce game revenue, higher overseas pricing will make the income higher. However, the more the game is sold in the country, the smaller the impact of these two variables will be. For many domestic games, sales in the region are indeed the main ones.

The average annual discount for the game depends largely on whether there is a starting discount. Starting a 20% discount, the final average is likely to be similar to a 15% discount, starting 30% off, then the average annual result may be close to 8 fold. And if there is no first-time discount, it may only be 10% off on average.

Only overseas publishers, although it has been on sale for 2 years have only played a 25% discount on the first discount and 20% off twice. Holiday promotions and two 50% off holiday promotions, and developers said that sales growth is not obvious. This means that the game's single income in the country, only need to consider the platform draw and withholding income tax.

If a 68-yuan price game is similar, the single-player production is mainly based on sales in the national area, and the discount is very small. Even with the 10% withholding income tax, the income of a single person can reach 68*70. % (platform draw) * 90% (withholding income tax) = 42.84 yuan, has been relatively high.

But if we assume a relatively extreme situation: a game with a price of 68 yuan is sold in the national area. In one year, its average discount is higher, at a discount of 20%.

Then we will exclude some variables, we can make an inaccurate but simple result reference: 68 yuan to the end, the developer will get 68 × 70% (platform draw) × 80% (discount) × 50% (publisher Pumped into) = 19.04 yuan; if the publisher is divided into 37, it is about 26.656 yuan.

Based on the above assumptions, a 68-yuan game only needs to find a publisher to distribute the product. The actual income that the developer may eventually receive is generally between 19.04 and 26.656 yuan, and at least 20 yuan.

For all developers, the 68 yuan game will generally get the the money between 19.04~47.6 yuan, up to 40 yuan, depending on the number of games, publishers, publishers, etc. What is the discount rate? We calculated a the relatively extreme result, and the choice of the developer and the quality of the game itself will bring many variables to the result.

There is a publisher of "The Flag of the Virgin", and the production team also concluded in the one-month announcement that the game "every sale, the production team can get less than 30 yuan (there will be fewer discounts and Steam splits) "This result conforms to the above range."

In addition to platform sharing, withholding income tax, issuer share, discounts, national pricing, game developers' income on Steam, but also take into account the additional components of the original the soundtrack, Steam cards, etc., will allow the value to grow; and some low-cost areas Retail Key will lower this value. But these are different for specific games and it is harder to count.

Game development costs for small and medium teams

So, what is the development cost of domestic small and medium team games?

3A game development costs are tens of millions, the the development cost of small and medium games is not so high, but the big head is also in manpower, and the unit cost of manpower is not low. Although the number of teams is small, the development cycle is often long, and the number of people, × salary × development cycle is not a small amount.

Based on a developer's monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, a a small team of 5 people develops a year of games, which seems to require only 600,000. Almost no five-person team can compress this amount, a legitimate company if you give employees 10,000 pre-tax salaries, the company's expenditure cost is generally 15,000 (and the employee is about 8,000), so Light manpower requires nearly 900,000 costs.

In addition to manpower, it also requires outsourcing and authorization, company operations (office space/software fees/hydropower fees, etc.), as well as company registration and corporate tax fees. Taking the screw boat as an example, including corporate income tax, they still have to pay up to 30% of various domestic taxes, which will cut a large chunk of the original income.

In the end, the team of five people can control the cost below 1 million per year, which is very optimistic. But this refers to the start-up team. For more mature teams, they must also look for more compression costs. In addition to throttling, it is also open source. On the one hand, it is to invest by itself, on the other hand, it is to find platform support. For example, the host platform has Xbox ID@Xbox, PlayStation's China Star, and the PC platform has WeGame's wing plan. All aspects of incubation and distribution will help domestic developers.

As far as the "Saint Virgin Flag" is concerned, the production team has to consider the complexity of the production of the game of chess. The role of the war game and the number of arms and the length of the process have certain requirements; the type is relatively mature, but the system and style that the player likes are very different, and it is also a production problem. Therefore, the team has more than 10 people, and the development has been more than 2 years, and the total cost has reached 5 million.

The Rocket Boxing of the developer of Hardcore Mech was less then 10 at the time of the start-up, but as the project progressed, the team expanded to the current 27, and the game development has been 3 and a half years; "Possia Time" has a 30 The development team of around people has a game development cost of 10 million.

From the actual situation, the game development cost of the team of more than 5 people will note below, and the team of 5 people or less is very different. We sometimes hear that a team of fewer than 5 people, or even a a single-player game has become popular, but its success is often difficult to replicate and difficult to form a reference.

Even assuming that a game costs only 1 million, the game is priced at 68 yuan, which does not mean that 15,000 sets can be recovered.

According to the previous estimation, if you don’t find a publisher, you can sell the game on your own, and a game that sells 68 yuan earns 40, which probably requires 25,000 sets; if it is more realistic, choose and publisher. Cooperation, one earns only about 20, then in the relatively extreme case, they need to sell more than 50,000 sets to return.

So, how many domestic games have sold more than 50,000 sets?

Now we can't know the exact sales of the game through SteamSpy. But in July last year, Steam leaked 13,281 game data, which is more accurate than SteamSpy, but it is a bit outdated now. At that time, there were 2,625 games on Steam with more than 50,000 units, less than 20% of the leaked data, in line with the 28th law.

And how many of these domestic games are there? At that time, there were a total of about 100 domestic games in the data, of which 20% and 20 were sales of more than 50,000.

It’s just a year now, not just the above-mentioned games. In the past year, many works have emerged, many of which have exceeded 50,000 sales, which has changed the data. And this is just the data of a platform on Steam, but now, it is normal for a paid game to land on multiple platforms.

In the past year, overseas independent developers have shared a large number of “games on the NS, sales have skyrocketed” examples, a a large part of the reason is that small-volume games and Switch portability, seamless switching characteristics naturally match, Better than other platforms, so sales have improved significantly.

There are relatively few NS cases that can be shared in China, but from the sales of some domestic games that land on WeGame, because of the platform support, they can play lower discounts and their promotion the effect may be much higher than our imagination. It is understood that many domestic games WeGame sales can basically be the same as Steam.

There are also a few cases that go far beyond Steam, such as a product called "Happy Brothers". Steam players may not be very familiar, because it's Steam sales are only a few thousand, and WeGame sales reached 140,000, only recently It sold 80,000 copies during the summer promotion period.

This is a multiplayer online game, which is promoted at a very low price during the summer promotion period, but the total revenue generated in a week, according to the developer, is definitely greater than “if we don’t get a discount on the total income for the whole year” At the same time, although Steam does not allow 4 people to sell, "Happy Brothers" can support 4 people package on WeGame, online type + four people package + second price, combined to attract the audience. Therefore, in addition to Steam and other overseas platforms, if developers choose to base themselves on the domestic market, choose some promotion forms that are more suitable for domestic players, and also have the opportunity to get better results.

In general, pricing and sales are two-fold. Although the developer's income in a single price is not so high, in terms of sales, it can be promoted by appropriate discounts, and more opportunities can be found on more platforms. Therefore, how much money can be obtained in a single game is only one of the references for the developer's income. In the end, the game with a single purchase of 20 yuan may also have higher sales.

What we want to say is that in many cases, there is no pricing × sales is so simple and ideal. If you look at the coldest data, whether it is 20 yuan for a single game or 40 yuan for a single game, it is not as glamorous as it is. Things are hard after all, and the level of difficulty for each team may be different, but it is difficult. But even if it is difficult, we can see it with the naked eye. The praise rate of many games proves that there are more and more good works. As the "Women's Battle Flag" concludes in the first month of the summary:

"Although I have said so many difficult things, we are still quite optimistic about the future.

When we first started production two years ago, we didn't think that the domestic stand-alone market could develop into what it is today, and more and more players are willing to pay to buy games.

This gives us hope for the future. ”



About

This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.

Next
« Prev Post
Previous
Next Post »

ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon

:)
:(
=(
^_^
:D
=D
=)D
|o|
@@,
;)
:-bd
:-d
:p
:ng
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)