Author Topic: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.  (Read 26744 times)

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2014, 07:12:08 pm »

During the 8 hours of our flash sale, we made more per hour than we have at any other time in the history of Arcen -- even more than in 2011 when AI War was a huge featured sale on Steam.  Overall, about 12% of our total income for TLF has come in that 8 hour period of the flash sale, and that's including all 10 weeks on Steam, Humble, GOG, and everywhere else.  TLF is closing in on half a million dollars gross in only 10 weeks, so that is... quite something.

How did this affect our other games?  Not much, I don't think.  Maybe a tad.  During the launch discount period of TLF our sales of our other games went up substantially without them being on discount.  But during the flash sale that is not the case that I noticed.  I think people are waiting to see if they go on flash sale, perhaps.  Or at any rate they are not digging into the publisher info as much, perhaps.

Overall our sales volume during the flash sale went up over 900% compared to the baseline rate of sales that we'd seen thus far during the steam sale.  Definitely was an enormous, enormous win for us.

Wow... 12% of your entire income since release in such a short time is huge... I mean yeah, it puts you in the most prominent section of the entire sale for 8 hours or so, but wow.. I never expected that to have such a large impact  :o

Is the selection for this random and/or do you get informed beforehand?

Either way, does that mean you now broke even on TLF production costs? Because that would be neat, since I am kinda hoping/waiting for that 4x and the more money you can throw at it the better it will become. :P
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Offline x4000

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #16 on: June 29, 2014, 08:07:45 pm »
Wow... 12% of your entire income since release in such a short time is huge... I mean yeah, it puts you in the most prominent section of the entire sale for 8 hours or so, but wow.. I never expected that to have such a large impact  :o

Yeah, given how phenomenally this game has sold, I had no idea it would be that huge here, either.  None of us had an expectation that it would be this prominent.

Is the selection for this random and/or do you get informed beforehand?

I probably shouldn't answer that because of NDA, I wish I could.  :-\

Either way, does that mean you now broke even on TLF production costs? Because that would be neat, since I am kinda hoping/waiting for that 4x and the more money you can throw at it the better it will become. :P

Yep!  I had not tallied up everything recently, not since last payroll, and I was projecting us at 93% to break-even at that point, conservatively ignoring some stuff.  Erik ran some more accurate numbers this morning, looking at all vendors and also including the last couple of days.  As of this morning we were at 120% of break-even for this title, including the cost of the first expansion.  So that's pretty sweet. :)

At this stage we basically have enough money to go full-force until next April on the 4X, which is very exciting and a nice change of pace from always being a few months from doom.  And of course that "until next April" is assuming $0 earned from this morning until forever, which of course is false.  But, being conservative fiscally, that's how I like to look at it since future earnings are so unpredictable.

For once things are actually going our way! :)  Even back in the history of AI War, we were always fighting to have enough money to finish this or that project.  This is literally the first time in the history of Arcen where that hasn't been the case.  Now it's our game to lose, of course, so we can't get complacent or anything.
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Offline Coppermantis

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #17 on: June 29, 2014, 09:00:43 pm »

Is the selection for this random and/or do you get informed beforehand?


I don't know if this is the case with Arcen, but one of the developers for Long Live the Queen mentioned that they get some say in how much a game will get discounted if it does, but it's ultimately up to Valve to decide who gets put into the flash, community, and daily sales.
I can already tell this is going to be a roller coaster ride of disappointment.

Offline x4000

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #18 on: June 29, 2014, 09:40:38 pm »
We always have a hand in saying how much a discount will be if something of ours is on discount anywhere. We may or may not be the ones to suggest the amount depending on the distributor and the specific sale, but we always have mutual final approval over it with the distributor. Very rarely do we have disputes with anyone about proposed discounts, and those are are always quickly and amicably resolved.
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #19 on: June 29, 2014, 10:52:08 pm »
I don't know if this is the case with Arcen, but one of the developers for Long Live the Queen mentioned that they get some say in how much a game will get discounted if it does, but it's ultimately up to Valve to decide who gets put into the flash, community, and daily sales.

Reminds me that I saw some game in the "this sale lasts the whole 10 days" category that was at 90% off.  The base price was $2.99.

Yeah.  It was 29 cents during the sale (well, still is) and I am not sure it's even worth that much...

Offline nas1m

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #20 on: June 30, 2014, 01:56:23 am »
As of this morning we were at 120% of break-even for this title, including the cost of the first expansion.  So that's pretty sweet. :)
Huzzah :)!

For once things are actually going our way! :)  Even back in the history of AI War, we were always fighting to have enough money to finish this or that project.  This is literally the first time in the history of Arcen where that hasn't been the case.  Now it's our game to lose, of course, so we can't get complacent or anything.
My heartfelt congratulations :). I am really glad this is such a hit :D!
« Last Edit: June 30, 2014, 02:15:10 am by nas1m »
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Offline x4000

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #21 on: June 30, 2014, 09:12:12 am »
Thank you so very much!  We are super jazzed about what that means for us, for The Last Federation itself, and also for Spectral Empire. :)
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Offline mrhanman

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #22 on: June 30, 2014, 12:27:11 pm »
That's great news!  I'm sure it's a welcome relief, and you guys definitely deserve it.  I can't wait to see what you come up with next!

Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #23 on: July 02, 2014, 10:31:39 am »
Great! If any company deserved a break financially, it's you guys.

Offline Drjones013

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #24 on: July 24, 2014, 02:33:26 pm »
Go Team Arcen! Really looking forward to seeing what you put out next!

I'd be really interested to hear about any cattle calls you do for voice acting, should situations like that come up in the future. I've been doing voice acting for the Fallout 3 modding community and have also done some story writing there as well (the rewrite, not the current storyline).

For those of you who play FO3, MERC 2 was set back due to lightning strikes, lost hard drives, and my disastrous car accident (and the jeep survived). We're hoping to release relatively soon.

Offline x4000

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #25 on: July 24, 2014, 04:21:01 pm »
If you're a voice actor, definitely send us your reel or similar!  It always varies what kinds of voices we need for various roles, and I'd like to start getting a wider roster of actors per project rather than typically having just one like we have been doing.
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Offline Drjones013

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #26 on: July 24, 2014, 08:32:13 pm »
If you're a voice actor, definitely send us your reel or similar!

I'll send you out something when I get a chance. I'm trying to get things prepared to qualify for substitute teaching and the week has been a bit hectic.

Offline x4000

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #27 on: July 24, 2014, 08:35:37 pm »
Not a problem, I don't have anything imminently coming up anyhow.  Sometime in the next few months is fine. :)  Good luck with your subbing quals!
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Offline Drjones013

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #28 on: August 18, 2014, 11:44:07 pm »
OOookay, sorry it's taken me so long to get back. I found out it's going to be *difficult* (read: can not do right now) to adapt the recording devices that survived to my new laptop and the old recording devices died with the old one.

I can send a demo reel but it'll be on a headset mike until I can get the equipment replaced, is that alright?

Offline x4000

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Re: Some numbers about a few Arcen projects in the past year.
« Reply #29 on: August 19, 2014, 08:09:35 am »
No worries at all, there's no particular rush.  Right now I'm doing a bit of voice work myself, anyhow.
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