<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div>Regretfully, I have to correct that last email from Josh. Those numbers were based on a short skype message I wrote in which I accidentally said "sales" instead of "downloads"! The actual numbers for the first 11 days after release are:</div><div><br></div><div>Downloads: 4992</div><div>Sales: 150</div><div>Conversion rate: 3.0%</div><div><br></div><div>This is pretty depressing. It also doesn't bode well for the WP7 platform that a game can sit at #32 in the "Top" games list, be rated 4.5 stars and still sell less than 10 copies a day. We're still holding out a small amount of hope that the numbers from Microsoft are bogus, or based on partial data!. I'm not certain whether the "Top" list is based on downloads or sales, but I suspect downloads as our position on the list is too static to reflect the
much smaller and more fluctuating sales numbers.</div><div><br></div><div>Here's a couple of brighter points:</div><div><ol><li>Our Mogade stats indicate that up to yesterday we're still seeing over 130 new users every day with over 700 game starts per day. This indicates an advertisement supported version is definitely worth considering.</li><li>Square Off on Xbox Live Indie Games is still selling almost 1000 copies a month at $1 with a conversion rate of about 45%. It also looks like the WP7 version has improved this as the month of May looks to be heading for well over 1000 copies at 60% conversion.</li><li>We're finally going to bite the bullet and target iOS for our next game. I really had high hopes for WP7, but this project has reminded me that Microsoft has a LOT of catching up to do.</li></ol></div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt">Cheers,</div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica,
sans-serif;font-size:10pt">Aranda</div><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt">Gnomic Studios<br><div style="font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Josh Stewart <aek@wn.com.au><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> pigmi@pigmi.org<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Sat, 21 May, 2011 8:52:52 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [PIGMI] Square Off Released to Windows Phone 7 Marketplace<br></font><br>Some other facts (if you like numbers)...<br>We have been tracking time on the project using Kimai, to help determine what everyone in the team will get from the profits.<br>Kimai reports that we have spent 544 man hours to port our existing xbox live game to Windows Phone 7 and ship it.<br><br>Aranda reports that initial sales for the last 18 odd
days is around 5000 units. It sells for $3 in the US and $4 in Australia (MS decide what the regional prices are based on a selected US price). Microsoft takes a 30% cut of sales I believe.<br><br>He also said the conversion rate of trial users to was currently 3% which is pretty bad. We will do a post mortem of the project soon and hopefully release more detailed sales information.<br><br>cheers,<br>Josh<br><br>On 21/05/2011 10:38 AM, Josh Stewart wrote:<br>> Good morning,<br>> I thought you might be interested to know that Gnomic Studios <<a href="http://www.gnomicstudios.com/" target="_blank">http://www.gnomicstudios.com/</a>> released Square Off on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace in the first week of May.<br>> The response from reviewers and also marketplace reviews has been phenomenal.<br>> <br>> * We released the game in 4 languages (with the help of some crowd<br>> sourced
translations)<br>> * We are the 3rd most popular non-xbox live enabled game (the xbox<br>> live enabled titles get a lot more exposure on the marketplace).<br>> * We are ranked as 32nd on the top games list on the platform and<br>> have stayed there.<br>> <br>> *Here is a summary of our marketplace reviews by users*..<br>> <a href="http://wp7reviews.tomverhoeff.com/AppReviews.aspx?id=3a3e5ed5-6570-e011-81d2-78e7d1fa76f8&mp=en-US" target="_blank">http://wp7reviews.tomverhoeff.com/AppReviews.aspx?id=3a3e5ed5-6570-e011-81d2-78e7d1fa76f8&mp=en-US</a> <<a href="http://wp7reviews.tomverhoeff.com/AppReviews.aspx?id=3a3e5ed5-6570-e011-81d2-78e7d1fa76f8&mp=en-US" target="_blank">http://wp7reviews.tomverhoeff.com/AppReviews.aspx?id=3a3e5ed5-6570-e011-81d2-78e7d1fa76f8&mp=en-US</a>><br>> <br>> My favourite is: "Outstanding!!! I was considering
taking my life this morning but this game made me change my mind."<br>> *<br>> Here are some website reviews*:<br>> <a href="http://www.wpcentral.com/square-review" target="_blank">http://www.wpcentral.com/square-review</a><br>> <a href="http://www.bestwp7games.com/square-off-a-fun-dual-stick-shooter-for-windows-phone-7.html" target="_blank">http://www.bestwp7games.com/square-off-a-fun-dual-stick-shooter-for-windows-phone-7.html</a><br>> <a href="http://www.mobiletechworld.com/2011/05/04/square-off-for-windows-phone-7-hands-on-review/" target="_blank">http://www.mobiletechworld.com/2011/05/04/square-off-for-windows-phone-7-hands-on-review/</a><br>> <a href="http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/05/05/game-review-square-off/" target="_blank">http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/05/05/game-review-square-off/</a><br>> <a href="http://dotconn.de/main/news/square-off-review/" target="_blank">http://dotconn.de/main/news/square-off-review/</a><br>>
<br>> Sales data is trickling in, but the conversion rate is exceptionally low, but apparently some of this data takes over 2 months before it is full reconciled from different mobile carriers, so we are holding out hope. We will post some sales data in a month or two once we have more confidence in the results.<br>> <br>> Happy to answer any questions about its development or marketing. Gnomic Studios is now starting work on a new unnamed title for mobile devices, likely to primarily target iPhone.<br>_______________________________________________<br>PIGMI mailing list - <a href="http://pigmi.org/" target="_blank">http://pigmi.org/</a> - <a ymailto="mailto:pigmi@pigmi.org" href="mailto:pigmi@pigmi.org">pigmi@pigmi.org</a><br>Unsubscribe: <a href="http://lists.pigmi.org/listinfo.cgi/pigmi-pigmi.org" target="_blank">http://lists.pigmi.org/listinfo.cgi/pigmi-pigmi.org</a><br></div></div><div style="position:fixed"></div>
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