Why is the homebrew scene on the Amiga not as impressive...

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by daxb

I would say it depends on where do you life and how do you life. I would need 100.000 dollar a month to life.

Where do you live then? I'd be happy with 3000 Euros a month after taxes, although I'd rather be a billionaire

[girv]

Originally Posted by TCD

Also girv shared his itch.io income last night on Mastodon: (flithy rich bastard )

TBF that's about four years worth

[phx]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

From what I have witnessed you usually have around 500 to a 1000 buyers (for top titles) on the MD, roughly around the same as you have on the Amiga.

Really? And how many for mediocre titles? These numbers are hard to believe...

I wonder if anybody here wants to share his real sales. I got some sales figures from our distributors in the past, but I didn't keep them. I only remember that the sales for "Trap Runner" were quite low: below 10 or below 20! Also other games, like the Sqrxz series or Solid Gold must have been in the region around 30 copies.

But several hundreds?
I just saw Girv's numbers... wow... what can I say... congratulations!

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

Good point, but:
I have read a nice quote from social media creators somewhere that basically said "you need 10000 people giving you 10 dollars a year to live from it".

I don't see that for someone creating games for the machines in either scene, Amiga or MD.

Ah, for sure, I definitely didn't mean "making a living" kinda figures At least not for game devs - not sure if there are any in the retro scene who could claim that.

Interestingly, some of the Patreon-based core devs from MiSTer, such as Jotego or FPGAzumSpass, well, I think they can.

Originally Posted by TCD

Just had a look at the SegaBits forum that Task mentioned and that doesn't seem very active. Also googled quickly for a MegaDrive/Genesis specific forum and found a subforum of AtariAge () which wasn't very active either.

More people owned a MD than an Amiga and thus the potential for sales is bigger, but it doesn't seem that they are very active.

Could be you're right, mine was just a "laymans thinking" kinda projection.
It's true that I've never seen big console homebrew activity in the forum world, but then I don't really get around that much.

[girv]

I don't know about MD numbers, but I'd be delighted to sell 500 copies of something on Amiga. Congrats to Tigerskunk if he's sold 500 Inviyya!

TBH I have been told a very few top selling titles on Amiga did break 500, though that might partly have been down to being released at a time when there wasn't much else coming out. I don't know about games in the last couple of years.

Roughly:
Dodgy Rocks: 80 (includes PC/Mac though) + 15 Amiga physical
Turbo Tomato: 90 + maybe 120 physical and 30 digital outside itchio
Turbo Santa: 75 (PWYW)
Rogue Declan: 140 (PWYW)

I guess I should stop making such mediocre games

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

It's true that I've never seen big console homebrew activity in the forum world, but then I don't really get around that much.

Same here Would be great if Tsak could link to the thread on SegaBits.

I started a very non-representative 'survey' about which retro 16-bit system people still buy games for and will have results in three days. I'm also curious if there's really a 'stronger' and a 'weaker' market for any of the systems (first results show that one of my options gets significantly less and another a bit more votes).

@girv
Thank you for sharing those numbers I'll add them to the HOL entries tomorrow.

[girv]

Originally Posted by nobody

Maybe because making Amiga games is too complicated?

It's probably easier than making a MD game.

[DisasterIncarna]

unless some people are aware of the likes of itch.io as an online store for new games for c64/amiga/etc etc then its probably because we have no native program/application to inform users that new stuff even exists to buy, some amazing new release can drop and hardly anybody knows about it.

we have igame and the likes to play old whdload titles and the likes but nothing really to inform us of new stuff unless you start dredging the net for sites you were unaware of and many might even assume there is nothing new.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by phx

Really? And how many for mediocre titles? These numbers are hard to believe...

I wonder if anybody here wants to share his real sales. I got some sales figures from our distributors in the past, but I didn't keep them. I only remember that the sales for "Trap Runner" were quite low: below 10 or below 20! Also other games, like the Sqrxz series or Solid Gold must have been in the region around 30 copies.

But several hundreds?
I just saw Girv's numbers... wow... what can I say... congratulations!

Trap Runner and Solid Gold are such great games! I know you put them out for free so I was wondering if you had download statistics for them as that might give more of a feel of the market size? I remember seeing on here that Turrican 2 AGA had over 6500 downloads so that might be near the upper range of the market.

[UltraNarwhal]

Downloads & sales (digital only) for Duckstroma are

Amiga
-160 paid for full version
-1064 downloaded demo
ZX (PWYW)
-1940 downloaded
MSX (PWYW)
-1345 downloaded
NES (Prototype)
-1728 downloaded

[TCD]

Thank you for those numbers UltraNarwhal

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

My impression is I am seeing a lot more effort for games with higher and original quality assets on the MD.

Yes I also mentioned that. The quality and overall effort is indeed quite higher on Mega Drive.

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

If we are subtracting all that stuff on the Amiga that is just some ripped arcade gfx being put into Scorpion and never heard of again after announced on IRN, the real amount of games that are being released is not that much bigger than it was 4 years ago.

Not that much bigger indeed, however I think the quality is definitely improving. F.e. in 2018 we had around 14 (!) Backbone games released. The fact that nowadays Backbone (which -imho- counts as an automatic quality 'handicap', regardless of actual developer effort) is almost completely out of the picture is already a major improvement in the scene

Originally Posted by Tigerskunk

What I don't get is that "you can make much more money on the MD" thing. From what I have witnessed you usually have around 500 to a 1000 buyers (for top titles) on the MD, roughly around the same as you have on the Amiga.

Demon Claw had 1300 buyers, as seen on its Kickstarter. And Neofid is probably the most well known team in that scene after Demons of Asteborg and Astebros.

So, we have 30% more there. That's not what I would classify as a "do or don't" difference.

Well, you have to first take into account the amount of money people are willing to spend. I.e. the vast majority of Mega Drive backers with Daemon Claw (more than 1000 individuals) got the 50$ physical version. And these are sales from people actually backing the Kickstarter (with whatever risks this entails). So there's naturally an even bigger amount of expected sales on the same platform after the game is released.

Other than that and for the complete picture you also need to consider the actual financial reality in the broader game-dev world. Check this quote :
"At the bottom 25% of games released, they make less than $300. The median income for indie games is slightly under $3,800. The top 25% of games will make around $35,000."

And here's f.e. Steam analytics : https://vginsights.com/steam-analytics

See the 'Revenue Distribution' graph:
-75% of releases makes less than 5.000$
-6% makes 5-10k
-10% makes 10-50k
etc.

Note that these numbers are game sales revenue, not what each dev actually gets (f.e. in a team this amount would still be divided). So given f.e. that Daemon Claw got funded with over 147.000$, places it easily into the top 25% (even after expenses are reduced). Most of the other Mega Drive Kickstarter funded titles I've seen, easily range at around 60k as well (which is what Daemon Claw also roughly got from Mega Drive sales only if you reduce the other versions included).

Originally Posted by TCD

Just had a look at the SegaBits forum that Task

Lol... can't blame you though. Amiga Bill used to call me 'Task' for 3 years straight before he got it right

Originally Posted by TCD

...mentioned and that doesn't seem very active. Also googled quickly for a MegaDrive/Genesis specific forum and found a subforum of AtariAge () which wasn't very active either.

More people owned a MD than an Amiga and thus the potential for sales is bigger, but it doesn't seem that they are very active.

Yeah, that blows my mind as well. No matter how hard I tried I haven't been able to find much activity on forums or socials either.

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by TCD

Same here Would be great if Tsak could link to the thread on SegaBits.

Sure, here it is : https://segabits.com/forums/index.php?topic=3890.0

Oh and in regards to sales here's how many copies Worthy has sold so far:

334 Physical
539 Digital
------------
873 Total

Afaik there were several extra copies sold to events and conventions (unaccounted for), so the real number might be closer to 900.

[saimon69]

Giving a look at the chart it looks like (and, by the way, it feels like from my point of view that i work in) doing games - indie and retro - is a hard business: lot of competition, lot of effort, sometimes little payback; is much more for the passion than the wallet, that is one of the reason devs feels personally invested

[saimo]

Originally Posted by phx

I wonder if anybody here wants to share his real sales

No problem (already did it in the past somewhere)

Here are my itch.io numbers:

                  game | views | downloads | revenue | payments
-----------------------+-------+-----------+---------+----------
               ArtPazz |  3728 |      1561 |      93 |       19
                Follix |  2912 |      1258 |     100 |       24
                  MeMO |  4994 |      1439 |       0 |        0
 Ring around the World |  5590 |      2074 |      17 |        6
             SkillGrid | 12509 |      4172 |    1063 |      118

Notes:
* revenue is in USD and is gross, i.e. it includes the itch.io cut (10%), VAT (> 20%) and local taxes (> 20%); on top of that, there are also the USD->EUR conversion fees applied by PayPal (I guess the total net revenue was around 600 EUR);
* I have updated all the games several times and all the games are available in several formats, so the number of views and downloads is inflated;
* for more than 1.5 years I made the games available without the possibility of paying (I was asking to offer help to somebody else, instead), so the sales have been affected by that;
* Ring around the World has been released precisely during that 1.5 years period, so its sales have been particularly affected;
* I'm not sure about the number of physical copies of SkillGrid sold (by RGCD), but, if I remember correctly, the production run was of 300 units and the game eventually sold out.

Edit: typo

[phx]

Originally Posted by TCD

More people owned a MD than an Amiga

That's surprising to me. Maybe in the US, or in the whole world? In the 80s and 90s so many friends had Amigas, but I have never seen a Megadrive. I noticed some people were buying Playstation 1 and NES - but Megadrive...?

Originally Posted by lionagony

I know you put them out for free so I was wondering if you had download statistics for them as that might give more of a feel of the market size?

Unfortunately not. Downloads are also spread over multiple sites.
But indeed, offering the games for free download probably didn't improve sales. We didn't care, because we make games for fun and not for money, but I feel sad for our distributors...

[Samurai_Crow]

Back in '98 I recommended a complete rewrite of Graphics.library such that hardware banging wouldn't be as necessary. Custom Copper lists would have benefitted from sortable nodes, sprites would have had blitter support and the only part missing would have been the x-mirror function in the blitter.

The main idea was not having to reinvent the wheel every time somebody wanted to invent a new game. That's where Amiga falls flat.

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

Back in '98 I recommended a complete rewrite of Graphics.library such that hardware banging wouldn't be as necessary. Custom Copper lists would have benefitted from sortable nodes, sprites would have had blitter support and the only part missing would have been the x-mirror function in the blitter.

The main idea was not having to reinvent the wheel every time somebody wanted to invent a new game. That's where Amiga falls flat.

Commodore and various vendors were planning for this in the early 90's. That's what the ROM socket was for on all of the RTG boards produced during that time. The idea being that whatever functions that were required at boot time could be autoconfigured for whatever graphics.library that was in ROM.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by phx

That's surprising to me. Maybe in the US, or in the whole world? In the 80s and 90s so many friends had Amigas, but I have never seen a Megadrive. I noticed some people were buying Playstation 1 and NES - but Megadrive...?

The MegaDrive/Genesis sold between 30 and 40 million units worldwide. So even when using the most optimistic Amiga unit sale numbers that's about 3-4 times more than the Amiga sold.

[GWhizz]

The key is the difficulty factor and time, many games were programmed for the c-64 by small teams sometimes only one major programmer the Amiga was a different story dev times and teams stretched. How many people can see a multi-year time intensive project through in their spare time?