This year was... weird. It was bittersweet, crazy, successful, painful, happy, sad and... the year of farewells.

This year indeed I've said farewell to my beloved uncle, the person who helped me to become a game developer more than anyone else since I was a kid.

But it was also the year I said farewell to my old car. I know it might seem stupid: but I was somehow attached to it. It was the car I had on my first date. The car I used to go at the office for my first job. Was the car I used when I gave the first passage to my girlfriend, and when I went on my first holiday trip. So many memories, mostly good ones!

I've also said farewell to portals: or at least, to submitting to them. I've come to the conclusion that they get so many submissions that unless you make a perfectly "targeted" game, you won't have any chances. Or you need to be featured on the most popular websites, which is something that seems forbidden to me for reason behind my control. So, from now on, I'll just save my time and take care only of my followers!

How was business in the 2011

On the "business" side, this has been my most successful year ever since I was indie. This month was the best one, despite the various indie bundles, sales, and the crisis. I really hope business will continue like this month, would help me to relax a bit!

Of course, I'm not getting too much excited. Since I know that in a fast paced technology-related business things might change completely in just a few years (or even months). Still it feels good for once not being worried to pay the bills!! :)

It's interesting, if I think back about 2010 which was a rather disappointing year (mainly because of the two Vera Blanc games and Card Sweethearts, the worst-selling games I've ever made!). I was sad and angry because of the various failures, but I still had all my pets and my family members alive. I think this year taught me what really matters in life, not money or success - but love and being loved.

Next Year Goals

I really have big hopes for next year, since I'll release many interesting new games of all kinds (RPGs, dating sim, otome, etc). The only thing I fear honestly, is that I might have to slow down a bit. I am not a machine, and this year for various reasons I was forced to be at home, and since at home I have my computer and internet connection... I worked! I didn't have a SINGLE DAY of holidays. Of course I didn't code or write all the year, but even managing people/sending emails takes lot of time.

And as a consequence I released 5 games in a year, which is something never happened before. I'll try my best, but don't expect 5 games next year! Even if who knows, maybe will still happen.

Happy New Year to everyone!!

In the picture above, an image of my dwarf rabbit Cleo who decided to travel to the rabbits paradise last week, after 9 years with us.

Why low pricing is wrong for niche games

I'm going to talk briefly about my own experience with low prices. I know that as customer, you'd want the games to be cheaper! who wouldn't want that? however, as I gather data from my little price experimentation, it's quite clear that if I was to sell my games for 4.99 I would be bankrupt in less than one year.

Check the pie-graph below:

On top there's the graph for the number of copies sold. Wow, during the promotional week sale, Heileen1 was almost 1/3 of my total games sold!

However, the enthusiasm quickly fades checking the other graph below, showing the net revenues for the same period: Heileen1 is at the 5th place, below other games.

This is even more "dramatic" if we consider that I sent the newsletter, posted in my twitter/facebook page and so on about the promotion. So in practice, the "regular sales" of my other games (the best selling titles though) were generating more revenues that a super-mega sale...!

I like to do sales, since I know that not everyone can afford to buy my games at full price. Obviously, I'm going to wait several months before I do sales of my recent games, but for games that were released 2-3 years ago (Heileen 1 was released in 2008 for example) it's fine.

But the fact is that unless you have a great exposure, a customer base of millions, like the portals have, undercutting your price is never going to work. You'll only lose money, and if you're not careful, forced to find another job! :D

Heileen 2: Hands Of Fate promotional sale

Speaking of promotions, this week I managed to update Heileen 2, which is on sale until next Sunday (included). Below you find a teasing image of Ebele with the new relationship bar added to that game as well. (Sadly Ebele is not dateable in the game, even if there are some spicy situations with her...)

Since I'm using online activation, I decided to offer two kind of downloads: the "standard" game, without voices, which is 45mb, or the fully voiced game that is 100mb. I'm particularly interested to check the statistics after some time, to see how many people prefer the voiced vs unvoiced version, since I'm considering if to make some more voiced games in future or not.

And the various games in progress? they're all still going fine! This week got some sketches for the Roommates game from a new artist, new finished CG scenes for Planet Stronghold: Warzone, new images/texts for Queen Of Thieves and new texts for Heileen3.

I really am not sure which game will be done first, since mostly depends on artists/writers speed, and what kind of gameplay will choose to implement in some of them (I have a few interesting ideas for Queen Of Thieves but must see if is something that I am able to code or not!).