Hi, I''ve read in a lot of articles about the shareware business, that the usual registration rate is about 1 % (that is, from every 100 downloads, you obtain one sell)... how much true is this? Those of you who have already sold games as shareware, could please tell me what registration rates you got for your products (please name both the registration rate and the name of the game)? I''d like to know the opinion on this, from both those who have had successful games in the market, and from those who have had commercial failures. I''d like to know, what the mistake could have been in the latest case... wasn''t the registration rate big enough for your game, or was it just that you didn''t spread it enough as to make a big number of downloads? I''m sure those data will be interesting for a lot of us... --DK --H. Hernán Moraldo http://www.hhm.com.ar/ Sign up to the HHM''s developers'' newsletter.

Basicly no one registers they just get a program such as Serials2k and get the full version that way, the only to stop this is to completely remove portions of the code(so it cant be cracked) and to make people DL the full version, this wont stop it but will limit it...

The best solution is to use only a demo for promotion.
So not at all a game with registration code to get full access
to the game.

Problems are:
Registration code can be given away on the internet. Solution is to use an algorithm, so that every registration code is unique.
Problem is that there are smart people/hackers who see it as a challange to crack this registration system. So on this point there will be always problems. Just like the fact that paying by credit card on the internet isn''t save. There is many credit card frauds in the world.

So the only solution is to give only a demo free on the internet.
And the full version can be bought online. Use for this the online sales system of online distributors. Like credit card automated system, telephone/fax/email orders.

I also use Seials etc, but that wasn''t really the question was it.. when I find a game I like and plan to countinue play I register it.

I thought the question was on "how many ppl do acctually register the games compared to how many dl''s it"...

If I have 1 registered user for every 99 who use serials..I would be a verry happy person, but of those 99 maybe 96 will only play the game twice, and you really can''t ask em to pay for the full version...

that leaves 1 out of 4 people dl:ing & liking the maybe acctually register it...

Make more addictive games and have an online server that requires a unique key (much like Blizzards Bnet) then those who play your games will pay for em.

SoCxNojan , Bnet East & Europe & West 3 fully payed versions of WarCraft2

First off, yes, piracy is a problem. However, it''s not *that* big of a problem.

Secondly, you don''t have to beat pirates. You only have to "beat" Joe Consumer. Most of those may have heard that crack/warez sites exist, but they aren''t "in the know" as to where to find those sites.

Thirdly, if you use registration keys (and I do for one product), make the keys personal. For instance, use the person''s name as the primary key. People are much less likely to give out a key with their name in it.

However, as someone else pointed out, none of this relates to the original question.

With The Journal...I have no clue what the overall downloads-to-payments ratio is. There are too many sites where it can be downloaded from to track them all.

The same applies to Artifact. There are just too many places it can be downloaded to have any chance of knowing about all possible downloads. However, with Artifact, we *can* track the number of accounts create versus the number of accounts paid for. And that was about 1.6% last time I checked. On top of that, though, we have an upgrade rate of about 30%.


DavidRM
Samu Games

quote: Original post by DavidRM
On top of that, though, we have an upgrade rate of about 30%.

Upgrade rate? Do you mean from a previous product? Or users who buy addons?

By "upgrade rate", I mean players who purchase the basic Citizen level, and then upgrade that level at a later date. Upgrading in this context means that the player pays for a higher level of access on the game.

Artifact supports both monthly subscription, and one-time payments. The one-time payments are based on play time available per day. Citizen level is 6 hours per day, Gentry level is 8 hours per day, and so on. So the upgrade rate is the players who paid for Citizen, who later upgraded to a higher level.

Interestingly enough, the upgrade rate tends to recur. Specifically, if Player A buys Citizen, he is 30% likely to buy Gentry. Having bought Gentry level, he is now 30% likely to buy Noble. And so on.

Our old game, Paintball NET, actually had 14 levels of $10 each (all one-time payments), with a payment rate of about 1.5% (or so) and an upgrade rate of 50% that extended across all 14 levels.

The moral of this story? Modularize sales if you can. It''s easier to sell to people who you''ve already sold something to.


DavidRM
Samu Games

By the way, DavidRM, could you tell us approximately how many players registered to Artifact ?

Artifact has ~1500 paying players.

2001 was a pretty slow year. The economic recession hit us pretty hard, but we still grew, just not as fast as the year before. 2002 is looking much better so far, though, it''s really still too early to tell. Q1 2002 is looking better than Q4 2001, though.

Longevity counts in online games more than it does in many other genres or meta-genres of games. If you can survive the first year or two, and you promote the community aspects of the game, that community will carry you forward. It''s a really interesting phenomenon, I think.


DavidRM
Samu Games

DoctorK,

I know you said that you''ve read lots of articles. I just wanted to check to see if you read Steve Pavlina''s articles. He has apparently done quite well as a shareware developer, and is nice enough to explain how he did it.

http://www.dexterity.com/articles/

--TheMuuj