Skip to Content
 

What's considered a good # units sold?

11 replies [Last post]
Anonymous

For the big game producers (eg Rio Grande, Mayfair, etc), what constitues a successful game, and what's typical? How many copies of Puerto Rico or E&T have been sold total? Just curious.

FastLearner
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
What's considered a good # units sold?

For Euro/Designer games, here's some interesting information that's about a year old:

http://www.spielboy.com/printrun.php

Anonymous
What's considered a good # units sold?

Wow! Those are better than I expected. 10 million SoC!

simon
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
What's considered a good # units sold?

I'd say those numbers are a bit skewed. The official website for Settlers of Catan, for instance, claims it's worldwide sales at over three million. And while ten million is obviously "over three million", if their sales were that high, I'm sure they'd be saying something about it.

Still, three million is a pretty impressive number.

FastLearner
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
What's considered a good # units sold?

That's the official site for the Settlers of Canaan. one of the religious-themed offshoots of Catan.

The number on Spielboy states that the 10 million is "Basic plus all expansions; all languages" -- we have no idea what the Canaan people were talking about, nor what date the intro text was written. The Spielboy numbers would include Canaan, for instance, as well as the 5-6 player expansion, plus Seafarers, Knights & Cities, Starfarers, the 5-6 player expansions for them, the card game, Nuremburg, etc.

Obviously I don't know the validity of either claim, but I wanted to note that the two numbers probably aren't talking about the same thing.

-- Matthew

Anonymous
What's considered a good # units sold?

And I have to ask...What can the designer of these games expect for his/her "cut"? Are they typically paid flat fee or royalties? This is obviously too broad to answer generically, but if you know of any specific examples, I'd love to hear them.

zaiga
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
What's considered a good # units sold?

The designer usually gets around 5% of the wholesale price. The wholesale price is around 50% of the retail price. So, if your game would sell for $20 in the shop, the wholesale price is around $10, which means you would get 50 cents per game sold. A typical "euro" game sells around 10,000 copies (if reasonably succesful), so you'll make $5,000 for a single published design.

Of course, these are all just estimates and averages. There are many different types of contracts possible and print run sizes can vary greatly, but this will give you an idea. It is hard to make a living designing games, but it's nice to do on the side.

- Rene Wiersma

simon
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
What's considered a good # units sold?

Wow.

Talk about a bad way to introduce myself. Half asleep, and I put my foot in my mouth already. *grin*

Well... that's one way to get things started.

phpbbadmin
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2013
Although

simon wrote:
Wow.

Talk about a bad way to introduce myself. Half asleep, and I put my foot in my mouth already. *grin*

Well... that's one way to get things started.

You were looking the Settlers of Canaan website, however it *was* referring to sales for Settlers of Catan. Here is the direct quote:

Quote:

Settlers of Canaan™ is based on the award winning game design by Klaus Teuber for Settlers of Catan® that was Game of the Year in Germany (1995) and Origins Board Game of the Year in the US (1996). The Settlers of Catan® has sold more than 3 Million copies worldwide.

So don't sell yourself short, you were right!

-Darke

simon
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
What's considered a good # units sold?

Okay... so halfway there isn't bad.

Whew.

Thanks, Darkehorse!

FastLearner
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
What's considered a good # units sold?

Sorry if I inferred otherwise... the Canaan site was definitely referring to Catan, but my argument that they're not necessarily referring to the same thing still stands.

Anonymous
What's considered a good # units sold?

"Good slaes numbers" are pretty subjective. If a game cost $1 to make and you sold it for $1000, I'd call those pretty good sales numbers.

There is very little cross-talk between game companies about sales figures. A wholesaler once told me that you really shoudln't consider reprinting a title or bringing out an expansion/supplement for a game until after you have sold 2000 copies. A title probbaly has to sell 100 units a month or more to be considered "hot".

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut