i was wondering just how many times an "average" (if there is such a thing) indie rpg sells. both in print form, as well as electronically. how many times does a game have to sell in order to be considered a "success"? i know, every game sold is a success for the creator ;-), but i guess you understand what i mean.

Hi there,

Let's talk about "indie" first. As used here, it refers to creator ownership. Yes, a great big monster commercial game can be "indie," if it's owned by its creator - really owned, not some babble about "rights" or anything like that. Similarly, a li'l grassroots one-page free RPG on the net can also be "indie."

Therefore your notion of an average indie game, as you acknowledge, probably doesn't exist. If I'm not mistaken, you're probably thinking about a small-press publisher.

Now let's talk about "success." There are lots of ways to define this word, but I think for a small publisher (electronic or book, whichever), the following definition must at least be included:

The game returns profit: it makes money over and above its production costs. (If it happens to be an indie, then the person it makes money for happens to be its owner and creator.)

Therefore your "copies sold" isn't much of an indicator. D&D3E sells a huge number of copies - is it "successful," in these terms? You'll have to talk to Hasbro executives for that (just remember to take the cost of the movie into account as advertising expense).

And in fact, we have to talk about "copies sold," too. That's a matter of distribution. If I sell a copy of Sorcerer from my website, then I know an end-use customer has it in his hands. If I sell it to a distributor, say, Alliance or Blackhawk or whoever, then all I know is that a retailer can now order it from that distributor. When game companies talk about "copies sold," they are usually referring to copies moved into distribution, not copies actually acquired by customers across the counters of game stores.

Now, all that babble aside, and since I don't want to evade your question, here are some data.

1) During Sorcerer's tenure as a PDF product in 1999, I sold about 50 copies. During 2000, I sold about 70.

2) During the first quarter of 2001, however, I sold 35-40 copies, and sales picked up steadily from there until the PDF was discontinued.

This all may sound like chicken-feed, but I should point out that the typical free-and-clear return on the first run of abook-published RPG is about $300 maximum, and usually a couple hundred negative. (Uh-huh. Think about that for a bit. I was actually making more money in 99-2000 than the small book-publishers.)

3) The book part of the process landed me with a lot of costs; including all art, printing, and convention expenses, Sorcerer cost me somewhere around $8 thousand dollars. Which is considered ridiculously cheap, by the way - people are usually advised to plan for $15-20 thousand.

From that point on, I only spent money on Adept Press stuff that came from Adept Press sales, and the gross permitted me to publish the first supplement in book form, and the gross from that permitted the second to be done too. I stayed double-barrelled: selling the books both on-line direct as well as game-store distribution.

Adept Press was in the black by the end of 2001.

Now here's the question. My print run on the first book was tiny: 1200 copies. The same goes for each supplement.

You see, I consider this a success story. Others, focused perhaps on raw number of copies or on gross (rather than net), consider it to be some bizarre little blip that means nothing in "industry" terms at all.

Best,
Ron

i better clarify my question, i guess. when i meant indie-rpg, i actually meant self-published or small-press. and over 150 copies sold qualifies as very successful in my own eyes, for a pdf project. and over a thousand books is definately a success, when one thinks how little room our hobby has for alternative small-press games. but that is just my opinion - i would also like to hear from others.

when i'll bring my game out as an pdf file, i'll be very happy when if i sell 50... and maybe a few "deluxe" softcover editions conventions in the area as "advertisement". i have been thinking that a price of $5 would be acceptable for most people (for the pdf version).

thank you for your comprehensive answers... that was just the type of information i was looking for! ;-)

So far, we've sold roughly 80 copies of Cartoon Action Hour (in pdf) since being released on April 30th of this year. I can't say for sure, but I'd imagine that this is fairly average or maybe a little above. As for hardcopy sales, I can't help you there, as the hardcopy version has not been released yet.

I hope this helps.