Indie Sales Numbers
Valamir:
Ron, I'm not following your distinction.
The difference between a sale to an end consumer and to a distributor is the price received per unit and whether or not there is recourse, where you might be forced to buy back unsold copies (Not common in game distribution, but I understand can happen with sales to the big chain book stores).
Once money is owed on a transaction a sale is registered.
Whether those books get years of enjoyment in the hands of an avid fan or sit on a dusty shelf for years before being mulched is an important issue (in the sense we want more of the former and less of the latter) but has nothing to do with registering a sale. 500 sales means: I have or am obligated to deliver 500 copies for which I have received or am owed payment for 500 copies. 7000 sales means: I have or am obligated to deliver 7000 copies for which I have received or am owed payment for 7000 copies. The revenue is going to be different depending on who the sale is to, but the sale is the sale.
That said, in answer to the original question. Yeah, Dresden is a huge success. A ton of super hard work over alot of years by a team of guys who really have their act together; combined with a licensed property that is hugely popular whose fanbase has alot of overlap with gamerdom; paired with, as you say, the darling system du jour = lightning captured in a bottle. Stupendous and they deserve every bit of success. But not really a valid yard stick to measure other efforts by.
Mathew E. Reuther:
I suppose it depends on who they sold to . . . there's always the chance that some of those copies will be returnable should they languish.
Hard to know without being part of the EH operation. ;)
Callan S.:
I think the attribution of sales to a teams efforts is a little missplaced - unless you think that by having a tight act you can blow a whistle and make the market jump and backflip at your bidding. Otherwise you can have a tight act, but by the random elements of the market, simply not do as well. Success <> absolute control of whether one is successful. Some people roll a nat 20, so to speak - there's nothing special in what they did prior that lead to that.
Ralph, it depends on whether you wanna make sales and get out or make sales in the long run. If everyone else copies the "sell tons to retailers, few are bought" model, it does terrible things to the long term market. Or atleast by my estimate.
Gryffudd:
Hm, I suppose the distinction to me is what information you are looking for in the sales numbers. If you're looking at how much money is likely to be made, then total sales numbers, whoever they go to, would be the important bit, regardless whether they languish on shelves or not. If you're looking for information on the size of the game-buying market, then the numbers of games reaching gamers' hands is the key bit. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information out there on either set of numbers.
I'd be interested either way, but I suppose people have their reasons for not divulging sales levels, so I'll have to largely remain in the dark.
Pat
Ron Edwards:
Took me a while to get back to this.
Ralph, that post is full of shit. I mean, it simply is.
1. Financial. If I sell a book to a guy, and he pays me every cent of the MSRP, and I have spent X on printing, and Y on shipping, and Z on whatever other costs, every bit over that total cost goes into my pocket. If I sell it to a distributor, then I get 40% of that MSRP, 50% if it's direct to a retailer, to offset that same cost.
So, on direct sale for a copy of Sorcerer, I make about $12. On a distributor sale, I make about $3. I don't call that the same thing.
2. End-user status. If I sell a book to a guy, he has the book. If I sell it to a distributor, it could get lifted by a light-fingered assistant, molder in the ex-wife's garage he laughably calls his warehouse, get sold to another distributor (or basically junkman like Crazy Eddie) in a manner suspiciously like unto mortgage bundling, forgotten under a pile of Silver Age Sentinels supplements, or basically find any number of other ways to be useless litter. One is a transaction; the other is a potential transaction. I don't call that the same thing either.
There is simply no comparison in units of copies. Dollars, sure - one business model may be better for a given game at a given time, in terms of dollars - in fact I'd be astounded it it weren't. But units of copies? Horse shit. "A sale is a sale" is a classic example of begging the question, sub-par sophomore logic - not something I expect from you at this site.
Best, Ron
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