The Main Problem Of Xbox Indie Games

The Game:

Our first Xbox Indie Game, Slide Colors was released a few days ago on the MarketPlace.

Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EImBiWfYJ38

The First Sales:

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Stats for 8 January (release) - 9 of January)
# Trials: 671
# Purchases: 40
# Purchase/Trial Ratio: 5.96 %

(8 January only have 7 downloads, the rest stats are from January 9)

Stats for 8 January - 16 january.
# Trials: 1635
# Buys: 144
# Purchase/Trial Ratio: 8,81 %

Stats for 8 - 19 of January
# Trials: 1757
# Buys: 159
# Purchase/Trial Ratio: 9.05 %

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My Opinion:

We have a high ratio because i see other's that only have 1-3% . And our game is selling practically 1 of each 10 downloads.

The game is very polished, have more than 50 hours of total gameplay and only cost 80 Microsoft Points(0,99$-0,75e).

But not all are good news:

9 January = 664 Downloads - 40 Purchases

20 January = 26 Downloads - 0 Purchases

I think the 40 purchases in the first day is because much websites have a RSS o similar feeds on appears the newest XBOX Indie Games and when the people click on this links go to the xbox MarketPlace of the game. Now Slide Colors was disappear from this and not have practically any publicity.

But is great to see stats like this:

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16 of january
German - 4 trials - 2 Purchases (50% Ratio Trial/Purchase)
Japan - 3 trials - 1 Purchase (33,3% Ratio Trial/Purchase)
And other like 3-1 / 7-4 , etc...

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And what's the problem?

- Simply, the promotion and publicity of indie games on XBOX and the coverage on websites.

About Xbox Indie Games

I understand that Microsoft defends the interests of developers/Publishers on Xbox Live Arcade and the Indie section never will have the same visibility/publicity.

Also i read the "Xbox Indie Games: A Failed Venture" on IGN:

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/105/1058030p1.html

"The difference is Microsoft's restrictive policies on how Indie Games can be developed"

Sorry, but i not think the same, you can see games like "I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1", and the game is simply/addictive and no need any Social API and other thing to be popular. Only the great publicity and coverage from websites... and yes Z0MB1ES! xd.

TayKrOn Games

We have already sent the PR to lots of websites, together with some other info about the game and its development. We also used GameRelease for this - the best PR service to Indie Developers, highly recommended. Also we are giving tokens for incoming reviews and creating contests to spread the announce of our first game on XBLIG.

All this stats are before the GameRelease PR and any publicity on RoundUps,etc... I will post probably the next week with more stats and info. The unique publicity was on our Blogs( http://blog.taykron.com), Facebook page( http://facebook.taykron.com), Twitter (https://twitter.com/taykrongames) and a banner in our flash gamesite:(www.coinsgames.com).