NEW RECORDS
One year ago – on March 11, 2016 – Gremlins, Inc. transitioned from Early Access into full release on Steam. The sales of that first month, March 2016, have been incredible, and while we were encouraged by Valve as well as other dev teams to keep improving the product further based on the "make players happy and players will make you happy, too" concept, we never could have imagined that we will eventually beat the results of March 2016 – and yet here we are!
On March 11, 2017 Gremlins, Inc. set new records for –
ːfirstplaceː the most people playing the game at the same time;
ːcardsː the most copies sold in 24 hours; and
ːbh2coinː the highest revenue grossed in any single day of sales on Steam.
We thank our existing community for their support ːsteampunkː, and our new players for their trust! ːhypnoheartː Below we share some data on the game's performance, this data is based on the cumulative sales from three digital distribution platforms (including Steam).
"THERE'S ONLY ONE RELEASE"
One of the things that you sometimes hear in the development community is that "there's only one release", i.e. you have a huge spike in sales at launch, and then "some" sales later on – but the big chance to recoup the development budget is just that launch month.
Here's how the sales of Gremlins, Inc. look, on a monthly basis (across all platforms):
The launch month, while huge, accounts for less than 25% of our sales. And while platform-wide events like Summer and Christmas sales, which are supported by every major platform, are predictably great, we were able to exceed their results by the events which we organized ourselves: the Chinese New Year update and the release of the Offline Edition. In fact, the last 3 months – 11th, 12th and 13th since full release – accounted for a higher number of sales, than the launch month.
Our takeaway? Updating the game regularly with new content adds replayability and keeps players happy, which translates into higher sales – and brings the budget for more updates and more content. The thing is – if we would have stopped updating the game after the full release, by now we would have less than 50% of our current audience.
OVERALL SALES
Here's how our sales look, overall:
One year after the full release, Gremlins, Inc. stands at over ːbh2coinː 80,000 copies sold (core game) with ːbh2coinː 40,000 copies of the DLCs (of which we have 3 cosmetic, the original soundtrack and the artbook) and ːbh2coinː 4,000 in-game items.
Since the DLCs are purely cosmetic and have no influence over the gameplay (every player is in the same position in terms of game mechanics and features and game content), we are especially happy about the fact that for every 2 copies of the game, we have 1 copy of the DLCs bought. This is the money that players pay after they have purchased the game, knowing that they do not need to buy this unless they really want to buy this.
HOW DO PEOPLE PLAY THE GAME?
Over the last year, we saw different data as to how people play the game, and we tried our best to respond to the trends that we could identify: more people playing single-player = more single-player content, higher focus on developing the offline edition; more people participating in tournaments = more tournaments, and so on. Here's how the stats look over the period of the last 3 months:
We saw nearly ːcheatdiceː 100,000 sessions played, with roughly a half of them in single-player mode. Players from Russia and USA prefer competitive games – ranked and tournaments. Players from Japan and China prefer invite-only games with friends. Meanwhile, Europe is mostly single-player or custom games, with a few exceptions (France!).
Since the game now also supports free in-game drops that are tradable on the market (where players can buy or sell from other players), here's some stats on this front: in the course of the last 3 months, we had ːSneakyChestː 60,000 items drop in the game, with roughly ːgreengemstoneː 15,000 player transactions (which is what we see from inside the game when a specific item is changing owners).
TOP REGIONS
One year ago, in March 2016, the monthly top 10 regions for Gremlins, Inc. by copies sold looked like this:
Roll forward one year, and we're looking at some significant changes in the monthly chart for March 2017:
What happened is that the US and RU sales remained on the same level, while ːchinaː sales to China more than tripled! Another region that shot forward, has been Japan – performing stronger than Germany, France or the UK. A big part of this success is due to the wonderful Chinese and Japanese localization delivered by Akebono Translation Service, whom we highly recommend to other dev teams.
LIFETIME TOP REGIONS
Here's the distribution of Gremlins, Inc. by top 5 regions over the lifetime of the game, by copies sold:
The global sales currently exceed 80,000 copies of the game, with more than 50,000 copies sold in just 3 regions: ːchinaː China, ːRUSflagː Russia and ːstarsandstripesː USA. And if we add Japan and France, then these 5 regions account for over 70% of all the copies sold since we launched. Note to other developers: if you're looking for French and German localizations, we are extremely satisfied with Words of Magic and Rolf Klischewski respectively.
PLATFORMS
When we designed the game in 2014-2016, we had little idea about which OS versions to expect among our user base as this heavily depends on the genre of the game as well as on the territories.
Looking back over the lifetime of Gremlins, Inc., this is the distribution of the OS:
We wondered, if some regions like Russia or China will show different split between Windows and Mac, and here are the results:
Platforms – WIN | MAC | LINUX
USA – 91% | 8% | 1%
Russia – 93% | 6% | 1%
Worldwide – 94% | 5% | 1%
China – 96.4% | 3.5% | 0.1%
Japan – 97.4% | 2.5% | 0.1%
PLAYTIME
Finally, the playtime stats: the average playtime of a user of Gremlins, Inc. is currently at 14 hours. Considering the price, and the challenge of the digital board game mechanics, we're pretty excited about this number!
ːF1timeː Over 3,000 players played the game for 50+ hours!
ːF1timeː Nearly 1,000 players played the game for 100+ hours!
With free seasonal updates that feature new cards, new music and new visuals, we're looking forward to seeing even more playtime logged in. It is a extremely satisfying to see that our creative work continues to entertain players all over the world ːhypnoheartː.
WHAT'S NEXT?
With the release of Gremlins vs Automatons, the offline-specific version of the game, we've completed the last big feature that has been on the drawing board since Early Access. Our plans are more focused on new content now:
ːcardsː new cards
ːmusicː new music
ːgreengemstoneː new emoticons and effects
ːfireappleː seasonal updates
ːHoly_Grailetː regular tournaments
ːmaliceː the first-ever on-site Team Finals!
From the concept of the game in July 2013, to the Early Access release in October 2015 and full release in March 2016, it's been a long way – and we're not done yet! Thank you for being with us on this adventure! ːsteampunkː