Ouya game developers sound off on disappointing sales numbers
The Ouya has been on shelves for nearly a month now, and developers have had a chance to gauge initial sales numbers of their games. Gamasutra polled several developers on their earnings so far, and a handful obliged with straight sales numbers. Adam Spragg, creator of Hidden in Plain Sight – one of our favorite Ouya launch games – has brought in $4,381 on 1,900 purchases sold at a pay-what-you-want price (minimum $1). The port of Foddy's Get On Top has earned $728 off of 9,700 downloads and 520 purchases.
BombSquad creator Eric Froemling didn't provide financial numbers, but noted that he "peaked at close to 200 sales per day and [is] currently sitting at around 70" for the $4.99 game." That's not to be confused with BombBall, which creator E McNeill says is making "a little over $30 a day" before Ouya's 30 percent cut. Organ Trail's Ryan Wiemeyer may be the harshest critic, saying that his game "sold about half" of his low-end predictions. The Ouya version of Organ Trail accounts for 500 sales, a meager portion of the 400,000 the game has sold across its available platforms. "I don't even know if it was worth the man hours yet," said Wiemeyer.
Meanwhile, TowerFall, probably the most well-known Ouya exclusive, has garnered "about 2000 sales so far at $15 each," creator Matt Thorson told Edge. "Launching on Ouya got me a lot of attention, and the sales have been better than expected." It earned enough attention, apparently, that Thorson is now bringing the game to PC as well. Finally, developer NimbleBit's David Marsh told Edge that its mobile hit Nimble Quest has been downloaded 6,508 times with 122 purchases, earning $427. Since Nimble Quest uses the Unity engine, it was "a snap to port," said Marsh.
He recommended the Ouya to any independent developers who already port games to Android. "It's probably not going to be a huge source of income compared to other platforms, but it's dead easy to submit a game and get it into the store."
