I haven’t done this before, but I thought I would begin the year with a look back at the year that was 2023 – releases, sales and what I worked on. I don’t think this will be a particularly long post, but I am writing it as both a record of what has happened, and, perhaps, some other indie game designers will find something of use.
2023 was a quiet year in terms of releases. In fact, I put out exactly 1 new game – Star Scoundrels. My upcoming RPG, Tomorrow City, was meant to be released in October of ’23, but due to a host of reasons (not least of which was I kept adding to it), it has been pushed back to this month (I am so excited for you to see it!). Though I only released one game, that doesn’t mean I was idle. As well as lots of work on the aforementioned Tomorrow City, I worked on Strangeville, an RPG os supernatural monster hunting – you know, like Buffy, Supernaturual and umm… Scooby Doo. That will be out a little later in 2024. I also played around with a few other projects, including some mini games such as Star Scoundrels.
It was difficult to really knuckle-down and get into a rhythm of writing in 2023, which definitely had an impact on my output. I second-guessed a lot of choices I made, back-tracked on projects, and generally oscillated between writing more and thinking it was all garbage. I am hoping to be a little more consistent with output in 2024.
Sales
I am not sure who is interested, but I thought I would share some sales numbers for 2023. I am not sharing this information to brag (they are small numbers compared to full-time publishers!), but there may be some indie game designers (or potential indie game designers) who may find this information interesting, if not useful.
It was a good year, with amazing download numbers of FU, and continued support for Neon City Overdrive. I am so immensely proud of both these games, and seeing these numbers makes me feel really good. Just taking a quick look at this information has sparked a bunch of thoughts and raised some questions. Things like, “is 90 sales of Catacombs of Chaos a good conversion percentage (7%) of the 1235 free Blood Castles that were downloaded?” Or, “is The Beast of Limfjord a terrible game, or do I just need to change the way I present it?” Or, “how do I get sales of the NCO supplements to be closer to the sales of the core rules?” I have lots of these questions, which I might explore further with another blog post (along with some thoughts on what to do about them) – let me know if you would be interested.
Anyway, that’s all besides the point. I am really please with how my sales have gone this year. I certainly don’t make enough to quit my day job, but it is enough to cover the cost of my website, the art I purchase, and to buy a few new games to play. That is all icing on the cake.
Thank you so much to all of you who have supported me by buying a product or talking about one of my games that you have enjoyed.