Late last year developer Super Icon Ltd re-affirmed that Life of Pixel is coming to the Wii U eShop. That was great news for fans of platformers and retro systems - this game has the neat hook of each level looking like it's from a different retro system, including Nintendo mainstays such as NES, SNES and Game Boy.
Yet a press release from the developer has provided an interesting insight into the title's struggles since release in 2014. With sales focused on PC and Linux it's endured long spells of poor sales, leading to tough financial circumstances for the three members of the studio.
From our own site, up until end of February 2015, we have sold 160 units since the launch on May 16th (all via the Humble Widget). Desura YTD up until the end of 2014 was a total of 18 units, with a revenue of £75....Life of Pixel launched on the Humble Store in October 2014, but the sales were much less than we had hoped; to-date we have only sold 181 units.
Indie Game Stand has seen 13 sales since launch in August 2014, with revenue of $90.87. We had also hoped to get Pixel onto GOG, but they turned us down – which was a little disappointing.
What can I say about those figures? Disappointing to say the least! None of us has been able to earn a living wage for several months now. Looking back, I think our expectations were to sell a few thousand units over the first year (not including Steam). If I recall I think we hoped to see at least 2,000 sales from the above outlets, but didn't expect more than 4,000.
The company also made little from a Groupee bundle, and due to that bundle giving away keys for the game it "felt like we had actually pirated our own game!"
Fortunes did pick up with the title being Greenlit for Steam, arriving on the service in October last year.
On October 22nd 2014, Life of Pixel launched on Steam. The community feedback was amazing, for the first time ever people were talking about PC Life of Pixel. It really was a wonderful experience; to talk to people who actually enjoy the game, to feel that there were players out they interested in Life of Pixel. It made everything seem worthwhile.
It also buoyed our spirits, and as such we got to work on a series of updates. We added additional Steam functionality with full controller support, Leaderboards, more Achievements, Trading Cards, and we implemented lots of user-reported requests and some bug fixes. The Steam Community were brilliant, so a huge thanks to them.
Sales figures on Steam were, I am happy to say, much higher than anywhere else. Compared to sales on Desura, for example, Steam numbers were amazing!
In the first month on sale, October, we sold 243 units – with revenues of $1178. In November we made 420 sales, with revenues of $1236.
We participated in the Steam Christmas sale, and as expected, December was our best month with 642 sales and revenues of $1602. Sales on Linux have performed better than we expected, so far we have seen 110 sales on Linux. The Linux community has been very supportive too.
2015 has taken a downward turn, with sales in January hitting 160 units and revenues of $521. February so far is even lower, with just 56 sales.
How have we done since release on Steam? We have made just over $4,500 in four months on Steam. Roughly speaking, we then have about $300 per month of expenses and payments to make, and the remainder is split between the team.
So that's $4,500, less expenses and payments of $1,200 (4 X $300), which leaves about $3,300 earnings for the team.
The grand total of units sold across all platforms is 1893. This is far less than we hoped, and comes very far short of sustaining the team and funding future development. Steam is far and away the best performing storefront for us.
A recurring theme throughout this update is that the team has struggled to gain attention for Life of Pixel, achieving little traction with the general press. This certainly seems a pity, as it looks like a charming, clever title.
As for the Wii U version, it's been submitted for Lotcheck approval - it may not be too far away.
It's clearly been a tough and fairly disappointing period for Super Icon Ltd. You can see a trailer below - do you think this'll be a success on the Wii U eShop?
Comments 30
If this comes to Wii U I will buy it. Sorry to hear the sales numbers are so low. The game looks really fun and interesting. I currently only have a work PC, so I have been missing all the great PC releases...
This more or less is a confirmation of a couple of well known facts:
1) Steam is the only platform most gamers buy from (with a few exceptions, event I fall under this category).
2) Too many PC games released everyday, market hard to find traction.
I wish this meant...
Hey PC devs who use Unity, come to WiiU eshop, where there is WAY less competition. And if you make a quality product, usually you are going to do somewhat well. Not Minecraft well, but certainly sell more than 1,000 units.
I stopped PC gaming years ago do to frustration of a going bad graphics card and instability of windows gaming, I too will buy it on Wii U. Looks great. But it's sad to say: the combo of AAA titles and the android / iOS gaming anti-revolution are hurting the gaming business.
If a call of duty, skyrim or free to play tile based CRAP game is all that can make money, why make other games?
I thought at first this was an article on the life of Pixel, the creator of Cave Story.
This looks like a decect game. I'll be picking it up as long as it under $15. Reminds me of how shovelknight was a great throwback game.
I've read several articles praising the eShop for indies. We Nintendo fans are always hungry for new content (especially retro/nostalgia) between major Nintendo releases... There are lots of large gaps.
I'll definitely pick this up as soon as it becomes available on the Wii U.
hint: We also eat up console exclusives for whatever reason (fanboys/girls). Any indie title that releases exclusively or first for consoles on Wii U is going to get some added support.
Good luck guys! I really hope you see more success in the future. "Life of Pixel" looks great! Also, I have to agree with A01. I'll wager that you'll move more than 2,000 units on Wii U alone. In fact, you might do considerably better.
Looks interesting but on the fence about picking this up. I'm working on catching up on my backlog of games to finish and I'm not sure I could gove this game the attention it deserves...
Oh, I'd get it for nostalgia. Love how they nailed the oldschool graphics.
A nice throwback to classic systems. It doesn't seem to be much more than that though. If it's around the price of a SNES game (7.99) retro platformer fans like me certainly pick this up (on Wii U).
I got it via Groupees and it is pretty good.
This looks really good! Any worf of a Europe release?
Looks better than I remember. Will likely get!
I don't envy the job of not only having to create a great product but then also knowing how to successfully market it.
@StuOhQ It wouldn't be an exclusive though, as it came out on PSN over 2 years ago. It's also worth pointing out it didn't exactly get brilliant reviews. Sometimes people are swayed far too easily when a developer speaks of the inspiration. You see it on here all the time. Kickstarter game announced, inspired by 8-bit JRPGs and people immediately make it one of their most anticipated games, even though there's no indication at all of how good it is.
This looking interesting to me. Unfortunately, I remember most of those systems.
I don't think this will be a success on the Wii U eShop because it doesn't have Mario, Link, or Pokemon in it. Nor is it a remake of a game Nintendo fans have already purchased half a dozen times.
I will support it, however.
@Quorthon
I don't think indies expect Pokemon-like sales, SO "success" is a relative term.
I think a lot of indie games can be successful on Nintendo's consoles if they appeal to the community and the devs can promote it in the right areas
This is the problem with all these various stores and services etc at this point; be it the App Store, Google Play Store, Steam, even crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, and also even the video games media. They are all basically broken. The fundamental models that all these stores and services etc are built upon are generally broken if you're anything other than an early adopter, one of the privileged top 1% who can create world leading games that basically no one else can or purely lucky as hell (which again is probably about 1%). There's a few examples that are outliers, obviously, but they are outliers.
In fact; that's also really the truth of the whole of our capitalistic greed based and money centric society actually. Damned if you don't and apparantly also damned even if you do. Sadly, all we are ever really shown is the great success stories, which the media is guilty of more than anyone else, and that paints a totally false picture of the actual reality for the vast majority of games developers, companies, people, dreams...
I've made under £400 off of 7 games across both Android and iOS over a period of three years. Now THAT is disappointing. I ended up just giving them all away for free....and even then my very latest game has had under 60 FREE downloads across both Android and iOS since it launched a couple of weeks ago. I can't even get a measly £100 for my Kickstarter either (although at least I saw that one coming and was mentally prepared for it).
Disheartening and depressing much
I hope these guys catch a break because I think their game definitely deserves to make more than just a few grand (If I weren't so skint that I'm now living on tax credit, basically a glorified bum, I'd buy it myself just as a gesture of support).
Looks really nice imo! I especially like how they got the nes graphics down while reducing the choppiness of the actual console
@Kirk
Agreed, I was just thinking the same reading this. As nice as it is to hear the Shovel Knight and Gunman Clive type stories it really doesn't paint an accurate picture of what typically happens in this arena. Hope is good, but it has to go down with a much larger dosage of reality.
Shame because this looks like a charming game. Maybe Nintendo will feature it in an indie spot during their next direct.
Really sad to hear this. It looks like a charming little game. Like others said, if it ever hits the eShop I'd probably pick it up.
@Danrenfroe2016 Skyrim is not the name of the series. It's The Elder Scrolls.
Meh. I got the first on ps mobile and was not impressed. They also made a Galaga-type game that was amusing for a few minutes. These are mobile-caliber games. $1 or $2
This is light years better than most stuff by Curve Digital (In that it works properly and doesn't drop frames at least the PC release).
It is possible if it well reviewed on console Steam sales will pick up. (I know the famous ones became known about when they were XBLA exclusives and then went on to actually make the money once they were on PC).
@PolarKoalaBear Lol, I am so far behind on PC games since I gave it up.
The very low number of sales is rather disturbing, even on Steam. Looks like a decent game, so hopefully they can sell better on Wii U. While at it, they should bring it on 3DS as that is the bigger market.
Hindsight is 20-20, but perhaps this should've launched somewhere like the Wii U and built momentum there. PC is easy, but it isn't the be all and end all.
Well, the mistake is obvious: they made a game designed to tickle the nostalgia bone of console gamers then lauched it only as a PC version on a couple of little known online stores. Of course it's sold poorly so far! You need to launch a game like this on consoles or at least on Steam!
It's a platformer so automatic negative tick for me, but it does look charming and they do appear to have nailed the look of the various systems so yeah if it's under a tenner I'll throw 'em a bone.
This game looked so interesting, so I'm surprised it didn't sell very well. Glad to hear it's still coming to Wii U, but now I think I'll wait for a review before buying (which is always a good idea anyways).
I got it on my Vita when it first came out. A pretty fun title, I still haven't finished it. I remember wishing it had some boss fights and some enemies you could hurt instead of always having to avoid them
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