Proun sales figures reveal interesting trends

Geometric indie-racing Proun is probably the only such game to claim Kandinsky as an inspiration, and it’s also one of the few for which we have full sales figures.
Creator Joost van Dongen (great name) has posted a lengthy analysis piece over on his blog, detailing and re-considering the sales model he used for Proun. It’s rare for developers or publishers to share genuine sales figures for games like this, so it provides an interesting (if isolated) insight.
Overall, van Dongen considers Proun to have been “a tremendous success” and a modest financial triumph (earning him close to $20,000 USD), but he also delves into what he could have done differently. In particular, he focuses on the ‘pay what you want’ model adopted for the game.
Proun could be ‘purchased’ for free, but if you wanted to play the game with a bonus track there was a minimum price of $2 USD. The majority of the game’s revenue came in the $5-7 USD range, with another spike around $10-15 USD. Proun is also continuing to sell reasonably well, providing around $300 USD per month to the developer.
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However, despite being personally satisfied with the money generated, van Dongen theorises that it could’ve made more, given that 250,000 people played the game and the title had a fair amount of press coverage.
Despite admitting that his scenarios are purely hypthetical, van Dongen feels that if he’d opted for a set price on Steam (around the $5 mark, perhaps), he’d have made more money thanks to the ease with which games can be purchased through such services. He also muses on whether a minimum price of $1 USD for the game would’ve produced healthier financial results.
You can read the piece in full at the source link below. Proun is still available for purchase (or to download for free, minus a bonus track) at the game’s site.
Source: blog.oogst3d.net