Rhythm-based shmup Beat Hazard has grossed its developer, Steve Hunt, more than $2 million since its release. A pretty staggering amount in and of itself. Then, when you look at the fact it was released on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and mobile devices, as well as PC, you might be forgiven for thinking it’s just done proportionally well across all the systems. You’d be quite, quite wrong.
Read on to see quite how much Steam kick’s the other platforms’ behinds.
Detailing his fiscal breakdown (sounds like a job for an economic therapist) in a blog post, Hunt explains thatSteam is responsible for 70% of the game’s revenue:
Not only that, whereas as on the other platforms sales would begin at an initial high and then slope off, on Steam, due to Christmas sales and updates, Hunt says”it keeps coming back to life like some lovable cash making zombie”:
Beat Hazard’s been involved in a number of Steam’s special events, which explains a number of its spikes. For instance, “Beat Hazard was on sale during the Steam Xmas sale 2010″, Hunt writes.”It was 50% off with one day at 70%. Also, Valve were giving away prizes for collecting special Xmas achievements. I added a survival achievement especially for the sale and that’s where a lot of the sales came from. Huge numbers of players bought the game at 70% off just to get the special achievement. (And a lot of those players went on to become true fans of the game)”. Then, the following Summer “To get the game approved for PSN I had to add extra features to the game (new modes, enemies, perks, weapons etc). I released these changes as the Ultra DLC on Steam. Just after this Valve had a summer sale where I added a Gold Ship to the game as a special sale prize. The Gold Ship was hugely popular and generated a lot of sales.”
“What’s amazing it just how successful Steam sales are. They are just awesome. With a little extra work and a special version, Valve turns a normal sale into a buying and playing frenzy which everyone can enjoy. An important thing to note is that sales after a sale aren’t affected, if anything they go up due to the extra exposure.”
So, Steam is the bomb, it would seem.