Archimedes game sales numbers

[wmd]

I know there are some people on the forum who used to work in the industry back in the 80s / 90s. I am very interested to hear if anyone is willing to disclose sales number for Archimedes games. I'm interested because a lot of Archimedes games seem to be extremely rare. Example - I had Provocator on my watch list on eBay for over 15 years, and in all that time it has appeared only once. To a lesser extent this is also true for many of the games that Eterna released. This makes me think that sales for some titles were extremely low, i.e. in the low thousands, or maybe even hundreds in some cases.

[jms2]

I don't have any insider knowledge, but I think your "hundreds" estimate is very likely correct for many games. Or fewer in some cases.

Looking on the serial numbers thread, the total number of Archimedes type machines ever sold was around 200,000. The majority of these went into educational establishments - I don't know what proportion, but I'd guess 80% or higher. That leaves 20,000 sold to private individuals. Many of those would have been used purely for "serious" uses and even for those used for games, most owners would only have bought a limited number of titles. I was quite interested in games but I'm sure I bought fewer than 20.

[paulb]

I don't have any insider knowledge, but I think your "hundreds" estimate is very likely correct for many games. Or fewer in some cases.

Looking on the serial numbers thread, the total number of Archimedes type machines ever sold was around 200,000. The majority of these went into educational establishments - I don't know what proportion, but I'd guess 80% or higher. That leaves 20,000 sold to private individuals. Many of those would have been used purely for "serious" uses and even for those used for games, most owners would only have bought a limited number of titles. I was quite interested in games but I'm sure I bought fewer than 20.

Official figures for Acorn's 32-bit machines were rather higher than 200,000, so I'd be interested to know how such a low figure was calculated. A figure of 300,000 was given in 1994 ("Risc PC, the Next Generation", Acorn User, May 1994), and Acorn claimed as many as 600,000 systems had been sold by the time the StrongARM J233 Risc PC product arrived ("Acorn J233 StrongARM Risc PC", page 3). Acorn's wording could be interpreted as including embedded RISC OS systems, I suppose, but I don't know if there were significant quantities of those by that point.

I agree that the dominance of educational sales would have dampened demand for games, and there may have been a similar phenomenon to that of the Beeb with regard to illicit copying in schools, suppressing sales further. Maybe the A3000 and the A3010 in particular drove demand a little more, enough to make it worth the while of companies like Krysalis to churn out ports from other machines. It seemed that towards the end of Acorn, a lot of focus was on these ported games, presumably leaving small, independent producers with miniscule levels of sales.

[SarahWalker]

My best estimate on total number of machines is in the 400-500k mark. The majority would have been used in education, so the numbers in homes would likely have been less than 100k (the majority of A3010s, a bunch of A3000s, and a smattering of the others).

Rough numbers that I'm aware of (not many!) :

Lemmings - 20k+ (probably the biggest seller on the machine)
Zarch - 14k
E-Type - 16k
Nevryon - 10k
Wolfenstein 3D - 2k
Simcity 2000 - less than 1k
Blitz + Bambuzle - 700 combined

[wmd]

That Blitz + Bambuzle figure confirmed my suspicions that some games had in fact only sold in the hundreds. Surprised Sim City sold so few copies though.

[SarahWalker]

Simcity 2000 required either a RiscPC (only released about 6 months prior) or an A5000 with 4 MB. Neither particularly common in homes.

[jms2]

I'd be interested to know how such a low figure was calculated.

Not calculated, just estimated - by looking at the numbers for the different models. Estimated very badly as it turns out!

[NickLuvsRetro]

I'd be curious to know what sales of StarFighter3000 were like. Eclipsed by the PS1/Saturn/3DO conversions I imagine, but I recall it was self-published so perhaps was quite a limited amount for sale anyway.

[paulb]

I'd be curious to know what sales of StarFighter3000 were like. Eclipsed by the PS1/Saturn/3DO conversions I imagine, but I recall it was self-published so perhaps was quite a limited amount for sale anyway.

Going off the story told about it, their initial sales were equivalent to a hotel room full of cash, whatever that works out as.

[NickLuvsRetro]

Going off the story told about it, their initial sales were equivalent to a hotel room full of cash, whatever that works out as.

Hah! I've been in some pretty small hotel rooms in my time. But I hope they mean in the positive sense of the phrase in which case that's awesome. I'd forgotten that interview, it's a good one.