Never having being on the receiving end of one, could you elaborate? I mean, do you have any recourse for challenging the accuracy of the statement, or is it guaranteed or vetted by some “official” party?
-dZ.
Usually you have the right to audit the statement, but it’s limited to once a year and you pay all the expenses if it’s not off by reasonable percent. Mostly you just accept them unless it seems wildly wrong. If we got a Xbox statement and it said we’d sold 10 copies, I’d call someone up over that.
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I’m glad to hear that there is some protection on the author’s end, although it seems that it may be more trouble than it’s worth; useful mostly, as you say, in extreme cases. I suspect that is rare indeed.
At least the statement tells you the number of units, so you can get an accurate count. Although from your previous comment, it seems that the statements don’t come often enough. Are they quarterly?
-dZ.
GOG and Microsoft are quarterly. Everyone else we’re on (at this moment) is monthly.
Well, I can see how it can be annoying not being able to get an accurate picture of your overall sales through all channels. Especially right after launch.
(Sorry for the 20 questions, but please indulge me one more…) I know you can’t tell for sure, but which channel gives you the impression so far as the one that did the best after launch? Is it Steam?
(I bought through GoG because I already had an account there, but it strikes me as a one with limited reach.)
Steam, no doubt. They are the 800lb gorilla (for better or worse). If the game was PC only, we (and just about every other game) does 90%-95% of it’s sales on steam. Because we’re on Xbox, that skews it. Xbox has been surprisingly strong, not that it’s beating Steam, but given that it’s a very different audience, we’ve been very pleased with it.
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I figured it was Steam, from what I’ve heard of other developers (the 800lb gorilla indeed!). I don’t own a console (well, none of the modern ones), so I don’t know much about the XBox ecosystem, but I’m glad the game is doing well there.
I imagine that the iOS/Android version has also a great potential. Thimbleweed Park strikes me as the sort of game that naturally fits well with the “casual gaming” spirit: you can play a bit, solve a few puzzles, advance the story, and continue later. The non-linear nature lends itself great to this lazy-Sunday style of play, as does the fact that you can’t die and you can’t do anything to lock yourself out of a victory. I certainly would love to play it on my iPad.
-dZ.
correction: I have a PAID copy. Must be worth over a million by now…
So at least 1 copy was sold.
Make that 2, since I didn’t pirate my copy either to any friends.
I even still have the newspaper!
You didn’t read what I was quoting 
of course, and the VISA exit codes, and the floppies
only thing missing is the C64…
Oh, I see. I am so used to Zak McKracken being incorrectly spelled thatI just looked straight over it, thinking you were referring to it being only pirated instead.
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oh, but he did. At least according to the manual! And the podcasts… he was brought in at a brain storm to make the game less serious and more ‘zany’ as we kids in the 80’s loved to call things that were, well, ‘zany’
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Also I’m pretty sure there was a lot of engine work going on behind the scenes.
I just don’t remember him mentioning it. But thanks all for the clarification! 
Yep. By coincidence, I stumbled on this: https://www.slideshare.net/omohout/lean-pricing-startups
On slide 6 they say $20 is optimal price 
Who is David Spangler?
Not sure if this is a serious question or not. If it is:
He´s basically the guy who coined the term “New Age”. David did a brainstorming session with him to come up with the games esoteric concepts. The next session was with Ron who suggested to make the tone of the game more tongue-in-cheek, probably because Ron isn´t a hippie who takes all that stuff super serious. That´s where their credits come from. The majority of the games writing comes from David Fox, Matthew Kane composed the kick ass music but I´m not sure how big his involvement was beyond that.
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