How Many Units Does A Hit Synth Sell?

[sonkeysankey]

Price has almost nothing to do with it. /Most/ people that buy keyboards don't have like 10. $1000-2000 is pretty normal money for a properly made musical instrument intended for an employed adult who's serious about playing it.

Gotta love those provisos...
i.e. only STUPID people would buy a VST.
"employed adult" "serious about playing it" "properly made musical instrument"...

You need to break out of the KvR bubble mindset. Talk to normal, averagely-educated people over age 35, realise how much computers still indimidate the f*** out of most of them.

That isn't the target market for VSTs though, is it? I bet there are at least 200,000 people in the U.K. alone who use their PCs to make music. I don't know anybody male under the age of 30 who isn't very happy using a PC for just about anything they need.

Are you suggesting that any studios DON'T use computers nowadays? I bet the number of people recording at home who use PCs and Macs is a hundred times greater than those who use a Portastudio (or whatever).

Put it down to tons of developers, tons of freeware, tons of other options.

What other options?

Piracy maybe eats 50% of sales, you can count downloads but that means nothing really. It's nothing like bad enough to account for the observed gap.

We have no idea how much warez (it isn't "piracy") takes away from sales.
I would imagine that loads of teenagers are downloading umpteen different warezed VSTs just because they CAN, not because they had any intention whatsoever of buying them - and I bet the vast majority of those just store them on their hard drives, fire them up once or twice, then download the NEXT warezed VST, and so on, and never actually use any of them!

[yellowfever]

If Korg are very happy for us to know that they sold 250,000 M1s, why are VST developers so shy about THEIR sales figures?

Excellent point. Personally, I'm not interested in the profit a dev makes - that's his business; if you choose to buy a vst for £200, that's your choice and if he sells 10000 of them, good luck to him, it's obviously a great synth. I'm just curious as to how many vsts get sold.

@willit - your sig is childish beyond belief.

[kv331]

Absolutely shite compared to some numpty driving spreadsheets for a bank, or even for someone who spent 7 years in a semi-successful games company, let alone places like GTA, where the couple of guys Ive known did get Porsches.

Back in the days of the dot-coms (that turned into dot-bombs later), hiring developers with perks like a 2 year BMW Z2 leases was very common in Silicon Valley.

With basic Visual Basic knowledge one could be hired for $85000 a year plus stock options.

Man, those were the days

[Urs]

taxed 40%

Well, then I'd suggest you invest in Turkey and dont pay income tax for 5 years (For any further info check out http://www.metutech.metu.edu.tr/cms/ind ... =64&Bbid=3)

Just my 2 cents

I don't mind paying taxes. I actually dispise people who don't pay them.

I was exaggerating a bit, because it has gone down quite a few percentage points ever since I got married, I think it's down to 32% maybe, not quite sure. Just so that it doesn't make sense to be bothered.

A friend of ours does a legal thing with companies based in Switzerland, but all this shit is too complicated. I don't want to waste my time having to deal with bureaucrazy only because of greed or because of being "to smart to give it to the state".

[Urs]

If Korg are very happy for us to know that they sold 250,000 M1s, why are VST developers so shy about THEIR sales figures?

Actually, i don't think Korg has mentioned that number ever. I think it was estimated based on various parameters, and it could very well be 100000 or even 400000.

[Urs]

I'm just curious as to how many vsts get sold.

Me too

[willit]

If Korg are very happy for us to know that they sold 250,000 M1s, why are VST developers so shy about THEIR sales figures?

Actually, i don't think Korg has mentioned that number ever. I think it was estimated based on various parameters, and it could very well be 100000 or even 400000.

250k seems so small when we're talking about worldwide...

[whyterabbyt]

If Korg are very happy for us to know that they sold 250,000 M1s, why are VST developers so shy about THEIR sales figures?

Excellent point.

because '250,000 sold' is a great marketing hook, which entices people on the basis that its popularity is a reflection of the quality of the item.

on the other hand '275 sold' doesnt have any impact whatsoever. except maybe 'wtf is wrong with it then?' from people who think that the number of M1s sold has any relationship to the current softsynth market.

[Urs]

warez (it isn't "piracy")

Would you mind to enlighten me about the difference?

I guess you havn't read my post about pirated ACE copies turned into legal licenses by buying customers?

Urs

[yellowfever]

If Korg are very happy for us to know that they sold 250,000 M1s, why are VST developers so shy about THEIR sales figures?

Excellent point.

because '250,000 sold' is a great marketing hook, which entices people on the basis that its popularity is a reflection of the quality of the item.

on the other hand '275 sold' doesnt have any impact whatsoever. except maybe 'wtf is wrong with it then?' from people who think that the number of M1s sold has any relationship to the current softsynth market.

So what you're saying is developers who sell crap, don't want us to know it's crap? I bet if a vst sold a million copies, they'd be shouting from the roof tops!

[whyterabbyt]

So what you're saying is developers who sell crap, don't want us to know it's crap?

No, Im saying nothing of the sort. Maybe reading lessons would be a good idea.

[Atmosphere600]

The search engines seem to not care about piracy these days which is one of the reasons why i think it's so bad. Everytime i read about a new plugin or app and type in the name to look at the developers website even the suggestions are showing it.

Im fairly sure that if the search engines moved certain words to lower ranks or did not list them it would become less of a problem, sometimes i even see a dodgey site listed before the developers and thats when you know it's bad. My guess is they make money from adverts so as long as it pays them they won't change it, then theres all these new quick file sharing sites so if a developer ever got something taken down another would be up in a few days or whatever.

It's not suprising the sales are not as high as you would expect and i just hope all of this doesn't put some developers off from making new things.

[yellowfever]

So what you're saying is developers who sell crap, don't want us to know it's crap?

No, Im saying nothing of the sort. Maybe reading lessons would be a good idea.

And you my friend need to quote the whole quote. Now, back on topic....

[robogone]

Has anyone ever considered that piracy might not be the only reason sales are decreasing? There is an ever increasing number of products making it to the market and the free ones are becoming ever more sophisticated. Maybe the saturation of the market is having the same effect as it has in other market sectors?

AFAIK no work has ever been done to identify the impact of piracy; it's all been speculation on Internet forums.

[whyterabbyt]

And you my friend need to quote the whole quote.

So what you're saying is that you agree you shouldnt try and put words in other people's mouths? good.