How Many Units Does A Hit Synth Sell?

[Karmacomposer]

if you have a mac there is a much higher chance that you have extra cash. and thats not just an opinion, or meant to be negative.
rich folk and pros have macs, and those two groups can afford to toss money around.

edit:
oh, plus nothing for mac gets cracked much, so.. they cant be tempted by the dark side so much...

That simply and sadly isn't true. Some years ago I remember a studio assistant being told to take "most" of those plugins out of the main room's mac because they weren't stable... But considering that you're right about who can afford these machines, it makes it all the more despicable, doesn't it?

oh, you mean they are getting cracked now..?
i know 'years ago', it was a pretty small amount, by comparison.
..
oh snap. things change.

i sort of woulda thought the sceners would of left them untouched as sort of a sort of subtle social commentary.. or some shit.

Less Macs = Less Cracks

Now that more people use Macs, there is now more software being bought (or downloaded). Now that there is demand, that demand is met and you have cracks available where before there were few or none.

Mike

[Rellik]

Not sure how useful these will be in any comparisons, as I've no idea how widely-played Sims2 or Sims3 are. They're not exactly huge, though - I hardly ever see people talking about them. Which is why the SimPe download figures always stagger me! (If we got paid for it... wheee! )

You're really not aware? The Sims series is I believe the highest-selling franchise on PC. The main games sell tens of millions of copies.

[Urs]

again, thanks a lot for the insider insights (Ben, Angus, Urs, etc.)
i didnt know its that hard to make a living - even if ur on the top.

I can speak only for myself, but it isn't really hard at all. It took some time, but it has become comfortable and very enjoyable for the last 5 years or so.

I guess that each of us could have gone into a more profitable area than developing music software, and each of us was fully aware of that before we started. But we didn't go anywhere else, because we wanted to work in an area that we love. Which in itself provides for a quality of life that can't be valued by money.

And as for Ben, Angus and me, I guess we have been long enough in this to not worry too much about the future of our businesses anymore. That's another quality of life that many, many people with way more money do not have.

(Actually when I started I though that everything was done already and that I came to late with my ideas. But it's never too late, the demand for top notch synths and the likes doesn't go away, in fact I think that "market saturation" does not exist in our field. It's a made up word to express the frustration of those with too high expectations)

Urs

[Ben [Camel Audio]]

again, thanks a lot for the insider insights (Ben, Angus, Urs, etc.)
i didnt know its that hard to make a living - even if ur on the top.

Don't worry - we're all doing OK now as Urs says - but I think its fair to say we've all worked more hours for the last 5-10 years than the vast majority of people.

I guess that each of us could have gone into a more profitable area than developing music software, and each of us was fully aware of that before we started. But we didn't go anywhere else, because we wanted to work in an area that we love. Which in itself provides for a quality of life that can't be valued by money.

Yup - absolutely!

And as for Ben, Angus and me, I guess we have been long enough in this to not worry too much about the future of our businesses anymore. That's another quality of life that many, many people with way more money do not have.

I guess cos there's more people working for Camel these days, we do have to keep an eye on costs vs income each month, but as long as nothing majorly bad happens, and we keep making the right decisions then we should all be ok. Certainly we have enough revenue to support and update our products for many, many years into the future - so our customers can feel totally secure. We really appreciate each customer, and each customer makes a difference to us.

(Actually when I started I though that everything was done already and that I came to late with my ideas. But it's never too late, the demand for top notch synths and the likes doesn't go away, in fact I think that "market saturation" does not exist in our field. It's a made up word to express the frustration of those with too high expectations)

I do agree with what you're saying - if you make something that is sufficiently better than / different from everything else out there, then you can succeed. But I do think something has changed in the business, which is that there is much more competition - so the cost of making a synth that stands out from the competition in terms of time and cash, is a lot greater now than (say) 8 years ago. Cameleon took maybe 1.5 man years of development up till release, and Alchemy took at least 13 man years of development time - and thats building from a point of much greater knowledge of how to make synths and plugins in general. So I would say its at least 10x more expensive (in time/money) to build a leading synth now than 8 years ago. This doesn't mean you can't do it, but it means its tough. I think the best bet for someone starting out would be to find a relatively small nieche and fill it really well - though as you can tell from sales figures, it does mean you're maybe not going to sell that many units cos the total market isn't that big. I do think I'd find it tougher to start out now. Its a bit like the early days of the games industry - though obviously there is no chance that the audio plugin industry is going to become the massive money spinner that the games industry is now.

Although we're only selling FL Studio boxed I have to say that in our situation things have been going the other way around and we have been selling more boxes than on-line versions for a couple of years in a row now.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of our users :

- don't have a credit card (or refuse to use it on-line)
- don't trust the whole 'virtual' thing and want something to hold
- get the product as a gift.

Thats interesting - thanks for the info. I guess its possible to deal with the second issue to some degree, by providing the option to buy the product in a box from the website - we're actually planning to do that. It would also be possible to deal with the third gift issue by the same means, combined with a policy of allowing free transfers if the product hadn't been registered/downloaded. I guess the first can be dealt with to some degree by handling PayPal. But even with those things, I think there's a big factor of people going to stores to buy audio software, because they want advice about what to buy / have greater confidence in boxed products that they can hold and look at before buying.

Clearly the market for sequencers is very different from the plugin market - given your figure of 250,000 units for FL Studio vs Angus's figure of only 3 plugins selling 5,000+ (well - extrapolated from 2000+ in US market with 2.5x worldwide multiplier) through retail in the last year. Aside from the size of the market, you've also got to be more clued up and knowledgeable about writing music to buy plugins - you've got to already have a sequencer and know how to install and use plugins.

just a guess, but i believe it would make a substantial difference if VST devs managed to get their stuff in a physical shape.
face it: the digital domain IS considered as being worthless. i know, this might change. but for medias (where i work) people are wondering since 10 y. why online advertisment still gives pennies while paper adverts make the dollar.
two things to consider.

I think Angus's figure of only 3 plugins selling over 2000 units in US retail in last year would suggest that putting the product in a box doesn't make much difference. Or do you mean a physical synth? We haven't heard much about sales figures for hardware boxes in this thread, so its hard to know whether they sell that much more units - and of course the down side to that there is much larger per unit manufacturering cost.

manuals are often given away for free (PDF). why?
a well written manual makes a big difference for me. i remember buying amiga games just to get the accessoires (nice storybook, manual, wallpaper, etc.).
what can be given away for free is a programmers reference (midi implementation, specs). i love having a book that helps me to explore a synth. sadly the art of writing nice manuals vanished. maybe because the skill and will of reading texts vanished...

We give our manuals away for the simple reason that users can't evaluate the demos properly without having a manual to reference. I would also dispute that the art of writing nice manuals is dead - maybe I'm biased, but I think the Alchemy manual is great - sure there's a lot of information in it - but Alchemy is a deep product so there's no getting away from it, if you want to learn about the more advanced features.

Regarding NI and Beatport - I guess this is illustrative of a wider phenomenon - an increasing tendancy for software companies to make money from content rather than software - examples include Kore Soundpacks or in another domain, the way certain games companies are releasing games in a series of episodes with the same underlying game engine - eg. all the recent GTA expansions. I read one analysis recently which suggested the tendancy to sell content expansions might partly be a response to piracy - since each thing is cheaper to develop, and each unit is cheaper for the customer.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread - its been really interesting

Ben

[Lotuzia]

again, thanks a lot for the insider insights (Ben, Angus, Urs, etc.)
i didnt know its that hard to make a living - even if ur on the top.

I can speak only for myself, but it isn't really hard at all. It took some time, but it has become comfortable and very enjoyable for the last 5 years or so.

I guess that each of us could have gone into a more profitable area than developing music software, and each of us was fully aware of that before we started. But we didn't go anywhere else, because we wanted to work in an area that we love. Which in itself provides for a quality of life that can't be valued by money.

And as for Ben, Angus and me, I guess we have been long enough in this to not worry too much about the future of our businesses anymore. That's another quality of life that many, many people with way more money do not have.

(Actually when I started I though that everything was done already and that I came to late with my ideas. But it's never too late, the demand for top notch synths and the likes doesn't go away, in fact I think that "market saturation" does not exist in our field. It's a made up word to express the frustration of those with too high expectations)

Urs

So, Urs, never made the nightmare of a Giant UberSynth falling from an improbable company located in an improbable country, and wich suddenly will make all the other ones look old and obsolete, a bit like the DX7 and the first romplers gave a big cold desease to Analog monsters in their times, before of course 15 years later Analog would become a cult again, adn 30 years later Ace will be born ( But 15 years can be a long time when you're in the desert ) ?

Seems like a good dev nightmare after a snowy evening no ?

Well I hope creativity will not abandon us one day or another too. I've seen that with musicians, during a decade they accumulate treasures, are inspired, then pfuiiitttt nothing else. Are we sure we can be preserved from that ?

my 0.002 esoteric and depressive thoughts of the day ........

LtZ

[Urs]

Hehe, yes, I had that nightmare a couple of years ago. There have been loads of synths that were hyped to be The One That Outruns Them All, but sheesh, I would have a hard time remembering them all. The hype usually settles a few hours after release.

It's just not going to happen, really

Urs

[eduardo_b]

Hehe, yes, I had that nightmare a couple of years ago. There have been loads of synths that were hyped to be The One That Outruns Them All, but sheesh, I would have a hard time remembering them all. The hype usually settles a few hours after release.

It's just not going to happen, really

Urs

I only wish it settled after a few hours.

[Zergling]

Hehe, yes, I had that nightmare a couple of years ago. There have been loads of synths that were hyped to be The One That Outruns Them All, but sheesh, I would have a hard time remembering them all. The hype usually settles a few hours after release.

It's just not going to happen, really

Urs

Maybe you can make that one someday

[cjomuk]

Clearly the market for sequencers is very different from the plugin market - given your figure of 250,000 units for FL Studio vs Angus's figure of only 3 plugins selling 5,000+ (well - extrapolated from 2000+ in US market with 2.5x worldwide multiplier) through retail in the last year. Aside from the size of the market, you've also got to be more clued up and knowledgeable about writing music to buy plugins - you've got to already have a sequencer and know how to install and use plugins.

This is really suprising to me - I would have thought the plugin market should be at least 3X to 5X the sequencer market in terms of volume of units sold. Now the Propellerhead strategy makes more sense - previously I had never understood why they would not make a plugin version of Reason and Record just looked like a step backwards.

Almost every musician I know would want access to more gtear given the opportunity, so what's stopping the plugin market shifting more units? Can the DAW company's do anything to help the market?

[Urs]

Can the DAW company's do anything to help the market?

They bundle their own stuff, often licensed from some other company... so they're actually not that helpful.

While DAWs seem to sell a lot, one must not forget that some of these companies have been around for 25 years. They're as much a bigger company as Native Instruments is, and I suspect that NI moves a *lot* of boxes.

Urs

[kv331]

I was a bit surprised to hear Dave Spears of G Force Media say on a podcast that they sell more AU and RTAS synths than VST.

I contacted a distributor in an Asian country last month, and the first thing he asked (regarding SynthMaster 2) was:

"Do you have a Mac version? Specifically AU? That's what sells here"

[Ben [Camel Audio]]

This is really suprising to me - I would have thought the plugin market should be at least 3X to 5X the sequencer market in terms of volume of units sold. Now the Propellerhead strategy makes more sense - previously I had never understood why they would not make a plugin version of Reason and Record just looked like a step backwards.

We obviously don't have enough info in this thread to deduce the number of units of sequencers sold vs. the number of plugin units sold. But I agree that these numbers are suprising and that based on these figures I would assume that there are probably many more units of sequencers sold than units of plugins. It may also be the case that sales of plugins are scattered amongst more companies than the sequencer units which are focussed on fewer companies.

Almost every musician I know would want access to more gtear given the opportunity, so what's stopping the plugin market shifting more units? Can the DAW company's do anything to help the market?

There's a question about whether the DAW companies would want to do anything to help - sure they'd want to sell more units of plugins which they manufacture (and there is an increasing number of DAW manufacturers who sell plugins). But given that they are profit making companies, I'm not necessarily sure that they would want to go out of their way to grow the market for plugins for other companies.

Part of this difference in sales is kind of fundamental - I mean, if I want to make music, the first thing I need to get is a sequencer. Only after I've got familiar with the sequencer and all the synths/effects/samples that come with it (and in some cases eg. Logic this is a whole lot of stuff), am I going to start looking for other plugins. Nonetheless, I do believe that it is possible to expand the market for plugins, and I think thats a question of providing products which are not too complex and give musicians what they want (for many musicians thats great, tweakable sounds), and at an acceptable price. Then beyond that, its a question of making sure the users know about them - I guess things like having your product in a box in loads of music stores, and having LE versions bundled with controllers/interfaces/sequencers help in this area, which is why the larger plugin companies pursue these routes.

Ben

[amiga909]

We give our manuals away for the simple reason that users can't evaluate the demos properly without having a manual to reference. I would also dispute that the art of writing nice manuals is dead - maybe I'm biased, but I think the Alchemy manual is great - sure there's a lot of information in it - but Alchemy is a deep product so there's no getting away from it, if you want to learn about the more advanced features.

- critique overdone: there still are heaps of great manuals, and its wrong there were so much better manuals in hardware times.. alchemy (just checked now shortly) has a well designed, comprehensive and detailed manual with practical tips.

- manual before buy: at least for me its not true. i reckon, if one wants to understand a synth in depth, he already wants to have it! most people, i assume, zap thru presets and fiddle with some well known knobs. a quick-view brochure and some specs make a nice addition to a demo of course.

- adding athmosphere: again, maybe just me. for every product i have, i got a print out. not for looking up technical details (here a PDF is better) but for the joy of reading. in bed, in a cafe, on the train.

.. i'll stop here. might be worth to start a thread about VST manuals. i am aware of the problems with software updates, online+print-out design, printing/delivery costs...
still it might be true that manuals arent interesting for crack teams. they are into their own game of beating every software protection and releasing 'working demos' (as they seem to see it). they are not interested in cracking addons that much. delivering full products to the mass of torrent users and to the chinese copy industry is not their intention after all, i believe.

Then beyond that, its a question of making sure the users know about them - I guess things like having your product in a box in loads of music stores, and having LE versions bundled with controllers/interfaces/sequencers help in this area, which is why the larger plugin companies pursue these routes.

yes, it might be only about the problem of getting known. not about physical vs. digital. and u've got good reasons to assume people will accomodate to download-only-sales more in future. btw, regarding media, most big companies do shift to internet products and they are more or less urged to find ways to make it profitable. so, my doubts are maybe just out of nostalgia..

[pljones]

Not sure how useful these will be in any comparisons, as I've no idea how widely-played Sims2 or Sims3 are. They're not exactly huge, though - I hardly ever see people talking about them. Which is why the SimPe download figures always stagger me! (If we got paid for it... wheee! )

You're really not aware? The Sims series is I believe the highest-selling franchise on PC. The main games sell tens of millions of copies.

Really?! I hear WoW and stuff being talked about all the time on forums I read (even the not quite as male dominated ones). Never really hear folks talking about Sims games except on their community forums. (I've no games installed on any of my computers except the OS ones like Freecell )

[vstliefhebber]

- manual before buy: at least for me its not true. i reckon, if one wants to understand a synth in depth, he already wants to have it! most people, i assume, zap thru presets and fiddle with some well known knobs. a quick-view brochure and some specs make a nice addition to a demo of course.

Not in my personal case. Before I buy a product I want to have read the manual completely, so I know exactly what a specific synth does (so you can dream about all the stuff you can do with it). Probably this behaviour comes from the hardware days, where you had to compare manuals in order to make a good buy wthout demoing, but still remains today.

This is the reason I haven't bought Ohmicide yet. Demoed it, and seems a plug-in which fits my needs perfectly, but some thing are still too cryptic yet and I want to know them before I buy them. Actually, the manual appears to be the main reason I would buy the product, but I'm uncertain if it will fullfil my expectations.