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Should I ship an Interactive Fiction Point & Click game?
Point & Click + Interactive Fiction
Of 408 developers who shipped an Interactive Fiction Point & Click game in the last 2 years: 3 in 10 made under est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method., the middle one made est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method., 1 in 4 cleared est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method., 1 in 20 cleared est. revenue: est. copies × today's US list price; gross, before Steam's cut, taxes and refunds. See method.. 676 more are announced, ×2.9 for every developer who shipped in the last year.
Verdict: poor odds, for a 2 / 10 build.
The middle developer here made $2.4k, ×20 the market's $120 for a 2 / 10 build, and 3 in 10 made under $630; 1 in 20 cleared $400k, ×3400 the market median. Revenue is flat on the market; 676 games are announced against 235 developers who shipped in the last year.
| Bottom 30% | $629 (exactly $629) |
|---|---|
| Median | $2.4k (exactly $2,395) |
| Top 25% | $19k (exactly $18,742) |
| Top 5% | $405k (exactly $404,639) |
| Developers, 2 yr | 408 |
| Released games | 1,224 |
| Announced | 676 |
| Effort | 2 / 10 |
| AI-buildability | High |
| Typical price | $6.99 |
momentum: how a niche's revenue percentiles and developer count moved between two equal, adjacent periods, divided by the market's own move. See method., 12 months: revenue flat on the market, supply 30% more developers than the period before.
Free games: 15%, excluded from money figures.
Can AI deliver it?
AI-buildability for this niche is high: the lowest rating among its tags.
- Point & Click
- effort 2 / 10 · high · effort 2 sits in the high band
- Interactive Fiction
- effort 1 / 10 · high · prose plus a state machine
What it takes
- Effort
- 2 / 10 · static 2D art, simple logic
- Systems
- Point & Click, Interactive Fiction; 5 in 10 of the top 25% also carry Adventure, Visual Novel, Choices Matter
- Price point
- $6.99 typical · top 25% priced $15.99 or above
- Art
- 5 in 10 of the top 25% ship with Story Rich, 2D, Atmospheric
Why players buy here
The top 25% priced at $15.99 or above; the middle game at $6.99.
The top 10 games average 90% positive over 63,973 reviews.
What kills games here
3 in 10 developers made under $630. 8 in 10 of the 225 games released 1 to 2 years ago have fewer than 100 reviews. 676 games are announced against 235 developers who shipped in the last year, ×2.9 per shipper.
Adjacent niches
Point & Click with a different second tag, ranked by verdict then median.
- + JRPGFair
- + Job SimulatorFair
- + Party-Based RPGFair
- + Life SimFair
- + Local MultiplayerFair
- + MiningFair
- + CookingFair
- + Escape RoomFair
- + UnderwaterFair
- + Local Co-OpFair
- + Online Co-OpFair
- + Word GameFair
Comparable games
| Capsule | Game | Released | Price | Reviews | Est. copies | Est. revenue | Developer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series | older | $49.99 | 36,594 96% | 1.1M | $55M (exactly $54,880,022) | Skybound Games |
| | The Henry Stickmin Collection | older | $14.99 | 55,826 98% | 1.7M | $25M (exactly $25,104,952) | PuffballsUnited |
| | Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut | older | $17.99 | 31,885 96% | 957k | $17M (exactly $17,208,334) | Black Tabby Games |
| | There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension | older | $12.99 | 24,144 97% | 724k | $9.4M (exactly $9,408,917) | Draw Me A Pixel |
| | Tiny Bunny | $10.99 | 27,200 83% | 816k | $9.0M (exactly $8,967,840) | Saikono, Sokar | |
| | Gorogoa | older | $14.99 | 19,172 97% | 575k | $8.6M (exactly $8,621,648) | Buried Signal |
| | Not For Broadcast | older | $24.99 | 10,337 94% | 310k | $7.7M (exactly $7,749,649) | NotGames |
| | Little Misfortune | older | $19.99 | 11,789 92% | 354k | $7.1M (exactly $7,069,863) | Killmonday Games AB |
| | Esoteric Ebb | $24.99 | 8,719 95% | 262k | $6.5M (exactly $6,536,634) | Christoffer Bodegård | |
| | Unheard - Voices of Crime | older | $6.99 | 30,978 95% | 929k | $6.5M (exactly $6,496,087) | NEXT Studios |
| | The Roottrees are Dead | $19.99 | 9,700 96% | 291k | $5.8M (exactly $5,817,090) | Evil Trout Inc. | |
| | The Rise of the Golden Idol | $19.99 | 3,786 92% | 114k | $2.3M (exactly $2,270,464) | Color Gray Games | |
| | Sovereign Tower | $19.99 | 3,087 93% | 93k | $1.9M (exactly $1,851,274) | WILD WITS GAMES | |
| | Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector | $24.99 | 2,358 91% | 71k | $1.8M (exactly $1,767,793) | Jump Over The Age | |
| | The Mermaid Mask | $19.99 | 2,776 99% | 83k | $1.7M (exactly $1,664,767) | SFB Games | |
| | Cabernet | $19.99 | 2,025 94% | 61k | $1.2M (exactly $1,214,392) | Party for Introverts | |
| | Desktop Explorer | $17.99 | 2,077 96% | 62k | $1.1M (exactly $1,120,957) | Recurring Dream | |
| | Forbidden Solitaire | $15.99 | 2,245 96% | 67k | $1.1M (exactly $1,076,926) | Grey Alien Games, Night Signal Entertai… (Grey Alien Games, Night Signal Entertainment) |
Estimates: copies = reviews × 30, gross = copies × list price.
Five niches a week, one death, one deep dive.
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