Tricube Tales sales figures for the last year

One year ago, I reported that Tricube Tales had reached Gold Best Seller (501+ sales) on DriveThruRPG, and I provided a breakdown of sales figures for the product line. At the end of October 2022, Tricube Tales reached Platinum Best Seller (1001+ sales), so I thought it would be interesting to compare the figures over the last year.

Total Sales per Month

Here are the total sales for the entire product line since last year (I've included December from last year as well, as it wasn't complete in my previous blog post).

• Dec 2021: 676
• Jan 2022: 725
• Feb 2022: 624
• Mar 2022: 432
• Apr 2022: 497
• May 2022: 909
• Jun 2022: 677
• Jul 2022: 584
• Aug 2022: 730
• Sep 2022: 393
• Oct 2022: 567
• Nov 2022: 857
• Dec 2022: 104 (so far, in the first week)

Breakdown by Product

And here is a breakdown of the total sales figures for the main products:

• Tricube Tales (core rules): 1063 sales since 2019-11-08
• Solo Rules & Deck: 830 sales since 2021-05-14

These are the "payment optional" products on DTRPG (in order of publication) -- people can download them for free, but I'm only tracking actual sales where people paid for them:

• Goblin Gangsters: 452 sales since 2020-08-27
• Samhain Slaughter: 484 sales since 2020-10-08
• Chrome Shells & Neon Streets: 561 sales since 2020-11-21
• Metahuman Uprising: 492 sales since 2020-12-28
• Rotten Odds: 442 sales since 2021-01-31
• Tales of the Goblin Horde: 453 sales since 2021-04-01
• Wardens of the Weird West: 479 sales since 2021-06-12
• Firefighters: 433 sales since 2021-07-06
• Horrible Henchmen: 424 sales since 2021-08-13
• Pirates of the Bone Blade: 441 sales since 2021-09-15
• Eldritch Detectives: 487 sales since 2021-10-30
• Wiseguys: Gangster Tales: 394 sales since 2021-11-20
• Interstellar Mech War: 402 sales since 2021-11-30
• Voyage to the Isle of Skulls: 331 sales since 2021-12-31
• Down in the Depths: 281 sales since 2022-01-24
• Accursed: Dark Tales of Morden: 275 sales since 2022-02-17
• Twisted Wishes: 260 sales since 2022-02-23
• A Welsh Werewolf in Llanfair PG: 262 sales since 2022-04-01
• Interstellar Smugglers: 285 sales since 2022-05-04
• Winter Eternal: Darkness and Ice: 179 sales since 2022-05-17
• Sharp Knives & Dark Streets: 226 sales since 2022-05-31
• Summer Camp Slayers: 184 sales since 2022-06-28
• Titan Effect RPG: Covert Tales: 164 sales since 2022-07-20
• Sundered Chains: 122 sales since 2022-08-07
• Stranger Tales: 116 sales since 2022-10-06
• Minerunners: 77 sales since 2022-11-01
• Spellrunners: 65 sales since 2022-11-22

These are the DTRPG freebies (in order of publication) -- I like to have a few free products to build up my mailing list:

• Interstellar Bounty Hunters: 2629 downloads since 2020-09-29
• Welcome to Drakonheim: 1531 downloads since 2021-03-10
• Interstellar Troopers: 1947 downloads since 2021-04-26
• Interstellar Laser Knights: 1830 downloads since 2021-05-04

I also have a few freebies on Itch, which I entered into Jams. Here they are, once again in order of publication:

• The Fools Who Follow: 758 downloads since 2020-07-29
• Deep Trouble in Oldport Bay: 482 downloads since 2021-02-20
• Halfling Hustlers: 219 downloads since 2021-07-03
• Guardians of the Shadow Frontier: 504 downloads since 2021-07-31
• Interstellar Explorers: 250 downloads since 2022-08-02

Some Thoughts

Interstellar Bounty Hunters has always had the highest number of downloads, as there was a Discord community built up around it, but overall the number of free downloads on DriveThruRPG is significantly higher than Itch. In fact, many of the one-pagers have more paid downloads on DriveThruRPG than the Itch one-pagers have free downloads!

The sales had a bump in May, August, and November, but the same occurred last year as well. Last year I'd wondered if the May bump might be due to my "May the 4th" one-pager, and the others due to Deal of the Day, but the same seems to have occurred this year as well (even though Interstellar Smugglers, which I released on May 4th 2022, is only a little above average in terms of sales). Perhaps the bump for those months is caused by something else, such as the special sales DriveThruRPG often runs?

Chrome Shells & Neon Streets has always been the most popular of the one-pagers, it's the first to reach Gold Best Seller, and it continues to maintain a strong lead. Sharp Knives & Dark Streets was originally conceived as a fantasy-themed variant of Chrome Shells & Neon Streets, as I wondered if I could repeat its success in an even more popular genre (fantasy). However, that doesn't appear to have happened.

Several of the one-pagers include form-fillable character cards, and a few of the recent products include bonus material -- Sharp Knives & Dark Streets has an expanded city complete with a map, while Minerunners and Spellrunners come with adventures. However, the bonus material doesn't appear to have had any obvious impact on sales (which is a shame, as those products took about twice as much effort to create, and required additional artwork).

Some of the one-pagers have also experimented a bit with the mechanics. Tales of the Goblin Horde was the first to do this, adding rules for gang members. Interstellar Mech War replaced "trait" and "concept" with "weight" and "chassis", and renamed "karma" and "resolve" to "energy" and "frame". Stranger Tales replaced the usual three traits (agile, brawny, and crafty) with athletic, bold, and clever. Sundered Chains added a few special magic items that changed the rules. I'd like to continue to push the envelope a bit here and there, partially to challenge myself and avoid being too repetitive, but also to provide examples of how the rules can be adapted.

I've still got plenty of ideas for new one-pagers, but I'd also like to broaden the options somewhat. I'm still working on a Tricube Tactics supplement (which adds an optional layer for those who prefer more depth to combat), and I'd like to finish that in the next few months. I'm also working on a "generic" TT one-page RPG, for people who want to run games in established settings. I don't know how viable a generic one-pager will be (I've generally been of the opinion that one-page RPGs with strong themes are far more popular), but I'll give it a go.