The dev of Telepath Tactics has recently written a financial post-mortem on his game with financial numbers both for the making of the game and the sales:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/CraigStern/20150817/251518/Telepath_Tactics_brass_tacks_and_sales_stats.php

To refresh your memory, it's this game:
http://www.gog.com/game/telepath_tactics

I bought the game day one and have been meaning to play it once the updates slow down. Nice to see them break it up like that.

Sucks about their sales though.

Thanks, that was a great read.

If my own finances didn't suck at the moment i'd have already bought this game.

Bleak. Nice article, thanks for sharing.

Hmm .

Great read - made me want to play the game, ugly look or no.

Hate to be the dick that says $15 is a bit much, though...

But when this goes on sale, I'll pick it up.

I agree. Compared to what is offered, it seems to be a bit steep.
This is the market we have. I do wish him luck, though.

Same here, I would have bought this one at full price on release day but I currently have to buy everything twice and then it's a little painful, even when the game was discounted just a couple days ago. I'd need a 50% sale though to pull the trigger. Kinda feel bad for the developer, those indie developers are often very hard working and dedicated individuals who are most worthy of supporting. Sometimes I buy indie games on release at full price if I have a gut feeling that the game is good and that gut feeling hasn't betrayed me on indie titles so far but if my finances aren't fit enough then all the good intentions are pointless and I can only make such full price purchases every once in a while. Definitely going to buy Telepath Tactics at some point as it's one of my top 3 games on the wishlist.
I heard there were some glitches and bugs so I'm glad that I waited and by the time I get it most of the issues should probably be fixed. It seems that this genre combined with slightly amateurish graphics is a niche interest so that could explain the low number of sold copies so far. Halfway moved better numbers but had a similar problem in that it hasn't broken even yet.

Halfway in Numbers: (fun statistics presented in a cool way)

http://robotality.com/blog/

Very interesting article. It is on my wishlist to get at some point, but I'm in the group of 'wait till it gets a nice sale' people.

Yep, I nearly posted the halfway postmortem when it was out but as the stats/numbers were lacking commentary, I refrained to do so.... I prefer when the devs write about their endless sufferings :o)

Robotality, the developers of Halfway, often reply to posts on the Steam forums. They're cool and approachable people and very dedicated towards improving and making their game as good as possible. Whatever their next game is, I'm buying it because they have proven with Halfway that they will polish their games and take pride in the quality of their work.

A bit sad that Halfway completely flew under the radar on GOG, hardly any talk about it on here. The GOG crowd can at times be somewhat cruel and picky which could potentially scare some indie developers off, of course it's not our job as customers to be nice and cuddly but honest, nevertheless I often think about how it must be for small developers to read all the negative and highly critical commentary. One thing that I find important is that customers at least have the courtesy to completely finish a game before reviewing it and that they try to be at least a little bit more objective and fair.
I'll be the first to complain about game breaking bugs and glitches etc but when kudos are due, kudos are due.

I think part of the "problem" is that GoG really is a bastion of extremely high quality games in a few otherwise "obscure" / niche genres. When I was gaming primarily on consoles, I flipped out when I heard about a little game called Omerta because consoles were by and large a wasteland of turnbased tactical strategy.

Not so on GoG. There's an enormous wealth of extremely high quality tactical strategy games here, and I've gushed and glowed about several. Likewise turnbased RPGs and adventure games. The point being, if a developer wants to release that type of game here, they have no choice to bring their A-Game. Because there are just too many fantastic offerings.

Price is a huge issue too. Let's assume I have no vested interest in any of these particular games and they are competing based solely on price. Just looking at a few screenshots and reviews, with my $14.99 in hand I can purchase Telepath Tactics... or Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun Dragonfall, OR I can shell out $5 bucks more and get the newly released Hong Kong. Again, just based on a few screenshots, pedigree and word of mouth that's not even close to a choice. I hate to sound like I'm "ripping" on a developer who probably poured a ton of time, money and love into a game but that's just the reality of the situation.

I'll bring beer into the equation (I love beer ;) ). Right now, I live in a region swimming with amazing, fantastic wonderful hoppy IPA goodness. If you're a new brewer, don't come into this market with a mediocre IPA and charge the same price for a four pack, thinking if you put it into a few tall boy cans or a flip top growler it'll jump right onto the hype train with the rest. It doesn't work that way.

That makes sense, yes. The average quality of games is indeed higher on GOG than on any other platform I'm aware of.
They have added some turds both old and new, in some cases for the sake of completing a series (e.g. Master of Orion 3, Simon the Sorcerer 3D and Simon the Sorcerer 4, Lords of the Realm 3, Empire Earth 3) but also some standalone turds (Pixel Piracy, 1849: Gold Edition, Slender: The Arrival), as well as games where quality control seems to have failed (Omerta) and games like Crusaders of Might and Magic that were simply pointless to be revived as hardly anyone misses them.

But in general, the presence of so many classics and the increasing number of them does indeed raise the bar to a high level. This can be a bit of a problem for indie games made by tiny teams on a shoestring budget which are promptly compared to all-time classics made by famous studios on a high budget. Under these circumstances, practically no indie developer can hope to ever get 5 stars for their games because "5 stars is reserved for the best of the best" according to many reviewers and you can't in any way enforce a reviewing standard on people as everyone has their own personal rules for that.

This definitely makes sense, as well. Personally, I don't factor in price as a main criteria for rating a game because price is subject to change (discounts) so price/value is a pliable factor whereas the game quality itself stays the same for the most part. Unless it's a very bug ridden game that completely improves after a patch (e.g. Arcanum and Daggerfall which were unacceptable releases back when they were first released).
Nevertheless, sales numbers support your point entirely, that's just the way things are and no romantic wishful Robin Hood empower the small indie people thinking can fix that unless more people vote with their wallets. I do it sometimes but I'm too poor and sometimes too stingy to do it as much as I'd like to.

I'm afraid your beer reference is lost on me...I don't understand beer and I suspect I never will, and the more I drink of it the less I understand it, very weird! I stay away from it, maybe one or two beers per year at the very most.
Played a tycoon style beer management game from Germany last year but I can't remember its name. Everything with beer seems to affect memory in a bad way :o

Interesting read again. The game is on my wishlist, but I also have to either wait for a sale, or save up to buy it. :(

Oh man, Telepath RPG. I remember playing the origional back in... 02, I think it was. Good game a little simple. The series really came into its own with Telepath RPG 2, which in my oppinion, was excelent. You can still play both these games over on the Sinister Design website and I recomend you do.

I was pretty sad when it was announced the games were going pay to play, becuase I was a kid and hadn't the money to buy them, actually, come to think of it, I still don't have the money to buy them. Telepath Tatctics and Servants God are litterally thing one and two on my list once my amount of disposable income increases. Sad to hear his finacials aren't going to well, these games are really quite fun.