Catalog One-year Anniversary Report

May 2, 2024

April 18, 2024 marked the two-year anniversary of the launch of Playdate. To commemorate the occasion, for the first time, we are publicly sharing data on the sales of Playdate games on our own game storefront, Catalog, and are excited to announce that over 150,000 games have been sold since the store launched - netting out to $544,290.12 in gross revenue for developers after taxes, processing fees, and Panic’s 25% revenue share for distribution on Catalog.

Catalog and its Crank-to-Buy technology first launched with 16 titles on March 7, 2023, close to a year after Playdates began shipping out to customers on April 18, 2022. For the past year Catalog’s storefront has been updated bi-weekly with a handful of titles; now, the storefront has 181 games and apps from first-time to seasoned game developers alike. This number is of course not indicative of Playdate’s full game library, as it does not take into account the 800+ Playdate games and apps available on itch.io.

We have previously announced that over 70,000 Playdates have been sold to customers. 38,000 Playdate users, about 53%, have made a purchase on Catalog - including downloading the two free games offered by Panic on the store (Reel Steal, Recommendation Dog). About 32,000 of those users who have not bought a game are still working through the games included in Season One. With this information, we plan to continue finding ways to spread the word about Playdate’s game store to help developers find an audience for their project.

“Season One was a big part of introducing Playdate to the world and letting them know that there would in fact be games to play on this neat device when they buy it,” says Head of Playdate Developer Relations, Arisa Sudangnoi. “Now we want to let everyone who enjoys games know that there is a vibrant game dev community making hundreds of inventive and thoughtful games for Playdate! Season One is just the start when you invest in a Playdate.”

More Catalog data:

• The average Playdate game price is $5.36. Playdate game prices are up to the developer and have been priced as low as $1 and as high as $15.
• The average Playdate game price during the first Catalog sale was $4.50.
• 1,500 players first bought a game in Catalog during the sale
• The top regions for game purchases are the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and Japan.

Game sizes:

• Biggest game - 107MB
• Average game size - 5.03MB
• Smallest game size - 30.1KB

Thoughts From Developers

“Making games for Playdate is fun and challenging,” says Playdate and P-Racing developer Risolvi Productions. “It’s a great opportunity for indie developers because the SDK is easy-to-use and you only need to target one device. Also, the Playdate community is small but very passionate. Unlike other app/game platforms, I feel that someone will play and hopefully enjoy the game I’m working on.” P-Racing has sold 6,300 copies and is priced at $12, when not on sale.

“I love how every Playdate is able to be used as a development device,” says multiple time Playdate game developer Matt Sephton (Sparrow Solitaire, Yoyozo, Fore! Track, and many more). “I didn’t think I’d get another opportunity to develop so easily on a device that was so attractive to me, and it coincided with having some extra free time due to the first COVID lockdown in England so the timing was right.” Learn more about Matt’s full-time year as a Playdate game developer on his blog.

Panic will continue to update Catalog with wonderful games in the coming months and are sincerely excited to see what game submissions come their way this year. Any developer can submit their game for Catalog consideration via a simple form.