How did I sell games ...

It was a long time ago and not true ... Please consider this as an essay. The story is fictitious.

It all started with the fact that in December N of the year, just before the New Year, friends began to ask what to give? Honestly, I didn’t need anything, so my friends gave me an envelope with 7000 rubles and I began to think about what to buy.
I was a simple unemployed student, without a lot of money, but with the desire to earn something.
Often, going to a computer store to buy some kind of nonsense, I looked at the Xbox360, and thought it would be nice to come home after a hard school day and wallow on a sofa in front of a zombie box to play some kind of game. My home computer is weak, on which none other than the simplest games go. Finally, having a free 7000rub, I went to the website of a computer store in search of some sort of another junk I didn’t need and was shocked, due to the Christmas holidays, the price of the Xbox360 was reduced to 6999rub! Without thinking twice, I found a forum on the Xbox360, found out that it can be flashed on any day by a good person, that pirated discs can be bought near the metro closest to the house, and this very evening I went to do a tricky purchase and firmware quest.

Almost immediately after the purchase, I found out that you can record discs yourself at home. Friends after watching me, too, got X-boxes. Having learned from the same good person where it’s possible to buy cheaper blanks, I began to record games myself while sharing images of games in LAN. To my surprise, people from lokalka began to ask if I could write them some games for money, and then an idea was born.

I decided to sell pirated games for the Xbox360 ...


Business preparations began:
1. I bought a good SONY cutter for DVD + R DL (2500 rubles)
2. I bought paper for covers of 50 sheets (100 rubles)
3. I bought 50 self-adhesive knurls. (100rub.)
4. Purchased 50pcs. discs Mirex Printable DVD + R DL (2100rub.)
5. Purchased refillable cartridges for the printer (1500 rub.)
6. Purchased ink for the printer 4 colors of 100 ml. (800 rubles.)
7. Bought boxes for discs 50pcs. (500 rubles.)
8. Purchased a sim card (100 rubles).
Total costs amounted to: 7700 rubles.
The cost of one game: ~ 60 rubles.

It was decided once one game costs me about 60 rubles, then I will sell for 120, and delivery to the subway will be free. By placing ads on newspaper sites, VKontakte, forums on the Xbox360, word of mouth and leaving everywhere the number of the new sim card (which is incidentally registered to a non-existent person), sales went.

By the way, I didn’t have my 8,000, so I borrowed it from friends in pieces, and returned everything from the first sales.

In the first month, 3 people called me and ordered a total of 30 games. Within a week, all the games were delivered to customers, customers were satisfied, and I earned 1800 rubles. clean.
Honestly, even then I realized what a hard work I started. Games on a 4-megabyte channel downloaded for a long time because the image was 7GB, but gradually the base of games was formed and it warmed the soul. Making the game itself took me 30 minutes, of which 20 minutes the game was recorded, and in the same 20 minutes the cover + knurling was printed, and another 10 minutes after recording the knurling was applied, the disk was checked, etc. It took me 30 days to play 30 days, of course, with tea breaks, smoke, dine, etc. Vobschem hard, but 1800 in one day.

The following month I sold 50 discs already. Basically, these were orders for 3-5 discs. A lot of new customers, in general word of mouth gave effect. I earned about 3,000 rubles.
Since I did free delivery to the metro, such a number of orders and only 3,000 rubles for everything just began to annoy me. I was already thinking of abandoning all this venture, but decided to try to bend the price of 200 rubles per game. By the way, the guys in the stall near the metro sell their games at precisely that price tag. I didn’t care, I can’t compete with them, and thank God. But strangely enough, orders went further. As one of the clients explained to me, only he can buy games that ended in the store from me, appear in the store in a couple of weeks, etc.
Of course, some part of the clientele fell away, and orders became somewhat less, but nevertheless, the business continued.

In the 3rd month I sold about 40 discs, again 2-5 pieces each. at a time. It turned out to be about 5600 clean.
I learned how to distribute the load, I’ve recorded games for days, I made appointments when it’s more convenient for me, in general I’m used to it. A few more months passed in the same vein.

Closer to August, I was finally tired of doing this, I wanted normal money, and probably normal work. And then a friend of mine suggested moving the “workshop” for manufacturing to his garage, let the guest worker sit there and write games. It was decided to sell products in similar stalls near the metro.
After brief negotiations with the guys from the stall, we agreed on a price of 100 rubles per drive, that is, 40 rubles. By the way, as it turned out, all these stalls are usually ready to take products from anyone, if only they would be cheap and profitable. They have no problems with law enforcement agencies, they pay rent to a person, the same person solves all issues with the authorities.
In short, considering that they would buy about 100 games a month from us, I decided that 4000 rubles was not worth it. Plus, again, investments were needed in a separate computer, in several cutters, they didn’t even remember about a hired migrant worker ... There was still an option to supply games to several of these stalls, but honestly it became really scary.

There were a lot of ideas in the end, there was even a man who was ready to invest in a workshop where they would produce a lot of pirated games, films, etc. There were even people willing to give a separate stall and seller for this business. There were even options for hiring those same guys who walk on the subway and drive databases. But I decided that I would not participate in this.

In conclusion, I will say that you should not repeat the experience. Firstly, it’s not worth it, the money is still not big, and secondly, you can very coolly expose yourself to law enforcement agencies. This thing was bent, I did not deal with sales anymore.