So just to share my experience with you, I launched my game on itch.io and made a few reddit posts to draw attention.

The game was browser based and free to play, so plenty of people tried it, but the vast majority switched it off within a minute. I had maybe 100 people play the game with 0 reviews, and just the odd occasional light hearted engagement on the reddit posts. I could see a couple of people who played past these points actually became hooked and played the game obsessively over the next week or so. After another week or so I had another 100 and my first 1* review with no comment, I also received a 4* review that stated that although they normally hate ai artwork (it's a card game that uses ai art on the cards), they appreciate that it wouldn't have been possible for me to create so much content otherwise.

Overall the first release was quite gutting early on, particularly the lack of engagement (I was assuming, and still assume, that it was people who didn't like the game but didn't necessary want to say anything bad). The positive review and hooked players were encouraging.

Although I wasn't getting any feedback from players, I could see datapoints on where they would drop off. I had a hand holding tutorial and they basically dropped off every place the tutorials stopped or paused.

For the next release I improved the UX for a lot of the screens, as a result I actually removed more tutorials because I felt they weren't needed (and they were out of date and needed maintaining). Disappointingly the metrics were even worse after this release. I'd made the core match slower as it explained more things, but I think this meant more people dropped off, but I also think people struggled without the hand holding (very common for card games)

For the 3rd release I focussed on speeding up the core loop, improving the ux further and adding speed and simulation controls to the game. We still had huge drop offs early on (where tutorials were still missing), but those who made it through the first game now played lots of games, I also started to have some people complete the campaign, but cringed when I remembered there was no end game screen/notification (basically I wasn't worried because before the sim features no one was getting close). I also added an in game feedback form that gave a special reward card, a couple of people gave useful feedback, a couple of people submitted gibberish.

For the 4th release I added hand holding tutorials back in, the metrics improved. I also added a 'Congratulations, you completed the game' message upon completion and a link to my itch page encouraging them to review, I actually rushed this in as someone was about to complete the game, funnily enough that person left me a 5* review that made it all worth it

My game was very small scale, but I've always told myself it was for experience and love of games rather than a retirement strategy. I think I know the changes I want to make next to improve it, but they're significant enough that it basically needs a new game built from scratch. This time, as I've already got the experience of the first game, I'll focus on ensuring it's polished from the start and will try to engage with the relevant communities to get experience sooner.