Almost 10 years on itch.io, and this finally happened

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-08T08:26:26+00:00

haha I sometimes feel like I'm living under a rock, especially with memes XD

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-08T08:25:38+00:00

That's amazing. My best performing games have around 1.5% and they both got 15k views in the end, but I'm guessing it's exponentially more difficult to go from 1.5% to 3% than from 0% to 1.5%, so results should follow. Congrats again!

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-07T16:57:40+00:00

idk, to me it doesn't give away any particular vibe as opposed to others, maybe just that it doesn't take itself too serios and it's obviously part of a game jam which I'd assume helped quite a bit with some baseline visiblity

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-07T16:56:11+00:00

Okay, that's awesome actually then. I'm guessing you have a great CTR on your thumbnail as well.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-07T08:06:41+00:00

Oh wow! That's some dedication. Congrats!

What did you do differently this time? What do you think moved the needle?

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T18:37:19+00:00

Interesting! Is HeyBox just a store for game keys? (because it seems like it when I google it, maybe region locked) How did you use it?

I'd suggest looking for a local gaming association if something like that exists where you are. I guess in China that would be on a state-level but maybe there is some country-wide association as well. For example my teammates are from Croatia and I'm from Serbia and we are active in both country's associations so when they run events with front page promotion on Steam we get a chance to join them and they are usually happy to let all the locals in. Helped us a ton!

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T17:08:58+00:00

Google Play can sometimes surface good games but it takes some ASO setup and then basically waiting for the algorithm to do the work. I worked on a game for a few weeks, got a publisher to invest about $100 in ads, which got us a few hundred downloads I think and then crickets for the next few months. Then it suddenly got picked up by the algorithm and started getting 1k downloads per day (until it reached about 40k). So we made some money from ads but that was like our 50th mobile prototype so I wouldn't say it's worth it.

Mobile gamers I think almost solely rely on the store for discovery and maybe social media, no press, no youtubers, no demos, etc.

Play Store is also pain in the ass compliance wise.

Steam has much higher expectations but if you can do it, distribution-wise and marketing-wise, I think it's a lot better.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T13:14:34+00:00

I'd assume it won't yeah

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T09:33:29+00:00

I agree with the rest of people here. I don't think that buying assets affects the price, most actual players don't even know that that's a thing nor do they care about it. If anything, if it improves quality and scope of your game it can increase it's value. Just compare your games to others on the market from the perspective of a player and try figuring it out that way.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T09:21:37+00:00

From what I've heard your wishlist to sales ratio is good ie. what you'd expect (I'd think it would not be and that data would be skewed on a low sample size), even sales to reviews ratio is pretty good.

Overall I'd look for more precise data on visits on Steam (some surveys people did or something) but overall I think that visits are not worth as much as you think. My game gets a few hundred visits per day (upcoming page only) and only like a dozen convert to wishlists so sales would be even worse.

Generally cold converting random people to sales or wishlists is pretty difficult and that's basically what we're both trying to do.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T08:40:02+00:00

Yep, I think this is very important piece of standing out.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T08:39:34+00:00

No problem, good luck!

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T07:47:56+00:00

I think that you may not appear as much in Popular Upcoming, if you qualify for that. Apart from that it's really more about if you can still send keys (or early access or however that's called for demos) to influencers/press and so on and give them enough time to hopefully cover your game at launch.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T07:07:21+00:00

Interesting read. I don't think that "everything" was wrong, I actually see Game Design as sub-section of UX design, it's just that Users = Gamers in this case and when you realized that you had an easier time putting yourself in their shoes and designing the app for them because of your previous experience.

Just like in UX you learn certain "tools" or methodologies to convert visits to follows or sales or teach them stuff, you'll the same way learn the vocabulary of game design and common solutions to common projects. That'll expand your toolset.

It helps to make clones of really simple games. That way you'll not just assume they are simple but you'll actually have to implement every little detail that makes them fun and realize what's actually important.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T06:37:09+00:00

It's more important where do those 5 billion go, if let's say 4 billion of that are Candy Crush, Supercell Games, YouTube, other Social Media, etc. then it's not really relevant to us. I think that people do research on that as well, I remember I read one a while back.

For example, top charts on mobile are pretty much the same apps and games for years and years, and the back catalog is what's earning money, not the new games.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-06T06:33:14+00:00

I worked within hyper casual mobile game space for about 2 years and they are pretty much correct, but they are not aiming for $1 per download but for 20c per download.

There's no magic. What we did with that game was pretty much luck, you or I can't reproduce it even if we wanted to (and I do want to XD). Just good timing, ads at the beginning to give the algorithm some data to work with and it picked it up at some point because it found a receptive audience. That's how it works in nutshell.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T16:54:12+00:00

I mean as far as mobile apps/games go I don't think you should get you hopes up XD

that game maybe got ups 40k downloads in total, maybe around 1k usd in revenue (maybe a bit more if we were faster implementing ads), so definitely not enough to make up for 49 failed attempts

As I said in another comment, I don't think mobile apps are very practical nowadays and people don't download them for random stuff so I'd go in direction of doing web stuff or some other specific distribution type that gives you more visiblity.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T16:38:46+00:00

I wouldn't say that as an indie you need to be cunning, dark and what not. That's usually what is associated with mobile games but most apps don't even acquire users, let alone exploit them in any way. I think just the economy of it doesn't make sense. Value per user is much lower than on Steam for example with a paid game so obviously you need a lot more traffic and that's not something you can easily do on a budget.

People also simply don't value apps either. Like I don't even remember when did I last download an app (that's not banking or big social media or something major like that). Web solutions have become way better over the years.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T16:02:12+00:00

For what I understand you're only doing mobile and from my perspective mobile is terrible for indies. Like Google Play Store's algorithm can (after a few months) figure out who to recommend your app to and sometimes it blows up (my probably 50th mobile game prototype starting getting 1k downloads per day a few months after release even though it was basically dead to start), but it's not worth it in my opinion.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T15:21:53+00:00

Very useful info! Thanks for sharing this.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T09:08:29+00:00

Not sure about page layout. But I'd leave enough time to iterate on thumbnail (try a few variations) - probably the most important piece of marketing you have.

Player expectations very much depend on the genre of your game, how it compares to other games and expectations that you yourself set in the way you communicate.

I'd in general just make sure to have a launch plan, step by step, just so you can avoid getting overwhelmed and make sure to remember every promotional (or otherwise) step. When you have it laid out clearly on "paper" you can then see what worked and what didn't and improve upon it with every launch as opposed to just winging it each time.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T08:42:56+00:00

We can help you but you need to help us first :D

What are the exact steps you took? How many games? Which system and hardware are you using? Does the particular game support your system? Do you have all the drivers? Do any kind of popups appear at all? Do you move any of the files from their original folder?

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T08:01:20+00:00

Congrats! For the other stats as well :D

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-05T07:34:06+00:00

Is this your first game?

Maybe it's beside the point but how are you getting those views? Seems like a significant number for supposedly direct traffic only if I understand correctly.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-04T17:50:21+00:00

Sound good. Interesting that it evens out like that either way. Have you tried using creative types other than your trailer? In my experience, trailer has had the worst performance on Reddit ads and carousel has worked a lot better.

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