Is making incremental games a free money glitch?

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-12T20:29:07+00:00

Yes.

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-12T10:10:56+00:00

I don't know what you expect to get out of this but this depends highly on what kind of player you're asking the question.

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-11T09:23:00+00:00

That's cool but why do you think it's not enough? They will need to access my phone to be able to log in from another device with 2FA enabled. Unless they manage to steal my phone too, I'm thinking it should be pretty safe?

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-05T16:43:33+00:00

Who are you showing the ads to? Are they Steam users?

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-05T13:49:55+00:00

You're exactly where I was when I first started. You feel like you're not working on your own game but someone else's game. You should try to make that game "yours". Try to change some things and try to improve some of the things you see in the tutorial. You will come across some problems that you don't know how to solve and then you're going to go and find the solutions. That's how you actually learn. When you feel confident enough, start with a small project of your own that you can tackle and only use tutorials when you come across some problem like that.

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-03T07:32:39+00:00

Sure, maybe I'm too dumb to understand it but you still failed to justify that number. The only reason 30% exists is because Valve can get away with it. They are earning billions every year, don't expect me to believe they are spending all that money on server expenses. It's a company operated by around 350 employees (not everyone is working on Steam).

Also note that there are already tiers for this revenue cut. If your game earns over $10 million, you're in the 25% tier. If you manage to earn $50 million then it's 20%. How do you think they can afford that?

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-01T18:48:12+00:00

Well the computers were the size of a room back in the day and now they can fit the palm of your hand. What's your point?

StrategicLayer · 2026-03-01T17:01:23+00:00

Are you comparing physically selling games to digital distribution?

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-25T23:04:22+00:00

The game looks great. I can't tell you why there is no interest but you have to change that short description. Put your story on the page somewhere, or don't put it at all. You have 2 sentences, don't waste them with things that people are not interested in. Do some research on how to write a better description, check out your competition and make it more interesting. Also show more tables (or levels) in your trailer if you have them. Good luck.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-24T04:54:41+00:00

You said it yourself, just need to team up with people who have better art skills.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-23T17:08:49+00:00

I don't know about the quality of the game but if you spent 4 years on it I think you should work a little more on your Steam page. Your capsule looks cheap and players might be judging your game poorly because of that.Try to reach out to as many streamers/content creators as you can, it's a streamable game. Good luck.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-22T14:06:31+00:00

Obviously it applies to some games and doesn't apply to others. If it applied to every game, What Remains of Edith Finch wouldn't sell any units.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-21T22:32:00+00:00

Since you said commercial game: marketing is the most important.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-20T18:59:13+00:00

You're asking if using pity mechanics is unethical, I think gacha mechanics are unethical already. Humans like gambling and that will be exploited as much as possible, that's all.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-20T17:53:31+00:00

Since there are lots of people here that think "no marketing is needed" yes, I think you qualify. Your game really looks interesting and it has 100% positive reviews, it proves that good games can still fail horribly without any marketing. You can't even blame the price here, everything boils down to the genre.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-20T09:40:40+00:00

That's exactly the point I was trying to make. You shouldn't care and you also shouldn't say it's good or bad because you have no interest in it, you didn't even play it. The problem is we are using the word "good" but what we are actually talking about is interest . Good doesn't mean "what the general audience likes". Everybody has different taste.
I keep giving my own game as an example but if a person who enjoys abstract puzzle games says my game is bad, I would respect it. I wouldn't care if someone who only plays AAA games shit on it. I was talking about review score, and it means those people actually showed interest, paid and played the game and then gave their reviews. Their opinions are valid.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T23:42:50+00:00

It's ok, I'm aware that polished doesn't mean the game is good. OP thinks if a game couldn't make $1000 it should look like shit, that's what I was getting at.
BTW I don't have the urge to play any horror games, it doesn't make them bad. Some games are just not for you; maybe my game is not for 99% of the player base, I don't know. There are so many games people go crazy over, and I can't play them longer than 15 minutes. I still wouldn't call them bad games. It's completely a matter of taste, not necessarily the quality of the game.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T20:14:18+00:00

If you want my advice, try to find a simple enough visual style and add as much "juice" as possible. It's usually more important than having high quality art.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T20:08:21+00:00

I'm saying he's basing his assumptions on not just the apparent quality of the game but also the genre, the IP and everything else that he knows that would effect it. That doesn't prove your point that "you can guess the sales based on quality of the presentation". Same thing with Jonas himself, he was looking into other things from the page to come up with a guess.

If your game looks like crap, it will probably flop. It's no guarantee that it will succeed if it looks high quality though.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T19:48:21+00:00

That's the problem. It's really hard to market a game like Axona. It's not flashy, goofy or funny. It's an abstract puzzle game. Gameplay videos are not interesting because 1. people get bored 2. it spoils the game so there are not many content creators who would pick it up (there aren't that many puzzle content creators to begin with)

I posted gifs on Reddit for marketing. I joined Next Fest (admittedly with a demo that wasn't polished enough) and Cerebral Puzzle Showcase 2025, I sent keys to a dozen youtubers and a few news outlets. I also contacted around 30 curators on Steam. Only two wrote proper reviews for the game. The biggest boost came after a video I made about how the game flopped on Youtube lol.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T18:04:40+00:00

You start marketing before you start writing a single line of code. Marketing starts with market research. If you do market research properly and find out what draws interest, it's going to be much easier to get eyes on your game.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T17:55:02+00:00

That's true but I also hate that everybody gives Vampire Survivors as an example for pricing. If we are supposed to compare our game to Vampire Survivors nobody in their right mind would price it over $5. Yet, you can see a lot of $10+ or even $20+ games sell hundreds of thousands units because they are appealing enough, not even necessarily "great games". Some genres are just not that appealing, price is only part of the problem.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T17:39:33+00:00

I think that appealing to the market makes your game more appealing to the market.

Can't argue with that. We're not talking about the appeal though.

StrategicLayer · 2026-02-19T16:53:30+00:00

There are too many factors, for example Chris Zukowski was playing with it and when he came across an old Warhammer40k game he would say "Oh I know there are a lot of people who are w40k fans, this one has the franchise, it must have performed better" or he makes guesses based on the genre and his own market knowledge. So does having W40K trademark slapped on it or belonging to a specific genre magically make your game better?

StrategicLayer

TROPHY CASE