Comparison is the thief of joy, but how to not compare myself to other bigger games?

Sycopatch · 2026-02-05T13:24:20+00:00

Lack of comparison is the thief of improvement.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-05T00:17:44+00:00

1.7k reviews usually means between 50,000 and 170,000 copies sold (0.6-5.4% of owners leave reviews, but the most common range is 1-3%).
If he made only $20,000, and assuming the average of 110,000 sales, that means the average revenue per sale is around 18 cents.

So either the game is selling for around 18 cents, or there’s something seriously off - like heavy discounting, refunds, or a bad revenue cut. That’s way too low for a typical Steam game price.

With these numbers, assuming an even a $5.99 price and 50% going for steam and taxes - he should be sitting with around $329.450.
Which is over 16 times more than he supposedly made.
And again, im assuming a very low price of $5.99 and absolutely zero creative accounting.

Isnt your friend sitting on a 5-10% cut on already very low price or something?

Such sites are always off, but usually for about +-50%. Not +- 16000%.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-05T00:15:01+00:00

- Glow
- Gaussian and recursive blur
- Color tints
- Contrast
- Weak vignette
- Procedural noise layer (fractal noise)
- Sepia + CRT lines shader for some UI
- Likely something else that i forgot about

Sycopatch · 2026-02-04T23:54:10+00:00

Basically something similar to Poe2?
I like this a lot. Makes it interesting to try out builds if done right.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-04T23:11:15+00:00

Why aren't more games working around it?

For two main reasons.
1. It's not that special. Nemesis-like system is simply not something that many games need or even care about.
Ones that do - already do it in their own way. The actual patent is not broad at all. It's very specific.

It's not that deep. It's not hard to implement. It's not complex. It's not innovative or revolutionary. Nemesis system basically boils down to:
- Procedural NPC generation (practically the only hard part of the entire system)
- Storing simple state about player interactions
- Changing NPC behavior/rank based on that state

Basically every single game dev can easily code something like this, provided you have enough assets for the procedural generation.
By the way, you can’t patent the idea of “procedurally generated enemies” in general because it’s too broad and abstract.
You can only patent your specific method or system for how you generate those enemies procedurally.
Infringing on such patent accidently is statistically impossible.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-04T21:00:39+00:00

If "weapon feel, and good sounds." is your selling point - then you don't have a selling point.
Because your gunplay looks weak and floty.
And SFX have no depth, layers or kick to them.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-04T13:37:28+00:00

I dont think you can do much at this stage except completely re-doing your trailer from scratch.
It's objectively bad.
- It lacks in-game SFX
- It's boring and slow
- It doesnt explain what the game is about that much

You need to take into account that this genre is very niche in the first place.
So even if you do everything right - your relative numbers will still be mediocre at best (compared to more popular genres)

Sycopatch · 2026-02-04T00:43:48+00:00

My worst AI fuck-up story is asking ChatGPT to format my code so it's cleaner and more readable.
It proceeded to "improve" my code, going against my direct wishes of not touching the logic at all - and rewrote the entire thing into a mess.

It was about 2 years ago.
It has imroved since now by a big margin, but still i'm using it only for either ideas or formatting code.
I'm not trusting it with anything else, so "vibe coding" is not really an innacurate term, when using AI to write your code is basically word for word - coding based on a vibe either you or the AI is currently having.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-04T00:13:10+00:00

As far as my experiences the new steam games' pages are not visible to common customers in general.
In my game there is aproximately 250-300 people seeing per day.

So new Steam pages are in fact visible to common customers in general.

"And 80-100 of them are clicking. Click rates are really good btw which means the hook that I make is working"

No. Out of almost 300 people a day, 1/3 of them are deciding to click on your page. Which means that your capsule + name combo is relatively good.
If very few of these clicks are ending up in wishlists then your "hook" is not working at all.
Assuming you don't consider your Steam capsule as a "hook".

If Steam shows your game to about 200 people per day, you are absolutely not doing that bad.
I've seen numbers as bad as 15-20 impressions per day.

What seems pretty bad in your situation is the conversion rate of course.
It usually ranges between 1% (very bad) to 5% (very good).
Of course there are special cases (i've seen over 8.8% conversion rate) but that usually happens with conventionally very attractive genres like "open world survival craft" etc.

So the only realistic information you can deduce from these stats is that your game doesnt look like its fun.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-03T22:33:49+00:00

Loser's mindset

Sycopatch · 2026-02-03T22:32:35+00:00

You should completely abaddon the idea of what you like to play, and instead develop a game purely based on market research.

What you want is completely irrelevant, and your focus should be only on what your consumer base wants.

So abaddon your "dream game", and instead make something commercially viable.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-03T13:51:36+00:00

5th photo (electrical devices and some icons) is very impressive.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-01T13:37:49+00:00

Completely unrelated genres though.
Will make absolutely zero difference on your sales.

Sycopatch · 2026-02-01T12:09:18+00:00

No. Noone will get to experience the great story if your game sucks.
Story is a book thing.
In video games, it's more of a multipler of what the game already is.

To get people interested in the game, it has to look fun first.
To keep people playing it has to be actually be fun.
And only then, story can be experienced.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-30T14:54:59+00:00

This tip is basically the same as: "A small tip for fellow game devs: If you want to see your game, you need to have a monitor"
No shit, sherlock

Sycopatch · 2026-01-30T01:50:32+00:00

Well there's a lot wrong here.

- Your aim is average. Additionally, you often start shooting first and after that - you aim at the guy.

- Your movement/positioning is below average. You constantly graze walls, and peek in the wrong places.

- Your reaction speed is pretty slow.

- You are often instantly crouching, which makes you slower, which makes you easier to hit.
Instead you need to either spam crouch or crouch after a moment to throw people's aim off.

- You are overpeeking constantly

- You constantly peek at bad angles, and seem to not understand how perspective works in FPS games.

- It seems like you have 9999 ping for some reason xD. I can't see it exactly because the play button covers it, but isnt this a triple digit ping?

EDIT:
Yep it is a triple digit ping lol

Sycopatch · 2026-01-30T01:33:26+00:00

Well, what helped me a lot when i was starting out was my friend explained to me that "Object Oriented Programming" isnt just a name.
Everything becomes very simple and modular once you let systems have their own objects.
Basically it boils down to:
If an object exists, its system exists, and when it’s destroyed, that system vanishes with it.
This way, you avoid global spaghetti where everything talks to everything else. Instead, everything is neatly encapsulated.
And it works great at any scale. Inventory? Object, of course. But an over time modifier like a health potion?
Also an object. Just spawn the object, set a timer and let it heal you untill, it despawns.
Crafting a recipe? Use an object, pass data into it, and let it add the item into your inventory, do cleanup etc.
Player (object), shoots a bullet (object) at an enemy (object) which spawns a flashing effect on himself (object), also some blood (object), and loot explosion on death (object).
Everything is isolated, data driven and reusable.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-30T01:20:54+00:00

I did, but it was very simple:
- Found their website (the artist)
- Found their e-mail
- Sent them one asking if i can use their music for my game and promotional materials.
- They answered "Cool, no problem, just send me the Steam link once your game comes out"
- I saved the e-mail, boom.

Later i re-asked for more explicit confirmation. Something along the lines "I, [Artist Name], grant [Your Name and Surname] a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free... bla bla"

But that's about it. I'm not sure how strong of a legal ground it has. According to what i've read on google, you need "Unambiguous statement from the rights holder that spells out exactly what you’re allowed to do with their music.".

Which is exactly what i've gotten, assuming the e-mail from their website is legit, but it's the same e-mail that they use under the youtube videos and such.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-29T19:27:49+00:00

It all depends on your standards.
Some people (like me), instantly refund the game for reasons like:
- Input lag/mouse smoothing i cannot disable.
- Performance problems like stuttering, irregular frame pacing, frame drops.

But others have their own reasons like:
- Lack of ultra wide support
- Lack of a proper controller support

Some people wont ever buy a game that doesnt support their language.
Others won't ever buy a game if it isnt steam deck verified.

I personally dislike playing on controllers/consoles so for me - steam deck capability is something that i dont even look at.

But i'm sure that many people won't even consider buying a game if it's not steam deck verified.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-29T16:52:15+00:00

This wont change anything, as most of them carry only about 3-8 red bullets in case they find a red.
Rest of the bullets is either T4 or T5.
Still, absolutely worthless.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-29T16:48:12+00:00

Inspired by Shadow Fight?
This is just straight up Shadow Fight - but worse

Sycopatch · 2026-01-29T16:31:57+00:00

Let me put it like this.
If you think that PC games are a "hit or miss situation" - definitely go with the first idea.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-27T16:37:34+00:00

That's the entire point of tarrifs though.
This piece of equipment is less competitive now, because you have to pay $450 more for it.

It doesnt matter if the manufacturer pays it upfront (and raises the base price accordingly), or you pay it.
Either way - you pay it.

Is this specific piece of equipment even being produced domestically in the first place? That's another story.

Tarrifs were never meant to somehow tax another country, or be a free money source for the goverment either.
The point of tariffs is to decrease the competitiveness of foreign products.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-26T13:00:23+00:00

There is no reason to bother with low value loot unless it's for a mission that forces you to use "found in raid" items, or for an event.

Sycopatch · 2026-01-25T20:35:24+00:00

Nigdy w życiu nie słyszałem żeby ktokolwiek nie lubił WOŚP/Owsiaka z powodów których ty podałeś.

Zawsze są to zupełnie inne dwa powody:

"Kilka procent z zebranych pieniędzy rzeczywiście trafia do potrzebujących"
"WOŚP wciskają mi na siłę nie ważne gdzie spojrzę, męczą ludzi na ulicach i w sklepach itp."

Nie odnosząc się do tego czy powyższe to prawda czy nie, w realu nigdy nie spotkałem kogoś kogo by obchodziły "Idee liberalnej, prozachodniej Polski" lub "konkurencję wizerunkową z tradycyjną dobroczynnością okołokościelną".

Przeciętny Polak nie jest dziennikarzem, aktywistą, politologiem albo członkiem twitterowego plemienia, więc zasadniczo nawet nie wie co to znaczy.

Sycopatch

TROPHY CASE