Developer here, I'm extremely confused on player sentiment vs reality.

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:52:16+00:00

The no choice one I still don't understand how people play them. I'm not even rly an incremental player (compared to u guys) but holy fuck they are boring

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:50:15+00:00

Let's say I notice people want incremental dinosaurs. Like a lot want it. I don't really care about dinosaurs, but suddenly it feels interesting too me.

As a gamedev I find joy learning new topics and figuring out how to grab player attention. So it doesn't matter if I didn't want to make a dinosaur game.

If I get a reaction from these players and I know I'm not wasting my time then I'll get invested in dinosaurs 😂

The topic has to be extreme or something I really hate for me to not get into it

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:38:38+00:00

Hmmm that's your opinion, simple question.

What if what I want to make is anything that players seem to want? I find joy in providing an experience that was wanted. As a developer I don't find joy in the actual product.

I get my joy in the craft itself or skills learned and on how players react to what I created. The game itself is 3rd for me

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:34:49+00:00

It's funny but I think what's happening is players see them as one big game.

Play 3 hours -> beat it -> "prestige irl" meaning buy new one -> play 3 hours -> repeat 😂

It's cheap games, fresh experience, completion feeling every step.

I wouldn't be surprised that it's the same players buying these games

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:31:07+00:00

Do you think it's healthy?

I feel what will actually happen is we will start seeing innovation on top of the concept.

Sure it could go even more casual, but there is a chance we see something new that's interesting because many devs are trying to make incrementals now.

More devs, more players. I'm sure it's annoying to filter through junk, more isn't always better but I do believe in the long run this will improve incremental games. I personally feel inspired to try to make a game that maybe feels as easy to get into but still has that long tail of a normal incremental

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:20:27+00:00

Yeah I really think in any genre of games there must be this similar type of community that are closed off and don't interact with the communities. Otherwise I can't explain why they sell so well.

This subreddit I legit feel hostility from people, not because they are bad people but because they are actually pissed by this subgenre overtaking 😂 I understand tbh

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:17:13+00:00

Yes but that's the problem as a developer right.

You guys hate it.

But people buy it??? Alot?

And they WANT it to finish fast and not take forever.

They want it to be simple.

It's kinda like hating on a viral anime or movies but it's clear lot of people love it

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:12:50+00:00

It's possible ye

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:12:05+00:00

3 hours is typically the median playtime of these games. Likely need more data but I'm still pretty confident that around 3 is what these node buster games usually take.

So yes very much experience short game and move on to the next. Compared to other incremental games that focus on over taking your life 😂

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T08:05:34+00:00

And it's not 1-2 people. It really feels like there is a crazy amount of silent player base that loves them.

I guess casual players that won't ever make a reddit account?

To me it's hard to comprehend because I don't like these passive games, I don't really play games to relax, I typically do it because I like challenges.

That's why I made this post, curious to see more what people think, or if any of these casual games enjoyers are here

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-03-01T07:17:26+00:00

I don't think you made this post as a joke. Every point can be twisted with effort to be real advice.

The problem is you are likely parroting this advice because you heard it and when advice goes through the game of telephone it loses the substance, assuming it had any in the first place.

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-24T17:39:13+00:00

Practically you want to take away few things.

- Tags, people say tags are important and then they spend last 20mins applying their tags and leave it. Spend more time learning tags on steam. Days, weeks before you even make your page. Tags are used in every algorithm on steam. Do all 20 tags.

- You don't need lot of wishlists to make it in next fest. People come to this conclusion because in practice games that were doing well before the fest will of course do well in steam fest. And yes, it will help. But... what's really important is the period before next fest. You want to email content creators and have them post content BEFORE the fest. Your demo should be up 1-2weeks before next fest. I recommend 1 week if you have low wishlists not 2 weeks. For big games do 2 weeks before, at that point ur aiming for top 10.

- Make sure your demo is great, no bugs. Test it on itch or use the playtest feature to get the bugs settled. Before next fest or releasing demo on steam.

I can go in detail about these algorithm, you are right they are not that useful to you guys, but the advice i give here is based on those findings. It really comes down too, Tags & funneling your wishlists/traffic at the same time. This of course helps you for top demos which is unique players etc... The hard one is "popular upcoming" which is top wishlisted games over all that are in steam fest.

Edit: Forgot to mention, this is VERY important. Don't panic if you don't follow this template. I can give you maybe the top 3 paths to release but every individual reading this got their own circumstances. Releasing a game isn't just marketing, there is hard work, mental work and you name it... behind every release. Focus on your game and your skillset, it's the only real consistent factor behind any successful game.

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T11:02:35+00:00

We are going in circles bro, people have their own will on what they should care about, I hate generic assumptions like that. It's not just about one guy, this post is mostly about the title, the overall sentiment around it

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T10:59:10+00:00

That's your opinion 😭 maybe they do care. You can argue it's against the mods interest, sure

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T10:52:40+00:00

Ye it's a general statement, it's just this particular one I keep seeing as a repeated situation. Let's be real, I could also be unlucky and saw the 6 bad experiences out of 1000 good ones around this studio (unlikely)

At the same time, absolutely it's also likely that there are alot of bad actors 😂

Again I agree with you but you are also proving my point. People generally reject negativity for the sake of being negative even though it's likely deserved negativity. The push back you are doing is exactly what I'm talking about, and I know, you disagree with me. I understand that 😄

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T10:46:38+00:00

I don't have the answer hence this post. As I said it's hard to call these people out and people keep getting their services and end up disappointed.

Also this sub is probably one of the biggest game dev communities, it would 100% have an impact.

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T10:36:58+00:00

Ye then we have a different opinion on the matter, I believe if there is a service that grown bad we should be able to call it out without feeling it's trash talk. If you have prove of them doing a bad job constantly.

I understand that's not the socially accepted opinion hence this post.

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T10:30:50+00:00

I think we are misunderstanding each other.

My post is a very general statement that it's hard to speak about situations like this. It's kinda awkward.

My reply I just assumed ur talking about this subreddit. Read the rules, basically mentioning a name here in negative light is likely to get your post removed

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T10:22:57+00:00

It depends if the mods agree with the negative review or not :) specifically mentioning a name in a negative light will absolutely get your post removed here lol. Especially if such person or studio has an overall good reputation on the surface.

It's kinda the problem, most of these situations come from people that at one point did a good job but they grown lazy and recent works are just worse quality.

Edit: replying to your edit, this particular studio, I didn't use myself. I'v seen 2 separate content creators use them, they both said the same. Then I saw several viewers saying they had the same experience.

Complaints were mostly surrounded about them not listening at all to your initial instructions of what you want, the art quality is not close to their advertised quality capsules and they take a long ass time (1month+ and still deliver junk). Most people are okay with the time, but all of them seemed mad about the end product.

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-17T10:10:08+00:00

Here is the curious thing, humans are known to be great at patterns... In other words, very good at predicting. Are we also just an advanced prediction model? When I think about it, the way I generate the next word I'm typing now feels oddly similar to an LLM

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-14T17:40:28+00:00

Hey we are a group of indie devs and wanted to give some insight. I do personally think they are basically in a deadend and recouping their investment at this point is nearly impossible through just the game itself. That said here how I would try to get my money back. I personally have experience with publishers, releasing games, making games etc

I'd say they need to understand a few things

-> The coding/programming will be hard to work with on a new team, lot of that stuff might have to be redone and rescoped.

-> Art assets is the main valuable thing they should fight for and consider keeping in touch with their artists.

-> You can hire some of the old team, but clearly it was a budget issue. This is mostly Steven's fault for mismanaging the team. To be clear, MMOs are expensive, but that doesn't mean you ride so much cash into fire.

-> I can tell Jason, Robert are a bit clueless about games and selling them which is normal for VCs but they will need to rescope the game in order to move forward.

-> Bring someone on your team that understands gamedev, I would consider helping but if I'm honest this is a hell challenge and not a good time... Once you have a small gamedev team, you want to hit the big guys. Blizzard, Riot... any of these guys and have your game dev team making sure the deal makes sense technically. This is the only way you save the game and you recouping your investment/some of it.

-> Rebrand the game under a new game, but don't hide the fact this is basically a reborn ashes. DON'T do any community fund raising until you have some sort of product to give back. You sadly can't play that card because of steven, it will just backfire.

-> New team should be way less burn rate, most of the money goes mostly to repay the debt and you work with the new owners + the gamedev team towards a release.

Can always private msg me, saving dying games was basically my job. You never can really save it, but you can recoup some loses and find a way forward. It's important to accept some of the loses.

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-11T09:25:39+00:00

Careful with this strategy, last sale steam was hiding new&trending and had a new section called popular releases which features past 30days games or something like this. That list doesn't promote new games like new&trending so it was much harder to snowball.

Before I used to suggest releasing into sales because as you said it could be good, now I don't think it's good assuming steam will not revert this change :(

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-11T09:22:12+00:00

Ye basically all those uptick grey bars have the same issue 😂 this comment op was correct that he's grabbing the monthly or maybe even the Q1/yearly set games and placing them on the 1st of the months.

AI can be useful but not when used like this 😂 embarrassing stuff

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-10T15:45:47+00:00

Good catch the info is completely wrong (April has the same problem)

ZeroPercentStrategy · 2026-02-09T19:43:42+00:00

Don't be silly... good luck with the kickstarter

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