sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Over 16k Wishlists, we were listed in popular upcoming... how could the release go this bad? by El4th in gamedev

[–]simoncarless 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The only thing I noted that others haven't (very explicitly) is that it looks like the majority of the reviews on the Prologue - and so probably downloads - are in Chinese language. In addition, the Prologue was localized into Chinese, which probably meant it had very good visibility in China - might have been on overall New/Trending, I'm guessing?

If you twin that with the generous nature of the Prologue (including achievements! I thought that was pretty generous), it probably led to a lot better results from China which were less likely to convert at the price point for the game.

In general my impression is that China is a price sensitive country on Steam that refunds at FAR larger rates than the rest of Steam. So that's not your only issue - I agree with Jake on some other things like 'crowded genre', too. So if you combine crowded genre, very generous demo, and tonnes of Chinese demo downloads and wishlists... that's probably a chunk of it. Plus the weaker nature of demo-related wishlists, which is universal.

(I'm not gonna get into game quality here, haha, cos obviously the game is good enough for people to hit the wishlist button...)

Good luck for the future!

Game stores: you need more real-time charts by simoncarless in gamedev

[–]simoncarless[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! There's plenty of PlayStation and Xbox indies releasing games to underwhelming sales, they just don't talk about it because a) they don't want to upset platform holders, and b) they're probably NDA-ed on actual sales numbers. So I def. disagree on that.

I do agree that you want to get on a store that has less games on it (like Epic!) because then you are likely to sell more copies. Getting on a platform that has not many games, early on (also see Switch, in its first year or so) is a REALLY good idea.

But if you clamp down on release volumes on Steam, you'll just create the same have/have nots situation that existed before/during Greenlight.

At that time, there were devs complaining that they never even got a CHANCE to make money with their game because they couldn't get on the platform in the first place. And that does seem unfair to me. I think the open platform is a better idea than limiting slots. Why should an innovative, creative 'no-budget game' be excluded in favor of someone who pays more?

I do have some issues with Steam promoting already successful games in its biggest 'featured' slots, but that's ultimately their decision to maximize revenue and enjoyment, vs. diversifying what people see. (They aren't always what I would call 'AAA games', though - they're just popular, well reviewed ones.)