Can a great game fail? I guess I'm finding out right now. It's early, it's currently scary, and it could still go either way. Pure drama! Our game was released 2 days ago (Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon - ShroudedMoon.com). It's metacritic'ing at 94, which is stellar. It's got almost exclusively very very positive reviews on Steam and the App Store. It's the sequel to the Game of the Year in 2009, per TouchArcade, the Indie Games Festival, and Apple themselves. Sounds like a guaranteed hit, right? So far it's doing 1/3 the business of any of our prior games, despite an App Store banner (not as good as ones we've had in the past but still - we're super spoiled, very few companies get one). This is definitely our best game, we truly poured our hearts and souls into it, we are a highly respected company (called Tiger Style), and players are responding super well to it.
So what's different? Well most notably, there are probably 20-30x more indie development studios in the market than there were when we started in 2008. I've heard hundreds of games come out on the App Store EVERY DAY. Angry Birds 2, one of the biggest properties ever, is free and it came out last week. This feels like a quiet time on Steam, but so far we have little traction there, and you need to demonstrate sales before Steam gives you main carousel promotion. Gaming press is overwhelmed with things to write about, so although they've been interested, we don't have many reviews from them yet. We've got lots of Lets Play and YouTubers, but how many sales does 500 views convert into?
Honestly, in the past we've been like "It's fine. We make great games that people love. We'll just release it, and the audience will find it." That was true in 2009 when we released Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor with literally no promotion whatsoever. It was less true in 2012 when we released Waking Mars (alongside Outwitters, if you're out there Alex!), but still the App Store sustained us and the Steam market eventually found and loved us and gave us a few dollars. But the worry is that in 2015, no matter how good your game is, the audience has way way way way too many amazing games to choose between.
We're currently far behind, as just one example, a game about programming in Assembly language. It's probably amazing, I can't wait to try it. And that's the problem. So many things to play, competing for your attention.
SO! What does the dramatic near future look like for us? Well, I think we have major piles of new press reviews coming in on Monday and Tuesday. That will definitely help with awareness. And we're pushing on some of our more unique features in hopes of being recognized as newsworthy (eg - it uses your local real world time and weather and mirrors them in the game, it's based on a real historical secret society that you have to research in real life to learn the deepest secrets, many many layers of mystery and gameplay). We're asking our tastemaker and other well respected developer friends to help spread the word. I believe with enough awareness we're back in business - it's happened for us before. But if that doesn't pay off by the end of the week, very few people will write about us after that. So our hope at that point would be to be a "long tail game" that wins awards and winds up on "best games you didn't play last year" lists. It might pay the bills, or not, and it certainly isn't what we hoped for.
Alex - if you're out there - I've been in indie 7 years, before the indie revolution really started. I was in mainstream for 11 years before that. It's been crazy watching the market as we worked on this game. It's hard to target a market this volatile when the game you make takes 2+ years to make. By the time you're done, everything is different. So, yeah, I relate to a lot of what you wrote, and thanks for sharing! -Randy
One issue might be your landing page for the game in the App Store.
The static images and their text descriptions do not convey what the game is about. e.g. Platform action, puzzle solving. The description section helps, but I'm not sure how many potential customers go past the images as a first filter.
As someone not familiar with your previous games, it wasn't until I went and looked at the video on your website that I thought that yes, this is something I would find fun to play.
I think the reviews coming out should help to attract customers for you. That is, it will be the review that sells them, and then they'll go and buy your game, rather than making an impulsive choice while browsing the App Store.
Holy crap, you're not going to believe this, but we have a version of that video that was supposed to be on the App Store and you are the first person to point out that it's not there.
I'll go see what the heck happened.
Wow the time I spent hanging out on this thread totally just paid off. Thanks!
I'm afraid I don't have any ready advice beyond recognizing the increased relevance of youtube/twitch personalities versus traditional games media, particularly for mobile, since the release of your last game. While people with smaller followings won't have any significant impact on awareness for your game, coverage from any of the bigger personalities could transform your sales trajectory over night; just look at Five Nights at Freddy's.
I hope things turn around for Spider. Tiger Style is a star in the Austin (indie) game development scene and I am rooting for your continued success.
> But the worry is that in 2015, no matter how good your game is, the audience has way way way way too many amazing games to choose between.
And it has also become way too easy to acquire games. Back in the 1980/90's, unless I wanted a specific game, I could easily spend an hour in a store trying to decide which one game I could afford to buy.
Meanwhile, it took less than a minute to purchase Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon on Steam, looks like fun, cheers.
Hi Paul! Sorry, there's no demo for our game. The first Spider game is a much smaller version of the one we're releasing now - you can buy it cheap on Google Play or the App Store. If it looks good to you, the new Spider game is currently on the front page of the App Store and on Steam. You'll get much more content, way higher production quality, crazy cool new features like real local weather and time of day, etc etc..
Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about! Obviously there are not TWO games about programming in Assembly. Wait another few years and there will be, though.
To make it short: I am currently building a strategy online game as a browser-game (only a current browser and JavaScript is needed). I think, that currently most online games lack strategic/tactical depth and rely on almost all the same mechanics (city-building and build up the biggest army), with only small differences (topic, graphics and some minor mechanics are different, the basics are mostly the same).
I hope, that I can convince enough grognards that online-gaming can have depth.
So what's different? Well most notably, there are probably 20-30x more indie development studios in the market than there were when we started in 2008. I've heard hundreds of games come out on the App Store EVERY DAY. Angry Birds 2, one of the biggest properties ever, is free and it came out last week. This feels like a quiet time on Steam, but so far we have little traction there, and you need to demonstrate sales before Steam gives you main carousel promotion. Gaming press is overwhelmed with things to write about, so although they've been interested, we don't have many reviews from them yet. We've got lots of Lets Play and YouTubers, but how many sales does 500 views convert into?
Honestly, in the past we've been like "It's fine. We make great games that people love. We'll just release it, and the audience will find it." That was true in 2009 when we released Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor with literally no promotion whatsoever. It was less true in 2012 when we released Waking Mars (alongside Outwitters, if you're out there Alex!), but still the App Store sustained us and the Steam market eventually found and loved us and gave us a few dollars. But the worry is that in 2015, no matter how good your game is, the audience has way way way way too many amazing games to choose between.
We're currently far behind, as just one example, a game about programming in Assembly language. It's probably amazing, I can't wait to try it. And that's the problem. So many things to play, competing for your attention.
SO! What does the dramatic near future look like for us? Well, I think we have major piles of new press reviews coming in on Monday and Tuesday. That will definitely help with awareness. And we're pushing on some of our more unique features in hopes of being recognized as newsworthy (eg - it uses your local real world time and weather and mirrors them in the game, it's based on a real historical secret society that you have to research in real life to learn the deepest secrets, many many layers of mystery and gameplay). We're asking our tastemaker and other well respected developer friends to help spread the word. I believe with enough awareness we're back in business - it's happened for us before. But if that doesn't pay off by the end of the week, very few people will write about us after that. So our hope at that point would be to be a "long tail game" that wins awards and winds up on "best games you didn't play last year" lists. It might pay the bills, or not, and it certainly isn't what we hoped for.
Alex - if you're out there - I've been in indie 7 years, before the indie revolution really started. I was in mainstream for 11 years before that. It's been crazy watching the market as we worked on this game. It's hard to target a market this volatile when the game you make takes 2+ years to make. By the time you're done, everything is different. So, yeah, I relate to a lot of what you wrote, and thanks for sharing! -Randy