How to save the game by saving the dead

As the game market grows in size, the game market is becoming more competitive. As an independent developer, if the game is released and sold for only 127 copies, probably a lot of people think that the game is dead, and the recent small series in a blog overseas to see that a small team of games in the face of such a blow, less than a year to increase sales to more than 110,000, Below we may wish to see what kind of twists and turns the small team has experienced, and what kind of countermeasures, please see the author compiled content:

Bad starts and unexpected surprises

A year ago, we released the "Ethan: Meteorite Hunter" (Ethan:meteor Hunter) to the PC (steam platform) and PlayStation 3 (self-release) platform, and probably many people remembered that the game was not really a success, The release of the time on the PC platform to sell only 127 copies, however, our real success is actually the product of the ex-post summary.

Here, let's start with a simple introduction to this game: "Ethan: Meteorite Hunters" by the Independent studio Seaven Studio Research and Development, is a micro-operation of the 2D puzzle clearance game, from the performance form to compare similar to the "Lehman Jungle Adventure", but the difference is, "Ethan: Meteorite Hunter" Increase the player's operational needs, at the end of each jump platform, you need players to operate, such as grafting bridges and so on, can be said to be a ' movement parkour '.

That blog has aroused a lot of people's response, and we have received a lot of feedback, our site has more than 150 replies, in Reddit has more than 1000 replies. We even made it into the home page of Reddit, which we did not think of. Later Totalbiscuit (the famous electric competition in Europe and the United States) sent this blog post Twitter, and then our site crashed suddenly ...

We have also received feedback from the Gamasutra community, because we are French companies, so the French game media is concerned, but there was no international media talk (except Joystiq), this incident is really a Twitter event. Probably speaking of which, most people would speculate, "is there a lot of people buying this game after this event?"

The answer is no. However, our Greenlight page did explode, so after this Twitter event, our product passed the audit login steam after one months. Thanks to everyone here, with feedback after the first release, we believe that posting to the steam platform is a new opportunity and a new start to the game. We asked steam on the Reddit website which picture to use, then achieved very good results, there are 2,500 comments and 320,000 browsing, with these, we hope things will go smoothly.

A forced decision.

In December 2013, we were still very difficult, because we didn't expect the game to have so little initial sales on the PC and PlayStation 3 platforms. So our partner Plugindigital advised us to join the promotional package to get the product passed in greenlight and to get some money back. We do not like this because the game was released only 2 months ago, the sale of the price has made us sad, but we have no other choice.

On the whole, we currently participate in 4 promotional packages, we also released this April PlayStation vita this game, to date, our game in the PC, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 platforms sold more than 110,000 (112567) altogether. It's really good for us, a lot more than 127 of what we added last year, isn't it? I hope we can get better results next year.

Independent developer: How to work out a dead game? ...

For Sony, we sold 4,050 copies in PlayStation 3, 2,763 in Vita, and 105,000 in all PC stores and promotional package activities (105,754). So, our game sales of 88% from promotional packages, and Steam, GoG, indie, Desura and other platforms of the total accumulation of separate sales accounted for 12% ...

Interestingly, we also released the same demo at PlayStation 3 when Steam released the demo, at the time of February 2014. Up to today, the demo in PlayStation 3 cumulative download 150,000 times, steam cumulative download 10,000 times. This huge difference also shows the difference between two platform demos: in the PSN store for PS3, our display in Europe is about the 34th row or so.

See here may be asked, this is incredible, although in the Steam platform demo download very little, can why steam sales than PS3 much better (here need to explain, the PC store gift package promotional volume including Steam platform)? So we are also thinking: is the game demo really important? Or is our demo not good enough?

Then maybe someone will ask, are you rich now?

To tell you the truth, you didn't get rich. Below we also ' bask in the underwear ': if according to each platform income calculates, our PS3, steam and Vita platform's income ratio is 41%, 32% and 27% respectively. And here's what we're going to remind you about: Steam, PS 3 and Vita in terms of sales.

So it is clear that the average net income for each game is very different, Vita on each sales game is 80% higher than the steam platform, while the PS 3 platform each game sales brings the net income is 91% higher than the steam. In the steam platform, only 9% of the game is full price sales, and 91% of sales are discounted. Relatively speaking, the discount on the PS 3 platform is only sold at a discount of 65% on the 60%,vita platform, which is still not low.

I would also like to say that in order to be able to recover a portion of the funds, we have to do discount ads, our PS platform discount is very effective. We may also be asked about the proportion of steam cards, which can be disclosed, accounting for only 1.2% of the total revenue of the steam platform.

Income ratio of each channel

Steam platform so low average income because before the release of the reason for the promotional package? Or did you take part in a number of promotional packages? Or is it that there are not many games that have been successful in steam? And here's what we need to be aware of is that sales are starting to surge when the steam platform is on sale, so there isn't. However, we are also similar to the Vista platform, after the discount, Vita platform (full price) game week sales decreased, but still better than steam performance.

Now, we put all the PC platform game revenue: PC platform revenue accounted for 57%,ps 3 of the 26%,vita platform accounted for 17%.

It is clear that the PC platform is the main channel of our revenue, but steam is obviously not: the PC platform revenue, promotional gift package revenue accounted for 39%, steam income accounted for 34%, plugindigital accounted for 17%, indie Widget and Gog each accounted for 5%.

If we add up the four package promotion channels, basically our income is mainly from promotional income, it doesn't sound good news, does it? Plugindigital enables us to distribute partnerships on platforms such as Amazon, Green man Gaming, Desura, and they are also responsible for part of the retail business, which we cannot do without their help. In fact, we can also do a promotional package alone, but we did not, so Plugindigital 51%,steam 34%, we do a promotional, indie widget and Gog each accounted for 5%.

If we separate the other promotions and only compare plugindigital with indie bundle, we obviously found that plugindigital accounted for 39% of the revenue, while steam accounted for 34%, and our own promotional income accounted for only 1%,humble Widiget and Gog each accounted for 5%. Basically, promotions are sold at half price.

Game Testing and modification

Technically, Inside my radio music and voice is the primary, not the art, before playing. On average, people stay on the steam page for only 17 seconds, and they usually take a look at the screenshot and see a brief description of the game. Our game of art almost killed this game, so we try to avoid such a tragedy. However, for our core players, the play is still important, but then there is conflict, we must be in the voice, art and playing aspects of the three choice.

In December 2013, we worked with inside my radio, and we released a summary of the game. Our approach was to show the game to the players when the game was not announced, and we tested the game, including the art, the game itself, and the release. We have a show on the local game activity, then listen to the comments after the improvement, and then announce the modified game.

We also tested in the steam platform, the players are not responding, some people say like the rhythm of the game, there are people like the game, and once again verified our communication, this game is the most special game rhythm.

Apart from the art appeal of Ethan, we did not show anything special about the game. In the promotional video, it wasn't until 34 seconds that important content was present, but it was a bit late. Now, with a rhythmic platform adventure game on the inside my radio platform, everything you do revolves around making music your first priority.

Make first impression, first feeling

Our game is not simple, but it is not particularly difficult, but it is difficult to master it. From the steam list, we find that in all players who have completed the game teaching, only 7% of the people opened the second world, the total game is only 50, but after 3 off, there are 50% players lost, only 7% players into the second chapter of the game, which means that 93% of the players play only One-third, In the end only 0.95% of the people finished the game ...

So, in the beginning of the loss of half of the users are all developers do not want to see, not to mention the steam platform in fact, only 16% of the players completed the game teaching. So most developers have the attitude that once the players have started the game, they want to enjoy the game and stay in the game, otherwise, what do you mean by playing the game? As mentioned above, we have tested to improve the rhythm of the game and teaching feedback, there is a good play, regardless of whether people are usually playing games have rhythm, we need to ensure that most people like the game.

Independent developer: How to work out a dead game? ...

We spent a lot of time making improvements to the game, hoping to bring the best first impressions to most players, from the initial ' do 50 levels ', to the ' game experience to do and according to the game plot content ', quality is greater than the quantity.

Every month there will be a lot of good games appear, if only to launch a "good game" such as Ethan and 70% of praise is still not enough, in order to make the game better, we now do more than 90% of the praise.

How independent teams do marketing

With a strong marketing team of half of us (not that because he's short, instead of having to spend half his working time doing marketing, we decided not to use the strategy of sending an email to each medium, but to focus on the sales activities and operations. If your product is OK, then banner ads are necessary. The key is to adapt to the policies of each platform, such as the September we launched the Indiefrenchsale in steam, and in the Vita version we use touch screen operation and back touch board, support host function can make your game unique, and adapt to the corresponding platform can help your game grow faster. Also say is that the first discount as far as possible to achieve the minimum level, so that the first week to increase sales to the highest.

Overall, we're happy to be able to sell so many games, but don't forget that most of these are discount promotions, so it doesn't make us rich. However, we have enough to feed the company and the opportunity to do a second game, next year is expected to be released on the PC platform, hope that the above experience to share the help of developers.