Community MetaSteam | January 2022 - With a new year comes great responsibility, BOY!

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ExistentialThought

Coffee Lover ♥☕
Feb 29, 2020
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Stumbled across this. Sucks to read about a game from an indie dev failing.
I 100% remember this game when it launched since it is on my Steam Wishlist and I received an email for it just two days ago. (I checked out the page and then deleted the email)



I remember thinking it checked some risky boxes being a Puzzle Platformer AND an Early Access title. When I added it to my Wishlist, I do not remember having any idea it would be an early access title and that would have impacted my decision to even add it to my Wishlist if I was aware of it. I think the price is not bad per se, but it is just outside of my personal, "I will take a chance on this game", since it has few reviews/impressions AND is early access AND is from a genre I already have a lot of in my backlog.

All of their bullet points of what could have gone wrong are 100% what I would have guessed even before they launched and I do not say that to be mean, just being realistic.
 
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Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
4,149
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Downunder.
Unsuccessful Steam ventures. 2022 edition:

  • Visual novel about overcoming depression and anxiety.
  • Early Access puzzle platformer.
  • Roguelike(lite?) releasing on EGS and Switch first, Steam later.

Pick your poison.

I'm just being facetious but I do wonder if the recipe to success lies elsewhere. :flare_think:
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
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Stumbled across this. Sucks to read about a game from an indie dev failing.
This is not the type of game/style that interest me so I can't comment on the appeal... but launching it in Early Access is a huge gamble.

I usually avoid games with that blue warning because I don't want to keep playing it several times until it's complete. Maybe if I consider it a kind of pre-order, but then that's a whole new level to try to convince customers.

Take for example something I'm very interested in and did buy it on Early Access: Hardspace: Shipbreaker. With the progression reset I more or less play it through the content almost two times and don't know if I'm going to be burned out for the final release.

Why this person can't talk about EGS? WTF, game it's not exclusive, what gives?

For a guy who preach openness, Sweeney sure doesn't like people talking about his numbers.
Not that Sweeney’s ego isn’t a big reason, but hiding all the numbers is the default for this industry. Even Valve didn’t let small developers talk about the sales in the past.

But I am really curious if he sold even one copy on EGS...
 
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toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
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Holy shit, they actually increased the launch discount to 50% on Meat Boy Forever and it's now running for a whole month (not sure if that was the case before). Steam launch must've been a disaster lol. Honestly feel a little bad for them at this point.

Could this be a case where they actually anticipated this and taking Sweeney's money bags was a smart move?
 
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AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
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Holy shit, they actually increased the launch discount to 50% on Meat Boy Forever and it's now running for a whole month (not sure if that was the case before). Steam launch must've been a disaster lol. Honestly feel a little bad for them at this point.

Could this be a case where they actually anticipated this and taking Sweeney's money bags was a smart move?
I can't imagine the game sold well in general frankly. It came out and within a week no one was talking about it at all. For a Super Meat Boy sequel that's kind of incredible
 
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toxicitizen

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Oct 24, 2018
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I can't imagine the game sold well in general frankly. It came out and within a week no one was talking about it at all. For a Super Meat Boy sequel that's kind of incredible
I wouldn't be surprised. Making a Super Meat Boy sequel into an "endless runner" and releasing it over a decade later was certainly a choice...

Most of my interest disappeared when I found out Edmund McMillen had no involvement with it whatsoever. I had no idea he no longer had any association with Team Meat. I'm still a little curious but I figure it'll be bundled or 5 bucks before long.

If you owned the first Super Meat Boy then you get an extra discount on it. I don't think that discount was working when it launched.
Ah, that might be it then.
 
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Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,982
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Belgium
What About Epic Games Store?
At the time of this writing, I'm not allowed to state any stats that could be correlated back to EGS. Suffice to say though, it did not perform as well as Steam.
This caught my eye as well. Another lie from Tim when he said that devs are free to share any sales information.

This said, Mike Rose did share EGS sales numbers for Let's build a zoo on Twitter...
 

derExperte

MetaMember
Dec 9, 2018
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ubi killing settlers again after 3 years long delay
For anyone who speaks German:



"The destruction of Settlers"

Everything's simplified, not much left of what made the old games great and completely revamped compared to what was shown way back, almost all changes are bad, focus on multiplayer, very little content, probably the death of the series. And I don't get it, as mentioned in the video Anno 1800 is a huge success while being complex and staying true to the series' roots. Just do that again only with Settlers.
 
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Myradeer

Rayon de Soleil
Apr 17, 2019
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Not many platformers do EA release so being EA would likely have had more detrimental effect than any other genres where EA is more common. Actually I had been excited for Hidden Deep but less so when I discovered today that it will be EA. I don't know, but when I think about indie platformers I expect it to provide complete content at the start.

However, I don't know how better it would have fared even if it didn't release on EA. I think of myself as indie gamer, but what I see at that trailer immediately turns me off. There's certainly audience for these 3D indie-quality games, but I have to assume there's not much demand - at least compared to tons of 'supply' that are being released.
 
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EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Joe Spangle I think i ended up buying Rings of Saturn twice due to bundles on GOG and Steam. I also bought another key for StarSector as i seem to have lost my previous license. oh well.


The Uber Mosh dev has taken a break from his drone sim and released another small experimental shooter.

BUY UBER MOSH IT'S GREAT! AND CHEAP! usually.


That indie platformer slipped my mind until i saw it was the one that does the 2D/3D change like Paper Mario. I'm interested but i'll wait until it's released. If i buy early access games i tend not to play them often to avoid burnout by the time they release so recently i've been avoiding Early Access games. Sorry, Devs.

Related article from Game Discover about how Project Zomboid has made 23x it's normal sales with the rerelease of the pulled MP Patch.

So it's not all Doom n' Gloom. I've seen many streamers i watch play it over the last few weeks too which must have helped get eyes on it. I know some streamers and purchasers only bought it once they'd seen it being played and the emergent stories that come out of a session. I put up some videos in the "Internet Interesting Gaming Videos" thread.
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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Made an ass of himself by going in on critics by way of misapplying a really self-important sounding quote. I say misapplying because I'm pretty sure the 'critics' in said quote doesn't refer to art critics but more the conversational sense of the term. Either way, it was a pretty silly take.

On a different subject, I did the thing I told myself I wouldn't do anymore and bought a copy of PC Builder Sim for $1 even though I don't intend on playing it any time soon :pensive-face:
 
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Bonfires Down

Junior Member
Nov 18, 2019
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Unsuccessful Steam ventures. 2022 edition:
  • Early Access puzzle platformer.
While it wasn't in early access, Webbed has been very successful. Maybe a big streamer featured it or something? And I'm sure the low price helped. Regardless, the game obviously struck a chord with people.


  • Roguelike(lite?) releasing on EGS and Switch first, Steam later.
Hades is the obvious exception here. While it was even more successful on Steam, it still did well on EGS.

I know you weren't totally serious and you are absolutely right that in most cases those types of games are not crowd pleasers. I just want to point out the exceptions as it seems to me that no genre is doomed per se if you have something fresh to offer.
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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This do be doing pretty good tho:

This is an interesting case, because it's the follow up to a cheap as chips 20 minute VN that somehow really blew up. I think that really helped put this new game on people's radars.

While it wasn't in early access, Webbed has been very successful. Maybe a big streamer featured it or something? And I'm sure the low price helped. Regardless, the game obviously struck a chord with people.

I also wonder what the story is there. I love Webbed. One of my favorite platfomers in recent years. I looked around some time ago but I didn't see any VODs of popular streamers on YT or something, so I think word of mouth on it must've just been phenomenal (and it doesn't surprise me because it's damn good).

About Neko Ghost Jump, it could be a brilliant platformer, but honestly I wouldn't have given it a second thought based on those screenshots. It's really unfair, but there are so many games that show themselves off well from the get-go, and to me presentation is an essential first barrier to sell me on a game. If it just looks clean and slick then I'm in and open to be convinced to play it. If not, it will take exceedingly positive impressions to get me to reconsider, which is a big part of why I didn't initially consider games like Higurashi, Death's Gambit or even Slay the Spire that I later ended up enjoying. And those three had attenuating factors wrt hesitancy going for them like exploiting genre popularity, exceedingly successful Kickstarters, or being a known quantity among niche circles.

I also do think that puzzle platformer and early access are not great bedfellows. In a game that is designed around high replayability, you can get a lot of mileage out of a purchase, and this is amplified even more for games built around a rogue-like dynamic, where an experience can be drasticaly changed by small tweaks -- these games gel really well with an EA approach to launching a game. That kind of natural synthesis isn't there for a platformer, let alone a puzzle platformer, which you presumably play once, and you'll be opting to play the least polished version of it. Static puzzles and puzzle scenarios by their nature are compelling once. It's the opposite of a natural fit for EA. Even if it says in the EA description box that the levels that are done are as done as they get, I don't think many potential customers will dig that deep. Not being an EA title could have significantly helped, I feel.
 
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Madventure

The Angel of Deaf
Nov 17, 2018
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LEANIJA

MetaMember
May 5, 2019
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Austria
I know you weren't totally serious and you are absolutely right that in most cases those types of games are not crowd pleasers. I just want to point out the exceptions as it seems to me that no genre is doomed per se if you have something fresh to offer.
True, theres always gonna be exceptions of games in oversaturated genres doing well, but they gotta be really good – like, exceptionally good. You cant throw a mediocre game onto the market anymore and expect it to just be a success, those days are looong gone.
10 years ago you could release a platformer with a slightly unique artstyle and some new mechanics and it wouldve been celebrated. Nowadays, thats become so commonplace that you have to really stand out if you wanna make waves – or get lucky, I guess.
 

Aaron D.

MetaMember
Jul 10, 2019
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Team 17 bough Shitty simulator publisher

Hey now, Astragon isn't too bad.

They're not top-tier like SCS (Euro Truck Sim) or Giants (Farm Sim), but at the same time their not trash-tier either.

Bus Sim, Rescue: Everyday Heroes and Construction Sim are all pretty damn decent.



Yo Aaron D.

bought this yesterday, hass good reviews and looks a bit like that Starsector game you mentioned...

Nice.

I picked it up during the last Steam sale after seeing Splatt tour it for a bit.

Love that it's got that Kerbal, hard science in a fictional setting thing going on, where the tech elements are based the real science that we have today.

Lot of moving parts under the hood to keep things spicy, but Zen gameplay loop out in the field (until those pesky pirates roll up to nab your haul, lol).

Really nice package coming from a solo dev.
 

kafiend

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
549
1,627
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Nice.

I picked it up during the last Steam sale after seeing Splatt tour it for a bit.

Love that it's got that Kerbal, hard science in a fictional setting thing going on, where the tech elements are based the real science that we have today.

Lot of moving parts under the hood to keep things spicy, but Zen gameplay loop out in the field (until those pesky pirates roll up to nab your haul, lol).

Really nice package coming from a solo dev.
I have no idea why I didn't pick this up recently as it was for exactly the same reasons as you mentioned. I should fix that today.
 

madjoki

👀 I see you
Sep 19, 2018
3,009
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I'm not creator, so I will hate it, you're giving me no other option.


Lol case dismissed because the parents doing the lawsuit never used steam or played cs:go (,it was previously thrown out/decided twice before going to 2016)
Took long time to get news about this, we talked about this in business chat last week :D

Reason it got dismmissed because of that, is they claimed Valve lied about whatever CS:GO contains lootboxes, and odds of drops.
But since they never visited Steam, they could never have seen any information about it.
 

Lashley

One more thing...
God Of War Devs Talk PC Release, Mod Support, And Playing With Keyboards - Game Informer

Was in development for 2 years
How much insight do you guys have into how Sony decided that the PC was a market they wanted to push this on to? Was that something you were championing early on?

Barlog: I think it was the collective of studios all over saying this is a really good idea. We should be looking into this. Eventually, I think it reached that tipping point. When we had sent so many suggestion box suggestions that they were like, "I'm tired of hearing all this. Fine, we'll do this." It's a process. We're still figuring it out as a company and as individual studios how to do this and what the process and strategy will be.
 

MomoVideo

ķ͕͕̍̅͋ḭ̼͂̕lļ͓̞̙̀͗͆̊ ͉͛m͕̲̮̆̒̐̍͢e ͠
Apr 5, 2021
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I had money credits to spend in a certain shop that I received from my company that was going to expire soon and I wanted to buy SMT V for Switch, but for some reason that shop never actually got it, so I'm done waiting and just got Elden Ring. I'm super excited to play it at release because it's the moment when the player base is at its peak and they are all discovering the secrets of the game. It's actually the first pre-order I ever got because while I'm very against people preordering games based on empty promises ( cough Battlefield 2042 cough), I'm willing to give From Software the benefit of the doubt. Every soul's game was excellent ( DS II included) and the money I got it with would expire anyway. So yeah, can't wait for February :blobeyes:
 
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