just finished watching this great GDC talk:
Confirms several talking points I had for years.
- know your genre/Audience
- show gameplay in trailers, show UI in screenshots
- customers look for negative reviews first, are an important buying decision
he shows how users normally shop when they wishlist or buy a game, what they are looking at, what decision and why they are making it, etc.
some conclusions:
- 0, ZERO people bought games full price,
- no-one bought game because of twitter mentions/recommendations, nearly no-one bought games because of Discord or Reddit recommendations
- nearly no-one wishlisted games because of twitter, discord or Reddit.
- nearly no-one bought/wishlisted games because of streaming/lets players
the biggest decision-makers?
- Friends and Bundles are the main drivers of wishlisting and buying games
He also talks about how to make wishlisted games into sales and mentions the abandoned-cart problem.
His ending solution/recommendation of sales and bundles isn't great but that's the reality for indie developers.
He also doesn't dive into genre-defining games and no-discount indies, but I understand that he speaks to those tiny indies who sell 500 games and not the Factorio's and FTL'ers.