Honestly my preference is to continue the development process unfettered rather than spending some time here and there to give updates which no one will read about - but i have to.
Shargad First Blood shouldn't be seen like a game dead before it was born, because it isn't. I mean not that it isn't born but it isn't dead, at least not yet. And probably, unless something terrible happens to me or some of my main helpers/buddies - main programmer and few artists i have been working for a while now - the game process will continue.
I am not gonna get into details of how much trouble, pressure we face in daily routine with not only game development but real life, or how many tough choices i personally have to make to get things going - let alone the vicious economic downturn here in Turkey damages our budget, because none of you care about all these. And i totally understand that.
We, as game developers, claim to steal your time and money to give you something fun in return. We are not beggars afterall. So main goal here is to make a fun game which players can play and shall not regret the time they have spent playing, learning or being annoyed with the game. (Yes we have Dodge and a lot of attacks will miss the target, i know it is annoying but you gotta live with that somehow...)
How to make a fun game?
That's a very tough question. I think 90% of the people in this industry do not have a correct answer. Even people who made games that sold millions, they don't have that. Trying hard, workiing 10+ hours everyday, crying around about the toughness of the job and all that blabla are the basics, they are not difference makers. I regret to say that in the small experience i had in this industry i have observed that even if you do many things right, simple mistakes might lead to paths with dead end. I don't wanna relate it to bad luck but sometimes it really is. So what i try to say is; if you aren't lucky, your gem of a game might not be visible and not sell enough at all.
High number of sales means your game is good or vice versa?
Not necessarily. To call a game good or bad is very subjective. That's the reason why metacritic review values can divert so much from the user score. There are certain technical details within the game which only some people can recognize and call it a very well done game but if the player doesn't wanna play it, that well doneness has no meaning at all.
I would highly suggest players to not come to a buying decision with the game with "your favorite" game critic website or a few bad Steam reviews you have read. Check it more thoroughly before you buy. Because even Overwhelmingly Positive Steam reviews will not give you a guarantee that you will like the game. There is a Hack n Slash game "Loki" made by Cyanide Studios in 2007 which i have been playing a lot back in the days. I had spent so many fun hours and despite of some flaws and bugs n crashes i have loved that game a lot. And i don'y believe it deserved Mixed reviews. But probably there are bunch of other people who do not agree with me. And that's perfectly fine. Furthermore this goes in accordance with my point. Steam reviews doesn't exactly indicate how good a game is but i would say it is a better indication to show the Price to Quality ratio of a game. If Cyberpunk was cheaper, would it still have gotten the same number of negative reviews it got? Definitely not! Probably it would have gotten Overwhelmingly Positive reviews. And maybe it would have led to even higher no. of sales.
Pricing a game / Regional pricing
I have to breakdown couple of points to discuss in this subtitle.
- What is the right price for my indie game?
- How should i approach Steam's regional pricing?
- Should i discount frequently to increase sales numbers?
First of all there is no right or wrong answer on how to price your game (especially if it's a Triple A.)
I have an answer but i can't say if it's right or wrong but it is just my way.
If you are an indie dev the first thing you shouldn't compare your game to a Triple A title is the pricing. They have high price and excessive marketing and they know they can sell. I am sure some of them are too greedy to see if they could decrease the price a little bit they can increase the sales exponentially. But anyway, they are not you or me. They can handle themselves while 80% of indie devs barely break even. The rest are the ones who make money and only a handfull of them/us become unicorns.
I would suggest people not to copy or inspire the game design of unicorns because they are unicorns, if you could copy and would have the same result they would have been called multiplecorns or something.
I personally, was inspired of Darkest Dungeon when i came with the first game design idea of Shargad First Blood. Because it was a great game first and it was a doable one second. Since i started game dev process i have found out many more games in the same line as DD. Basically it was the unicorn of 2d Turn Based Rpgs. But it could have been stupid to copy their game design. The players would have preferred to play DD with different mods rather than trying my unknown DD-like game. I am proud to say that our game design is very different. But i have copied one thing from DD (or at least benchmarked it): Price.
I knew if i was doing a game in the same genre, i couldn't be better than the Unicorn so i had to price the game lower than that. I will price the game at 19.99 Usd. I didn't benchmark only one game of course, i have researched other similar type of games and decided this was the good spot for the game with current content with have. (Not to mention 19 is my lucky number.)
Yes i have priced my book 19 TRY back in the days. With conversion it was around 5 usd then and now, a few years later it's around 2 usd. Pity right? I hope it will not continue it's freefall otherwise i will not be able to complete the game given the budget.
Just joking. I mean, i will not complete it anyway...
Calm down, double joke.
I want to discuss little bit about an uncommon behavior done by indies and more common done by Triple A games.
I believe this to be an hallucination that some people believe it will increase their net income from sales but it will not. (I don't have any statistical data but i am strongly behind my projection.)
DON'T NEGLECT STEAM SUGGESTED PRICES, PLEASE!
Steam suggested prices aren't 100% accurate. For instance i believe the ZLT value is a bit too high. It is right nearby the original Usd price. But in Poland buying power isn't as high as Uk, Usa, Canada or France, Germany whatever. They are not in a bad position but they aren't as high neither. So i will consider lowering the price of my game in ZLT, i suggest you the same. But overall Steam's regional pricing is a very good way to let many people around the world play their games and from the business perspective this is a solid plan too.
Honestly as much as i love God of War franchise and i want to play the game there is no way i will pay 35 usd for it. I am sure many people here in Turkey agree with me. The original price is 49 usd but 35 is a lot of money here. There is a reason Steam suggest prices in TRY value 4,5 times less than the original value. Triple A studios can do this, they don't care, they will exceed their projected sales numbers anyway, but as an indie dev you don't have that power. You should aim every market and you should follow the adjusted prices. If you wanna make further market research you can tune up the numbers but if you don't have time for that just follow the rule blindly. It is better than converting each market price to the original usd value. That's a crime against humanity, i am telling you. (With a small bit of exaggaration i simply mean that kids outside developed countries deserve to play games too.)
No, no, not this game!
Now let me cover the last part quickly and i have to get back to work. Writing this thing doesn't take so much time but editing and adding the visuals etc do.
I don't have a correct answer myself about the discount rate and frequency. I get email on discounted games on my wishlist so i am thinking it might be good to have the players notification about your game time to time. But the buyer behaviour i guess tends more towards buying bunch of games at once in huge discount periods, like Winter Sale, rather than buying games 1 by 1.
So yes, discount is good, and considering you don't have any fixed or inventory cost on each game, any money you will get from the game sales is a plus. On the other hand you have to justify the full pricing of your game. Honestly, it would be stupid to price your game highly and then give huge discounts to justify it. Two indie games i believe did a very good job in terms of pricing and discounts. Hades and Wildermyth. (Hades is a bit bigger than an indie game and Wildermyth is close to being a unicorn and i understand why, both games are solid and they have consistent pricing / sales strategies.)
Anyway, i have just tried to shed light upon some areas from my point of view and i hope it helped to some of my fellow devs or player audience. I still can't claim anything i shared is correct or not. But those are my opinions and i will apply them to my game as well.
Next time hopefully, i will give more update on our game design process rather than general issues. I couldn't share much now because i have dived into it too much and i feel a bit clumsy, don't know what to say or what to present. I feel our game is a bit too complex to talk very clearly about. Watch this short vid and you will know what i am talking about.
https://twitter.com/ShargadS/status/1453072896880951308?s=20
Cheers,
Semih