"If you release this game as is, it will fail."
A difficult thing to hear for a project you've worked so hard on for so long. Difficult, but necessary as well. As I sat on a call with a professional game marketer just 10 days before a release I had long been looking forward to, my head spinning from all of the mistakes he pointed out that I had made, the phrase began to sink in more and more. He had never even played my game and barely knew the title, but by the end of our conversation I started to wonder if there was a single thing I had done right on the presentation of the game. And the answer may very well have been "no".
I like to think I'm at least not completely naïve and somewhat of a reasonable person, so none of the words were wasted on me. So blind, was I (and many others I'm sure), to just wanting to get the technical aspects of my game done that I had neglected arguably the more important part of the gaming business: the presentation. You see, I firmly believe that Mythlink is a genuinely fun game, yet tons of terrible games have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of players. The deciding factor? The anime girls, the pizazz, the hype, the flashing lights, the drive to want to buy or support a title even though you know it's going to let you down. Marketing and presentation is truly important and will make or break your game's release.
With all of the above in mind, I have made the difficult decision to delay the release of Mythlink indefinitely to address these problems. The extent of this delay will decide on various factors. I anticipate anywhere from 2 months up to 1 year.
To be clear, the game is technically and fundamentally complete. The 1.0 build is on Steam, has been approved, and is fully playable. This delay is purely for marketing and brand improvement.
If anyone out there besides me was looking forward to the release, I apologize. It was not a decision I made lightly. Hopefully the end result makes it worth the delay. The small numbers on release would've resulted in a non-existent community, meaning nobody to battle online, meaning half of the game (the unique half) would've been unplayable.
I'll talk more about how Steam Next Fest went and the plan for the future on the monthly blog update at the end of October. And don't worry, there is currently no plan to add anime girls to Mythlink.
Until then, the demo is still available, free, and full of content. Check it out and maybe add the full version to your wishlist on Steam!