Perceived vs real success

I want to talk about an aspect of indie development/business which is very often ignored, but in my opinion is important: the perceived vs real success of a game.

Recently I released two games, Cursed Lands and Love Bites. As always I got some positive reviews but also negative ones (it’s inevitable). Beside some obvious troll-reviews, one thing that always amuses me is when a player decides if a past game was successful or not depending on his/her own tastes or perceived success.

For example: I like sci-fi, so if you make a game that is not sci-fi, I could say “you should do another game like Bionic Heart which had really an original plot, was popular, etc etc”. If I like card games, I could say “instead of making a new RPG you should do another card game because clearly did better” and so on. Assuming results that are real only in the mind of the person who is writing it πŸ˜›

A popular game is not always the best selling one

This seems strange, but it happened to me in the past, and I also know of other indies who had the same experience. A game could be popular, meaning that has a big following, many people tried the demo, people and review sites talk about it, youtubers do let’s play, but… it’s not as successful as you might think. Maybe a smaller, hidden niche game has made definitely more money than the other, for a variety of reasons (game price, bundles, platform, time of release, piracy, luck).

I could make some examples with my own games: my game Bionic Heart was definitely more popular than Heileen (the first game of 2008). It appeared in some japanese sites, many bundles, has more Steam reviews…Yet, Heileen sold almost double its amount!

Another case is when a game, for some unknown reason (really, sometimes we developers have no clue ourselves!!) sells very well on a specific platform, that screws up perception. Loren did well both direct and on Steam. But if we exclude Steam and consider only direct and mobile, Roommates did better than Loren. So as you can see it’s really hard for the users to know how a game really did simply because only the developers have the whole picture.

Steam reviews are also very misleading, since people assume that a high rating means it’s a better game, or a game that sold more. It’s true in many cases, but also not true in many others. Personally I think that rating is high if the product meet people’s expectations. That’s why you see many short, super linear, but erotic VN with 90% positive: people know what it is, they buy it, they like it and leave a positive review. If you start to add gameplay, non linear plot (or, an ACTUAL PLOT haha), allow to choose the gender, have many romances, the score will decrease. It’s ironic but making simpler and shorter games will be rewarded much more on Steam (and that’s why most of other indies I know doing VN follows that system).

Also, back in 2014 or even earlier, releasing a game on Steam automatically meant a LOT of exposure. Right now things have changed completely. So a better game released now could perform much worse than an average game released back then. As you see, there are many things to consider.

The morale is…

The morale of this story is that if a developer says something like “from now on I’ll only make yuri games” (no, don’t worry it’s not my case…yet) there is a reason. Maybe that developer saw that the 90% of the top selling VN games on Steam are yuri, and this for sure had an impact when planning their new game(s).

Or if the public clearly want content of a specific type. It’s no secret at all that more sexy/erotic contents in VN does better. Like, a magnitude of order better. I think that nowadays if you make a VN that doesn’t at least have a sexy component, you could save your efforts (obviously exlcuding already famous indies) since it will be wasted time. Luckily, in this case I can solve it “simply” by having suggestive content on/off in options screen, so it’s not something drastic as deciding to have only a specific romance type.

Of course everyone has their own favorite games or themes, settings, romance types and it’s normal to support your own ideas, you should totally do it. But ultimately, since this is a business, the choices are made usually thinking about profit.

So far, I moderately ignored the “profit factor” when making games. Spending 10 months making SOTW RPG part, or all the time doing Amber’s crafting without a clue if was worth it or not (spoiler: it wasn’t). Making a yaoi only game (Heirs & Graces) when every dev I knew told me that was a bad idea (and from profit point of view, it definitely was!). Trying ot make BIG games with a lot of love interests and protagonist gender choice, when almost every other developer is making much more money doing MUCH shorter games with just one gender and less romances and erotic content.

All of these choices nowadays make little sense from a business point of view, but I honestly hope to be able to keep going like this thanks to the generosity of people supporting me in various ways, buying the games full price, being patrons on Patreon, leaving positive Steam reviews even if they’re not completely happy about the game, and so on.

We’ll see how it goes in future, but remember, very rarely the decisions of an indie (serious ones doing it for a living) are taken because of personal tastes or randomly. When players think of an indie as truly independent artist, I laugh. Maybe in the beginning we were, but right now if you don’t obey to the market’s laws you won’t stay in business for long.

12 thoughts on “Perceived vs real success

  1. Plk_Lesiak

    From this perspective, how do you expect Planet Stronghold 2 to perform? Making a direct sequel for a game with mixed reception seems like a huge gambit, especially if its a large scale project such as an RPG. Is it something you REALLY wanted to do or do you hope to salvage the whole franchise with it?

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      I really wanted to do it, since I’m a fan of sci-fi, and besides even if that game has mixed review rating, it did do much better than many other games I did (another example of why Steam review doesn’t always match a game’s success).

      Reply
  2. Ent13

    I don’t make judgements at all when it comes to what you sell and what sold well. I know what I like and am interested in and leave it at that. All I can tell you is I love your work ethic and hope you can continue to make what you want without hurting your bottom line. (If you listened to just me it would be nothing but Bionic Heart and Loren spin offs and clones).

    As far as Steam goes, yeah, they put up SO MANY new games (most of which are wuick cash grab garbage) that it’s hard for a new game to get exposure on the platform. It’s frustrating.

    Final note for the last section – the word should read “moral” as in a lesson, you have “morale” as in the state of mind of a ground or person. :p

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      Oops! I guess I was too sucked in coding PS2 with the Morale stat value! πŸ˜€ (totally valid excuse!)

      And personally speaking I’d like to do all Bionic Heart/Loren-style games in future so we have very similar tastes haha πŸ™‚

      Reply
  3. Jule

    Well… If you ever do start making only Yuri games, you’ll lose my business.

    Hopefully it never comes to that. ;P

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      While I might have some yuri only games (I have 2 already announced / in progress) if I can I’ll always try to have either male/female protagonists or 2 romance combos πŸ˜›

      Reply
  4. Sky

    It’s so sad that b/b games don’t sell as well. I personally loved Heirs & Graces, I was even planning on replaying it over my weekend. But I understand that you need to sell games to pay the bills. Besides, your g/g, g/b and b/g romances are still fantastic. xD And I’m super relieved to see (based on your twitter and what I see as a patron) that b/b romances aren’t leaving your games completely.

    I’m glad you put so much work into your games, even if simpler games may make more money. Simple games may be fun sometimes, but it gets obnoxious really quick when that’s all that’s available. I feel like the market gets drowned in boring VNs with short, plain stories and little to no gameplay, so finding your games was a breath of fresh air. Keep up the good work! ^.^

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      Thanks πŸ™‚ Well I have already several games with B/B planned and this won’t change. Even if decided to stop making them now, the ones already in the works are at least 5-6 games with B/B content.

      Reply
  5. Bob "The Mob"

    “But if we exclude Steam and consider only direct and mobile, Roommates did better than Loren.”

    Indeed, when will we see more pure comedy??? KILLIN us here, Jack! :p

    “The morale of this story is that if a developer says something like β€œfrom now on I’ll only make yuri games” (no, don’t worry it’s not my case…yet)”

    PLEASE never make that the case, Jack!!!!!!!!! :O Ya’d lose customers, or at least me, n truth be told I don’t wanna leave. πŸ™‚

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      The fun thing is that people like you think I personally don’t want to make another game like that. Finding a good comedy writer it’s harder than you think! πŸ™‚ Especially a writer that would finish the game in a reasonable amount of time (1-2 years). I had to give up with a lot of external writers and write many games myself because the situation was becoming impossible…

      Reply
  6. Franka

    Look, I don’t care how popular, successful or not PSCD was, you need to make more card games!

    I’ll keep telling you!

    Reply
    1. admin Post author

      I have a post-it on my monitor:
      “Make more card games. Yours truly, Franka”.
      πŸ˜€ πŸ˜€ πŸ˜€ πŸ˜€
      Haha if was for me I would do one now (you know I like them!) however, I really need to finish the RPGs first!

      Reply

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