[HN Gopher] My Steam Game Revenue Stats
___________________________________________________________________
My Steam Game Revenue Stats
Author : donislawdev
Score : 250 points
Date : 2021-07-23 19:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (donislawdev.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (donislawdev.com)
| gcampos wrote:
| I don't think the problem is that the game is a niche game, there
| are ways to break even with niche games and just copying what
| everyone else is doing is not exactly a receipt for success.
|
| In my opinion these is what OP could have done differently:
|
| - The game lacks (an obvious) unique hook. Just replacing coffee
| with mate is not enough of a hook for me, and I was raised in a
| family that drinks Chimarrao.
|
| - $5 is too cheap for a niche game.
|
| I think would help a lot if you check the Jeff Vogel advices on
| creating and marketing niche games. He has a lot insight on
| creating games that only a tiny amount of people want
| kimopertonau wrote:
| Coincidentally, just three months ago I began drinking yerba
| mate[0] which is the tea or infusion in this game Yerba Mate
| Tycoon. I found it better than coffee in the afternoon, since it
| provides a slower onset and more sustained energizing effect with
| essentially no crash. I believe it's due to it containing other
| compounds such as _L_ -theanine apart from caffeine. Popular
| brands are Taragui[1] and Canarias, and can be prepared in a
| standard French press almost like tea. Some even drink it in
| teabags[2].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(drink)
|
| [1] https://pampadirect.com/taragui-yerba-mate-classic-flavor-
| co...
|
| [2] https://pampadirect.com/taragui-mate-cocido-ready-to-brew-
| ye...
| nazrulmum10 wrote:
| You can buy Yerba Mate Tycoon
| pengaru wrote:
| The market is far too crowded to rely entirely on the steam store
| for your exposure.
|
| I'd like to know what the numbers are like for indie devs with
| their own twitch channel who constantly stream the development
| process, establishing a fan base throughout the year(s) of
| development before releasing on steam.
| pjmlp wrote:
| The market has always been too crowded, unless we are talking
| about the early Atari 2600 days.
|
| Being a game dev is akin to music, acting, whatever arts
| related.
|
| It will cost blood, sweets and tears, full of ups and downs,
| and only an handful will manage to keep going at it their whole
| life.
|
| Just like other arts, it doesn't mean people just give up,
| rather be aware it isn't just because they like playing on
| their games console every single day, that they will make it on
| the industry.
| jmd42 wrote:
| Getting visibility within Steam itself is still probably the
| most effective way of increasing sales numbers - generally
| being featured/recommended within the platform is profoundly
| more effective than more organic marketing efforts (unless you
| really go viral on social media, for example).
|
| Discoverability and viewership numbers for game dev streamers
| on Twitch are really poor. Of course it can have value as a
| marketing initiative, but you can also grind that for months /
| years without seeing a significant effect on sales - the return
| on time investment is probably not great. Whereas getting onto
| the front page of Steam (as part of some seasonal event, for
| example) can do more for you in a single day than months/years
| of streaming or social media.
| pengaru wrote:
| I wasn't clear enough in my comment; it's to crowded to just
| toss your game on the Steam store and expect it to magically
| generate worthwhile sales.
|
| You're entirely correct about being featured/recommended, and
| there are ways to game the platform at your release to
| amplify these effects.
|
| But my basic point stands; you can't just toss a game on
| Steam and expect good results.
|
| Between the low barrier to entry on the store ($100) and
| engines like unity/gamemaker enabling basically anyone to
| have something to toss on the store, it's overflowing with
| shovelware. How many reskinned game engine tutorials alone
| are out there for sale as games? It's a complete mess.
| [deleted]
| bschwindHN wrote:
| 400 sales is quite a lot actually! Going in with low expectations
| and achieving that number, honestly I would be proud.
| dzonga wrote:
| one thing, to applaud the author is they have the right attitude.
| when launching internet products, don't expect them to make
| money. that liberates you from all sort of problems and stress.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| Dumb but honest question: If most sales were expected to be in
| Latin America, why wasn't the game localized in the Spanish
| language?
| nix23 wrote:
| It's an early access game, like many...i never buy a EA game, too
| many disappointment's.
| donislawdev wrote:
| Yep, agree
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| You might be able to go to those users who do like it, add
| features they want in DLCs and such. Could be a fun endeavor for
| a side-gig over time.
| Tarsul wrote:
| As far as I know we users cannot see how many sales a game has
| from steam, so I very much appreciate the creator telling us. I
| often try to judge from the number of reviews if a game has made
| at least a few thousand bucks. This game here has 19 reviews with
| 420 sales, which means that 4,5% of all people have reviewed the
| game, which is more than I expected (I expected a ratio of about
| 1%). But this means that probably other games that have only a
| few dozen reviews have sold comparably (poorly).
|
| As an aside, me personally, I don't like early access games; I'd
| rather wait till the game is finished. I'm probably not the only
| one thinking like that. So I find it difficult to guess how
| different the sales projectory would be if it didn't have the
| "early access" status, but with any luck the creator will tell us
| once he has released V1.0 :)
| chills wrote:
| Steamdb[1] gives some info on concurrent players, but only
| estimates for owners. Looks like they estimate number of
| reviewers between 5-15%.
|
| [1]: https://steamdb.info/app/1404560/graphs/
| Karliss wrote:
| Steamdb uses 1.5-5% not 5-15%.
| codetrotter wrote:
| 5-15% is in line with for example anecdotally observed view
| count vs votes on videos on YouTube.
|
| So based on that I am not surprised that video games on Steam
| can be expected to have a similar number of reviews relative
| to number of owners.
|
| Typically I expect a video on YouTube to have about 10% votes
| and about 1% comments.
|
| Do all reviews on Steam need to include text or can simple
| thumbs up/down be given without any text? Haven't used Steam
| in a while so I don't remember.
| aroman wrote:
| > Typically I expect a video on YouTube to have about 10%
| votes and about 1% comments.
|
| this is known as the 90-9-1 rule:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)
| Tarsul wrote:
| yes, you have to write a text for the review to count. I
| just looked into the reviews for this game and there are
| actually 30 reviews, but apparently not every review counts
| towards the statline on the main page (not exactly sure
| which).
| tpxl wrote:
| You have to write text, but you can hide your review
| (friends only I think).
| hesdeadjim wrote:
| I forget where I read it, but you usually won't be too far off
| the mark if you multiply review count by 100. This won't tell
| you revenue of course, but it gives you an idea.
|
| My game sold about 20k units on Steam and has 165 reviews, so
| there's one anecdotal point of data.
| Nition wrote:
| My game has sold 7,210 units and has 99 reviews as another
| data point. So 72 units per review.
| phnofive wrote:
| I think you're probably right past a certain threshold of
| time or sales, but this one has thirty reviews.
| jonshariat wrote:
| When I wrote my book, they did an early access thing at it was
| terrible. I was still understanding where to take my book and
| iterate and I was getting people telling me it sucked. Uh ya,
| its not finished at all yet, just v1!
|
| Not a fan. I mean I get Betas and access to things say a month
| or so before launch. But not during active development.
| Hammershaft wrote:
| I mean, a book is a predefined narrative that you experience
| once sequentially! Much less suited to open iterative
| development than a game.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| There are other kinds of book than fiction.
| bavell wrote:
| Why did you agree to try early access with a book? It only
| really makes sense for games... and sometimes not even
| then...
| dave84 wrote:
| A lot of the big tech book publishers seem to have early
| access as a feature now. I'd be surprised if the author has
| that much control over it.
| DrJokepu wrote:
| If it's a game I'm excited about, I sometimes buy the early
| access to support the developers pre-release and only play it
| once it's done.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| I'm afraid of doing this since so many games never leave
| early access, or even improve significantly after first
| appearing
| flaque wrote:
| There's an interesting GDC talk about this for folks who are
| curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WycVOCbeKqQ
| donislawdev wrote:
| GDC talks are great, tons of interesting information.
| Ostrogodsky wrote:
| Congrats! You are doing fantastic. Thousands of debbie downers
| here, pay absolutely no attention to them. Keep doing what you
| like, strengthen yourself physically and mentally and if you need
| to have a second job while you get your first break-away success
| so be it.
|
| Just a small correction, "Yerba mate" is not the "coffee of
| south-america" Coffee is the coffee of south america,i.e. by far
| is a more popular drink. Mate is huge in Argentina/Uruguay and
| perhaps Paraguay , only regionally in Brazil and very niche
| everywhere else in the region. Coffee is as popular as it can be
| everywhere else in the world where the drink is liked.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Your advice is on point
|
| Yerba matte is also popular in Germany (as in, "Club-Mate") so
| maybe OP can try some advertising there ;)
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| I threw $5 your way because I wanted to support you. That said,
| some feedback:
|
| 1. The price is too high. I'm sorry, I know this sounds cheap at
| $5. But you're competing with the entire world of iOS games. For
| free, I can get endless kinds of games like this, but with in
| game purchases. Some of those, like Cardinal Quest 2, are
| actually amazing and the ingame purchases don't get in the way at
| all.
|
| I think if you priced it at $2 you might get more revenue in the
| long run.
|
| 2. I don't know what the hell a Yerba Mate is. It does say in the
| description that it's some kind of coffee, but I honestly had to
| force myself to buy this. I'd rather buy a coffee than a game
| about coffee.
|
| I feel guilty saying these things, because I don't know if my
| feelings here are representative or not. Maybe a lot of people
| feel that $5 is the right price point and that a game about
| coffee management is compelling. Either way, I want to support
| gamedevs, so I might try playing this just for kicks.
| donislawdev wrote:
| My game is PC game, when I will release on IOS/Android the
| price will be lower on that markets.
|
| On PC $5 is good price, not too low (like $1 or $2), not too
| high like $20-$30. Feedback from players mostly say, that the
| game price should be higher.
| Strom wrote:
| > _But you 're competing with the entire world of iOS games._
|
| I am not convinced these are overlapping markets. The Venn
| diagram probably looks pretty close to two independent circles.
| I play games on Steam and also own an iPhone. I never play
| anything on my phone, because it's a completely different
| experience. I think PC games and iOS games are both games in
| the same way as PC games and hide&seek are both games. That is
| to say we use the same term for them, but they're not at all
| the same in regards to what I'm looking for.
|
| It's not just me either. This line of separation exists in my
| whole social circle as far as I can tell. None of my PC gaming
| buddies play mobile games and everyone I know that plays mobile
| games don't play PC games.
| oefrha wrote:
| As someone who has made a fair bit more in donations than OP
| just from building community tools for a reasonably popular
| mobile game (still peanuts compared to the time poured in
| though), I probably have a bit more anecdata to draw from.
|
| In my experience, a not insignificant percentage of avid
| players of said mobile game active on Discord are also
| players of PC/console titles. These players may not represent
| the mobile game market at large, but they are overwhelmingly
| moderate to big spenders compared to the F2P crowd out there,
| so I'd say they are a good representation of a slice of the
| more valuable market segment. So, yes, there's an overlap,
| and I imagine "Yerba Mate Tycoon"'s addressable PC market
| would be even more likely to play a comparable mobile game
| than the average AAA action/shooter/etc. market.
| z3t4 wrote:
| In this day and age having over 400 actually paying customers is
| a lot! Even having 400 free users would be a lot. Now the
| question is - do they play the game ? Any number above 1% is
| good, so if there are 4 players spending a lot of time - it's a
| good sign. If possible ask them what they think is good about it,
| then update the marketing material to showcase what is good about
| the game.
| deepfriedbits wrote:
| I appreciate your positive reply. We could all honestly use
| more of that.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I agree. And actually shipping a game that anyone will pay for
| puts you in very rare territory. The world is full of game
| designer wannabes.
| Karsteski wrote:
| Why are they wannabes? I don't understand why you would
| insult people who are trying to put out a product but
| failing.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It's when the product is so bad that any objective observer
| would skip it.
|
| Like, I get that those people believe they're delivering
| the next divine gift, but...
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I don't think of "wannabe" as a particularly savage insult.
| I wannabe a beautiful singer, but I am not.
|
| How about dreamers?
| cenophor wrote:
| The fact that you avoided using "wannabe" as a noun to
| describe yourself in that contrived example says a lot.
| judge2020 wrote:
| There's a lot of low-quality Unity games on Steam, largely
| because they automated the new game system so that all it
| takes to publish a game is paying $100. There are some
| legitimate game designers putting in effort, but some
| 'publishers' have hundreds of these games and are often
| just copies of each other but with different assets.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| For anyone doubting how simple this is, you can buy
| entirely pre-made games and template games in the Unity
| Asset Store for anywhere from $25-$500 depending on how
| polished the asset is.
| moepstar wrote:
| ...and then, something like this [0] happens:
|
| 1) create overpromising marketing campaign/kickstarter
| for a MMO
|
| 2) slap together some random assets
|
| 3) ???
|
| 4) receive VC
|
| 5) profit..
|
| [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/dreamworld-infinite-world-
| mmo-kickst...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Isn't this just the game version of (1) start a new
| fashion "label", (2) buy Facebook ads, (3) drop ship from
| China when / if you get actual oorders?
| cenophor wrote:
| They are wannabes because it makes the author of the parent
| comment feels better.
|
| Anyone who isn't objectively the best at something is
| probably automatically a wannabe. So at the end of the day
| it's just a wannabe calling everyone else wannabe. Don't
| waste time on understanding people like that.
| ehnto wrote:
| That's a mentality that broods on the internet and it's
| so counter-productive, you see it in all kinds of groups.
| Your car only producing 400hp not 1000hp? Lame. Not
| deadlifting 300kg? Not good enough. Not making 6 figures?
| Why even work!
|
| I think it's because what tends to get 'promoted' on the
| internet is exceptional situations, I think people can
| get caught up in the thought that exceptionalism is all
| that's good enough. Spend enough time in real communities
| though and you realise that the world is full of people
| having a blast just doing their best, and that there are
| a million different ways to enjoy and be successful at
| different hobbies/careers.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| It's called elitism, and by far one of the most toxic
| elements of the tech community imho
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Elitism is a problem, but so is egalitarianism.
|
| Just because we all tried, doesn't mean we should all be
| rewarded and congratulated for trying. Results matter.
|
| So, balance somewhere between the two is best.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I don't think that's a reasonable analysis. Wannabes want
| to achieve notoriety but aren't prepared to, or can't, do
| what it takes to get there. A subjective analysis clearly
| shows they're not going to "make it" - and if they did
| some introspection they would realise it too. That's a
| wannabe, and the World does seem to be chock-full of
| wannabes.
|
| Some people just want to make great games, don't care
| about getting famous, etc.; they're not wannabes.
|
| Some people want to do a job, get paid; they're not
| wannabes.
|
| Some want to be famous and rich, and have the chops to go
| with it; they're not wannabes.
|
| @Karsteki, I don't think it's intended as an insult, it's
| more "being realistic, most people making games won't
| succeed because 'everyone' wants to succeed and most
| don't really have what it takes".
| donislawdev wrote:
| Thanks :-} A lot more than 1% is playing :-}
| evo_9 wrote:
| "In terms of cash, it was not worth it, if we count costs
| (without time) + taxes, then the "earnings" from those $632 will
| be lower than 0. I had lost the cash, the first month is mostly
| the "best" month of sales, so my next month's sales will be worse
| and worse, maybe a few % of my first month. Someone might be
| curious why I'm still keeping early access, working on the game,
| to be honest, I don't believe in some magic "boom" and millions
| of players, I'm just fixing bugs, adding new things because...
| People have paid for the game :-} I could drop it because Yerba
| Mate Tycoon generated cash loss (working more on it, generate
| bigger losses). But people paid for it, it got some players, so I
| will work on it :-} I know that some developers drop in that
| situations game, it's a logical step from a business side, but
| it's against my work ethic. I never promised huge things, but I
| have to finish what I started."
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| You can't really make a super niche game and expect it to sell
| well. Nobody knows what Yerba Mate is. Nobody is searching for
| Yerba Mate.
|
| Also, the video is funny, but it really doesn't tell us
| anything about what you do. It doesn't show us the consequences
| of any of your decisions.
|
| Anyhow, I wish the developer all the best. I hope sales to pick
| up and that they enjoyed making the game.
| leipert wrote:
| Mate is ridiculously popular in IT and hacker circles in
| Germany. Drinks (like a sparkling lemonade) based on it have
| been around since the 1920s.
| ehnto wrote:
| He mentions knowing about regional popularity of Yerba Mate,
| I think he was fully content with making a niche game for
| specific areas.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Nobody knows what Yerba Mate is.
|
| I think it may depend on your region. Obviously it is very
| well known in South America (I first became acquainted with
| it about 25 years ago after being friends with someone from
| South America who drank terere,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terer%C3%A9, all the time), but
| now I see these, https://guayaki.com/our-product-family/, all
| over Whole Foods in Texas, so somebody must be drinking them
| here.
| animal531 wrote:
| I agree with the poster. If he'd for example renamed it to
| Tea Tycoon and made it about tea blends then I'd imagine that
| he'd be doing at least 10x better.
| vincentpants wrote:
| I know what Yerba Mate is, I'm even drinking some now! I even
| managed to start a Yerba Mate scene at my old work. And
| considering how many dev stations have gourds among their
| vinyl toy collection makes me think there were a bunch of
| Canadian video game developers googling Yerba Mate at some
| point. I imagine this game can do well with a little bit of
| niche online community spelunking. We're out there!
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Perhaps the developer is just a but too ahead of the curve.
| In a few years time the game could huge.
|
| Also, I wonder how many people knew what spelunking was
| before Spelunky!
| Krasnol wrote:
| > Yerba Mate scene
|
| How did such a scene work? Did you have get togethers to
| talk about your Yerba Mate experiences? Are there Yearba
| Mate VIPs you worship together? Did you have Yerba Mate
| merchandise?
| krustyburger wrote:
| His scene seems to have attracted a sardonic detractor,
| so I'm inclined to believe it actually is real.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Isn't this the effect that the web does make work, super-
| niche things work globally that won't work locally. I've
| heard of it, Yerba mate, but I've never seen it mentioned
| anywhere offline (UK).
|
| Tea Tycoon, I'd have to presume has been done? Otherwise, it
| sounds like something people would go for.
| bemmu wrote:
| This type of niche game might actually be the exception where
| long-term sales are more than the initial sales. I would rather
| own this game than yet another clone of some overdone theme
| with similar sales up to this point.
|
| Some reasons:
|
| * If anyone were to search for such a game, this will be the
| top result by default, so there might be a trickle of sales
| over time that just doesn't stop.
|
| * This game may trend on some relevant subreddit/twitter
| clique/forum and get later sales boosts from that.
|
| * If you have a Yerba Mate blog or podcast, this is basically
| the only game you can even feature if you wanted to talk about
| something new.
|
| My next step would be to make a spreadsheet of anything Yerba
| Mate -related that could possibly feature the game and contact
| them all.
| minimize wrote:
| Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but I think the main
| reason why this title failed is the title. Most people probably
| never heard of "yerba mate", so to them, the title sounds like
| some kind of weird mating simulator.
|
| You can verify this by comparing the sales by country to the
| number of searches for the term "yerba mate" by country:
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=yerba%20mate The
| distributions are very similar.
| donislawdev wrote:
| Niche genre :-} I know that the game will fail (before
| release), it's not problem for me :-}
| hnarn wrote:
| I believe pricing is one of the most important decisions any
| business can make, and $5 does not make any sense to me.
|
| You're probably betting that this is a niche game that likely
| will take you more time than its worth in sales: in that case,
| you need to increase the price as much as you can without it
| looking absurd in comparison to triple A titles, so maybe $30 or
| so.
|
| If not much happens, you accept that there is no way any
| meaningful number of people will be interested in this game for
| the price of a steak dinner, so you go for the "penny crowd"
| instead: sell the game for $1 during a steam sale and get free
| attention from a >95% discount.
|
| Ideally you can spend this in-between time fixing some bugs and
| just keeping the game "alive" so it doesn't look like a complete
| cash grab, but on the other hand you should never feel obligated
| to put your time into something that isn't, and likely never
| will, be paying you back.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| The game sounds interesting and you seem to have great work
| ethics. You seem to have a marketing issue however. For a game,
| marketing is really important.
|
| I'm not extremely knowledgeable in the indie game business but as
| you seem to have a positive track record, getting a publisher
| might help you.
| 10x-dev wrote:
| My sincere congratulations to you on actually publishing your
| game and having players.
| donislawdev wrote:
| Thank you a lot :-}
| arnaudsm wrote:
| I fell bad for all the awesome indie devs out there now that the
| market is saturated. I remember the early days of Steam and
| Android when low quality asset flips would make $10k easily.
|
| New niches appear every year though, like the VR market that's
| desperate for content.
| donislawdev wrote:
| Adapt or Die :-} That's how it works, I just accept it.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Why do you want to make an iOS/Android version when the game
| isn't very popular right now? You mention the competition will be
| a lot higher so why do you think it will be worth it?
| donislawdev wrote:
| Just interested in it, I can gain this way experiences in
| releasing paid game on Android/IOS. From other side t's a lot
| harder (crowd market), for other there are not many paid
| tycoons, real tycoons games + a lot of players asked about
| mobile version.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > Features:
|
| > New update = new bugs
|
| > Poor graphic and sounds
|
| I have to say the first two "features" aren't doing you any
| favors.
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/1404560/Yerba_Mate_Tycoon...
| donislawdev wrote:
| I'm honest person :-} Irony/Joke is a strong weapon in
| marketing.
| cdmoyer wrote:
| Honestly, those make me want to buy it. Refreshing honest. I
| don't think the market here is people that'll be put off by
| that.
| istorical wrote:
| It's a joke. Not sure if that's immediately obvious to you
| (it's Hacker News).
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| Still, as a potential customer, I don't find it very
| encouraging. You don't see jokes like these for products that
| _don 't_ have bugs or _do_ have decent graphics. Not a very
| good idea to draw attention to your shortcomings, even if
| they 're expected.
| DeathMetal3000 wrote:
| Having a Polish developer create a game around a South American
| drink really shows the power of cross-cultural spread of the
| internet. Love it!
| fouc wrote:
| Incredible progress he's making. Ten "failures" that he's learned
| tons from. He's going to be hugely successful if he keeps this
| up!
| donislawdev wrote:
| Thanks :-}
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Sarcasm?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I think the only sarcasm is around the world "failures". No
| one creates a super successful creative-work their first
| time, or usually even their first dozen times. You have to
| keep at it until you master it, and then also get a bit
| lucky.
| username90 wrote:
| Nobody creates a good product they first time they try, but
| lots of people don't commercialize those failures and
| instead iterates until they have something they don't feel
| is shit so their first commercial release becomes a
| success. I don't see what you'd learn by putting things you
| know will fail in front of paying customers just so they
| can point out the obvious shortcomings, all you do is waste
| time and energy.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| no way, this dev sounds AMAZING. Even if they don't work out
| what works at this rate they're bound to stumble upon it
| because they just keep going. It's really impressive.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| > _Even if they don 't work out what works at this rate
| they're bound to stumble upon it because they just keep
| going_
|
| Is _this_ sarcasm? Because that 's generally now how things
| work.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| no, it can be how things work. Diligence with a bit of
| talent are reasons for success in today's economy.
| adenozine wrote:
| Can't speak for parent commenter, but there is a nugget of
| supreme wisdom in the remark nonetheless. Gamedev is
| notoriously punishing and mentally grueling. Pushing through
| these roadblock moments CAN lead to huge runaway successes if
| the market timing is right.
|
| I'm in a field in no way orthogonal to gaming, but I can
| attest myself that pushing though the moments I -wanted- to
| quit the most, were the moments that yielded the most amount
| of advantage to me. I knew I could go further, work harder,
| learn to be smarter, because I knew that I had persevered
| where most others would've called it quits.
|
| Hopefully that's what they mean.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I've heard this before, mainly from "hustle culture" folks,
| but have never witnessed it in real life. I've followed
| quite a few people, both online and IRL, who have
| persevered through repeated failure, motivated by "passion"
| and convinced that success was around the corner.
|
| Almost none of them achieved success. Instead, they ended
| up burned, jaded and in a few cases even genuinely
| suicidal.
|
| As someone else mentioned in the thread, the kid is clearly
| talented. He has released 10 games on five different
| platforms at age 22 with no assistance whatsoever. That is
| genuinely exceptional, and he is without doubt in the top
| 10% of game dev grads.
|
| I'm not arguing that you should quit after one attempt
| either (even successful designers fail maybe 50% of the
| time) but it seems irresponsible to suggest 10 failures in
| a row are a sign of success to come and he just needs to
| eat shit for the next 5 years.
|
| Far more likely than not, the repeated failures suggest
| that his talents would be better applied elsewhere.
| ehnto wrote:
| I understand you're coming from a compassionate place,
| you don't want to see them burn out, I've burnt out and
| it sucks.
|
| You can make good money selling your time, but maybe it's
| not about money for them? By all other measures this game
| was a great personal success. At this point the dev is
| competent and successfully releasing games, they just
| haven't been commercially successful. Now would be a
| terrible time to give up.
|
| My advice would be to run out of options first, then go
| work at that "elsewhere". Once you get settled into a
| career it can be really hard to step back out into solo
| dev.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I'm not going to refute the rest of your comment, as it's
| a valid opinion and I'd just be repeating myself, but in
| regards to this:
|
| >Once you get settled into a career it can be really hard
| to step back out into solo dev.
|
| I don't think that's true in and of itself. A lot of
| people struggle to adapt to the financial uncertainty of
| flying solo later in life, but that's only because they
| have a high-cost lifestyle and minimal savings.
|
| I quit my day job last year, a few months before my first
| daughter was born, to run my online businesses full-time.
| The fact that my wife and I had saved huge chunks of our
| pay (100k+ in the bank), in addition to the fact that the
| businesses were already running at half-steam meant that
| the transition was stress-free and seamless.
| username90 wrote:
| The biggest problem with "hustle culture" is that they
| praise each others effort rather than results. Like in
| this case, 10 failed games is a lot of effort but aren't
| good results. And if you look at the reviews and where he
| got traffic on this game they mostly come from other
| gamedev communities, meaning he sold to other developer
| hustlers interested in his journey rather than to real
| users.
|
| At this stage what he needs to do is take a step back,
| stop seeking praise from other developers and instead
| focus on making a quality game he thinks users actually
| would want to play. Releasing games you know will fail
| doesn't teach you much, especially if it is your tenth
| one. Or he can pivot to becoming a gamedev influencer
| selling tutorials or monetizing views, if that is what he
| wants he is on the right track.
| donislawdev wrote:
| "meaning he sold to other developer" No, I was marketing
| the game on yerba mate groups etc + Argentina gaming and
| many other places. I don't market my games to game devs
| because they are not my target :-} I'm not posting info
| about my games on dev groups or anything, just from time
| to time, I'm back with my stats, but those stats are
| before posting about the game to dev groups, so sales
| comes from players interested in the game :-}
| zomglings wrote:
| He's 22, has a great attitude and work ethic, and has shown
| remarkable resourcefulness in releasing this game as a
| commercial offering (presumably running the operation by
| himself).
|
| Doesn't sound like sarcasm to me. This kid is going places.
| atum47 wrote:
| Congratulations on commercializing the game. Are you a one person
| operation? I know how hard can it be to develop, publish, deal
| with game stores... This is a great deal that you were able to
| launch and sell. Kudos
| donislawdev wrote:
| 22-year-old solo developer from Poland :-} One-man team.
| DaveSapien wrote:
| These numbers are actually promising. 400 sales in early access
| for a 'niche' game would open the door for a few publishers out
| there. And as it stands this game has momentum behind it, NOT an
| easy thing to accomplish.
|
| And further more, the steam page has quite a few problems that
| are easily fixed and would drives sales in a positive direction.
| Add some streamer outreach to the mix and this could do well
| enough to fund their next game. Just perhaps not well enough to
| satisfy the developers ambitions. Yet.
|
| I would love to have this momentum on my own (very) niche game.
| Its is also on early access, interesting premise, zero marketing
| budget, and so on. Its numbers are nowhere near as promising as
| Yerba Mate Tycoon. Its a rare thing to click with an audience and
| YMT has done so.
|
| To the Developer, keep going. Keep that mindset of honouring your
| customers its rare in games and of value to the gamers. Spend
| more time on you store page and promoting, and release it. It
| will be worth it.
| zone411 wrote:
| Use the opportunity and link us to your game. I don't think
| anybody will mind.
| DaveSapien wrote:
| Thanks, I don't want to seem like I'm shilling with any of my
| comments. This is Kanso, a relaxing game that invites the
| player to slowdown and find a moment of Zen:
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/1454650/Kanso/
| hendi_ wrote:
| This looks great, will buy once I'm back at my PC :-)
| DaveSapien wrote:
| Oh wow, thank you very much. If you have any feedback,
| I'd very much like to hear it.
| zone411 wrote:
| Looks nice, ordered.
| donislawdev wrote:
| Thanks :-}
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Don't downplay the value to you in fixing bugs, customer support
| etc. you'll be better equipped when you release a title that is
| successful.
| donislawdev wrote:
| I got a respect to players cash :-} I know
| imtringued wrote:
| It's also easy to burn bridges by canceling early access games.
| The vast majority of people should stay away from early access
| games by default because of the risk that the game remains
| unfinished.
| shagie wrote:
| I've got a few "early access" games where the developer lost
| interest or disappeared. Most infamously Starbase DF-9, but
| I've got a handful of other games in my library.
|
| Now, I'll wishlist them rather than impulse buy them and then
| reconsider it when it comes out of early access.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Perhaps there is a better name for what these projects are:
| "experimental" or "exploratory" access. Something that
| doesn't so strongly imply their will be a later or finished
| state.
| flak48 wrote:
| The synthesized speech in the video seems pretty realistic - does
| anyone know which software was used?
| donislawdev wrote:
| It's human speech, not software :-}
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| >the first month of Steam early access (15.06 to 15.07 June/July)
|
| This is very confusing
| donislawdev wrote:
| Sorry, it's standard in Europe, that's why I used it: 15th of
| June to 15th of July.
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| I meant the part to have the month twice.
| yreg wrote:
| How is it confusing? 15th of June to 15th of July.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| People in _some countries_ are accustomed to using a very
| weird mm /dd date format, probably that's the case here?
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| yyyy/mm/dd is the true format because its alphabetically
| sortable. dd/mm/yyyy is another sensible format because the
| units grow in size. mm/dd/yyyy is the insane one. Idk why
| the US persists with it tbh.
| MattRix wrote:
| It has flaws but it's not "insane" or entirely illogical,
| it's very clearly based on the way dates are spoken and
| written in English, ex. "Today is July 23rd, 2021".
| speedgoose wrote:
| It's not insane, but it's not very logical. As a non
| native speaker, I prefer to say "Today is the 23rd of
| July in 2021" which is perhaps not valid English.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| imagine if 202 meant two hundred and twenty. Its insane.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| The reasoning is clear as day. However, even the English
| themselves do not use this broken format:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country
|
| The US always seem to resist sensible things when it
| comes to units and formats: it is a mystery to me why
| they are so attached to imperial units, when the rest of
| the world sans Liberia and Myanmar are using metric units
| (and Myanmar planned to leave this shameful club before
| the recent coup).
| MattRix wrote:
| I should have clarified that it is how dates are
| pronounced in _American_ English. British people will say
| "it's the 21st of July, 2021".
|
| I don't think the US resisting things is so mysterious.
| The US is a large country that largely defines its own
| culture (and exports that culture to the world). The
| average american isn't going to switch systems unless
| they have a VERY good reason to. For the fields where it
| matters (ex. the sciences) they've largely already
| switched.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| The true format is, of course, YYYY-MM-DD, not
| YYYY/MM/DD.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| ye sorry.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Month day is not weird.
|
| You should have mentioned something actually bad like month
| day year.
| smolder wrote:
| It's the euro DD before MM style of date writing.
| donislawdev wrote:
| It's Day/Month Day/Month I'm from Poland (Europe)
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| Oh, if the author just wrote DD.MM it's fine. I just don't
| understand why he wrote "June/July" afterwards.
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| Sure, but I think it's more that it seems incredibly rare to
| write month/day without year in strictly numbers. In almost
| all cases i would write 15 Jun/15 Jul. I can't think of
| anytime i would intentionally write 15.06/15.07. We all know
| this is a global world. We all know conventions vary. We
| should aim to make things intuitive, not make people guess
| which convention 06.07 is using.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Day.month _is_ the standard throughout most of Europe.
| kinduff wrote:
| And Latinoamerica.
| bialpio wrote:
| "rare" is subjective - I'd have written it the same way
| (DD.MM) if I were going to write those dates without
| thinking. The author is from Poland, and so am I. Old
| habits die hard.
| techrat wrote:
| The game is far, far too much of a niche style game for it to
| even be all that popular, IMHO. I'm not quite sure what the Dev
| here expected to happen. It's also Early Access and it's fair to
| say that unless a game has broad appeal (which shop simulators
| don't) and hype (definitely not in this case), people tend to
| stay away from Early Access games from unknown developers with
| insubstantial catalogs. I know I do, been burned enough times.
|
| I'm not saying 'feel bad', here... more along the lines of 'lower
| your expectations'. Unless you have a big publishing house
| backing you, marketing money being spent, your first title isn't
| going to be profitable... and that's before you consider the type
| of game it is.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Where do you get the idea that they had high expectations? The
| whole article is like "I knew this game wouldn't sell, but hey,
| at least it did better than my first ten games". This person is
| a grinder and may very possibly achieve moderate success or
| better if they keep it up. Their trajectory is def normal for
| successful indie game devs, anyway. You just never hear about
| the dozen plus games Soderstrom made/released before Hotline
| Miami or Thorson made/released before Celeste, etc.
| Because...well, because they failed
|
| This article does serve as yet another good reminder though
| that platforms are where the money is and that making content
| is no way to make a living. Make your fuck you money first,
| THEN make content using the skills you developed along the way.
| You'll have something to make content about, too, having been
| out and about in the world to make your nut
| blueblimp wrote:
| > You just never hear about the dozen plus games Soderstrom
| made/released before Hotline Miami or Thorson made/released
| before Celeste, etc.
|
| Thorson isn't a good example here, because Celeste was only
| their 2nd commercial game, and their 1st was Towerfall, which
| was successful.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| He could yet get another bump in sales from a 1.0 release, but
| you're right the stars are just not aligned to make Yerba Mate
| Tycoon an indie smash. This was not necessarily a story of loss
| though. Taking a project all the way to release is a feat, and
| his attitude toward finishing the game, not to mention
| supporting it after release is commendable. All this seems like
| it helps position the developer to solicit publishers for
| future projects, convince others to work with him, and even
| help sway potential buyers of future projects. Not to mention
| it's a critical learning experience, feedback like yours is
| very helpful. All things considered pretty successful for a
| first game. This dude definitely has the potential to turn a
| profit in the future.
| tekromancr wrote:
| Tenth game, according to the post
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| I believe it is his 10th _attempt_ at a game but 1st
| finished/published game. The author at least has no other
| games published on steam.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The other games seem to be mobile.
| donislawdev wrote:
| First Steam game, others were mobile + Web Games.
|
| I got even post about my other game stats:
| https://donislawdev.com/earnings-and-statistics-from-
| my-8-ga...
|
| All released.
| fouc wrote:
| 1st published on steam. He published the other ones on
| google play it seems.
| lommelun wrote:
| For a 22 year old that's very impressive if true.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Annoyingly, the dev time travelled back and incorporated all
| that into their original article. I think they did it just to
| make your advice look pointless.
| brundolf wrote:
| > Before the game launch, I knew that game will be a failure. I
| was expecting most sales from Latin America (low price), my all
| previous mobile games were a failure, wishlist number was low +
| in the first month of early access (outside of Steam) I sold 0
| games copies. So, there were no success indicators. I got no
| problem with it, everything is running according to my plan, If
| my whole life is a failure, then a "failure" is something
| normal, it won't affect me :-}
|
| I'd say their expectations were pretty low, and despite that
| they've got a wonderfully positive attitude about the whole
| thing. Maybe don't be so quick to rain on that.
| ehnto wrote:
| This is a massive personal success for any indie-dev, and the
| fact that he keeps pushing makes me fairly certain he'll
| eventually make it to a profitability with a title
| eventually.
| donislawdev wrote:
| My all previous games (mobile + web+ were failure.
|
| From the blog
|
| "Before the game launch, I knew that game will be a failure. I
| was expecting most sales from Latin America (low price), my all
| previous mobile games were a failure, wishlist number was low +
| in the first month of early access (outside of Steam) I sold 0
| games copies. So, there were no success indicators. I got no
| problem with it, everything is running according to my plan, If
| my whole life is a failure, then a "failure" is something
| normal, it won't affect me :-}"
| bogwog wrote:
| > At launch, I was selling my game for $3.5 (10% discount), then
| the price went back to the full price of $4.
|
| Why would you launch with a discount?
| donislawdev wrote:
| Special price for first EA (early access) customers. Steam
| recommend 10% discount.
| WhiteNoiz3 wrote:
| Sadly Steam encourages everyone to do this - if you don't get
| high enough in the rankings at launch you basically won't make
| any money, plus everyone on Steam is super accustomed to
| getting everything at a discount.
| jmd42 wrote:
| Drive day 1 sales, increasing your chance of getting featured
| as a "hot new release", increasing visibility and trying to
| ride the recommendation algorithm.
| avereveard wrote:
| It has become customary for early access titles to have an
| early bird discount
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