This Famous Game Designer Had A BAD Steam Launch - My Thoughts.
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2023
- I discuss the recent Steam Launch from one of my Favorite Game Devs.
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Indie Game Launch FAILS Badly ( My Response / Analysis )
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Hey Lost Relic, I appreciate the analysis! I was one of the lead artists on Colossal Cave. Targeting so many platforms with such a small team was a challenge that ended up hampering what we could do for the PC release since there was so much to fix on the lower performance platforms. We only had 1 year of structured development. It was a huge game, and there was a pretty big learning curve to overcome as a team in terms of tools and establishing a workflow and environment style that was cohesive in that time. The price is going to come down shortly for those who are interested as you are absolutely correct, we did actually price ourselves out of market. Ken & Roberta wanted to stay faithful to the original as much as humanly possible, down to the cardinal directions and quirks with the source code, as it really was a labor of love for them to try and preserve this piece of gaming history in a new medium. Thank you for covering our game, I'm happy to answer questions about it
Hi James! So many launch platforms would have been quite the technical and logistical feat! (notably Quest2) I can see this doing well on VR where higher price points for well crafted games are typical; PC however has become an over-saturated bonanza, often burying fine games. I knew without a doubt that this was a labor of love for the team. I was happy to see Ken and Roberta back it; my wife and I are long time fans of the Willams design ethos (we still play the classics today). I look forward to playing this one with my kids on console! Much respect for the work you have done here. As a Developer myself, I know well the tumultuous and wonderful battle that is game creation :)
The fact you're talking of a steep learning curve sounds to me like the game was suffering from both operational and creative mismanagement from day 1 which is why the game is so unpolished, clunky and causing players to feel frustrated.
I'm genuinely surprised that this was the work of 27 people because it looks and plays like the Williams did this by themselves over the course of a couple years while learning how to use all the tools and apps for modern 3D games.
@@KryyssTV damn, kick a man while he's down.
@@jayocaine2946 The observation was directed at the team, not any specific individual. You don't withhold feedback on the quality of a product that people are asking money for just because anything negative might bruise egos. Likewise if they'd done a fine job I'd be singing their praises but looking at the size of the team, the fact they were working on it since at least October 2021 and then seeing the final result is very concerning.
Had this been a case where Ken had been doing this solo as a hobby during lockdown while he was learning Unity I'd be saying its a great start for someone who has no experience working on a modern game and taking upon themselves to try to push it out as a retail product shows some real guts. But that simply isn't what happened.
@@KryyssTV well nothing you said is revolutionary, it's stating the obvious. Which is why I thought it was unnecessary.
Fact this is the first I have heard of it might be a issue
Price is definitely a big one, but as a fan of retro 3d graphics, one thing I've noticed is that they seem to be the kiss of death in the market. The problem is that it's very hard for the average gamer to differentiate between intentional retro 3d and bad modern 3d, even when it's obvious to a developer. Furthermore, many older gamers see history through rose-tinted glasses and remember games looking much better than they did. Compare the reception of the announced Prine if Persia remake to that of the Crash Bandicoot trilogy remaster, for example. Prince of Persa looks more like the old game did and received a lot of hate, while Crash Bandicoot looks incredibly sleek and modern and is mostly written off as a nostalgia play despite selling like gangbusters. There's very little appetite for true retro 3d. Ironically, low-poly is regarded as a modern aesthetic choice, depending on how it's done.
That's a very good point, unfortunately the 3D model style they went with looks like what you'd see in low effort Steam shovelware.
Considering the visuals shown, and the comments above from one of the artists involved, I think they *thought* they were going for intentionally-retro 3d, but the lack of experience in modern platforms/tech stacks resulted in exactly the same bad-3d problems as any neophyte.
I watch a lot of game post-mortems, from indies & AAA alike, and there's a consistent issue where people are just not respecting the time it takes to become familiar with engine, platform(s), middleware/version control tools, etc. Some game-dev exp is universal, but some is not. You can either take the time to learn, pay someone with the experience, or end up in a situation like this, trying to figure out where it all went awry.
@@slimyspiral4428 It's not the models - it's the textures & lighting. Textures need to be the right format/size in your build so they don't just look like a compressed mess in-engine. That might mean getting creative with small, reusable textures, and/or getting wrist-deep in your shaders (packed textures, bit-level mathematical hijinks, clever use of tessellation & animation in lieu of fancy VFX, etc).
And IMO lighting is that "secret sauce" that tells people a game looks good or bad on a subconscious level. This had no lighting design, or they tried, but scrapped it - a death knell for a game set in caves. That and sound design, but I couldn't get a feel for that from the OP.
I don't feel that's true. There are many games with retro-3D graphics that also rely on the aesthetic that became very popular. Dusk, Amid Evil and Signalis all come to mind immediately.
The steam page looks decent, but i could never enjoy that visual style.
I think that pricing mismatching the perceptual first impression was the main reason just like you said.
However, I can't help but feel that they were fully aware that their price point was high and they felt like their name and previous work would give them enough momentum?
I don't think namedropping has any storefront value in this day and age unless you can use it to get someone invested to churn unending promotion about you (like Kojima/Sony) or release games consistently with a similar branding (like SpiderWeb, Vlambeer, Sokpop or Supergiant), especially now that there are hundreds of games made "by the people (junior animator) who worked on bigAAAGame".
Much Love and Respect to this dev team. I hope they find a larger audience on the other launch platforms.
Also, if you're a dev and interested in the indie sponsorship I mentioned at the end, get in touch.
Helping out in indie sponsorships, that's very exciting !
Have you heard of Woovit? It's a service that helps game creators find streamers that can advertise their games. So it sounds like it could help sponsors find you.
The dev team were amateur and it shows.
They were just a bit old school and other than the price point and the colors and description they might have hit their target. Not everyone who knows how to make a game also knows how to market it.
I think the trailer while stylised, really hit them hard. While it might be mimicking the look of old school aesthetic, it feels closer to a student project, especially with that awful UI. It also looks very similar to other scam/asset store flip projects.
If their design is meant to be the strong suit they don't really show off what is interesting about the game from a design perspective.
Overall combined all those factors with that price point I'm not shocked it isn't doing well.
Yeah I just think the photos on Steam looked bad. Like I get it's going for the retro design I'm just not a fan.
I think the standards just got higher. Going for that 'early 3d look' that aged awfuly bad to begin with is a weird choice.
@@fartloudYT I would like it if they clearly went with a style we could identify such as a Nintendo 64 or PS1 style
You hit the nail on the head, but you're really sugarcoating the actual problem. The game looks bad. That's all there is to it. As you said, it feels like some random cheap student project. No amount of 'but that was intended' will change that. People see the graphics and and immediately close the page. The price being 5x as much as it should be is just a bonus.
@@fartloudYT There is a way to do it correct. It hasn't much to do with standards. Even low poly games back then, had very high detailed base models baked down into simpler ones, and even low poly hand made stuff back then got almost as much design attention as a character nowadays.
These assets seem to be made low resolution from the start. And you really miss the detail, even if you couldn't point to what exactly you're missing.
Also, there is a sense for aesthetics that an experienced artists has, that he brings out no matter what medium or limitations, that seems to be lacking here. I think the team must have had just a few artists, with very different skill levels and abilities to work within a set style together. Leading to a disjointed whole.
For example the trees in the beginning look way to detailed with all those leaves, and the shed looks very realistic. but then the pirate character totally doesn't fit in there, being a lot more styled.
Do more of these analysis type videos. Very insightful. Also looking forward to an update on the progress of your own game.
Price was the big one for me, $58aud is way beyond what I was expecting.
In the PC market you are competing with not just new releases, but titles going potentially decades back. Most of my current queue is still around 2016, so it needs to be something massive to play something new. Colossal Cave would of made me jump to relive it in a new format, but I can't justify the cost of a weeks worth of food on it.
Masahiro Sakurai just dropped a vid a few days back speaking to this - every game is competing not only with new games, but old ones, and of course against every other thing people can do with their time & money. And putting it in terms of "is this game worth X days of food" really zooms-in on the problem...
anything over 30 dollars is usually considered a AAA-title. Not a single indie studio can do that. it's harsh. But it's the truth. You need to consider your audience and your budget. Also studios should consider putting the game on sale at launch to get some more momentum at start.
@@DreamingCrare Are you basing that on any market data, or just your gut feeling? From my own research, pricing for games is a mix of inputs - local cost-of-living, platform expectations, genre comparables, and how "polished" the game looks in its marketing. Who made the game/team-size doesn't figure into what the customers are willing to pay, it only figures into what your break-even point needs to be.
To your point about $30 = "AAA", that varies by country, and even target audience. $30 USD vs CAN vs AUS is different, and will have different value to a player in Boston vs Kansas, or to a teen vs a 40-something with a job.
@@mandisaw Yeah it's more of agut feeling. And I'm talking about US dollars. Though Maybe I should have been talking in euros because I use those, but mainly same price point. Of course games have different price points in different places of world. There's outliers too that may exceed the price point. But what I mainly see is that games with prices near 50-60 are console games or Big AAA titles for PC. Tbh I dont usually buy games over 25€ from steam. Most of the games I play are indies.
@@DreamingCrare Gut feeling / personal exp is ok, just need to clarify which is which :) There's proof that a lot of indies tend to under-price their own games, so between that & Steam sales, it's not that weird for you to get the idea that higher prices = AAA. But that's not necessarily due to perceived value for cost - plenty of indies give ppl way more hrs of entertainment than AAA games 🤷
This game fits the other category - a game that's overpriced - but that's more due to the genre and short length, not so much the pedigree.
Great video mate! I feel like Ken and Roberta fell into the same trap Richard Garriott did with Ultima. When limited by the constraints of the era, they told compelling stories and created memorable experiences *despite* the lack of great visuals. The further the tech grew, the more they fell in love with the fads of the day, unnecessary moves to 3D ( KQ VIII and Ultima Ascension) and never really did anything of note again. Garriott especially had some really high profile flops because he wasn't realistic in what he could achieve, or what the fans wanted.
Really important to be in touch with your audience - in this case they would have absolutely ate up a classic VGA pixel art adventure. ( At a reasonable price of course, this isn't 1987 anymore where you could charge 90 bucks for Kings Quest IV!
yeah totally. Shroud of the Avatar really didn't feel like Ultima to me, which is part of why one of my side projects is #AgeOfSingularity, where I'm remaking Ultima VI while trying to modernize but keep the feel alive, and even advance the simulation.
@@westingtyler2 Best of luck with your Age of Singularity project, I hope you recapture the glory days of Ultima!
@@whiskeybarrelstudios for sure. May fortune favor thee.
I disagree that the move to 3d was unnecessary for Ultima 9. Yes it impacted the dev cycle severely, and it was a struggle to work on a game at the same time that new hardware and new tech was hitting the market. But if we hadn't made that leap - we'd have been left with a game that felt very out of place when it finally hit the market. God, even wrestling with EA and trying to wrap up story developed over 2 decades with multiple conflicting threads added to the difficulty.
I personally loved both KQ8 and Ultima9 :\
The price tag is quite high.
Looks like this game would be for me (puzzles etc), but considering i might get 10h (if even) out of it - anything more than 15-20€ would be a stretch.
So well analyzed by you, yet again.
by comparison a game We Were Here Forever, that is a puzzle game for coop (and it is not exactly a game subgenre that is in over abundance) specifically has ~13hours of gameplay (i think a second playthrough may be warranted though given how there are two sides to each puzzle) and it is 18 eur on steam.
a singleplayer puzzle game like Talos Principle is like ~20 hours at 29 eur.
@@fartloudYT
Very true, i basically devoured Talos and clocked 70hours (multiple playthroughs + addon - loved the atmosphere that much).
Of course, such a game is a rare gem.
@@fartloudYT A film is 1 hour 30 minutes for $15. 🤔 Maybe price went up to $20 even these days.
@@astrah982 This is an analogy that I see a lot. It has an exceedingly obvious flaw.
Do you happen to know how often the average american goes to the movie theater these days? It's about twice a year. At that rate, you're only going to go for a movie that you're really anticipating or as a social activity.
You want a more realistic number to pin on this? Watching a movie on netflix or similar at a conservative rate of once per week works out to around a buck per hour. A lot less if we're talking binging a series.
Is colossal cave a broadly highly anticipated release? No, it's not. It's a niche game meant to appeal to nerds like me. Ask any random zoomer (and probably most millennials too tbh) if they even knew what colossal cave adventure was and you'll probably get a blank stare.
Is colossal cave something you're going to grab as part of a social activity? It's a single player game so, probably not.
All this being said, I don't really put a whole lot of stock in price per hour ratio. It's importantish but it's definitely not everything. If it really is the end all be all for someone, probably nothing is going to beat a chess set or a deck of cards.
I remember being burned by a similar release - Underworld Ascendant. Super nostalgic (for me), top tier team, should have been amazing. Wound up being a case study in how to alienate a fan base. Roll in stories like Cyberpunk, Warcraft 3 Reforged, etc, and these days you have to sell me the game, not the developer. Keep in mind that they appear to be marketing to people who were around for the original, and we're all a bit more cynical than we used to be, even with more disposable income :). Quality is likely not the issue here (that would be negative reviews, not no reviews), but if the target market is now gun-shy about remakes too, it makes the high price even dicier.
I would have liked to see something much closer to the original Sierra style, 2D would have been more familiar. But then again, I've also been burnt by too many remakes and spiritual successors exploiting my nostalgia. ;)
Honestly, it looks like they made some classic business mistakes, relying on nostalgia & name-recognition to magically carry the day. CDPR and Blizzard do the same, arguably Square Enix, Bioware, & Obsidian too, these days. Shame, but maybe they should've just licensed the project to another team.
+ Misread the market #1 - Point-and-click retro games are a low-margin, oversaturated genre. Their team was too large for this game to ever break-even, no matter what price point it settles at.
+ Misread the market #2 - Sierra games = ppl in their 40s/50s, who are unlikely to read Kotaku, watch IGN, or follow games press. Should've spent more time building up a mailing list, website, heck, get a writeup in the Times or something.
+ Know your platform - Switch & VR are both tightly-constrained platforms, requiring significant technological know-how just to run properly. VR also is a non-starter market for older or women-heavy target demos [spoken as an older woman w/ Quest 1]. Even many AAA studios flub this part.
+ Stick to what you know/are good at - They are 2d masters, and Roberta Williams is known for quirky, memorable narrative-comedy. Should've just leaned hard into their strengths and made a cool, quirky, funny, beautiful-looking 2d game at US$25 with appropriate Steam discounts.
+ If the game's not ready, *push the launch back* - Even the majors screw this up too 😢
@@mandisaw
RE: Misread the market #2 -
Whole bunch of things here I want to comment on, where I think you missed the mark:
* game dedicated websites aren't good marketing for anyone anymore, because they don't actually create awareness for a game. They instead generate hype after people learn a game exists thru OTHER media, be that games press, streamers, or adverts
* The younger generations ironically use the games press less than older generations, since streamers/lets-plays are frankly just better, & they're more used to that. Especially for the 40 year old market, we GREW UP with Nintendo Power, PC Gamer, GamePro, etc. I know this AS a 40 year old.
* Although... my age group (40s) is actually pretty well internet acclimatized, we were coming of age right at the transition point for the web after all. Which means many of us have also been able to keep up with the trends, & like the younger generation rely on streamers/lets-plays for our game reviews as opposed to the gaming press... which just keeps having quality/political problems
* Who the hell has time for a mailing list?!?
The real marketing solution should have probably been to reach out to streamers & lets-plays... expose themselves to the larger & more engaged younger audience, while still having crossover with a portion of the older audience (at least the 40yo folks like me who spend too much time watching lets-plays)
"VR also is a non-starter market for older or women-heavy target demos" VR is a non-starter market period, i'ts a dumb gimmick. Not sure why you're making this a gender divide thing. Us male old-fogies also think it's dumb. Gen-Z is likely the same.
None of this is to say they didn't misread the market, just that I strongly disagree with a good portion of your take on HOW they misread the market.
@@kgoblin5084 Disagreement is fine - I think I might be older even than you though :)
Re: games websites - initial awareness isn't the only part of marketing. Genre-rundowns & game reviews are part of the mktg "funnel", adding to the process of turning awareness into sales. We know that's an effective strategy, because otherwise game pubs wouldn't still be using them.
Re: old/young fans - games press readership has certainly fallen from the heyday of print magazines & shareware/demo disk & CD-inserts.
But the difference is one of centralization & targeted "bang for your buck", for both sides. Getting a write-up in a magazine whose readership closely matches your target audience (say, in Switch Power if you're going for Switch players) is a better use of your marketing dollars than a more scattershot approach with general-audience streamers. On the player side, older people in general seem more amenable to reading info than watching videos. That's shifting across the board, but so far, people under-30 show preference for non-written material, of any topic/purpose.
Re: VR - agreed! I think it's an interesting niche, and can be quite useful in rehab, training, and industrial AR/VR uses. But it'll never be mass-market.
@@kgoblin5084 The best approach for this game IMO would've been to seek out targeted streamers, particularly on genre + audience demo. I don't know if these folks actually considered that approach, but it's a useful one for indies in niche genres.
And fun fact - mailing lists *still* outperform social media, streamers, and press as far as sales-conversion %. Couple reasons for that, 1-they're a self-selected group of interesteds, which narrows the total pool to people more likely to want your product,
and 2- the rule of thumb is that someone needs to see your product/brand at least 3 times before considering moving down the funnel towards a sale. Newsletters provide that reinforcement, even if the person rarely actually ever reads the email content. Just seeing the name over & over serves its own psychosocial purpose.
I feel a bit sad for them😥, but I think you've analyzed the situation well. The thing with the promotion of games from your community I think is a great idea. It's really nice that you want to use your reach to help some of the hardworking people from your community to succeed as well 😀👍.
Don't. They are still super rich, and tour the world on a yacht. They made this game, and Ken wrote a book(really good) during the Pandemic. Not because they were struggling for money. I hope they make another, and I hope they make an original, and ditch VR.
Great video, sobering but also heartening that even heavily experienced developers and designers can make mistakes. I wish them all the luck in finding a way to make their release successful after the fact. And good luck with the sponsorship idea, I think that's a great idea and lines up well with your channel!
What I'm about to say is not only a rarity, it's a unicorn these days: I'm such a fan of Ken and Roberta. They brought me so much enjoyment that I'm just going to say that anything they produce is an automatic buy for me. Sure, I hope it's good. Sure, I hope they get and act on feedback, etc. But realistically they had my money when I read the "&" after "Ken"!
Even with the hype you talked about this is the first I've heard about it, and I even played the original crystal cave as a retro thing in the late 90s, so their marketing clearly didn't reach someone that should have been considered part of their target market like myself. But you are spot on with the price point, I almost always wait for sales now (usually sub $20, $30 max) and only buy like 1-2 full price games a year, and those only to play with others as a peer pressure kind of thing.
Then you aren't following any kind of Retro, or Adventure news because it was everywhere in that sphere. Obviously they weren't going to be able to afford marketing that plastered it all over ads for weeks.
I think there are 3 factors, as mostly always... which might somehow summarize what you said
- marketing - never heard about it before, it's nice it was covered by the game magazine(s) as Kotaku, but I rarely follow those, rather I do watch youtube channels about new (indie) releases coming up, and well maybe I missed some recently, but I didn't see this one in any of those
- price - as you said, the current market is so saturated that for such a price you can get, I'm not saying better product, but rather proven over time having quality, so great example you've shown, if I can buy DRG for 75% price of this one, why choose this over it
- kind of new IP - closely related to the previous two points, if you used to be famous in the past, you're rather indie nowadays, and you cannot rely on the original audience and need to bring younger people to your community to build the hype... related to previous points because if you're Bethesda, you can release half-broken shit for 80 $ and people will still buy it, because of the name of IP and audience... anyway still looking forward to new ES in a few years 😀
Then you aren't following any kind of Retro, or Adventure Game UA-camrs, or news because it was everywhere in that sphere. Obviously they weren't going to be able to afford marketing that plastered it all over ads for weeks.
Hey John, great video as always. I really love your idea about taking sponserships from indie game devs in the community. I know I would definetly consider it for my game once I'm closer to that stage of development.
I think you hit on the major points. Particularly the price point. But don't forget that the 'old timer' gamers didn't stop playing games 20 years ago. The Sierra games at the time were the height of technology, with beautiful graphics. I think if the game has beautiful graphics by today's standards, it could be worth the price. But what they have is an Indie game, so you can't price it like a AAA title, even for the people who are interested in it for the nostalgia. Even so, an adventure game that doesn't have great graphics by today's standards is a hard sell OR great game-play. Now they're not just competing with other adventure games, but hundreds of excellent indie games like factorio, rimworld, etc. Indie devs really need to think about competing with other indie games both when you do your development and when it comes to marketing.
Keep up the amazing work! Very few genuine people out here on UA-cam. Continued success to you, brother! : )
Amazing idea for sponsorship, by the way!
How have I never seen your channel until now? Your video is fantastic (and your voice is lovely; I wish I had a voice like yours).
While I agree the pricing is too steep, I also kind of understand it. If a game only really appeals to a more limited market of older retro gamers then you need to extract more revenue per sale to justify producing a high-quality game. Obviously though one can push it too far.
Screenshots looks ugly and not stylish, price is very super high. Even if you know that IP and that GD, im - not, and I am over 30 years old.
I think some of the latter ones are a bit dated. But it is pretty stylish
I'm an avid gamer going all the way back to Pong in the mid 70s. I'm very familiar with RW and her past contributions to the hobby. And I HAD NO IDEA about this new release. That price IS a bit high though. Cheers!
As a 17 steam review dev myself, I can tell you, the game did not do well. You can barely finance 2 people for 2 months (depending on the price tag). I fully agree with your analysis. I think they would have been better off trying to day one launch on the Xbox game pass. It is probably the best place for niche games by prestigious devs (if they get in obviously).
I'm really curious about how will my game be received at launch.
I am spending so much time working on it and the thought that even a legend can get almost no traction is highly demotivating and scary.
Had a look at your game, would probably say put the feelers out to FPS UA-camrs like gmanlives, under the mayo, that Travis guy to see if they will cover it and perhaps see if general bigger UA-camrs will mention it like skill up also Twitter get some of the nightdive studio people if they can tweet. Though I would say if they can cover it when the game is released even in early access, I have seen them cover games in a preview long before it can be bought....and we just forget them lol
@@EastyyBlogspot Thanks! I'd love to see Civvie playing Quadremor :D
Dusk comes to mind, like immediately!
You managed to make it psychologically haunting (ambient mostly, but also the gfx).
It seems you went for a more roguelight approach, which would make the project unique and not another clone - considering those red portals.
Actually, if you make it fun to push more and more into random portals and fight off harsh encounters, then consider me interested.
Maybe have a look at Cruelty squad (niche title too), which gained quite the following and featured some unique ideas about replayability, with weapon/perk loadouts.
Surely, this is my very personal point of view, since i'm interested in unique game ideas.
In the end, it boils down to:
Create what you would like to play yourself, which requires brutal honesty and self criticism.
And endurance :D
Really like the idea of indie sponsorships, target demographic + cutting past the $$$ budgets AAA devs have, and we get a curated showing (assuming you are planning to be picky with games you're willing to show)
I agree that it's mainly the price point. I also think it's just a tough genre to develop in. It's sad, as someone who loved these games especially in their golden era in the 90s, but puzzlers and point-and-click adventure games are very niche these days and are not a high-performing genre on Steam. That's not to say adventure games can't become hits (i.e. Outer Wilds) but it does seem more difficult to succeed, and the ones that do seem to lean toward the artistic, mysterious, story and atmosphere side of things moreso than the brain-bending puzzles side of things. Colossal Cave definitely looks like it is more focused on the latter, at least based on the marketing materials.
Im fairly certain that UA-cam had unsubscribed me from notifications from your channel. I'm not certain as to why, but you're one of my favorite UA-camrs, and I wouldn't have done this manually. Anyways, I rehit the bell, so it's all good now, but it may be worth reaching out and seeing if anyone else has had this problem.
I intermittently hear creators talk about issues like this. It seems to be just something youtube does for funsies from time to time.
Wouldn't surprise me if you slow down on game development and decide to spend more time talking about games and developers. You have solid insight and great conviction in your deconstruction on said topic. A top notch speaker, would be an honour in the far future when I have a demo or something for yourself to have a play through and explain the good, the bad and the ugly. Keep cool!
I read an article about Roberta and Ken Williams making this game a year or so back, but had no idea it had released. So even for someone who was possibly interested, it missed my radar. On top of that the price is too high.
I think indie sponsorship you talked about is a great idea. Right now I don't have anything far enough along to take you up on it, but I'll definitely be interested in watching any you come out with.
Love your vids. Wonderful isight. Knowledgeable and great to listen to. Ive been single handedly (without knowledge of c++ or any programming) learning and building a storm chasing simulator from the ground up for the last 3 years
A storm chasing sim sounds pretty cool! Very hooky
You really should link to the games steam page in my opinion.
Interesting video, also good luck with Blood and Mead looks very juicy
It scares me and makes me only want to make small ( 1-2 year ) games for now. We will see how it goes for me.
I really like this channel. Glad to be watching him again. Also, a very underrated channel. Much better than other channels that are doing better than him right now.
Great Idea about sponsorship! Great! I love to see some refreshing ingenuity in marketting, and your idea is a very very right track!
1. you promote something YOU PERSONALLY like
2. You help out those who need help probably the most.
3. Once I am done with one of my games I am definetely going to consider supporting you that way!
if I had three hands I'd give you three thumbs up.
well... if you stretch the definition of a thumb....
oh well nevermind...
Promo for indie games to fund your channel? THAT IS SUCH A COOL IDEA!
Man I love when you make videos like this 💯
You should have a podcast cause your content is really interesting! I really like to hear it while doing something else. =)
I wish I had more free time! Something for the future :)
That sounds great! That is a great way to help new developers and your channel!
Those were amazing floppy's. They helped create so may genre's. Thank you for reviewing it so I can send my likes their direction. The people who know these titles know.. and appreciate this video as well.
love the content. I'm still excited for Blood and Mead.
Really like your Idea off getting sponsored by small devs to promote their games (as long as you like the game)! Maybe one day I will get back to your offer ;-)
I'm a fan of classic Sierra games and Roberta Williams but hadn't heard about this until now. Guess I'm outta the loop. Thanks for the video!
Once again I stand among my fellow watchers and shout out to thee~! We must protect the content we value highly~! We must make it persevere through the algorithm's moodiness~! Smash the like button with me~! Throw that comment to push it even further~! If yee have not yet subscribed then by the gods do so swiftly~! Fight for the enjoyment and wisdom you crave~!
Yep, 33.50 GBP at the moment in my steam currency. That is far too much for me, especially for indie games. But I wishlist for the future in case it goes down a bit lower. I've seen many games that by the look at the screen and trailers I might like, but the prices didn't allow me to get them. For me, the price must go in the same line as play hours and P&C adventure games rarely have plenty of hours. They also have a smaller replayability value.
Dude, yeah I think you got it right. Love those old games they made. The indie boost small sponsorship is a great idea! I need to get working so opportunities will be more meaningful. Cool Michael B
when i heard about this game and was happy it existed, I was like "$19.99 US is what this is obviously going to be, or $25 if they have an ego about it." but $40 is just a tough sell for a point and click game. $40 is what it is now at least in the US. you can get Minecraft for $30 or Terraria for like $15. you could almost get Spiderman 2018 for $40. in fact I got it for about that during the steam winter sale. and that is a HUGE AAA game.
Looked at the steam page before watching video and within few seconds can immedietaly see the price is too high at $40 for what it seems to offer. Graphics looks like standard unity assets with random assets from the unity store stiched together, especially bad with characters (pirate and dwarf).
One of the dev's commented so that is clearly more valuable than my opinion, and I do agree the price point on many of these systems is high for what you would ultimately play (legacy or not). But I have been following this game a year and the discussion centered around it being a VR game. Even the main website features the VR version. So I am curious how it did on the quest where the price point would be more acceptable and the experience presumably more immersive for a relatively short, not graphically intense game.
Interesting question, but VR is an even harder market to turn a profit in...
Thanks for telling me about these games as didn't know about any of them.
I really hope your game gets achievements, and you show us the process of how to add achievements to a game. I've always wondered that and it's totally undocumented.
I rarely buy a game that costs over 50€, then it has to be a game I really really want and even then its rare for myself to buy it.
30€ is usually what I pay for games I really want. Maybe this sounds low for the time it took creating their games, but this is atleast how I most of the times buy games and most my games i buy i would say sits between 15-30€. If a game is expensive i rather wait until steam sale a year later
Lovely hair, man. Glad I got to see it this morning.
When did you decide that it was a good idea to have a website for your game/studio? Right at the beginning of development, half way through etc?
The game promotion idea is great, hope that works out for you. I also agree on your thoughts.
so what did the 17 reviews say? cool idea at the end with the game promotion! ill be sure to send my game your way when its done.
There are so many reasons for this game to do poorly: bad and dated looking graphics, an extremely niche (and dated) genre, a bad trailer, marketing that leans too heavily into forgotten game dev celebrities, and more. The price point is one of those reasons, but not the only nor key factor.
You mentioned you could price a game too low. Do you already have a video elaborating on that? Does that apply to free games with IAP?
I think there is a little more nuance then just the price, though you do touch on some of it (Bad steam page description, reliance on legendary talent to sell the game) but for me its just odd they opted to use a Retro 98/99/2000s era retro aesthetic which off the top of my head was really associated with point & click games (and was generally the time they died down?)
The pairing off a 70s text adventure with that style seems disconnected to me too?
Isn't the graphics like that as they also targeted the Oculus Quest 2? There are limits to what kind of detail you can put into the games then. Wish Roberta and Ken the best with their game sales. I have it on my wishlist but the price is a bit steep atm. :)
In my opinion, retro 3D has not aged well but has its appeal still. This games looks like an old game that has been remastered but lost all of its old-school charm in the process. Stiff animations, poor UI, dated gameplay, jarring colors (saturation?). I don't see who the target audience is beyond the few people that played the original game and want to reminisce. And this opinion comes from a 30+ gamer who played Myst and Gadget back in the day. The price tag is certainly an issue, but not the only one.
Wow! That idea for getting sponsorship from indie devs would be amazing! : ]
Had I seen this game come up in my list, even if the gameplay intrigued me and the graphics weren't an issue, those combined with the price would have been an instant pass. I wouldn't even look deeper. Spot on analysis.
Great video
I happened on this video and checked out the game on steam. Never heard of the developer and/or the game. The game looks like a mobile/point and click adventure. Not sure where this "hype" you mentioned came from. To a normal gamer like me, this game isn't even worth download even for $1.99... let alone the $39.99 price tag.
Great Video!
I love the game idea of paying homage to a classic and also how much detail that has been put into the remake. But you are right. I went to have a look at the game recently and was floored by the price. I think that the Hard core classic romantics will buy at that price point and the game itself will be remembered as a great remake that IS a homage. BUT there is a difference between making a great remake and even recouping your costs on making it, let alone turning a profit. Price matters. People will hold off waiting for a 50% off on this one I think just to have it in their game library.
You are 100% correct. It was the one thing that stopped me from getting it. I grew up playing all of their games and it was a major influence that got me into programming. I already had a handful of AAA games nearing release that I would be purchasing and just can't buy everything. I intended to check it out later on down the road. Also, due to free tools today like Unity and Unreal, it's a completely different, much more saturated market than it was when they released their last game.
Yea as you scrolled down to the price i went "OOOF". I looked at their steam page and yea they have reduced the cost. $36 AUD which is much more reasonable which is about $24.75 USD currently.
Didn’t even know this existed and I’m a fan so I would have thought I’d have heard something about it
It might be the graphics. I think I would like the game way more if it went with a stylized look. It didn't even occur to me that they intentionally made it look that way. My reaction was just this kinda looks bad they could have put just a bit more effort in to design. Im not huge on graphics, for example, I love Kenshi but it depends on the game.
Yeah exactly, it doesn't look stylized, it looks like they literally made it 20+ years ago when the trend was "paste pixelated, formerly photo realistic textures on low poly models", it looked terrible then and it's aged badly.
Point and click
Looks like and asset flip
Marketing on their names after they have been on media black out for 25 years
Priced at $40 when most indie are $25 or lower
Under a new publisher name with no other Games released
Name is completely forgettable
No marketing budget
No social media presence
No kickstater
No Early Access
They were pretty much playing indie mistakes bingo here.
"Indie mistakes bingo" I would love to print this up and distribute it at GDC or PAX, but I def do not have the balls 😆 On a more sober note, I feel really bad that no one involved pulled the leads aside to point out some of these, really quite obvious in *foresight* issues. AAA or indie, it's critical to have at least one person in your circle who will give it to you straight, without blowing smoke up your "cave".
Hi, the "Colossal Cave" is only USD25.50 in my country. I know different countries price is different. But why the big difference?
The man is back
I didn't even know Roberta Williams is still around! Gotta check that out.
I hadn't even heard of colossal cave at my 38 years of age... they're really tugging on the heartstrings of some ancient gamers if they think they can sustain a $45 sale on nostalgia alone.
miss your content :)
I'm 36 but also know nothing of Colossal Cave, I'm down for old-school graphical styles but if I saw this game on the store, visuals alone I would think I'm looking at an asset flip. It doesn't seem obvious enough to me that the art style is purposeful. If it were more pixelated or something and actually looked like old pre-rendered art that would be helpful. And yes, that price is really too much.
I plan to get it when it comes to SteamVR.
if only they had kickstarted gabriel knight 4, i would be all over that like a serious case of herpies
I agree that price was the main issue. Also the presentation of the game where you expect such people pay such a price is simply not good enough. I would pay more that 30 USD only for games I do really really want, like upcoming Sons Of The Forest. This or those tricky games where base is cheap but have so many expansions you really want. Anyway the team behind still deserve huge respect.
You could have linked to their steam page, of course that can also be looked up - but it'd be a small act of courtesy while you're profiting from their content?
Just linking to your own steam page in hopes for wishlists seems a bit cheap.
I would promote my game utilizing your service, that is an amazing idea
Apparently the metric is you take the number of reviews and multiply it by 50 to get close to the number of units sold. That means Colossal Cave sold about 850 copies during launch week. Ouch! 100% the issue is the price. If they had targetted $15 - $20 they probably would have done fine. I definitely think you doing sponsorships of indie games would be fantastic!
I think there are a lot of ways to do a 'modern retro' classic game, and sometimes it just doesn't really hit the mark. Agree that price of Deep Rock Galactic was something of a turnoff back when it released, and it still had a lot to improve upon. Still succeeded in the end, however, mostly because it had 'new' gameplay of sorts.
In my experience the people that where interested in the Point and Click games have moved away from desktop pc gaming, or on rare occasion they still play the Big Fish 'item finder' games (tho I think they are now on mobile as well), but mostly they play free mobile games making it a sport to never pay a dime. Because they don't like navigating in 3D or KB/mouse movement.
Also thinking these graphics are going to win over the old base then oof, it looks bad, it looks early 3D bad, I'm getting vibes of the first Broken Sword and Monkey Island in 3D, they should have just gone for either good 3D or keep it 2D.
They are fishing for an audience that doesn't exist anymore because the old fans never wanted this in the first place, and newcomers get repelled by the ugly graphics.
Yeah, game genre has a pretty big impact on price as well, Point and Click Adventure isn't generally one where people are ever willing to spend AAA money. There is so much competition at $15 or $20, going well beyond that based on a reputation from 30 or 40 years ago is pretty obviously going to flop.
It appears that they have actually dropped the price. It's now $25 US
Price point for sure, the other obvious is graphics/look. The game unfortunately just doesn't look great. It can be a successful choice to go with retro styles (for example pixel art) usually this is done with some type of modern flair. This 3D style that was "popular" in late 90's wasn't popular because it was good, it was popular because at the time it was ground breaking. Now it just looks dated. There is a reason the industry quickly moved on to modern 3D looks and styles - this one just never worked. Historically there aren't enough great games in this style for an audience to feel nostalgically compelled to it. Conversely look at what Monkey Island did, successfully.
Didn't hear a word about it
I'm wondering how much should I tag my game once it finished. I'm quite set on 20USD now because anything over than this seems too much considering the amount of contents I'd offer. But I gotta ask the fellow gamedev in my circle if they'd agreed on this price once they see the full product. Because I don't want to be part of the race to 0 kind of thing and don't want it to be the culture for PC gaming especially on small or solo indies.
That price is just nuts for a puzzle game... For comparison I charge $20 for an open-world, base-building, action/rts game. As a solo indie I know that charging more than that is a risk, even if my game might be able to support. People play my game for dozens and dozens of hours, then come back for more when I put an update out. Puzzle games are one and done deal, lasting maybe 8 hrs, at least from my understanding. Also, the younger generation doesn't know or care about these industry legends. We developers stand on the shoulders of giants, and would be happy to support one of the people who made our industry what it is today, but customers just want what is new and exciting.
Well, the only way to get away with such a high price is to either pay some famous indie reviewers to glamourize the game( we all know they are not honest unless we live in disney land) or provide some real piece of artwork, like ultra good on the store page.
I'd say try to capitalize on discounts whenever possible to make more sales, maybe more reviews will come, that's literally how i sell my games, i just go for discounts.
idk, I think it was Game Industry, website, that not too long ago did an article about indie dev and the increasing difficulty. One of the biggest problems going forward is market saturation. There are just far more games that people have money or time or attention span for it. I wouldn't say this is completely the reason, but the competition has become far more fierce these days. Unless you have something special going for you...
I also think on top of this gamers are an expanding market that is become more and more diverse. You can't just randomly market to "gamers" any more. You need to be creative and market to your subset of gamers at this point. The games you pointed out are more for the older gamers who have some remembrance of these games not some random Kotako reader.
When it hits in the range of $15 US, I'm in. It's just too expensive for what it is until then.
You said it, doesn't matter the hype, the background, the prestige, the clout, your game might hit a huge wall if it doesn't connect on all aspects, there's too many games out there to fail at anything. Game looks cool though, 30 bucks would have been suitable
I was a bit taken aback by the price - I think another issue is the screenshot used as the examples; they honestly feel like they're doing the game no favours. The game in motion looks great, but I never watch trailers (on the steam pages) and only go by stills, and the ones used are frankly dull and ugly for at least all the ones with characters in them.
It's the price.. and speaking from a consumers point of view. I very much do judge the book by its covers when it comes to games. If it doesn't look good, I will absolutely look at the price. But that's just me. That doesn't mean I won't buy games that doesn't look good, I do. But more often than not, it's usually down to word of mouth more than anything else. If enough voices tell me that a particular game etc.. is good despite it's appearance, I likely will have a look at it. But that's typically well beyond the initial sales of the game. Sometimes by months.
Important montra I try and remember when setting prices for my own products for selling: It doesn't matter what your product is worth. It matters what people are willing to pay for it.
What people are willing to pay for it IS what it's worth, at least on the market.
For me it’s what you mentioned but I feel in the grand scheme of things, point and click games are a fairly niche genre these days. Nothing wrong with that but it makes it harder to find your footing imo.
Personally, I’d never even heard of the game before this video so I saw no marketing or discussion around it and that’s probably the main issue from my perspective.
I’m not too fond of marketing being such a requirement just to even have a chance at being seen these days, especially as I’d love to release a game in a year or two down the line but it seems just be where things have gone. Not being seen seems to be the biggest thing as price can only be an issue when people get to see it.
price, discription (we know who she is but meany people on the modern market have no idea about these clasic games and who made them) and one think i heared but i cant confirm it yet because i havent had hands on with the game there are parts that use the old siera moon logic for some puzzles or parts of the game and this may be a deterant for alot of people even i someone who loves these old point and click games or text adventures and i think that moon logic is something that shouldent be in these games and some parts should have been more logical to solve again i cant say 100% that this is something that its in the game without playing it my self but i wanted to bring it up because i seen some elements on some videos from reviews.
It would be interesting to hear from them to why the decided that 48 dollars was a good idea.