Can Indie Games find SUCCESS without Wishlists?

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  • Опубліковано 25 лис 2024
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    💬 You've certainly heard myself and many indie devs talk about the importance of wishlists, but whenever I say that there is always someone who questions if wishlists are really all that important.
    Here let's look at some examples both positive and negative to see if wishlists are really that important.
    Spoiler alert: The takeaway is wishlists don't guarantee success, but lack of wishlists almost certainly guarantees failure.
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 56

  • @CodeMonkeyUnity
    @CodeMonkeyUnity  11 місяців тому +4

    ✅ Learn to make BETTER games FASTER! 🌍 unitycodemonkey.com/courseultimateoverview.php
    🔴 AWESOME Tools 98% OFF! cmonkey.co/humblebundle
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  • @benpielstick
    @benpielstick 11 місяців тому +47

    While wishlists don't necessarily convert directly to sales because they are free, if you can't even get people to wishlist your game for free, it is unlikely they are going to want to pay money for it.

    • @mandisaw
      @mandisaw 11 місяців тому +7

      Exactly. It's the "funnel" model - wishlists/follows are mid-way between initial awareness and a final sale. The more people go in the top, the more are available to come out the bottom. Where ppl trip themselves up is assuming that everyone will be automatically aware of their game, or that Steam itself is a marketer - it's really only a facilitator, you still have to actually do all the marketing legwork.

    • @BlakeGoGameDev
      @BlakeGoGameDev 6 місяців тому +1

      ​@@mandisawThis is really important nuance ☝️. I think steam becomes a market for the best games (maybe around 10,000 wishlists) so people see these results and assume that happens automatically

    • @mandisaw
      @mandisaw 6 місяців тому

      @@BlakeGoGameDev Everyone plays assuming they'll be the one to win the lottery 🤷‍♀

  • @RootGames
    @RootGames 11 місяців тому +9

    Working on my first solo game. Was freelancing for some time. Now I plan to publish the game in 3 months and cover my journey with devlogs. Wish me luck guys 😅

    • @dksamaritan5200
      @dksamaritan5200 11 місяців тому +1

      Good luck.

    • @RootGames
      @RootGames 11 місяців тому

      @@dksamaritan5200 Thanks, it means a lot ☺

  • @jbaidley
    @jbaidley 11 місяців тому +14

    I think a lot of the discussion around Wishlists is mistaking the trees for the wind. It isn't much that Wishlists boost the game; but rather that games that have successfully built pre-launch momentum tend to also have a decent number of Wishlists. It's the pre-launch momentum that matters, getting more Wishlists is just a side effect.

  • @fkjaha
    @fkjaha 11 місяців тому +10

    Interesting stats:
    I have released my second horror game at the 8th of December and I got about $200 the first day.
    I released the game with about 950-1000 wishlists.
    Game - "Nevermind This"

    • @arcday4281
      @arcday4281 11 місяців тому

      The usual thing !

    • @nosaokhuelegbe
      @nosaokhuelegbe 7 місяців тому

      I just checked your game on steam, it looks really nice, how much did it make overall? I am really curious to know, I am making a game that looks like it as well

    • @fkjaha
      @fkjaha 7 місяців тому

      @@nosaokhuelegbe Horror Game - Nevermind This: $1,489 gross/ $1,161 net/ $812 after steam 30% cut
      And that other (not horror game I have released) sth like $44 gross, I thought such low numbers are impossible on steam

  • @PeterMilko
    @PeterMilko 11 місяців тому +3

    Im about to launch my steam page. Wish me luck dudes. I'm a youtube game dev too.

  • @alec_almartson
    @alec_almartson 11 місяців тому +3

    In the End the Most important thing is: Having a Good Marketing strategy.
    Wishlists are basically one Element of Marketing; but there are many other elements and ways to sell your Games... For instance: getting a good Email List (such as Thomas Brush does..., for instance) and then directing those potential customers towards a free version of your product, such as: A Free, nice and short Game Demo / Trial of your product. Then some people will decide to buy the Game if they liked the Free Demo. There are many other strategies, you name them...🔥💯🎮

  • @MadpolygonDEV
    @MadpolygonDEV 11 місяців тому

    Slowly becoming my fav channel on gamedev, love your work

  • @chuckdude514
    @chuckdude514 11 місяців тому +2

    Recently, I started coding my first steam game, and man, I really hope I make it to the recommended amount (7000 if I'm not mistaken) during its marketing phase on my main account!
    The guides from the marketing gurus you often mention have helped me a lot too, so thank you for the recommendations as always!

    • @arcday4281
      @arcday4281 11 місяців тому +2

      You won't gain that much! 99% !

    • @nuin9937
      @nuin9937 11 місяців тому

      Why not ​@@arcday4281

    • @rikrishshrestha5421
      @rikrishshrestha5421 11 місяців тому

      @@arcday4281 although, you sounded rude when putting the truth right on his face. But yea, it's very rare for anyone's first game to gain that many wishlists.

  • @KidLudens
    @KidLudens 11 місяців тому +4

    Making and selling a game is never easy, even for the biggest companies who dedicate millions to just marketing alone. If having your game on somebody's wishlist helps you sell even 2% more copies, then thats 2% more people playing your game. I think anyone who really cares about their game would do anything they could to make it a success. Doing what you love doesn't mean that it is always fun, in fact a lot of game development can be quite tedious and frustrating. But if you really love making indie games then I think putting the effort into gathering wish lists is a small price to pay in order to continue doing it as a career.

    • @EnderElohim
      @EnderElohim 11 місяців тому

      Well at least that biggest companies who dedicate millions to just marketing keep making shitty games to advert indie games more XD

  • @sqwert654
    @sqwert654 11 місяців тому

    Close to launch myself, 4 player Mahjong game "Easy Mahjong", has122 Wishlist since July. Its a niche tabletop game though .80% of traffic from Hong Kong

  • @idle.observer
    @idle.observer 11 місяців тому +1

    2:16 20m not 2m

  • @ExpensivePizza
    @ExpensivePizza 11 місяців тому +1

    A really simple way to think about marketing is this... people need to know about it before they'll buy it.
    Wishlists are a proxy for the number of people that have seen your game. It tells you there's people that took enough interest in it to click a button. That's all.
    They could also discover your game because a friend told them about it or they saw someone playing it on UA-cam or many other ways.
    To flip it around the other way... if someone hasn't seen your game they will not buy it. So if you're not going the wishlist route you at least need some other channel to get it in front of eyeballs. All of this assumes your game is actually good and some people will want to play it but that's a whole other topic.

  • @shayoko6
    @shayoko6 11 місяців тому +1

    More people are going to wish list something then buy it so no it's not likely
    Of course if you have a good game and people who have a large following play the game. It's possible it will get a lot of sales if there's any replay value left after watching somebody else do it

  • @johncasper5948
    @johncasper5948 11 місяців тому +1

    Cover Lethal Company please!

  • @migcreatesgames2622
    @migcreatesgames2622 11 місяців тому

    I think of Wishlist as a reminder to players that your game is available to play or there is a sale on your game. Having a Wishlist doesn't guaranty that they turn to a sale, but why not take advantage of a tool that is free to use for the game dev

  • @DustriderStudios
    @DustriderStudios 11 місяців тому

    I can confirm, my game Dragon Hop has 9 followers and about 90 wishlists (I'm so behind 😭)

  • @VSalgc
    @VSalgc 11 місяців тому +3

    I hope for me they can.❤😂
    185Wishis
    12Reviews
    58 sales
    very compressed😂

  • @halivudestevez2
    @halivudestevez2 11 місяців тому

    Wishlist for me is for postponing purchase.

  • @JohnnyThousand605
    @JohnnyThousand605 11 місяців тому

    I have a kind of related question, did you see a bump in traffic to your UA-cam channel after Dinky Guardians released?

    • @CodeMonkeyUnity
      @CodeMonkeyUnity  11 місяців тому +1

      Nope not really, at least not any noticeable amount. The game sold about 2k copies, for a game that's a lot but for a UA-cam channel that's not really noticeable compared to how the channel gets about 1million views per month.

  • @인벤토리-w5j
    @인벤토리-w5j 11 місяців тому

    question just for curious but do you speak Portuguese?

  • @paulcarroll473
    @paulcarroll473 11 місяців тому

    Very bananas

  • @watercat1248
    @watercat1248 11 місяців тому

    I have 1 very good question for all those people that add the game for wish list
    If you publish your game on steam you I have give 100 box ?
    So if that's the case it's mean if your game is not ready or dalay to release you just spent 100 box 💵 with 0 incames for that time paired for wish list stage
    if what I'm saying it's true how people worthit to have steam page early in the order to few wise list ?
    I understand that may be good idea if the game is very close to launch but wean you game is wip like the project I'm working now for example I don't think that is good idea
    In fact if make your game to wish list to soon those people that is was interesting in first place it may be tiered to waiting for this project
    It's not like every person that press the wise list I will goin to play your game
    Same people it may think that you're game it to expensive and some other people tiered off waiting.

  • @everythingcouldbesimplify818
    @everythingcouldbesimplify818 11 місяців тому

    So I should give up my game since it has only 2 wishlists hahahaha, Yet one is mine

  • @itzhexen0
    @itzhexen0 11 місяців тому

    The wishlist is there so you know what games to pirate in the future. You can't play them all at once.

    • @halivudestevez2
      @halivudestevez2 11 місяців тому +2

      Or waiting for sale

    • @itzhexen0
      @itzhexen0 11 місяців тому

      @@halivudestevez2 That too.

  • @Konitama
    @Konitama 11 місяців тому +1

    I think we need to remove wishlists as a metric toward sales and just treat wishlists for what they are: How much interest you've managed to gather with your marketing efforts. You can be making the best game of all time but if you don't share your steam page and don't put out calls to action to wishlist the game, then it's likely you will have very low wishlist numbers at launch. You can also be making a mediocre game but you market it like crazy and manage to get thousands of wishlists. That doesn't mean the game will sell it just means you've convinced that many people to click "add to wishlist".
    I see in this very video you say your free game didn't do well "due to low number of wishlists", but that's the mentality we want to avoid, no? You just spoke about how games with almost no wishlists still became massive successes... so blaming a game's failure on low wishlists feels like missing the point. In the past decade I think game devs have definitely been conditioned to believe that it's just about getting those wishlist numbers up, and once you hit some magical threshold, your game is a guaranteed success... But that's not the case. It's dangerous to place all of your faith in your wishlist number. Games with tens of thousands of wishlists have failed simply due to the wishlists being super low quality. Begging people to wishlist your game, doing wishlist for wishlist, etc is not a great way to get high value wishlists because people are doing it more out of being nice or as a favor and not because they actually intend to buy the game.
    So again, wishlists are just a very vague indicator of initial interest in your game and how well you were able to garner that interest. More wishlists is always better simply because it means more visible interest, but it's not really much of an indication of anything else. As some other comments stated, it's only if you *can't* get any wishlists after making a big push to do so, that you should be worried that your game just isn't appealing to people.

  • @arcday4281
    @arcday4281 11 місяців тому +2

    Creating games is a cry into the void!

  • @byDanDans
    @byDanDans 11 місяців тому

    So...Stop making games and give up, GOT IT!

    • @halivudestevez2
      @halivudestevez2 11 місяців тому

      Make it for fun, do not expect success.

  • @charuzu1397
    @charuzu1397 11 місяців тому +1

    2 minutes in im early!

  • @DarkLightO1
    @DarkLightO1 11 місяців тому

    U

  • @sannanch7564
    @sannanch7564 11 місяців тому +1

    i think you should have made another channel for this kind of stuff ... i was subscribed to this channel just bcz you made different kind of tutorial for different kind of tool set and i like that but now a days you are making more videos like this and i really don't like it.

  • @jud.su.5developer895
    @jud.su.5developer895 11 місяців тому +1

    Second ❤

  • @hpannu
    @hpannu 11 місяців тому

    Godot is better than unity.

    • @CodeMonkeyUnity
      @CodeMonkeyUnity  11 місяців тому

      Use whatever tool you like to bring your games to life

  • @danielhanzlik7466
    @danielhanzlik7466 11 місяців тому +2

    first

  • @zxcaaq
    @zxcaaq 11 місяців тому

    SteamDB is not accurate, i've seen fluctuations from 30.000 to 2.000.000...