apepatrick

two weeks after launching my game with around 2k wishlists, it reached about 6.8k sales while spending $0 on marketing it’s currently sitting at 90% positive reviews, with 170 reviews total. The game lasts about 1 hour, and the refund rate is around 11% which i think is around average worth noting I consider this an outlier case. from what i've seen, a launch like this is more often tied to much higher wishlists like +10k, so there are clearly many factors to take into account beyond just wishlist count on launch day, I got around 800 sales, with about a 10% wishlist conversion rate. but a lot of sales came from non-wishlist traffic such as steam showing the game in recommended sections etc.. The next day, I peaked at over 1k sales, which was the highest sales day I’ve had. That led to around 3k sales in the first 3 days steam seems to give games some launch visibility. If your game converts well, gets good reviews, and players respond positively, steam may keep showing it to more people the simplest explanation is that my game converted well, and people enjoyed it thus leading to more sales than expected WLs do matter, but they don’t tell the whole story. a game with a lower wishlist count can still perform well if other signals are strong enough my only real advice would be to care about your players and iterate with them. Get feedback, playtest a lot, and make the game better around what players actually respond to often times you'll struggle finding people to play your game, and you want the less friction possible when people plays it. have a web build and post it everywhere (itch, newgrounds etc..), users don't have to download anything and is much more accessible start building your community early, like a discord server so people can reach out to you and you connect with your players easier the more feedback the better one way to avoid mistakes other games in my genre did is read negative reviews of games similar to mine on steam, which helps pinpoint what really matters for your players, that will give you lot of directions in the beginning and what to focus the most don't skip the progression aspect, this is what will make your game fun. no matter how good your art, sounds, polish are, if progression doesn't follow it will likely won't work players care about having fun more than anything else, simple graphics can still work if art style is coherent it's hard to know whether your pacing feels good to your players without playtesting a lot yourself, and they won't always tell you what's wrong either. analytics are one way to spot this and confirm whether players are engaging. if median time is low like 10mn it is very likely that at this point you have friction issues like you encounter a big timewall and it isn't fun you may need a sample of at least 50 players to have "useful" analytics and something concrete, otherwise you might just keep guessing and hitting your head against the wall one thing to keep in mind, median playtime from a free web build will usually be lower than steam playtime. on steam, players are already more engaged because they bought the game as opposed to itch or other web platforms, the game is much more accessible, but players are also more likely to leave quickly TLDR: wishlists matter, but conversion, player feedback, pacing, and early reviews can matter just as much once steam starts testing your game

two weeks after launching my game with around 2k wishlists, it reached about 6.8k sales while spending $0 on marketing it’s currently sitting at 90% positive reviews, with 170 reviews total. The game lasts about 1 hour, and the refund rate is around 11% which i think is around average worth noting I consider this an outlier case. from what i've seen, a launch like this is more often tied to much higher wishlists like +10k, so there are clearly many factors to take into account beyond just wishlist count on launch day, I got around 800 sales, with about a 10% wishlist conversion rate. but a lot of sales came from non-wishlist traffic such as steam showing the game in recommended sections etc.. The next day, I peaked at over 1k sales, which was the highest sales day I’ve had. That led to around 3k sales in the first 3 days steam seems to give games some launch visibility. If your game converts well, gets good reviews, and players respond positively, steam may keep showing it to more people the simplest explanation is that my game converted well, and people enjoyed it thus leading to more sales than expected WLs do matter, but they don’t tell the whole story. a game with a lower wishlist count can still perform well if other signals are strong enough my only real advice would be to care about your players and iterate with them. Get feedback, playtest a lot, and make the game better around what players actually respond to often times you'll struggle finding people to play your game, and you want the less friction possible when people plays it. have a web build and post it everywhere (itch, newgrounds etc..), users don't have to download anything and is much more accessible start building your community early, like a discord server so people can reach out to you and you connect with your players easier the more feedback the better one way to avoid mistakes other games in my genre did is read negative reviews of games similar to mine on steam, which helps pinpoint what really matters for your players, that will give you lot of directions in the beginning and what to focus the most don't skip the progression aspect, this is what will make your game fun. no matter how good your art, sounds, polish are, if progression doesn't follow it will likely won't work players care about having fun more than anything else, simple graphics can still work if art style is coherent it's hard to know whether your pacing feels good to your players without playtesting a lot yourself, and they won't always tell you what's wrong either. analytics are one way to spot this and confirm whether players are engaging. if median time is low like 10mn it is very likely that at this point you have friction issues like you encounter a big timewall and it isn't fun you may need a sample of at least 50 players to have "useful" analytics and something concrete, otherwise you might just keep guessing and hitting your head against the wall one thing to keep in mind, median playtime from a free web build will usually be lower than steam playtime. on steam, players are already more engaged because they bought the game as opposed to itch or other web platforms, the game is much more accessible, but players are also more likely to leave quickly TLDR: wishlists matter, but conversion, player feedback, pacing, and early reviews can matter just as much once steam starts testing your game

two weeks after launching my game with around 2k wishlists, it reached about 6.8k sales while spending $0 on marketing it’s currently sitting at 90% positive reviews, with 170 reviews total. The game lasts about 1 hour, and the refund rate is around 11% which i think is around average worth noting I consider this an outlier case. from what i've seen, a launch like this is more often tied to much higher wishlists like +10k, so there are clearly many factors to take into account beyond just wishlist count on launch day, I got around 800 sales, with about a 10% wishlist conversion rate. but a lot of sales came from non-wishlist traffic such as steam showing the game in recommended sections etc.. The next day, I peaked at over 1k sales, which was the highest sales day I’ve had. That led to around 3k sales in the first 3 days steam seems to give games some launch visibility. If your game converts well, gets good reviews, and players respond positively, steam may keep showing it to more people the simplest explanation is that my game converted well, and people enjoyed it thus leading to more sales than expected WLs do matter, but they don’t tell the whole story. a game with a lower wishlist count can still perform well if other signals are strong enough my only real advice would be to care about your players and iterate with them. Get feedback, playtest a lot, and make the game better around what players actually respond to often times you'll struggle finding people to play your game, and you want the less friction possible when people plays it. have a web build and post it everywhere (itch, newgrounds etc..), users don't have to download anything and is much more accessible start building your community early, like a discord server so people can reach out to you and you connect with your players easier the more feedback the better one way to avoid mistakes other games in my genre did is read negative reviews of games similar to mine on steam, which helps pinpoint what really matters for your players, that will give you lot of directions in the beginning and what to focus the most don't skip the progression aspect, this is what will make your game fun. no matter how good your art, sounds, polish are, if progression doesn't follow it will likely won't work players care about having fun more than anything else, simple graphics can still work if art style is coherent it's hard to know whether your pacing feels good to your players without playtesting a lot yourself, and they won't always tell you what's wrong either. analytics are one way to spot this and confirm whether players are engaging. if median time is low like 10mn it is very likely that at this point you have friction issues like you encounter a big timewall and it isn't fun you may need a sample of at least 50 players to have "useful" analytics and something concrete, otherwise you might just keep guessing and hitting your head against the wall one thing to keep in mind, median playtime from a free web build will usually be lower than steam playtime. on steam, players are already more engaged because they bought the game as opposed to itch or other web platforms, the game is much more accessible, but players are also more likely to leave quickly TLDR: wishlists matter, but conversion, player feedback, pacing, and early reviews can matter just as much once steam starts testing your game

two weeks after launching my game with around 2k wishlists, it reached about 6.8k sales while spending $0 on marketing it’s currently sitting at 90% positive reviews, with 170 reviews total. The game lasts about 1 hour, and the refund rate is around 11% which i think is around average worth noting I consider this an outlier case. from what i've seen, a launch like this is more often tied to much higher wishlists like +10k, so there are clearly many factors to take into account beyond just wishlist count on launch day, I got around 800 sales, with about a 10% wishlist conversion rate. but a lot of sales came from non-wishlist traffic such as steam showing the game in recommended sections etc.. The next day, I peaked at over 1k sales, which was the highest sales day I’ve had. That led to around 3k sales in the first 3 days steam seems to give games some launch visibility. If your game converts well, gets good reviews, and players respond positively, steam may keep showing it to more people the simplest explanation is that my game converted well, and people enjoyed it thus leading to more sales than expected WLs do matter, but they don’t tell the whole story. a game with a lower wishlist count can still perform well if other signals are strong enough my only real advice would be to care about your players and iterate with them. Get feedback, playtest a lot, and make the game better around what players actually respond to often times you'll struggle finding people to play your game, and you want the less friction possible when people plays it. have a web build and post it everywhere (itch, newgrounds etc..), users don't have to download anything and is much more accessible start building your community early, like a discord server so people can reach out to you and you connect with your players easier the more feedback the better one way to avoid mistakes other games in my genre did is read negative reviews of games similar to mine on steam, which helps pinpoint what really matters for your players, that will give you lot of directions in the beginning and what to focus the most don't skip the progression aspect, this is what will make your game fun. no matter how good your art, sounds, polish are, if progression doesn't follow it will likely won't work players care about having fun more than anything else, simple graphics can still work if art style is coherent it's hard to know whether your pacing feels good to your players without playtesting a lot yourself, and they won't always tell you what's wrong either. analytics are one way to spot this and confirm whether players are engaging. if median time is low like 10mn it is very likely that at this point you have friction issues like you encounter a big timewall and it isn't fun you may need a sample of at least 50 players to have "useful" analytics and something concrete, otherwise you might just keep guessing and hitting your head against the wall one thing to keep in mind, median playtime from a free web build will usually be lower than steam playtime. on steam, players are already more engaged because they bought the game as opposed to itch or other web platforms, the game is much more accessible, but players are also more likely to leave quickly TLDR: wishlists matter, but conversion, player feedback, pacing, and early reviews can matter just as much once steam starts testing your game