Whoa, cool to see my game featured here! Fun fact about Chillquarium -- it was originally also called Fish Game as of this January. I was advised to change the name for SEO reasons, and it took FOREVER to think of another good name for a fish game that wasn't already taken. I thought it was funny that Smarter Every Day released a game with that name just a month after mine, and it seems to be doing just fine. Maybe I was overthinking it!
Fishgame is more sim than game... Fish Sim would've been more appropriate. But meh, I digress... Also, you don't need a PR campaign if you have millions of subscribers lol
Congrats man! You give us hope. I'm making a game for the fun of it, as I don't really intend to leave my 9-5, and the idea that my game will do well at all has kind of been like a daydream at best. You make me feel like a daydream might actually be a little possible. Also, your game is dope, good job!
It is all 100% luck. Though there may have been a strategy there to do that, in the end, you can't force people to purchase. That's where the luck comes in. If people choose to buy, you win. If they don't, you lose.
@@futurebasstypebeats7144 Yeah this sounds like complete crap. There is a thirst for fish games, Thanks to insanaquerium and EA/popcaps neglect of the genera. It's arguably a highly ignored category of games in general, especially on the more arcade/chill side. "smarter every days" game is more sciency and simulation than chill/arcade.
Note that this only works if the audience is different! I launched my village-builder game Kainga on the same day as Dwarf Fortress, and it got buried amongst the noise. I believe that the people playing Dwarf fortress were the people that would have been interested in my game. Many even came back later and said they didn't know it'd launched already!
Your game looks great, will definitely buy it! But still, you got 505 reviews (15k-20k sales?) which is far from being a failure. Congratulations. Edit: I see you have a publisher. Can you please tell us what was your experience with your publisher? and if do you recommend going with a publisher?
@@NadjibBait No! Not a failure at all. I'd say it's a total success especially for a self-taught first game! But the launch day sales spike was no where near as big as the early access spike. As for the publisher, they helped pay for the game's development, but it hasn't yet broken even on our costs haha
It also means that not everyone is interested in jumping into the newest triple A release. Especially because of the development cycle, people will tend to wait a bit after release to get a better experience, so you get visibility and people that are waiting to play. I'd say it's maybe the best time nowadays to release? Though I'm nobody to say that.
It's the barbenheimer effect. They might even appeal to the same audience in their own way, but they provide different experiences and it's at a reasonable cost to buy both. Probably wouldn't work with if it was another FPS space game priced at $30, and might have even had a harder time releasing next to dave the diver etc. Other factor might be that people were pretty disappointed by starfield lol
Yeah there's really just like ZERO causation in what happened here. Not to mention how Starfield wasn't the big success some people hoped it to be either. It's like seeing birds fly north and assuming that's why it rains. It's actually kinda dumb stuff really. We're talking thousands of games being in competition for attention. This really isn't about just one triple A game. What about all the games sold at a discount that compete directly in terms of price???????? He didn't mention that, because he doesn't understand what is really going on.
This essentially happened with my game, but the other way around. It launched right before Sniper Elite, and was #1 New and Trending for a few days, then Sniper took the lead! But my game was right under it for another two weeks.
Dude! Now I’m terrified my game releases Dec 8, 2023. I think I looked at all the major releases so hopefully my little game will at least be wishlist a couple of times. Took me five years to make it. This is very scary indeed.
@@Polygonlin it’s called Petey Pedro unBEETable Adventure. It’s out now on steam. It’s my love letter to gamers from my generation that grew up playing pixel art side scrollers with an emphasis on fun easy to pick up hard to master gameplay.
I think, the best launching and selling strategy - is to sell a GOOD GAME. It is not so important, HOW you will sell - it is important WHAT you sell. Good game will start to sell itself sooner or later - that's what i think. There's lots of video on TH-cam like "Gamedev is dead, It's impossible to feed yourself by making a games" - and as a proof they do something like "here - we made a simple game about pink triangle, who rotates, moves and eats small circles - and we set a price of 3 dollars and we did sell two copies in three month". That's just not right. Their game is CRAP. It's miracle, that someone did buy single copy at all! And this pixel aquarium game looks nice and cute. So - of course, people will buy it. I just haven't seen good Games on a steam, which does not sell. I've seen lot of bad games, which do sell. So i think, being game developer can pe proftable. And those, who says it cannot, just unable to make a good game. That's what i think.
So this means my game is sus. (a fail) I send you a key and you can play it and then again write its SUS. ok for you? I don't mean it angry, please try out
@@TheMeanArena By "good" i mean high-quality. There's lots of games, which is absolutely not in my taste, and i have no plans to play them - but i can clearly see, that they are "good'. Good for those, who like them. "Bad game" - is the game, which appreciator of the genre will decline and throw away, saying it's bad.
@@TheMeanArena The problem is steams hard covered gates. If you come with zero "lets call it fame", he just let you down. and if there is not comming some gread input from outside, you never meet the party inside. So in my point, except paying someone to bring these fame to steam, i have what exactly? Time to spam here and there that i made a game. I like streamers but if i have to pay 1000 of Dollars to be seen, its not right for me. Still,, want a key and try it out, i made a game with passion.
Hey! That's our game World of Anterra at 6:40! We are very committed to our marketing but currently we're laser focused on our development right now. We don't even have a steam page up yet and people keep tell us that it's a bad thing, but I'm not so sure. Wishlist numbers are very important, but so is velocity and I want to make sure we're supporting our steam numbers with a holistic marketing strategy... as for your question, it's a definitely a complex one! I think it's a VERY smart strategy for a game like Chill-Quarium. But for a game like ours, it can get a little more tricky. I would have definitely considered launching alongside Starfield, because it scratches a different itch imo. However, launching a game that has been called, "Skyrim with pixel", along side Skyrim 6, is probably not a great idea... that being said, launching a month or two ahead of time could be great because of all the anticipation... at the end of the day, we're making our own (huge) game, and will only launch it when it's ready. I think we should revisit this question closer to our our launch date. Thanks for another great video.
That's great for Ben. I wonder if now every indie dev will try to launch with a triple A title and replicate this? Of course if everyone does it, that would flood the market with indies on that day and do the reverse of what happened here.
You must think this space is incredibly small to think that's even a possibility - which isn't true at all. The world exists far beyond what you experience. Probably 95% of developers will not even know this happened.
I should think most wouldn't, because now it's even *more* likely that you get lost in the kerfuffle on Launch Day. The key advantage this dev had over others is that this was a hobby/passion project for him. He didn't expect or care to make much money, so he was willing to take a larger risk. So if it had backfired and he made nothing, he could live with that--most people trying to earn a living as devs wouldn't dare, rightly so.
I wonder if there’s a game dev out there who launched a game and it didn’t sell well, then took it off the store and did a relaunch with a new marketing strategy
Wow! Great idea and well done! He obviously thought strategically - since there were no other "competitors" his game would obviously make the list right after Starfield! Kudos to your brains, Ben! Of course, it won't always work!
I actually don't think Starfield has anything to do with this. Chillquarium was just a very appealing game to begin with to many, hence the 5K wishlists. It'd be different if it had like 200 wishlists, then I'd be diving a bit deeper. The same day Chillquarium released, 31 other games also released. On same day Starfield released, 51 other games released (yes they actually released on different days, so people saying they both launched same day are just wrong). Both those numbers are within normal day-to-day steam launches. If you look at the entire week sept 4 - sept 11, 236 games released. Which is slightly lower than average, but well within normal operating behavior. The New & Trending tab only shows games that pass a certain threshold of popularity. It was mostly luck that very few games the following week reached that threshold, therefore Chillquarium stayed on the new & trending list longer than usual.
Yes i started with 100 Wishlists. Steam do not like it if it's your first game. end of story. Now if there is no marketing from other direction, the game fails on purpose. But hey after launch there is also plenty of time to catch up the lost race. It takes just more energy then if done right from start. And Done right means, if you dont play steams game you will... have a hard time
I own it. The game needs quite a lot of work still. Nice game overall, but man HUGE gap in upgrades and will take quite a while to get any of them. Only a single tank forever. Etc. Could use some major work to make it more user friendly. Also the 'visual bug' showing a saltwater tank when it is a freshwater is still a 'bug' that needs fixed and shouldn't just be disregarded by the developer as a visual bug that fixes itself after restarting the game. From what I can tell the decorations have no benefit at all except decoration, but cost the price of 'grind forever' then choose between a 'useful' upgrade that has taken literal months of real life time to save for or a decoration that does nothing. And those useful upgrades? There are very few of them overall.
Thank you for bringing this into attention. Improvisation is the key takeaway. New strategies will keep on coming, no one strategy works on everything, but it is important to do diligent homework, then trust yourself on taking a calculated chance.
very cool. i hade the maximum opposite. 100 wishlists no demo no big marketing, no idea. i begged 6(not asked) month to get 10 Reviews. 😮 Today i sit on 12 Reviews 165 Wishlist first payday from steam. so 100$ -my solo indie game a land Goo's crazy❤
@@LostRelicGames and found manny new friends around the planet. For a small guy like me its cool. But honestly, if you dont reach the right people on time you will litterally sus.. SO yes , I learnd my lesson. Marketing is for a good start highest priorety. Bet if you game my game, it's 1$ now, the sales just run 10 times faster. just because a nice person has 100000 people in his backpack. I wait on your release until and hope the gods of developement hear me out once. Cya
Games don't do well on accident. Marketing is just a success multiplier. This game would have done well either way, it was just amplified by his unique strategy. During that week probably over 100 other games came out and saw no success because they were just worse.
@@VSalgc I mean the reality is good games do well and bad games do poorly. Marketing just makes good games do even better. Yes it's black and white, but that's because 99% of games are either good or bad - and most are bad.
@@Squidmoto3 I do agree with this. But to say something is good or bad, it has to be presented at least. Some dancing party girl to attract first conntact. i know, a bad humor but like this. all looks a t the most catchy dancer but is this the proof it will be the wife or your life. :). Steam needs definitly some more options for devs and gamers to be in line. Both side suffer right now. As i also play games most recomendet in steam and after a few it is just in the corner of later.
So, the main factor when chasing a ‘AAA’ in the charts / metrics is understanding the metrics and the audience. Value is the killer metric for steam, because people want a game, but if the price is high, they will step back at the price if there’s competitive games or attractive options nearby. So if you launch a parallel genre game while another dev is launching , you can ride that popularity, but it’s fleeting. What helps is the ability to compare well. So people have that intrinsic “good” or “maybe” reaction. Anything else, you don’t get a second chance to make that impression.
I've been developing a game for a little while now with the target audience being Silent Hill/David Lynch fans. As a major fan of both of those, it's been great for keeping me motivated to continue working on it. The trouble is... Silent Hill 2 Remake got announced during my time developing it, so I now I'm not sure if I should delay or proceed with the planned October 2024 release window
How it was done with Slay the Princess? As others point out, dozens of games release daily on Steam. It's hardly about deeper strategy on the release date. Slay the Princess found success because of a number of reasons. Most importantly it executes a number of proven formulas, such as bein very meta and going for a sort of creepypasta vibe with some "slightly cute yet obviously disturbing" aesthetic. The trailer very clearly show the meta aspect of the game, with the princess interacting with the narrator. I don't say this as a critique. All these things are smart choices by the devs. Most importantly, Slay the Princess has one of the smartest icons in years, with the playful addendum of having the Princess with a speech bubble that says "Please don't", which easily catches the attention, as it both informs the game is somewhat meta/self-aware and also with disturbing vibes (in a positive manner). These things (and probably some others) informed Slay the Princess' success. But the release date? SLay the Princess released a week before than "Little Goody Two Shoes" a game that strongly overlaps in vibes and theme, and published by Square Enix! Don't get me wrong: Slay the Princess greatly outperformed Little Goody Two Shoes; but my point is the release date wasn't a sort of strategic choice tied to what's discussed in this video. If anything, only strategic consideration of the release date was releasing the game slightly before Halloween, probably to ensure streamers would play it in their Halloween streams. October tends to be a good month for horror-themed games.
Agree, though the game still needs to be good/enjoyable and of a different genre compare to the big title game coming out. If is a trash game I will not even pay a dollar for it to waste my time.
Just proves that Steam doesn't do a good job of making gamers aware of good games. I keep cycling my discovery queue and end up with useless horror crap I'm not interested in. It's really difficult to discover good games on Steam, given how many games there are.
Can anyone verify the claim no other indie game in the entire world failed to drop on the same day? This feels like a bold claim with 0 proof. In the music industry it is standard practice to drop on a Friday, but songs also release daily platform wide. I promise other indie games released that day. This feels like a case of near pure luck and some silly reasoning after the fact to justify all the hard work. It simply doesn't work that way. If it does, then basically everyone paying Thomas Brush and the like for marketing courses should request a refund asap.
I love LRG but this seems a little…fishy 😅. A lot of games were launched that day so I don’t see correlation to that being a factor. It seems like he got lucky but 🤷♂️
The claim is just wrong. First off, Starfield was released on sept 5th and Chillquarium on sept 6th. So not even the same day. Also the same day Chillquarium released, 31 other games also released. On same day Starfield released, 51 other games released. Both those numbers are within normal day-to-day steam launches. If you look at the entire week sept 4 - sept 11, 236 games released. Which is slightly lower than average, but well within normal operating behavior. My analysis is that Chillquarium was just a very appealing game to many, hence the 5K wishlists. The New & Trending tab only shows games that pass a certain threshold of popularity. It was mostly luck that very few games the following week reached that threshold, therefore Chillquarium stayed on the new & trending list longer than usual.
I will differ to the HTMAG article I linked in the pinned comment. Chris provides some data to indicate other games of 'significance' were not launched that week (based on steam page followers counts I suspect). It's an interesting article and worth a read.
Timing is everything but release isn't the only push you'll have. So I would definitely release my indie games adjacent to a very big company because if it fails, I'll have other chances to find that lucky push.
Hey man! Algorithms brought me since I will release a game December 1... Rogue Masters, souls-like multiplayer game. Checkout. Thanks for this insight pretty smart move. But a gamble as you mention
Hi, What is your todo / note taking technic (what can be seen behung you in de video)? Why do you prefer it against the digital version as for example trello, etc?
Can possibly do what Dante’s inferno did strategically coming out a little while before the release of God of War 3, gave the audience their temporary itch to scratch and was a great game at a well timed release.
There's a brazilian game studio in Brazil that launched a fighting game. It had 3d models, but 2d fighting style. The greatest selling point was that the game didn't have health bars, the characters would dismember each other untill the end of the match. Gameplay was a bit too janky and that hurt the game overall, but they also launched in the same day as MORTAL KOMBAT X. Guess how that went for the small fighting game. TLDR: This could work for games that are polar opposite4s from the big shiny AAA game, if it's the same genre doesn't look like a good idea.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that no other indie games released on steam that day, there were at least 30 games released on that day, including starfield and chillquarium. The only other game that came close to chillquarium in reviews was "The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo" with over 300 reviews at the time of writing. Why did these two games get more sales that others? I think it would be to do with wishlists and most of all luck. Games still release at the same day at big titles, some won't be able to move the date and others just won't care.
My game is at the beginning stages. I probably wouldn't use this strategy mainly because I might not even charge for my game, if I get that far. I was thinking a solid strategy is to monetize by perhaps dev-videos of my game. This could be ads, or maybe merch, or even something like a a patreon or subscribestar or something.
Mostly off topic but, what resolution are you using for your game assets? I want to start creating assets for my game but I don't know what resolution to go with and I like yours :)
Also, many people won't have 60 dollars to spend on the new released AAA game, but maybe they will be interested in spend 10 dollars on a knock-off of that game that looks actually fun to play
Why does everyone feel the need to tell every piece of information that should be kept secret? Find a wicked swimming hole all to yourself... Some asshole finds it too, but this guy blasts it all over he internet, not a secret swimming hole anymore.
If you launch your game at a time of no big launches, you're competing with 1000 other small launches. If you launch your game at the same time as a big launch, but it's 180° away from being the same kind of game, you can potentially gain the attention of a different target audience. If you launch a competing title to a game AROUND the same time as its launch, say within a couple weeks, but you have a vastly different price point, you might gain the zeigeist boost. If you follow any of this advice, your game is still likely to fail because everyone else is doing the same thing. Localize.
We did the same thing with Slapshot Rebound. Released right about when Cyberpunk released while every other dev stayed clear of it, Cyberpunk's launch was a mess so we welcomed all the refugees.
I think rolling a d100 for all marketing, business and launch related decisions is a good idea. Like a search algorithm, be random, then reduce the randomness when you hit a good result, and lean into it. I am joking of course, but fuck it, might as well try it with one of my non-commercial releases
I wonder how this is going to work on forward with it being blown out like this :D. I wouldn't mind trying it with a smaller game but I probably would be more hesitant wit ha game which would take me a year or more to make. I'm just a chicken I guess ^.^ Any new kickstarter analysis video on the horizon? I have to ask this every time, I enjoyed these XD.
I played the Chillquarium demo and was pleased by the promising direction in which it was going. There wasn’t enough to do in the game, even for a demo, and I wanted the full game to have more to do in it. When it was released, I felt very “meh” about it. Wasn’t interested. And I’ve only just observed its success through this video. I’m astounded! Does the trailer really show more to the game than what was in the demo?
Something that's not mentioned: Starfield was a released like a wet fart. It had bad reviews by launch day. Not only was the date clear of indies, but the AAA game was a disappointment.
I think without this information, there’s some big games I’d avoid launching at the same time as. But I think I would have given starfield and BG3 a wide birth
Getting 5000 wishlists before launch is a huge achievement as well. (I only have 300 after promoting on twitter, reddit, and TH-cam lol ) I'm sure that helped a ton as well.
Wow that's so sad that you decided to shut down your Patreon for this channel! Are you running out of TH-cam steam? Are you running low on juice for working on B&M? You've been a tremendously positive influence on the indie game community, and I always enjoy your content. Gosh, I hope I never left you with the impression there were any strings attached to my tiny contribution. Oh well! In any case, may you continue to find more and more success, whatever you choose to do.
The launch strategy was very clever indeed but I am battled by the fact what was so attractive about a mobile game to make thousands of PC gamers to buy it. Wondering how many of the sales was from a Windows/Linux powered handheld device or tablet. I honestly can't imagine thousands of traditional PC gamers jumped on this title. This is just an other example how unpredictable the gaming industry is.
Indies still need to learn to not release intra-genre games within the same time window, especially when too many ride the roguelike and boomer fps spam train, 2 genres that are already crowded and currently being milked and abused until a new indie steers the eyes to a different genre. This is also why Ben's game is a hit. It's not something we see every day, same with games like Slime Rancher or Stardew Valley. We need this variety and some wholesome games. Just because Dusk and Doom revived fps doesn't mean 90% of indies need a boomer fps now. We are already burnt out in the scene. Fps went from being my fav genre to "oh great, another early access fps, yay, back to Baldur's Gate or Underrail". Take advantage of niches and holes, not trend genres
If ES6 will be anything similar to Starfield I would lunch something similar to Morrowind if I had it ready, with some cheeky description preemptively shooting shots at ES6, like: disappointed with another AAA release, come to the word of X inspired by old classics like Morrowind and enjoy the depth... bla bla bla. Crazy gamble I know but what are the chances that Bethesda will get their shit together?
This video has opened my mind a bit. Cuz I was also following the rule of "Don't release when AAA's release." But now, not only am I thinking about my release timing more, now I'm also considering what OTHER unorthodox marketing strategies could I use? Timing is important, but what OTHER wild things could we try? Next time we find ourselves saying "Well, of COURSE you should do X." Let's take a moment to ask, why? Keep asking why and reach the logical end point. And along those "why" questions... MAYBE you'll find a branching path to an unorthodox method of whatever you're questioning. Not always of course. Sometimes you'll ask why and yeah, some things that are accepted are accepted for good reason. "Hmmm, maybe when I pitch my game to a youtuber, I should cuss at him and call him a loser." No, no, don't be unorthodox like THAT.
Aww, marketing is easy. All you have to do is make a good game and know exactly what will be going on in music, movies, TV, the entire global video game market, and world events the day you drop, at least two years in advance 🙃
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Whoa, cool to see my game featured here! Fun fact about Chillquarium -- it was originally also called Fish Game as of this January. I was advised to change the name for SEO reasons, and it took FOREVER to think of another good name for a fish game that wasn't already taken. I thought it was funny that Smarter Every Day released a game with that name just a month after mine, and it seems to be doing just fine. Maybe I was overthinking it!
wow, its actually the man himself. cool!
Fishgame is more sim than game...
Fish Sim would've been more appropriate.
But meh, I digress...
Also, you don't need a PR campaign if you have millions of subscribers lol
Congrats man! You give us hope. I'm making a game for the fun of it, as I don't really intend to leave my 9-5, and the idea that my game will do well at all has kind of been like a daydream at best. You make me feel like a daydream might actually be a little possible. Also, your game is dope, good job!
Really impressive work! Congrats on the well earned success, looking forward to seeing what you work on next! (if this is actually you ;))
Ever considered a mobile version?
Ironically, by covering this guy's unique launch strategy thoroughly in videos and articles, we're ensuring it will never work again.
A lot of games were released on that day… Something is off here. It wasn’t because he launched then…
It is all 100% luck. Though there may have been a strategy there to do that, in the end, you can't force people to purchase. That's where the luck comes in. If people choose to buy, you win. If they don't, you lose.
@@futurebasstypebeats7144 Yeah this sounds like complete crap.
There is a thirst for fish games, Thanks to insanaquerium and EA/popcaps neglect of the genera.
It's arguably a highly ignored category of games in general, especially on the more arcade/chill side.
"smarter every days" game is more sciency and simulation than chill/arcade.
i was thinking that too
This was also done with the indie game Slay The Princess and it got on the front page, so it's not just luck.
Note that this only works if the audience is different!
I launched my village-builder game Kainga on the same day as Dwarf Fortress, and it got buried amongst the noise. I believe that the people playing Dwarf fortress were the people that would have been interested in my game.
Many even came back later and said they didn't know it'd launched already!
Your game looks great, will definitely buy it! But still, you got 505 reviews (15k-20k sales?) which is far from being a failure. Congratulations.
Edit: I see you have a publisher. Can you please tell us what was your experience with your publisher? and if do you recommend going with a publisher?
Your game looks very original!!! Respect and good luck!
@@NadjibBait No! Not a failure at all. I'd say it's a total success especially for a self-taught first game! But the launch day sales spike was no where near as big as the early access spike.
As for the publisher, they helped pay for the game's development, but it hasn't yet broken even on our costs haha
@@kaingagame4351 Thank you for your reply!
Your game looks so cool and unique!
There's a very simple lesson here... not everyone plays the same games.
It also means that not everyone is interested in jumping into the newest triple A release. Especially because of the development cycle, people will tend to wait a bit after release to get a better experience, so you get visibility and people that are waiting to play. I'd say it's maybe the best time nowadays to release? Though I'm nobody to say that.
2 years on a project and kinda just taking a HUGE risk like that is pretty crazy and Ben really deserves this success
It's the barbenheimer effect. They might even appeal to the same audience in their own way, but they provide different experiences and it's at a reasonable cost to buy both. Probably wouldn't work with if it was another FPS space game priced at $30, and might have even had a harder time releasing next to dave the diver etc.
Other factor might be that people were pretty disappointed by starfield lol
Yeah there's really just like ZERO causation in what happened here. Not to mention how Starfield wasn't the big success some people hoped it to be either. It's like seeing birds fly north and assuming that's why it rains. It's actually kinda dumb stuff really. We're talking thousands of games being in competition for attention. This really isn't about just one triple A game. What about all the games sold at a discount that compete directly in terms of price???????? He didn't mention that, because he doesn't understand what is really going on.
@@PHeMoX 💯 🎯
This essentially happened with my game, but the other way around. It launched right before Sniper Elite, and was #1 New and Trending for a few days, then Sniper took the lead! But my game was right under it for another two weeks.
What game?
@@DT-hb3zu Warlord: Britannia
Thanks John for making the video despite your busy schedule
Thanks Calvin
you're one of the good ones lost relic, your attitude, intelligence, and nobility are a pleasure to witness. all the best
Yeah. Mazeltov to Ben. It’s called a "Barbenheimer" these days.
It's good to see you in a positive mood again. :) its been a year.
This sort of thing gives a lot of hope for indie devs.
Dude! Now I’m terrified my game releases Dec 8, 2023. I think I looked at all the major releases so hopefully my little game will at least be wishlist a couple of times. Took me five years to make it. This is very scary indeed.
what game is it?
@@Polygonlin it’s called Petey Pedro unBEETable Adventure. It’s out now on steam. It’s my love letter to gamers from my generation that grew up playing pixel art side scrollers with an emphasis on fun easy to pick up hard to master gameplay.
I think, the best launching and selling strategy - is to sell a GOOD GAME.
It is not so important, HOW you will sell - it is important WHAT you sell.
Good game will start to sell itself sooner or later - that's what i think.
There's lots of video on TH-cam like "Gamedev is dead, It's impossible to feed yourself by making a games" - and as a proof they do something like "here - we made a simple game about pink triangle, who rotates, moves and eats small circles - and we set a price of 3 dollars and we did sell two copies in three month".
That's just not right. Their game is CRAP. It's miracle, that someone did buy single copy at all!
And this pixel aquarium game looks nice and cute. So - of course, people will buy it.
I just haven't seen good Games on a steam, which does not sell.
I've seen lot of bad games, which do sell.
So i think, being game developer can pe proftable. And those, who says it cannot, just unable to make a good game.
That's what i think.
So this means my game is sus. (a fail) I send you a key and you can play it and then again write its SUS. ok for you? I don't mean it angry, please try out
What's good is subjective though. What one thinks is good and fun another thinks it is crap and boring.
@@TheMeanArena By "good" i mean high-quality. There's lots of games, which is absolutely not in my taste, and i have no plans to play them - but i can clearly see, that they are "good'. Good for those, who like them.
"Bad game" - is the game, which appreciator of the genre will decline and throw away, saying it's bad.
@@TheMeanArena The problem is steams hard covered gates. If you come with zero "lets call it fame", he just let you down. and if there is not comming some gread input from outside, you never meet the party inside. So in my point, except paying someone to bring these fame to steam, i have what exactly? Time to spam here and there that i made a game. I like streamers but if i have to pay 1000 of Dollars to be seen, its not right for me. Still,, want a key and try it out, i made a game with passion.
Hey! That's our game World of Anterra at 6:40! We are very committed to our marketing but currently we're laser focused on our development right now. We don't even have a steam page up yet and people keep tell us that it's a bad thing, but I'm not so sure. Wishlist numbers are very important, but so is velocity and I want to make sure we're supporting our steam numbers with a holistic marketing strategy... as for your question, it's a definitely a complex one! I think it's a VERY smart strategy for a game like Chill-Quarium. But for a game like ours, it can get a little more tricky. I would have definitely considered launching alongside Starfield, because it scratches a different itch imo. However, launching a game that has been called, "Skyrim with pixel", along side Skyrim 6, is probably not a great idea... that being said, launching a month or two ahead of time could be great because of all the anticipation... at the end of the day, we're making our own (huge) game, and will only launch it when it's ready. I think we should revisit this question closer to our our launch date. Thanks for another great video.
from the scene its look great
Video Links:
Chillquarium: store.steampowered.com/app/2276930/Chillquarium/
developers reddit post: www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/16mxz2z/from_5000_wishlists_to_15000_copies_sold_in_one/
HTMAG article: howtomarketagame.com/2023/10/23/the-other-game-that-succeeded-during-the-starfield-launch/
Come chat on discord : discord.gg/yeTuU53
ur the best
That's great for Ben. I wonder if now every indie dev will try to launch with a triple A title and replicate this? Of course if everyone does it, that would flood the market with indies on that day and do the reverse of what happened here.
You must think this space is incredibly small to think that's even a possibility - which isn't true at all. The world exists far beyond what you experience. Probably 95% of developers will not even know this happened.
I should think most wouldn't, because now it's even *more* likely that you get lost in the kerfuffle on Launch Day.
The key advantage this dev had over others is that this was a hobby/passion project for him. He didn't expect or care to make much money, so he was willing to take a larger risk. So if it had backfired and he made nothing, he could live with that--most people trying to earn a living as devs wouldn't dare, rightly so.
I wonder if there’s a game dev out there who launched a game and it didn’t sell well, then took it off the store and did a relaunch with a new marketing strategy
or switched to an other platform?
came here for game launch advise, and now im buying chillquarium as an aquascaping enthusiast + gamer.
Wow! Great idea and well done! He obviously thought strategically - since there were no other "competitors" his game would obviously make the list right after Starfield! Kudos to your brains, Ben!
Of course, it won't always work!
Or...he was just so busy with his launch he didn't realize the other games release date.
I actually don't think Starfield has anything to do with this. Chillquarium was just a very appealing game to begin with to many, hence the 5K wishlists. It'd be different if it had like 200 wishlists, then I'd be diving a bit deeper. The same day Chillquarium released, 31 other games also released. On same day Starfield released, 51 other games released (yes they actually released on different days, so people saying they both launched same day are just wrong). Both those numbers are within normal day-to-day steam launches.
If you look at the entire week sept 4 - sept 11, 236 games released. Which is slightly lower than average, but well within normal operating behavior. The New & Trending tab only shows games that pass a certain threshold of popularity. It was mostly luck that very few games the following week reached that threshold, therefore Chillquarium stayed on the new & trending list longer than usual.
People usually see what they believe in. This "strategy" is the new belief of the week.
Yes i started with 100 Wishlists. Steam do not like it if it's your first game. end of story. Now if there is no marketing from other direction, the game fails on purpose. But hey after launch there is also plenty of time to catch up the lost race. It takes just more energy then if done right from start. And Done right means, if you dont play steams game you will... have a hard time
I own it. The game needs quite a lot of work still. Nice game overall, but man HUGE gap in upgrades and will take quite a while to get any of them. Only a single tank forever. Etc. Could use some major work to make it more user friendly. Also the 'visual bug' showing a saltwater tank when it is a freshwater is still a 'bug' that needs fixed and shouldn't just be disregarded by the developer as a visual bug that fixes itself after restarting the game. From what I can tell the decorations have no benefit at all except decoration, but cost the price of 'grind forever' then choose between a 'useful' upgrade that has taken literal months of real life time to save for or a decoration that does nothing. And those useful upgrades? There are very few of them overall.
Thank you for bringing this into attention. Improvisation is the key takeaway. New strategies will keep on coming, no one strategy works on everything, but it is important to do diligent homework, then trust yourself on taking a calculated chance.
Walking a path that none walks usually pays off! Very Nice Video by the way
Genius big brain move ngl, glad it worked!
Many thanks for your videos Zlatan...
very cool. i hade the maximum opposite. 100 wishlists no demo no big marketing, no idea. i begged 6(not asked) month to get 10 Reviews. 😮
Today i sit on
12 Reviews
165 Wishlist
first payday from steam. so 100$
-my solo indie game
a land Goo's crazy❤
And a plenty of valuable lessons/wisdom learnt I bet! Congrats on getting your game out.
@@LostRelicGames and found manny new friends around the planet. For a small guy like me its cool. But honestly, if you dont reach the right people on time you will litterally sus.. SO yes , I learnd my lesson. Marketing is for a good start highest priorety. Bet if you game my game, it's 1$ now, the sales just run 10 times faster. just because a nice person has 100000 people in his backpack. I wait on your release until and hope the gods of developement hear me out once. Cya
@@LostRelicGames BTW this is my real account, where all my game stuff and !!! climbing is. your big fan from Switzerland.
Seems like the best bet is simply to check for a date with as much least releases as possible!
Some might say they just got lucky but as the saying goes luck is just we’re opportunity and preparation meet, glad to see there hard work payed off!
Games don't do well on accident. Marketing is just a success multiplier. This game would have done well either way, it was just amplified by his unique strategy. During that week probably over 100 other games came out and saw no success because they were just worse.
but is it such a sharp sword to have only 2 ways. Win or loose? where are all these greys gone in between.
@@VSalgc I mean the reality is good games do well and bad games do poorly. Marketing just makes good games do even better. Yes it's black and white, but that's because 99% of games are either good or bad - and most are bad.
@@Squidmoto3 I do agree with this. But to say something is good or bad, it has to be presented at least. Some dancing party girl to attract first conntact. i know, a bad humor but like this. all looks a t the most catchy dancer but is this the proof it will be the wife or your life. :). Steam needs definitly some more options for devs and gamers to be in line. Both side suffer right now. As i also play games most recomendet in steam and after a few it is just in the corner of later.
So, the main factor when chasing a ‘AAA’ in the charts / metrics is understanding the metrics and the audience. Value is the killer metric for steam, because people want a game, but if the price is high, they will step back at the price if there’s competitive games or attractive options nearby. So if you launch a parallel genre game while another dev is launching , you can ride that popularity, but it’s fleeting. What helps is the ability to compare well. So people have that intrinsic “good” or “maybe” reaction. Anything else, you don’t get a second chance to make that impression.
I've been developing a game for a little while now with the target audience being Silent Hill/David Lynch fans. As a major fan of both of those, it's been great for keeping me motivated to continue working on it. The trouble is... Silent Hill 2 Remake got announced during my time developing it, so I now I'm not sure if I should delay or proceed with the planned October 2024 release window
This was also done with the indie game Slay The Princess and it got on the front page.
How it was done with Slay the Princess? As others point out, dozens of games release daily on Steam. It's hardly about deeper strategy on the release date.
Slay the Princess found success because of a number of reasons. Most importantly it executes a number of proven formulas, such as bein very meta and going for a sort of creepypasta vibe with some "slightly cute yet obviously disturbing" aesthetic. The trailer very clearly show the meta aspect of the game, with the princess interacting with the narrator.
I don't say this as a critique. All these things are smart choices by the devs.
Most importantly, Slay the Princess has one of the smartest icons in years, with the playful addendum of having the Princess with a speech bubble that says "Please don't", which easily catches the attention, as it both informs the game is somewhat meta/self-aware and also with disturbing vibes (in a positive manner).
These things (and probably some others) informed Slay the Princess' success.
But the release date? SLay the Princess released a week before than "Little Goody Two Shoes" a game that strongly overlaps in vibes and theme, and published by Square Enix! Don't get me wrong: Slay the Princess greatly outperformed Little Goody Two Shoes; but my point is the release date wasn't a sort of strategic choice tied to what's discussed in this video. If anything, only strategic consideration of the release date was releasing the game slightly before Halloween, probably to ensure streamers would play it in their Halloween streams. October tends to be a good month for horror-themed games.
Hey, thanks for the vid. Missed your halloween playthrough this year. That was fun last time with dead cells!
Should we change our release date after this info?
We will release our game on the day John releases Blood And Mead! 😁
also it was released fairly priced only 5.99 most people won't blink on games that cheap and it actually has good reviews as well congrats to Ben :)
Agree, though the game still needs to be good/enjoyable and of a different genre compare to the big title game coming out. If is a trash game I will not even pay a dollar for it to waste my time.
Just proves that Steam doesn't do a good job of making gamers aware of good games. I keep cycling my discovery queue and end up with useless horror crap I'm not interested in. It's really difficult to discover good games on Steam, given how many games there are.
Can anyone verify the claim no other indie game in the entire world failed to drop on the same day? This feels like a bold claim with 0 proof. In the music industry it is standard practice to drop on a Friday, but songs also release daily platform wide. I promise other indie games released that day. This feels like a case of near pure luck and some silly reasoning after the fact to justify all the hard work. It simply doesn't work that way. If it does, then basically everyone paying Thomas Brush and the like for marketing courses should request a refund asap.
2 years of marketing a game and take care pre launchday of wishlists and steam festivals and yes a little luck😅 and the way is open in steam.
I love LRG but this seems a little…fishy 😅. A lot of games were launched that day so I don’t see correlation to that being a factor. It seems like he got lucky but 🤷♂️
The claim is just wrong. First off, Starfield was released on sept 5th and Chillquarium on sept 6th. So not even the same day. Also the same day Chillquarium released, 31 other games also released. On same day Starfield released, 51 other games released. Both those numbers are within normal day-to-day steam launches.
If you look at the entire week sept 4 - sept 11, 236 games released. Which is slightly lower than average, but well within normal operating behavior.
My analysis is that Chillquarium was just a very appealing game to many, hence the 5K wishlists. The New & Trending tab only shows games that pass a certain threshold of popularity. It was mostly luck that very few games the following week reached that threshold, therefore Chillquarium stayed on the new & trending list longer than usual.
I will differ to the HTMAG article I linked in the pinned comment. Chris provides some data to indicate other games of 'significance' were not launched that week (based on steam page followers counts I suspect). It's an interesting article and worth a read.
@@LostRelicGames Thanks for not deleting controversial comments. ❤️
If I'm not mistaken, that was not the first time that that ice skater guy won a race that way.
I honestly hadn't thought of a launch strategie O.o
I'd be interested to know how he got the 5000 wishlists.
from what I read, about 2000 came from the steam next fest.
Man, that's absolutely amazing. Well deserved success. Chill Aquarium looks really fun.
You make me think better about launch a game. I loved the video! Thanks for share your knowledge with us!
Timing is everything but release isn't the only push you'll have. So I would definitely release my indie games adjacent to a very big company because if it fails, I'll have other chances to find that lucky push.
Is there a resource out there that scrapes steam for the data on game release dates, sales and what is trending -- then archives it over time?
Lol, this tab was open in my browser for 4 months. Finally, I got to watch it. Great story!
Hey man! Algorithms brought me since I will release a game December 1... Rogue Masters, souls-like multiplayer game. Checkout. Thanks for this insight pretty smart move. But a gamble as you mention
So I should launch my game on GTA 6's release date? Got it.
Hi, What is your todo / note taking technic (what can be seen behung you in de video)? Why do you prefer it against the digital version as for example trello, etc?
I will consider it for my game.
I'm a dev and I love such eye-opening content.
Can possibly do what Dante’s inferno did strategically coming out a little while before the release of God of War 3, gave the audience their temporary itch to scratch and was a great game at a well timed release.
just bought it. thank you. im ALWAYS looking for those games. i love fish and collecting and pets.
Risk vs Reward, the release strategy
There's a brazilian game studio in Brazil that launched a fighting game. It had 3d models, but 2d fighting style. The greatest selling point was that the game didn't have health bars, the characters would dismember each other untill the end of the match.
Gameplay was a bit too janky and that hurt the game overall, but they also launched in the same day as MORTAL KOMBAT X. Guess how that went for the small fighting game.
TLDR: This could work for games that are polar opposite4s from the big shiny AAA game, if it's the same genre doesn't look like a good idea.
I clicked on launch video for that other game you mentioned and after they revealed it involved an aquarium, I pressed control 'W'.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that no other indie games released on steam that day, there were at least 30 games released on that day, including starfield and chillquarium. The only other game that came close to chillquarium in reviews was "The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo" with over 300 reviews at the time of writing. Why did these two games get more sales that others?
I think it would be to do with wishlists and most of all luck.
Games still release at the same day at big titles, some won't be able to move the date and others just won't care.
That's super interesting! I've been kinda curious what would happen if someone just went for it like this. Glad to see it worked out for them.
My game is at the beginning stages. I probably wouldn't use this strategy mainly because I might not even charge for my game, if I get that far. I was thinking a solid strategy is to monetize by perhaps dev-videos of my game. This could be ads, or maybe merch, or even something like a a patreon or subscribestar or something.
Great video, one indie dev to another!
That's hilarious and wonderful. One time strategy!
I wish I could win a lottery of some sort lol. That's so awesome!! Congratulations 🎊!!!
Mostly off topic but, what resolution are you using for your game assets? I want to start creating assets for my game but I don't know what resolution to go with and I like yours :)
Also, many people won't have 60 dollars to spend on the new released AAA game, but maybe they will be interested in spend 10 dollars on a knock-off of that game that looks actually fun to play
You should do a review/post mortem on the Hogs of War Lardcore Kickstarter
Why does everyone feel the need to tell every piece of information that should be kept secret? Find a wicked swimming hole all to yourself... Some asshole finds it too, but this guy blasts it all over he internet, not a secret swimming hole anymore.
6:26 what game is this? i like low poly skyrim lol
If you launch your game at a time of no big launches, you're competing with 1000 other small launches.
If you launch your game at the same time as a big launch, but it's 180° away from being the same kind of game, you can potentially gain the attention of a different target audience.
If you launch a competing title to a game AROUND the same time as its launch, say within a couple weeks, but you have a vastly different price point, you might gain the zeigeist boost.
If you follow any of this advice, your game is still likely to fail because everyone else is doing the same thing.
Localize.
The subtle comparison of Starfield to a pileup of failed speed skaters. 😅
We did the same thing with Slapshot Rebound. Released right about when Cyberpunk released while every other dev stayed clear of it, Cyberpunk's launch was a mess so we welcomed all the refugees.
Guy had nothing to lose and everything to win. And it payed out. This time.
John, is it worth still trying Unity to make games or is better to just look for another platform?
bro made insane aquarium
I think rolling a d100 for all marketing, business and launch related decisions is a good idea.
Like a search algorithm, be random, then reduce the randomness when you hit a good result, and lean into it.
I am joking of course, but fuck it, might as well try it with one of my non-commercial releases
A good example of a game not releasing at the right time is Another Crusade just around the time Super Mario RPG.
I wonder how this is going to work on forward with it being blown out like this :D. I wouldn't mind trying it with a smaller game but I probably would be more hesitant wit ha game which would take me a year or more to make. I'm just a chicken I guess ^.^
Any new kickstarter analysis video on the horizon? I have to ask this every time, I enjoyed these XD.
Man I do remember seeing this game on new and trending haha
great story, happy for him
I REMEMBER SEEING THAT
I played the Chillquarium demo and was pleased by the promising direction in which it was going. There wasn’t enough to do in the game, even for a demo, and I wanted the full game to have more to do in it. When it was released, I felt very “meh” about it. Wasn’t interested. And I’ve only just observed its success through this video. I’m astounded! Does the trailer really show more to the game than what was in the demo?
Something that's not mentioned: Starfield was a released like a wet fart. It had bad reviews by launch day. Not only was the date clear of indies, but the AAA game was a disappointment.
hello , units reach the top .this is a quality game.The success that was accelerated by fate 💪
Damn that’s genius. Good for that indie dev 👏🏾👏🏾
I think without this information, there’s some big games I’d avoid launching at the same time as. But I think I would have given starfield and BG3 a wide birth
Insaniquarium 2... decades later.
Big Brain Ben
Getting 5000 wishlists before launch is a huge achievement as well. (I only have 300 after promoting on twitter, reddit, and TH-cam lol ) I'm sure that helped a ton as well.
Wow that's so sad that you decided to shut down your Patreon for this channel! Are you running out of TH-cam steam? Are you running low on juice for working on B&M?
You've been a tremendously positive influence on the indie game community, and I always enjoy your content. Gosh, I hope I never left you with the impression there were any strings attached to my tiny contribution.
Oh well! In any case, may you continue to find more and more success, whatever you choose to do.
You really scared me there. I thought you were saying you are shutting down this channel! 😮
oops, I stumbled over my words. lol, yes it did sound like I said that. 😆
and u making a video about it is going to give it even more rec so thanks to u basically
The launch strategy was very clever indeed but I am battled by the fact what was so attractive about a mobile game to make thousands of PC gamers to buy it. Wondering how many of the sales was from a Windows/Linux powered handheld device or tablet. I honestly can't imagine thousands of traditional PC gamers jumped on this title. This is just an other example how unpredictable the gaming industry is.
Indies still need to learn to not release intra-genre games within the same time window, especially when too many ride the roguelike and boomer fps spam train, 2 genres that are already crowded and currently being milked and abused until a new indie steers the eyes to a different genre.
This is also why Ben's game is a hit. It's not something we see every day, same with games like Slime Rancher or Stardew Valley. We need this variety and some wholesome games. Just because Dusk and Doom revived fps doesn't mean 90% of indies need a boomer fps now. We are already burnt out in the scene. Fps went from being my fav genre to "oh great, another early access fps, yay, back to Baldur's Gate or Underrail". Take advantage of niches and holes, not trend genres
If ES6 will be anything similar to Starfield I would lunch something similar to Morrowind if I had it ready, with some cheeky description preemptively shooting shots at ES6, like: disappointed with another AAA release, come to the word of X inspired by old classics like Morrowind and enjoy the depth... bla bla bla.
Crazy gamble I know but what are the chances that Bethesda will get their shit together?
schrodinger's result... nice.
This video has opened my mind a bit. Cuz I was also following the rule of "Don't release when AAA's release." But now, not only am I thinking about my release timing more, now I'm also considering what OTHER unorthodox marketing strategies could I use?
Timing is important, but what OTHER wild things could we try?
Next time we find ourselves saying "Well, of COURSE you should do X." Let's take a moment to ask, why? Keep asking why and reach the logical end point. And along those "why" questions... MAYBE you'll find a branching path to an unorthodox method of whatever you're questioning.
Not always of course. Sometimes you'll ask why and yeah, some things that are accepted are accepted for good reason.
"Hmmm, maybe when I pitch my game to a youtuber, I should cuss at him and call him a loser." No, no, don't be unorthodox like THAT.
Cast fishing rod in the right time 🐟
Aww, marketing is easy. All you have to do is make a good game and know exactly what will be going on in music, movies, TV, the entire global video game market, and world events the day you drop, at least two years in advance 🙃
I'm pretty sure Starfield being a huge disappointment also played a role in the success of the games launched the same day
That's very interesting
its feel like fich tycoon game
Schrodinger's launch.