"I Had 100,000 Wish-lists for my game..." and then THIS Happened...
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- I chat with Joe Winter, creator of Song of Iron, about his game's massive wishlist catalogue, and what happened at launch!
► Wishlist Song of Iron 2: store.steampowered.com/app/19...
► Get Song of Iron: store.steampowered.com/app/12...
► Learn how to become a full time game dev, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
► Enroll in my 3D workshop, free!: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
► Make your game instantly beautiful with my free workbook: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
► Get my 2D game kit, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
► Join my 2D character workshop, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
► Wishlist Twisted Tower: store.steampowered.com/app/15...
► Learn how to make money as a TH-camr: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-i...
► What I believe: • What I Believe - เกม
Guys let's support Joe in our comments! I'm so appreciative of him being so honest and humble in this chat!
► Wishlist Song of Iron 2: store.steampowered.com/app/1979660/Song_of_Iron_2/
► Get Song of Iron: store.steampowered.com/app/1258220/Song_of_Iron/
► Learn how to become a full time game dev, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-how-to-make-six-figures
► Enroll in my 3D workshop, free!: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-15-minute-3D-game
► Make your game instantly beautiful with my free workbook: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-instant-beauty-color-workbook
► Get my 2D game kit, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-2D-game-kit
► Join my 2D character workshop, free: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-2d-character-art-workshop
► Wishlist Twisted Tower: store.steampowered.com/app/1575990/Twisted_Tower/
► Learn how to make money as a TH-camr: www.fulltimegamedev.com/opt-in-indie-game-income-workshop
Why does it sound like you're saying "Blackboneprod" instead of "Blackthornprod" in your closing pitch for Game Dev Hero? Even the closed captions show it as "Blackborne pra" hah
Thank you professor Thomas for posting this & your other content! Your channel has been very informative and inspirational, and it isn't often enough we get to hear personal stories like this from employees at triple A companies. Game development, animation and interactive media is at a more volatile rapidly changing state than ever before in history. It seems there are going to be a lot of , erm, as they say in the tarot card reader community, "tower moments" for developers right now. Wishing you the best on your TWISTED Tower game ;)
I am not the type of person to trash anyone else's work, and as a dev I know the struggles and difficulty involved. However, it was not mentioned but the reason why "Song Of Iron" didn't convert as well as it could have is obvious. The gameplay was bad. Visually the game was amazing, and went mega viral. But, once he put out the demo everyone I know who tried the game felt like the game play was bad. I think the demo hurt his conversion rate as players had a chance to realize the gameplay was a 2/10 but the visuals and art style were a 10/10. Had he not released a demo I think it would of popped off way more than it did due to the visual hooks.
It reminds me of D4 free test. Seeing skills and most of the game plays exactly like a D3 I was extremely disappointed and lucky did not buy expensive game.
I believe that the more unknown the better of course to a point. Also game play being poor is like AAA studio selling super quality over anything alse.
This is helpful information!
Not sure why anyone thinks visuals sell a game. This just proves that gameplay trumps visuals which is why games like valheim, palworld, battlebit, etc sell like crazy.
@@No-One.321 facts. just look how well Gnorp Apologue is doing. it's literally an idle clicker game the most minimal pixel art you can make. game is killing it in sales
So the entire games finished gameplay was bad or just the demo? Im trying to understand because i do not want to fall into this trap
I think this is a really important video for indie devs to watch
sure
yep, i'm one and i agree!
Not really. he made a shit game and are confused as to why people don't like it.
@@roundtabledetails3307 Thats fine you disagree. I think its an important lesson for Indie dev to have proper expectations and to prepare for anything
From the first steam negative review, which is very generous, he says a few things.... "If Limbo, Inside and Black the Fall had a Viking lovechild with combat, that fully bearded fetus would be Song of Iron" and "My entire beef is based on controls not working at all and completely getting me killed."
He's incredibly fair here, it seems the control system wasn't just tricky but flawed and I also read that a demo was released which probably showed this.
Kudos to Joe for admitting the control system was janky.
I certainly do NOT believe the first 20 minutes should be the best, but they should DEFINITELY have some wow factor.
This is why it's so important to get your game into the hands of more people. Steam's new Beta program will certainly help with this. Don't rush release. Make sure it's the best it can be. It's so easy to develop in a bubble.
In short: Gameplay sucked so much that people decided not to buy it.
Very insightful. Thanks for being open and honest Joe. Best of luck on the next one!
I thought this ended abruptly. Still seems like some valuable tips. Overall it seems like indies need to figure out an effective price poiint for their game relative to comparable games, focus on hype (momentum) leading up to launch, and manage expectations surrounding conversions of wishlists tl sales.
Same like you would think it would go more indepth and atleast tell you a roughly what it made but oh well was still vaulbe.
Yeah ended a bit quick for sure. I don’t think the price point is the problem, as Joe admitted the keyboard controls in particular were broken. I imagine the game is much better for the many control system changes but I think the main learning for me here is that you need to be sure that all aspects of your game deliver on the promise in your trailers etc… it feels like Joe rushed to release, probably he thought he was ready, perhaps the long slog to get to release or finances or responsibilities pushed him to do so but the game was clearly not ready and because of its good looks, it promised a lot. It didn’t deliver in all areas, but more than not delivering it seems it was plain bad in some places.
@@bovineox1111 He also said he never did a playtest, even among friends. This is a big no-no, resulting in things like his crossed-fingers controls seeming just fine to him.
Very interesting stuff - and big thanks to the dev for being so open and honest.
Harsh reality, but man this is such a beneficial lesson for all indie devs. Thanks so much to Joe for chosing to share his experience so candidly!
Normal distribution... The looks and marketing help you with the wishlists, from those, only the early birds (less than 10%) will buy it. If the early birds like it they will invite other people to buy it. It means that everything matters, the looks, the gameplay, the sound, the marketing, etc.
Great video man and to the other, thanks for sharing so much insight during such a difficult and frustrating part of your career.
This is massively insightful. Thank you thank you Joe!
Bros controls be like:
Domain expansion, infinite junk
I feel like steam also nerfs the value of wishlists via search when compared to wishlists via chance of clicking on it in the queue or other systems in the steam environment.
Would love to see you have on Jordy Lakiere on & talk to him about his game ‘We Who Are about to die’
Idk if it was solo dev but it was atleast very small team. Appreciate you having these dialogues with other devs for us to learn from.
I have about 350 games on my wish list. 200 of them have not yet been released (or are in EA). I will never buy 80% of them. Simply because I don't have enough time to play it. But they are on my wish list, so that I don’t forget about them when the time comes and I want to play something. If a game is released and receives a lot of negative reviews, then it immediately leaves the wish list. The wish list also helps you find discounts on the games you want.
The wish list does not mean that I will buy the game at all.
Art and visuals are secondary to gameplay. Gamers want to have fun. Get that first.
So true. Art and visuals will also get you the impulsive "wishlist".
Yea, this is the trap you can fall into with feature creep and pushing launch beyond what is reasonable. Some day I'm hoping to make a game and it's going to be bare bones and hopefully I get enough interest to finance expanding on the idea. Either I'll break even (hopefully) and will know to change gears, or I'll make a nice cushion of cash to validate the idea and pursue expanding on it with DLC or a second installment with more features.
One day or day one 😉
Well this makes a mockery of the advice some give to get your Steam page up as soon as possible after starting on a new game.
100,000 wishlists over 2 years, is 4,166 wishlists per month (on average), or to put it another way 25,000 wishlists in 6 months would have the same or better results.
Still I've always wondered about those games stuck in development hell for years, just where does it become better to just start again with a brand new steam page.
Now I wonder if the timing of Steam Next Fest is tied somehow to the algorithm classes Wishlists/Demo popularity. 3 Next Fests a year means one every 4 months, so is
I dont know if that is true. this advice tells us to not rely on large wishlist numbers alone. start amassing wishlists as early as possible because that email to potential users is valuable, but have valuable marketing beats and momentum condensed toward release. Get as many wishlists as possible, but also get as many as possible right before release for the most velocity and numbers. Do both.
Something about going viral on reddit; my gut tells me there's an expediency and low level of commitment in a wishlist obtained that way. Generally speaking ...
The people want good games, not "different" games.
The concept of "if it's just different enough it will be a hit" will not fly. That's all I see with indie devs: "You're a chef but you're bad at cooking so you have to convince the customers through verbal skills (preset dialogue tree) that the food is really very good, also you have to manage your pantry, Tetris style. But there's no pantry, since that's offensive. Also you can't really win or lose the game (not a game), and also you can only play the game once, because "story rich" so second playthroughs are pointless. Also morally grey choices, so whatever you choose to do, you'll always feel bad about the outcome, because life is dark so even when gaming you should feel bad!".
Sure you have games like Baba is You. Is it different? Yes. But also GOOD! Many good games are not gimmicky. Slay the Spire? Battlebrothers? Darkest Dungeon? Dungeonmans? What have you...
I believe people want good games, not "different" games. A good game in an oversaturated genre will be more worth than a unique gimmicky game that's not enjoyable.
technically I agree with you but when I look at the indy game market an overemphasis on being different at the expense of quality is not the primary issue I see. All I see are rogue likes, paltformers, souls likes and other clones. I think we can all agree a successful game needs to be both unique and of high quality. Getting both right is what so few are capable of.
@@swisspunker94 "I think we can all agree a successful game needs to be both unique and of high quality."
I don't think we can. When I look at successful games I almost NEVER think "unique". I don't think uniqueness is in the same ballpark of importance as QUALITY, not even close. It's what devs want to do, not what players want to play.
I wish my game would 'fail' like this, because I live in a third world country.
I also want to suffer from a "failure" like this.
Same, thise 200k would set me up for 10 years lol
If you invest in low risk investment options like Real estate etc it would be enough for rest of your life.@@BaddyPlays
@@BaddyPlays Take in count all work he had to put into this
If let's say 30% tax is due off the gross amount of sales, and then steam takes 30%, wouldn't their cut then be a deductible write off for the developer? If not, should taxes then only be calculated on the net revenue after payouts?
Steam takes their cut first, then you get your payout and pay taxes on that. Depending on the engine you pay that on the gross as well.
In some countries, you pay taxes from all your income. So what hits your bank account after Steam's cut - is taxable. Steam won't pay your taxes instead of you. But it surely deducts the international taxes like "VAT". So you get taxed a lot before you see your money.
On the costs I thought the Stores 30% included withholding tax but you also have to pay another 30% on top. I wonder what sort of taxes i'll be hit with being from Australia, any idea ?
30% is cut steam takes and then 30% on tax, includes us aussies. You find this all out during the steam workshop sign up.
@tiffdust thanks for the reply. Seeing as you are a fellow Aussie, did you set-up as a Sole Trader or Pty-Ltd.
Honestly great episode and interview which it sounds like he fell into the game dev youtube trap instead of doing research on games that are well known success of all types... Like he thought wishlists meant garrteed pay out... I don't have wishlists I have promises, TH-cam/devainart veiwers and randoms and I do ok with my TT games and books... I could be wrong but the game looks like an asset flip or stock asset abuse... Like it does not have a conhesive look and that's on the gameplay being bad looking like code taken for a tuber... And normal game dev hicups like to long of dev time, limited playtesting, Over priced my guy 2 hours of conent does not equal more then $20 price by my gaming press mind and maybe the dev not feeling it anymore... This is a perfect disator in the making... and is a good learning expernice for all of us thanks for this both of you!
Just a quick look at all the reviews and as far as i can see and i may be completely wrong here but the game seems short in hours so my guess would be its price point is a bit too high.
edit: Ahh you mention price at the end, my view is there are so many different games and quite alot are not that great these days that its become so easy for me to say im not buying that for that price. So unless a game is hands down a quality game i for one will not over pay anymore. I think price point is critical and if i were lucky enough to release a game id put it in a lower price bracket to try to generate sales.
Im just gettin ready for my interview with him, until i release my game.
He made 300k in his first game, the only downside is he spent too much time on it, a game like this should not take more than 3 years to make.
I have to wonder how many people he had play test his game beforehand since a lot of comments are saying the gameplay was bad and after watching a few visuals it looks like there is a long delay between when an action is taken and how long a swing of an axe takes. Which it looks visually interesting in that way but at the same time that would be frustrating when most of us are used to fast twitch gameplay now.
Also looking at some of these scenes, I'm not sure i would enjoy playing in this dark foggyness where I can only really see a silhouette - otherwise this game actually looks amazing and worth buying.
Steam doesn't let you review until 20 minutes? Seen plenty of examples where that is not the case.
4:50
Not bank account, put it into S&P500 ETF and 500k would give you 4k every month
Okay, here is my verdict for the game after doing some research and playing the game:
+ Good visuals and sounds, even tho it's a little rough around the edges sometimes.
- Gameplay
- Combat is decent, but feels clunky and awkward/unresponsive at times (steep learning curve).
- No indication of how much damage each weapon does.
+ Magical powers, yey
- Exploration
- Doesn't show you where to go, and can become a bit tedious sometimes when you get lost.
- Getting stuck in different places.
- Simple puzzles with no guidance (worked okay since the puzzles were simple)
- Platforming is frustrating for the same reasons the combat is, wonky controls (I played on pc).
- One-shot kill you traps (I'm not a super big fan of those tbh)
- Story
- The story is kinda plain in my opinion and the twisted ending is confusing/weird.
In other words: Good looking visuals, not so good gameplay/exploration/story. Is it worth 16$? My answer is No. Am I surprised that the game didn't blow up like the dev? No. Don't get me wrong... it's not great, but it isn't bad.
Wow, if 300k is considering as failure, may God grant everyone such failure! :) Looks like its success is because of big fan base. Unfortunately I can't rely on fan base, so will need to push gameplay and visuals of my games much more to lure the players.
I would love to launch a game and go gang busters. But honestly, I am just hoping for enough money to make another one
He has a point. I have many games on wishlist that I am waiting for a sale or just when I have more money to just throw around. Wishlists are not guaranteed purchases. More like someone marking your game as a maybe.
As for the return thing. Yeah, people probably just trying to beat as much of the game as they can within the time limit to get it for free. But if you gona spend that much effort then why not just be a pirate?
And here i am with just 500 wishlist... 😅 Shall i quit making my game while it's still early? 😐
I’m on 270 wishlists and my game is launching in June. At this point I’m just taking this whole process as a learning experience and anything on top of that is a bonus.
@@donderbosgames guess that's a positive way of responding to this situation... Good luck on launch day. 👍
@@blackcitadelstudios Thank you, all the best with your game too :)
No bonus for you pal.@@donderbosgames
Ya'll having a following for just your game? My TT main game of 5 year dev time about to beta is at 13 downloads and 67 views on itch since I put it their last year and the Google drive version can't report data... But yeah congrats guys! Any positive success is a good success!
I'm 7 mins in and my question is what were the reviews and how many did he get that first week?.
There are 306 for two years, so not many
this felt like it ended suddenly. That's a fantastic fail as a first indie game.
Have you ever wishlisted a game, checked on it a few months later (it's still not out) then a year later it comes out and you're too busy into some other game, price points change, reviews aren't great and you consider to maybe buy it when it goes on sale.
I'm not going to lie, as a game consumer and new to my game dev journey, I would say that the price is too high for Song of Iron if a player can get to what they feel is the majority of the content in 2 hours. If I paid $20 for it and felt I did everything in 2 hours, I would probably refund it as well. That seems to be an issue of not respecting the players time. If I were to play an indie for 2 hours and I didn't think the value was there, I would return it. If I only played for 2 hours, but paid $5-10, I would consider it as something I would keep because I could see myself possibly revisiting it in the future.
If you look at the comments in the reviews, there seem to be a bunch referring to the feel of the game, the controls (which was touched on in the video), and that you should buy it on sale. That tells me there are some intrinsic issues with the game and gameplay as well as the price is set wrong. I think people will forgive some things if the price is right and it is fun. If they feel they got ripped off, then they will refund. So I do think there needs to be some realistic expectations on the pricing when it comes down to how much the player is getting out of it at the end of the day. Not to bash this dev, I think it is a learning experience for everyone. I sincerely hope Song of Iron 2 does well for him.
Wishlists don't gurantee success!
Big fan❤
Well yeah I wouldn't remember a game I wish listed a year ago
This is why i am keeping my 6 figure coding job working for the man.... yah it sucks to work 40 /hrs a week but its remote and it pays the bills... game dev on the side...
Make good game and players will buy it
Sorry but even if I sold 40k units at 5 per unit I'd have enough money to consider it a success
You need to humble yourself you even managed to break 10k mate
That's big money for a solo developer in todays age and your complaining....
I WISH I had that many sales
This is a joke Thomas right?
Good video hope you guys keep up the good work. you give money to the government.
as a gamer, i think its silly and a waste to obsess so much about wishlists and reddit top page and refund rates and first 20m etc.
i think that stress and effort would be far better invested in making your actual game better
looking at the reviews and price, it's obvious it failed because it wasn't particularly good, and people had hightened expectations from the visuals and price no doubt
and yeah i reckon that if you make a properly good game, then people will come, and it will snowball. if you launch a shitty game but if it can be improved and you keep making it better and less shit, then again i reckon players will naturally find you.
Looks like a really damn good game!
I'm seeing many many elements that I myself would have used.
Especially if I were creating a Sidescroller.
Castlvania: Mirror of Fate (PS3) players would enjoy this.
Let’s go
This isn't going to be as easy for those with families, BUT... if you are single and a solo dev. Or even a small group of single guys/gals.... LEAVE THE WEST, if your goal is to work fulltime on your game. SE Asia is a good option. But for all things holy, do not stay in North America, or Western and northern Europe. Go somewhere, where your funds will stretch further and help remove financial stress.
Thomas, are you worried about the 3D Realms association negatively impacting your upcoming game? Their recent releases have been very poor and the brand is damaged due to a lack of quality control.
Interesting interview ruined by ridiculous visuals and sound effects. Did you ask an AI to find the most generic stock video and then pop up with random words with ridiculous sound effects? Are you targeting 3 year olds?
60% of all you make as a dev goes to taxes.
Just quick feedback, those transition swooofs and stuff gets really annoying :D Too much editing man
Why are you so surprized? Its a platformer
Second Comment!
I am here for the interview. I want to see your and your guest face. Stop using stock footages. Save your money on somewhere useful.
This guy has botted he's reddit post.
I might unsubscribe after this video I think your great Thomas but this guy the sheer amount of disrespect coming from a guy that sold 40000 copies of his game.
But is literally talking like he sold 1 copy.
Comes across very snobby, almost like a kid who didn’t get everything they wanted for Christmas.
Great artwork but gameplay looks janky. Guy should be thankful he had the connection at Xbox. He should be grateful he sold even one copy in a time where people are struggling. Definitely won’t be wish listed.