cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37741347
Post content:
More than 10 years ago we started creating Planet Centauri, a 2D sandbox with terraria as main inspiration.
We released the EA many years ago and this is our start just before the 1.0 release :
103 400 units solds
138 675 Wishlist
the sells seem incredible but it’s not with so many years behind, when you work for 10 years and have to paid many people helping you with the ten of thousands of monsters frames animations and thousands of pixel art items, you don’t have much left on your wallet at the end.
So we were eager for the release of 1.0 because with so many wishlists, the game’s visibility would be good, we would appear in the new and trending categories due to sales, etc…
The 1.0 happen in december 2024… we sold… 581 units in 5 days.
The game didn’t even appear on page 2; we were invisible; the release was a total flop. And we never understood why until today.
We just received this mail from Steam
Steam Launch Wishlist Email Issue
Hi there, We found a bug that impacted a very small number of game releases (less than 100 since 2015) where wishlist email notifications for the launch of a game were not sent. Unfortunately your game Planet Centauri was among those included. We intend for this feature to work for every game and we’re inviting you to a Daily Deal as a way to help make up for lost visibility from your launch day.
It’s incredible to win the lottery like this: 100 games impacted in 10 years out of the 86,000 games on Steam. And to reward you, we’re giving you 24-hour visibility (which is nothing special; there are 6 slots available for this visibility every day of the year for various Steam invitations).
I don’t even have the strength to be angry. We’ve been so frustrated, disgusted, and in total confusion . Now we know, we understand better, it’s unfair, and we can’t change anything. We’ve started a second project because it’s financially impossible to continue patching our game, and we’re moving forward, because it’s the only thing to do.
This article was my way of expressing my anger, I guess, but also to see all the problems that a platform holding 99% of the PC gaming market can cause when the cogs don’t work as they should.
Have a nice day everyone, may luck be better to you
Comments
And to reward you, we’re giving you 24-hour visibility
(which is nothing special; there are 6 slots available for this visibility every day of the year for various Steam invitations).
He has no clue what he’s talking about Steam in 2021 had 69 MILLION daily active users. WTF do you think is a bigger number 130.000 wishlists or getting even 1% of 69 million people to look at something in the reel?
People don’t understand the size of steam or the value of that space (that one of six slots) sometimes. It’s wild.
And also, THEY noticed, THEY informed him, THEY apologized, and THEY offered some form of compensation, which they legally don’t have to.
I am soooooooooooooooo tired of indie devs blaming everything from the constellation of the stars to the quality of the donuts on a different continent for their game not doing well, except that maybe the game isn’t that good, and also those 100.000 already sold units is the actual size of the market for that game.
And the numbers are ridiculous - 100 out of 87000 is ~0.1% - I’m sad that this dev’s project got kneecapped on release, but Steam is making things right here. An actual asshole move would be to have said nothing and done none of the things they’re doing now to make up for the loss. The 24 hour visibility boost should have been a bit longer though. Somewhere between 3 and 7 days sounds better.
Either way I hope the dev team recoups their losses and more with the millions of eyes that their game gets now.
Yeah but if other games where affected as well then they also have to give time to those ASAP, plus they also have their regular commitments for those Daily slots and they can’t delay too many of those without kneecapping another dev who wasn’t even yet involved.
Maybe the idea is that 24 hours is enough to build the momentum and if it does well then it’ll stand on its own within the ecosystem (move up sales-based listings, reviews, etc) and the remaining promotion will be attained organically?
Insufferable much? you clearly lack the skill of discernment, painting exceptions with the same brush makes you no better than some neckbeard armchair quarterback. OP doesnt follow your clearly axe to grind shitty opinion.
found the indie dev
Cmon, most indie devs don’t deserve that
Username checks out.
Thing about wishlist is, I treat it more as a “Games I found vaguely interesting at first glance” rather than a “Games I want to play” list. I assume I’m not alone in this matter. Of 214 games on my wishlist, there’s like 3 I’d play right now if they were gifted to me. 2 that I’d buy. So, assuming 1% of people who wishlisted a game will buy it on launch, that would have been 1368 sales (rounding up). Assuming the game cost 20$ at launch (it currently costs ~14$), that would be 27360$ from launch day sales. Nice payday, but not if you have to work 10 years to get it (also taxes and steam’s cut, so that number would actually be much lower)
Thing is, just because you worked hard on something doesn’t guarantee that it will be good and/or popular.
I don’t have a source in hand but I thought I read somewhere that devs calculate 10% of wishlist so as actual buyers since a lot of people do it your way.
Which would mean they missed out on 12400 sales. Not negligible for a game that sold 100k total.
I know that is a terrible blow and it sucks. However in this corrupted age you have to admire that valve acknowledged its error where any of the main players would have just kept it quite.
Valve continues being the goat. The benefits of being a private corp with a service-minded CEO.
Once gabe goes, it’s all over.
Try not to become too dependent on the corporation.
I dunno about that, I’ve heard Gabe already appointed a successor himself. And I doubt he would pick one that would undo his good work.
Lenin warned everyone against Stalin and tried everything he could to push him away from power. Stalin still took its place
The fun part about shitty people is they can be really good at pretending not to be shitty if it means they can be extra shitty down the line. Its a trope for a reason.
Companies are never your friends.
I check my email for info on wish list games approximately never.
I find it useful. They send an email when a game on my wishlist goes on sale. When it’s a steep discount, I’ll take another look at the game.
I have games on my wishlist from 2015. Almost a decade at this point.
My wishlist exists more to let Internet friends know what to get me when they feel like it.
Said this on /c/gaming as well but
I have no doubt that this bug played a part in their sales… However… The game was in early access for a decade before it actually released in 1.0. This was the 1.0 change log:
Changelog 1.0.0 - 12 december 2024
Adds:
- Guidance system: uses the completion tree to display objectives and help the player to progress. The guidance system can be disabled in Game options.
- Option to change the direction only when moving with the keyboard (player is not facing automatically the mouse)
Changes:
- Quests and dialogs with the crystal have been removed and replaced by the guidance system
- Worm transformation is always visible
Various bugs fixed
So to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that that launch was much of a launch to begin with… While the bug definitely had a part to play, I’m not sure this would have sold anything in the first place. It’s a terraria clone that was dragged through early access for a decade before launching in a way that doesn’t actually feel like a launch.
No, you’re wrong. Every wishlist is a guaranteed sale on launch day. When people see that number tick from 0.5937.5 to 1.0, they can’t help themselves. It doesn’t matter if they wishlisted it 10 years ago and forgot the game exists. The trick is, they have to see it on launch day in an automated email. Otherwise the sale is lost for good. Literally every true gamer knows this.
No a wishlist is not a guaranted sale. We had 213 wishlist and 12 sales on launch.
Do you think your game would have sold better if you were better at picking up on sarcasm?
I think the other guy was being sarcastic.
That’s around 5%, assuming the same performance for 130k it’s 6500 copies
Also it had consequences such as
The game didn’t even appear on page 2 ; we were invisible
Many devs will incrementally update the early-access versions to be close to 1.0 before release. 1.0 doesn’t have to be a massive update, it just signifies the point when the devs think the game is complete.
This was not one of those situations though. Every reddit thread talking about this game has a ton of people who were playing at the time or after launch and all saying that it’s just a poorly done game.
I got it when it came out and tbh… it’s just not very good. I think a big reason games in the indie world become well sold is because of positive word of mouth (Balatro, slay the spire, vampire survivors etc) and this one was just… not good. I wouldnt recommend it personally. Source
That whole thread is filled with people talking about the state of the game before launch of 1.0 as well as the launch. Also some very good points about the weakness of their financial choices if they ended up broke at the launch of 1.0.
While I agree that the changes for 1.0 don’t look like enough to make it a full release, a lot of gamers categorically refuse to buy a game in early access and wait for the 1.0 release for the “full experience”. Nobody can say how many sales would have been generated.
Valve offers somewhat high visibility for a very short time as compensation. That doesn’t cost them anything and is very disappointing. Refund of some of the paid fees, or a discount for the players out of Valve’s pocket doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.
Yeah but this game was in early access for a decade. A decade. That’s giving me star citizen vibes, except in this case the game wasn’t popular.
a lot of gamers categorically refuse to buy a game in early access and wait for the 1.0 release for the “full experience”
I refuse to buy early access games just because if they sell enough, the devs won’t complete the game and it’ll be stuck in the “10 years in development” -phase
Early access works when it means the developer wants to craft the game around player input. Satisfactory is a good example, baldurs gate 3 is another.
to be fair, save for the length of time in dev (feature creep?) that is how early access was supposed tow ork
I would agree if not for this. This is a list of all of the things that they promised in early access that they would add to the full game. Guess how many of these things are there?
How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version? Here is the list of the features that we still need to implement:
Themed dungeons | Biomes: post-hell | Biomes: sky | Technology | Vehicles & Mechs Grapple hook / ninja rope | Modding compatibility | God Saucer (minigames area) Tower of 100 challenges | Themed parallel dimensions | Fluid dynamics Biomes: oceans | Fishing | Programmable robots | Wiring | Pipes | Thunder Fire (buildings can catch on fire etc.) | Achievements / Game encyclopedia / Compendium Temperature | Gas dynamics | Dynamic buildings (build your ship)
Do that many people rely on emails for that?
I do, constantly.
No, most people have email notifications disabled (like me). That 24h visibility boost will do way more than wishlist mails ever could!
If we’re going to just random spout unsupported opinions based on our personal preferences, that 24 visibility boost is completely useless, because most days I open Steam and go to my library without even looking at the store.
My steam is set to always open the library. I only go to the store if I want to buy another game. My library is full of games I have not played yet, so there is really no point in adding to that list unless I’m playing something with friends on a LAN party or something.
how tf would you know this? what data could you possibly have access to that no one else does
Seems like an open and shut case for a lawsuit
Why was there no mention from Steam that they have belatedly sent out the emails? Were the people who wishlisted the game still not notified? This is no way to fix a issue.
This is going to sound weird but I never actually get Steam emails, outside of receipts. Maybe I disabled them years ago. And I wishlist/follow hundreds of games.
Uncertain if I’m a unique edge case who hates email clutter or not.
Link to their steam? I’ll buy it
Pressing X to doubt on this one
You should meet my friend, Sue…
