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
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’m the same way. I’ll periodically prune it, but most of the games there have been there over a year. If the game goes on a really good sale, I might get it, but I probably won’t.
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.