4 ms·

Is it though? Show me a good Steam game that isn't selling well.

stolenmerch 4y ago
That's difficult to evaluate since "good" is subjective. So is "selling well", to be honest. I assume you mean a game that is reasonably finished and polished and not simply shovelware, but still not getting the sales to be profitable. There are tons. 30 games drop on Steam everyday. Just sort by new and see all the games that any little indie studio would be proud to release but have few sales.
ancapsfascists 4y ago
Hellion.
- cridenour 4y ago
  This game? https://store.steampowered.com/app/588210/HELLION/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/588210/HELLION/ Looks like it sold incredibly well and was abandoned by the developers and is no longer for sale. A weird example.
  - ancapsfascists 4y ago
    It failed to sell well enough to recoup expenses.
    - mach1ne 4y ago
      4,000 reviews suggests sales numbers of 400,000, which is huge.
      - ancapsfascists 4y ago
        They sent out a notification that development had stopped, but they were still selling the game for half price. This resulted in huge review bombing.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Even 40 000 sales is still decent for an indie game?
    - 0xRolex 4y ago
      It IS subjective. For a game of its kind it can have sold realy well yet not have sold enough to make up for a poor management and way too big of a debt. It wouldn't change the reality of "it sold well" but still validate "it didn't sell well enough"
larsiusprime 4y ago
Easy: Among Us, for the many months that it toiled in nearly complete obscurity to the point of the development team nearly giving up the ghost and quitting, until one specific streamer picked it up and gave it the critical mass attention it needed to go absolutely huge. Had the developers had slightly less resources and shut down the servers before that crucial moment it would have never happened, even though clearly Among Us is a fantastic game in retrospect. Quality is necessary but not sufficient for success. Also: a while back, I wanted to empirically test the "any good game will succeed on steam, and if it doesn't succeed, it isn't a good game" hypothesis by setting up a little metagame called "Steam Prophet". We would track upcoming steam games and try to predict which ones would succeed BEFORE they came out. We eventually disbanded the project when we got so reliably good (but not perfect) at predictions that we got bored and quit. Turns out that just a few leading metrics were incredibly predictive of day 1 (and thus day 30, day 60, and day 90, and year 1) success -- chiefly the number of followers the game had on Steam on launch day. It is a rare game indeed that can succeed on Steam without first having banked tons of high quality wishlists (of which followers is a public proxy metric for). The spirit of Steam Prophet lives on today in the form of Simon Carless' Game Discover Co newsletter, which obsessively follows upcoming and newly released Steam Games: https://gamediscover.co/ https://gamediscover.co/
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  The problem with Among Us is that it's an online game. Meaning you need a certain amount of actual people playing it before it's fun. So it's a chicken or egg problem; it's not fun without players, players won't join if it's not fun. Most good single player games do well.
  - anon84873628 4y ago
    In other words it's a game dependent on network effects, which definitely makes for an uphill battle. You _have_ to go viral.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  What was Among Us' marketing strategy like? Most developers have very little understanding of marketing, and are very hesitatnt to pay for good marketing services. Here's something most people won't tell you: the majority of online marketing is paid, either explicitly (i.e. you pay Google) or covertly (i.e. you "bribe" an editor at Forbes to feature your article).
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
I've seen many. Wuppo didn't sell well until it was called out by an algorithm as the most underrated game on Steam or something like that. Of course, "good" is very subjective. I personally don't think the most popular games are any good.

That's difficult to evaluate since "good" is subjective. So is "selling well", to be honest. I assume you mean a game that is reasonably finished and polished and not simply shovelware, but still not getting the sales to be profitable. There are tons. 30 games drop on Steam everyday. Just sort by new and see all the games that any little indie studio would be proud to release but have few sales.

ancapsfascists 4y ago

Hellion.

cridenour 4y ago
This game? https://store.steampowered.com/app/588210/HELLION/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/588210/HELLION/ Looks like it sold incredibly well and was abandoned by the developers and is no longer for sale. A weird example.
- ancapsfascists 4y ago
  It failed to sell well enough to recoup expenses.
  - mach1ne 4y ago
    4,000 reviews suggests sales numbers of 400,000, which is huge.
    - ancapsfascists 4y ago
      They sent out a notification that development had stopped, but they were still selling the game for half price. This resulted in huge review bombing.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Even 40 000 sales is still decent for an indie game?
  - 0xRolex 4y ago
    It IS subjective. For a game of its kind it can have sold realy well yet not have sold enough to make up for a poor management and way too big of a debt. It wouldn't change the reality of "it sold well" but still validate "it didn't sell well enough"

larsiusprime 4y ago

Easy: Among Us, for the many months that it toiled in nearly complete obscurity to the point of the development team nearly giving up the ghost and quitting, until one specific streamer picked it up and gave it the critical mass attention it needed to go absolutely huge. Had the developers had slightly less resources and shut down the servers before that crucial moment it would have never happened, even though clearly Among Us is a fantastic game in retrospect. Quality is necessary but not sufficient for success. Also: a while back, I wanted to empirically test the "any good game will succeed on steam, and if it doesn't succeed, it isn't a good game" hypothesis by setting up a little metagame called "Steam Prophet". We would track upcoming steam games and try to predict which ones would succeed BEFORE they came out. We eventually disbanded the project when we got so reliably good (but not perfect) at predictions that we got bored and quit. Turns out that just a few leading metrics were incredibly predictive of day 1 (and thus day 30, day 60, and day 90, and year 1) success -- chiefly the number of followers the game had on Steam on launch day. It is a rare game indeed that can succeed on Steam without first having banked tons of high quality wishlists (of which followers is a public proxy metric for). The spirit of Steam Prophet lives on today in the form of Simon Carless' Game Discover Co newsletter, which obsessively follows upcoming and newly released Steam Games: https://gamediscover.co/ https://gamediscover.co/

Mikeb85 4y ago
The problem with Among Us is that it's an online game. Meaning you need a certain amount of actual people playing it before it's fun. So it's a chicken or egg problem; it's not fun without players, players won't join if it's not fun. Most good single player games do well.
- anon84873628 4y ago
  In other words it's a game dependent on network effects, which definitely makes for an uphill battle. You _have_ to go viral.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
What was Among Us' marketing strategy like? Most developers have very little understanding of marketing, and are very hesitatnt to pay for good marketing services. Here's something most people won't tell you: the majority of online marketing is paid, either explicitly (i.e. you pay Google) or covertly (i.e. you "bribe" an editor at Forbes to feature your article).

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

I've seen many. Wuppo didn't sell well until it was called out by an algorithm as the most underrated game on Steam or something like that. Of course, "good" is very subjective. I personally don't think the most popular games are any good.