Here are some stats:
- The game has sold a total number of five copies so far. Three of those were to good friends and one to someone I know on a forum. Exactly one sale has happened to a complete stranger.
- According to Analytics, the game's website has been visited by about 3400 people.
- I estimate that the demo's been downloaded about 100 times.
- There have been two formal reviews, two YouTube videos, and three other articles about it. Reactions have ranged from the very positive to the pretty negative.
All in all, I expected it to be much harder to convince anyone to write about the game, but I also expected it to sell at least a little bit. It turns out my expectations were off, but why?
Two ground rules: this is an attempted analysis, not a begging letter. I'm not complaining about my lack of sales to guilt-trip you into buying a game you otherwise wouldn't have. Also, I'm well aware that the null hypothesis is simply "the game is terrible". Contrary to what you might expect, if the problem is simply the quality of the game, the fix is "straightforward": make a better one next time.
This matters because while Patent Blaster was a quick project that came out of a silly idea, I'm now again working on Space Exploration: Serpens Sector. I've been working on it since late 2007, and while I can stomach Patent Blaster failing easily enough, selling exactly one copy of SE:SS would be pretty depressing.
The reason I'm writing this now is that in the week since the release of the Patent Blaster House Update, there has been a review and a YT video about the game, both of which resulted in exactly zero visitors to the site. In total, two thirds of site visitors have come from Reddit, with some significant numbers from Twitter, IndieDB, and forums.
There's about 35k people on r/IndieGaming. Rounding up for other subreddits, forums, news sites, etc, this means my efforts have reached about 50k people. Of those, 7% visited the site. Of those, 3% downloaded the demo. Of those, 1% bought the game.
Possible reasons:
- PB is simply a terrible, awful game that no one wants to buy. The only confusing thing about this theory is that a fair chunk of the people who played a review copy really liked it.
- While the game isn't awful, there are free games that are just as good or strictly better. Trying to sell PB is perhaps akin to trying to sell instant coffee at a stall for 50 pence when there's a stall to the left that's giving away instant for free and one to the right that sells delicious lattes for 2 pounds. I'm comparing myself to the stall on the right, thinking that my price/performance ratio is about the same, not understanding that you can get the kind of thing I'm trying to sell for free.
- While the game is OK, it's failed to find a core audience that loves the game and spreads word of it. There are no "You should try Patent Blaster" posts in random internet fora. No one is excitedly telling their friends about this cool game they need to play.
- The $5 price point is simply too high. I can fix this easily enough by dropping the price, though that can only work so far. Still, it's possible that the game would sell fine at $3 or $1.
- Something about the game's presentation is off: maybe the site leaves people confused, maybe the topic leaves people cold, maybe the way I describe in in words and images doesn't click with anyone.
What can I do to try to up sales for PB?
- Lower the price point.
- Try ads to get people to visit the site. Each visitor so far had a 7% x 3% = 0.21% probability of buying the game (not that you can really do this kind of math on a single sale). This makes each visitor worth 1 cent. If I can get more than 100 visitors for a dollar of ad spend, the game turns a profit. This is a bit doubtful, but worth a try.
How do I prevent the same thing happening to my next game?
- PB's graphics were intentionally lo-fi, but this didn't lend itself to exciting-looking media. I can make SE:SS look really pretty.
- PB's core gameplay is the kind of thing you can get pretty much anywhere. SE:SS is a Star Control-like game, of which there are far fewer.
- It's going to be many more months before SE:SS is done, perhaps giving me time to show off the game and find some people who are really excited about it.
Thoughts? Other explanations?