Image Source - Falmouth Online University Canvas
This week we have been asked to get warmed-up for market analysis. We have been asked to research two indie games and perform a case studies or post-mortem on each. If possible, find one business that performed well financially, and one with disappointing sales numbers. Where the information is available, please summarise what the developers felt they did right and wrong, what their game’s budget was, and how much revenue they made.
We are allowed to search Google, Gamasutra, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter and beyond for data points. We are then to share our response in the forum, and comment on two other posts.
For this activity I have chosen to analyse Oath to the Stars and Papers Please. I will start with the former as this one didn't perform well, and after 2 years of development sits with just 20 reviews on Steam which are mixed. For my research I used Gamedeveloper.com where there was an in depth interview and review with the developer of the game.
Oath to the Stars:
Created and Published by Himeki Games, the game is about being left for dead by her closest friend and comrade, Hoshiko is now looking for revenge. The game is a SCHMUP genre and relies heavily on manoeuvrability and player reflexes. The game was completely self funded because the developer wanted to keep 100% of the rights and creativity of the game without external input. The game had a 2 year cycle in which the developer did NOT work another job as had previously quit his job to do this full time. The game had a budget of roughly $80,000 according to his blog which can be found here https://himekigames.tumblr.com/ which did not include his living expenses and day to day costs.
The game was initially greenlit on Steam back in 2018 where everything had to be voted on to get onto the steam store. This was a huge turning point for the developer which got him a lot of interest and wish list's of the game on Steam. The game was chosen as a SCHMUP shooter as it was a niche audience and this was also doable within his small budget. It was also because of his fond memories playing games like Dodonpachi, and Ikaruga, so the developer always wanted to make one.
The developer went on to say that just because you like a specific genre, doesn't mean you will like working on it. He likened it to being 10% game dev, and 90% everything else.
Publishing & Promotion:
The developer underestimated the amount of work there was in doing this all alone and has said that in hindsight, if he could go back and do it all again, this would be something he would do differently. He would 100% go and use a publisher for the next time around because of the help they provide with marketing. The developer the reflects at the end on that overall he is personally happy with the results of the game despite it not being successful. This was because it was his first game that he built from scratch and from the ground up. No assets and no one to help him. He doesn't regret going the long route and taking two years to produce the game he has done and is now taking steps to rectify this with his second game. The game is still receiving updates and has promised it will get better overtime.
Papers Please:
Created by Lucas Pope, Papers, Please tells the story of a border patrol inspector at a contentious check-point, where people are coming into your booth, and they want to get from one side to the other. You've got to check their documents and make sure everything's in order before you let them through. The premise is simple enough but your actions have consequences. Papers, Please had a development cycle of 9 months with what is described as a "simple" budget on reserves leftover from his time at Naughty Dog. Lucas wanted to move away from the definitive formula of game making and explore ideas and stories on his own.
Papers please went on to win the below awards as well as having multiple online influencers such as Jacksepticeye & Markiplier play the game which ultimately got the game greenlit on Steam within days. Overall the developer felt that they made the right decisions on marketing the game and supplying keys to online influencers to help publicise the game. Overall, with just looking at the 500,000 copies sold on steam alone minus Steam's 30% the game has looked at making £3.5 million in revenue which is almost all pure profit. The game went on to release on other avenues such as Playstation Vita and Mobile.
◉ Best Game of 2013 → The New Yorker
◉ Best Game of 2013 → Wired Magazine
◉ Top Indie Game 2013 → Forbes Magazine
◉ Grand Prize Winner → IGF 2013
◉ Best Strategy & Simulation → BAFTA 2013
◉ Best Game of 2013 → Ars Technica
◉ Best PC Game of 2013 → Destructoid
◉ Best Game of 2013 → PC World
◉ GameCity Prize Winner → GameCity 2014
◉ Cultural Innovation Award → SXSW 2013
◉ Excellence in Design Winner → IGF 2013
◉ Excellence in Narrative Winner → IGF 2013
◉ Best PC Game → LARA Game Awards 2014
◉ Best Story of 2013 → Destructoid
◉ Best Game of 2013 → Patrick Klepek
References used: https://store.steampowered.com/app/594820/An_Oath_to_the_Stars/
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/postmortem-of-my-first-indie-game
https://attiliocarotenuto.com/v5/
https://himekigames.tumblr.com/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/239030/Papers_Please/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26527109 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papers,_Please
Lecture 1: This week the first lecture discusses many topics such as gaps in the market, channel solutions and how we take these games to customers, what games we should make and the models around this. Firstly we discuss the importance of game development to us as an individual. Do we want to make games as a hobby and have no pressures on making money? Do we want to make this a solo start up and make this our sole business and make a living from it, or do we want to go higher scale and really make massive profits and turn it into an indie company studio?
For me, I would want to do this solo and make enough money to pay for my life style and still have a good amount of money left over to fund my other ideas. I tend to have a niche area that I focus on which is Horror, but I have recently started to branch out and explore other areas as I feel it is negative to box myself into one genre. So the first question I would like to answer is:
According to Derek Yu, there needs to be an intersection of games I want to make, vs games I am good at making and games I wished existed (but don't). I like making horror games and I am good at making games that contain suspense, and for a game that existed that doesn't, is more of a Call of Duty Horror esque game but with non traditional visuals. Something that you would think didn't belong together. I've looked at the market and haven't found anything close to what I have in mind.
Listening to Erik Johnson from Infinite Monkeys, discussed good sellers on Steam, and he theorises that Steam users prefer dark and grittier games. For example the top 100 games on Steam were all dark and gritty with a couple of exceptions such as Rocket League and Cuphead. This means, my initial decision to design something dark and gritty seems like a good choice as it also has the twist of looking different from traditional dark and gritty games.
A lot of the factors that I have thought about are discussed in the GDC Talk with Erik Johnson and I will be referencing this throughout the course and my development log. I am also interested in the Wishlisting statistics Erik Johnson discusses Simon Carless' method for working out Steam Sales through wishlists. The main reason this interests me is because of the amount of people I see making games who mention wishlisting their games on Steam. This is really eye opening to me because I never thought Wishlisting would have been such a popular and important thing to do with Steam. Looking at the below it is evident that Wishlisting can play an important part in your first week of sales, but to ensure a decent amount of revenue is made from this it is important to get as many eyeballs on it as possible.
The Boxleiter Method:
Looking at the above data it is important to see why incorporating the methods discussed by
Simon Carless and Derek Yu should be thoroughly researched before making a game and publishing on Steam, especially if you are out to make money. There are 5 core factors affecting Steam sales and these are all ways that can really affect your bottom line.
VAT, Returns, Regional Pricing, Discounts and Steams 30% cut. The figure above looks at the $22500 made and then only seeing a return of $7419 to the developer. If you have a team of people as well, that is even less. These figures are also on the reasonable end, so if your goal is to make more than this, making the games YOU want to make become even less of an option and you should be aiming towards market trends more.
Week 2 Challenge Activity - Lean Canvas
For our final challenge this week we were asked to come up with a lean canvas board to help with identifying some key aspects of our business and to get some insight into what we should be thinking about. I started off with problems which can either be business related directly however you can also go indirect and make the problems about what the customer wants solved. I then focused on my unique value proposition in which I describe about how the games I make are simple, fun and transport you to a world where you can be and do anything, a belief I feel, that most companies have lost along the way. Especially within the AAA game industry.
I then wanted to focus on the customer segments paying special attention to the top psychographic segmentation. This is because I feel that this demographic is what my game will mainly target audience wise. I also hypothesised that my channels that I will use to get to the customer will mainly be inbound, so lots of targeted Facebook ads and Instagram ads which I also detailed in my cost structure, and online influencers that I know and can rely on for support.
Reflection: This week I have found the lectures (videos) rather depressing.
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