Know Your Market Making Indie Games that Sell
Erik Johnson Infinite Monkeys Entertainment Background
2 Background
3 4 5 Why Does this Matter?
● It’s not all about the money • But being able to pay your rent is nice ● It’s about having realistic expectations
6 Make Something People Want
7 Selling Indie Games on Steam Right Now
8 Techniques
9 10 Steam Reviews
● Purchase Type ● Steam Purchasers ● Other ● Language ● Positive / Negative
11 Boxleiter Method
● Players ~= Reviews * 50 ● 95% interval is 17 to 158
12 Resources
● Steam Reviews - store.steampowered.com ● Steam Spy - steamspy.com ● Is There Any Deal? - isthereanydeal.com ● Steam Charts - steamcharts.com ● SteamDB - steamdb.info
13 Trends & Factors
14 Quality
“Just make a good game!”
15 Quality - Life Goes On
● Awards include: ● PAX 10 Selection ● Famitsu Magazine Gold Award ● 96% positive Steam user score ● 77 Metacritic ● Significant quality bump from Done to Death update
16 Spearman’s rho = 0.31 17 18 rho = 0.44 19 Genre
Or: Should You Make a Puzzle-Platformer in 2018?
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Rogue-like City Builder AcAon RPG Metroidvania Puzzle-Pla-ormer
Multiples of Estimated Median Revenue22 Visuals
● Graphics and art define a game’s first impression ● Visuals really matter to a lot of players
23 24 25 26 Visual Distinctiveness
● Michal Trněný’s masters thesis research: ● Used machine learning to predict market success from a game’s Steam store page ● The average saturation and number of distinct colours of a game’s screenshots were one of the top factors in predicting success
27 Tone
Does the Steam audience prefer darker and grittier games?
28 29 rho = 0.45 30 40
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Multiples of Estimated Median Revenue! for Games with ESRB Ratings31 25
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Dark Crime Colorful Lovecra;ian Dark Fantasy Family Friendly Survival Horror Puzzle-Pla4ormer
Multiples of Estimated Median Revenue32 Playtime
● Long average playtimes are surprisingly valuable! ● Contributing factors: ● Seeing what your friends are playing ● Steam’s discovery systems ● Streamers playing a game
33 34 rho = 0.55 35 rho = 0.55 36 Streaming – Player Response
● YouTube and Twitch are huge ● But value isn’t universal
37 38 39 Multiplayer & Community
● Can a community get involved? ● Level editors, mod support, leaderboards? ● Do your players spread your game? ● Multiplayer?
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Moddable Level Editor Team-Based 4 Player Local Online Co-Op Puzzle-Pla4ormer
Multiples of Estimated Median Revenue41 Takeaways
● These are only broad trends to consider ● But you should be aware of them! ● Are you making something that people want? ● Is it a fit for the marketplace?
42 What About Targeting a Niche?
● Yes, find an audience that wants what you are making! ● Be sure it is big enough to meet your commercial goals ● Is your niche saturated?
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0 Puzzle-Pla/ormer Programming
Multiples of Estimated Median Revenue45 It’s Not About Cloning
● This is not the path to success! ● Lots of room to appeal to the market creatively
46 Be Aware of Market Trends
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Rogue-like City Builder AcAon RPG Metroidvania Puzzle-Pla-ormer
47 Questions to Ask
● Are there recent examples of successful games in your genre? ● Have you looked at unsuccessful games in your genre?
48 Epilogue for Life Goes On
● We’ve continued to support the game ● Localizations have helped a lot ● Constantly looked for opportunities
49 Learn More!
● The Clark Tank on YouTube ● SteamProphet.com ● The Co-Optional Podcast on YouTube
50 Thank You!
● Twitter: @erikejohnson ● Reach out, I’d love to talk!
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