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[AtkinsSJ]

Firstly, apologies if this is the wrong place to put this. It seemed a better fit to put it here than in Playtesting. Also, I hope it's not considered spam, as that's really not my intention.

My first commercial game, F!shing, has been out for a couple of months now, and has sold a grand total of 7 copies across Desura, Google Play, and Itch.io. I've had over a thousand views on Desura alone, but that only produced 2 sales there. Is that a normal ratio?

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. (I'm sure I'm doing something wrong...) Is it too expensive? Are the trailers horrible? Is my art just awful? Was it a terrible idea to make an arcade game? I'm too close to the game to be able to tell between actual problems and my own insecurities, so any feedback from you fine folks would be appreciated.

My instinct is that the game's not worth anything and I need to add more stuff, but I'm worried I might be trying to put lipstick on a pig.

[joseph ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

-There isn't a good sense of 'feel' or polish in the art -- there's a lack of feedback and everything looks floaty (ie, not super engagingly fun.) Lots of awkawrd 1frame animations and weird not-lerpy motions. For an arcade game based on feedback, that's problematic.



-I'm not immediately clear on what's valuable about the game watching your trailer -- is it singleplayer or multiplayer? what part of the experience is supposed to be compelling? What's the 'hook' -- is it controlling the intertia of your boat? Why can't I zero in on that? Does it relate to a lack of feedback as I mentioned above (splashes, wake, etc)?

-Exposure is necessary to get eyes on your game. What's your web traffic like? What % buys? Is it a good or a bad conversion rate? Have you been contacting press? How big is your press list?

- 3.99 seems like an immense price, but I don't know how much content is in the game. If there's content to justify it, why doesn't the trailer highlight it?

ps: congrats on finishing and releasing a game, you should be proud of that even if it doesn't bring in that indie dollar.

[Müsta Klaki]

It just doesn't seem fun and the price-point doesn't really reflect something a person will get maybe 10 minutes of cheap enjoyment out of.

You can get long (hours of gameplay) games with nice graphics, gameplay, a storyline, lore etc. for 10-15 dollars. That's extremely common.

I don't mean to offend (I'm being honest), but your game seems more like something that would be 99 cents or even free on the mobile marketplace, just a small game somebody worked on to make a quick buck or to simply get exposure (if free).

The art is alright, but the angles are weird. The trees and grass/weeds reflect the angle of the camera, yet the body of water is perfectly flat, as if you're directly above it.

I just don't think there is nearly enough content to justify the price-point.

[bombjack]

The colors are very flashy.
It looks more like a cheap free game than a 3.99 priced one.
You'll probably have better result making it free with ads.
Keep motivated! It's rare that such a first game really makes money.

[AtkinsSJ]

Thanks for responding so quickly, guys. Not the easiest things to hear, but I needed to hear them.

Firstly, I've cut the price. Desura won't let me go below 1.99 in any currency, but it's 99 cents on Google Play, or 99p on Itch.io.

I wanted to have more going on, more effects and noises and things, but I've ended-up not doing very much of that a all. I'll give that video another watch Catguy, and see what I can add.

I have been working on an update with more content. Even then, the game is pretty shallow though - you play a game with a random set of things in a randomly generated lake, then you get a score.

Some of the art does need work, which is my own fault for not spending enough time on it.

So, plans:

• More effects and sounds that react to what you're doing
• Do something about the art, so it fits together better, with more frames of animation
• Add some more content
• Put more effort into contacting press
• Try and make a trailer that puts the game in a good light

I don't expect it to sell well even then, because as you all say, it's my first game, and it's too much of a short, throwaway thing. It was supposed to only be a quick little thing as a practice run, but that was several months ago.

Thanks again for all your help!

[erebusman]

Welcome to the world of thousands indie developers releasing mountains of (insert quality level X here) products in to a market place with very poor discovery tools and low-to-no curation.

Also welcome to the red herring chase of advertising your game. You will read many articles how you have to advertise, and spend as much time building your social network and advertisement network for your game to succeed as you do programming it.

I also have a game on Desura and it's not selling very well either:
http://www.desura.com/games/pirates-jewels-ii

I suspect in part because Desura is not really a casual game portal like Wild Tangent or Big Fish but in any case the sales are incredibly low.  I've sold considerably more copies of similar products on iOS and Andriod and Wild Tangent.

Your game also appears to be casual in nature. It's possible your putting it in places that have the wrong audience.

My gem games do a LOT better on mobile than they do on Desktop; even though I produced Pirates Jewels II specifically FOR desktop hoping to take better advantage of graphics and desktop resolution for a better game play experience it just doesn't sell well in that market place.

I do think your art is "polished" in one sense .. but it does look like it needs a pass of refinement to make it "pop" more.  I hate even saying that, but in your case despite being polished it looks a little 'flat'.

Don't freak out is my strongest advice.  You actually made a game. That's a huge achievement. Even if it never sold a copy you have made a gigantic that many people (even quite a few on this forum) will never achieve .. you actually finished and shipped it.

Rovio (The guys who made angry birds) made 51 games before Angry Birds. (see wikipedia article here)

Don't have unrealistic expectations.  Your first effort is often going to be mediocre in many respects.  Enjoy your achievement and start understanding development is a journey. You just made the first stop, congratulations.

[Muz]

My dumb instinctive response to this:

Desura's kinda amateurish. Indie is good but much of Desura is amateurish. You need to polish a lot more to get me to buy something from Desura.
The site colors mean rejection from the start, whether or not it's paid.
Colors make it seem like a children's game.
F!shing is not a catchy name.
"fast-paced fish-flinging arcade game" is not a sales pitch that turns me on.
Trailer doesn't look fun. If you have to put captions, the gameplay isn't selling itself. Also I almost never view trailers, they're only if I'm on the fence or if the screenshots look deceptive.
The tiles and theme look rather lazy. If the graphics are lazy/unpolished, chances are the gameplay is too.

Sorry but dumb instincts determine whether something buys or sells.

My tips:
Dump the game. If you don't feel it's worth anything, it's harder to get others to like it. If it can be salvaged, you'll be defensive about it.

Focus marketing efforts on one medium. Don't spread it out. Sales are determined by how high you rank. If you're getting #100 on a Google Play search, you've failed. If it's #20-#50, you still have a chance. If it's over #20, your sales improve drastically. I'd bet that getting #1 sells 3 times more than #2.

So it's better to focus your marketing resources. I'd only do several channels as a marketing technique. Like if someone saw the same game at Desura while browsing Play, they'll be more likely to click it.

[joe_eyemobi]

I agree with all of the above responses.  My recommendation would be to go back to the drawing board to design something more compelling, then bring back the reworked prototype to the Playtesting forum to get honest feedback.  You also need to consider who your target audience is.  I would say casual gamers - so later you'd need to market it as such.  I don't know anything about the casual PC market though.