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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogs2018.07.07 Boss 101 and into the future!
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Author Topic: 2018.07.07 Boss 101 and into the future!  (Read 88228 times)
SunWuKong
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« Reply #460 on: July 07, 2018, 11:57:10 AM »

Hey all, this is Tim (one of the Boss 101 devs).

Want to help support the Boss 101 team and see Boss 102? YOU CAN!

Short version
Purchase it on Xbox One: http://bit.ly/2J0o14A
Purchase it on Steam: http://bit.ly/2u0Rnes
Help with the Boss 101 translation project to bring Boss 101 to more regions: http://bit.ly/2zifhaf
Already have Boss 101 or don’t have the money? Spread the word about our game!

Long version
Thanks for your purchase of Boss 101. Whether you bought the game during a sale, when we launched or somewhere in between WE THANK YOU! It's been a crazy, wild ride getting to this point and we are so grateful for your support.

As you may or may not know, Boss 101 didn't exactly set the sales world on fire and due to this we are having to take a VERY hard look at our situation for future games. There is no plan to roll up the tents and leave town just yet but we have to scale back the production on games like Boss 102 until our financial situation stabilizes a lot more. At the moment we are all either looking or have extra jobs to help pay the bills. Things like sales and giveaways, while increasing our visibility, don’t really add a lot to the bottom line.

In the end – it’s about funds. We simply cannot go forward at the rate we have been burning our capital. At this point we would need to sell many more copies of the game to stabilize. We’re sitting at well under 3000 shipped copies at the moment across all platforms.  Many, many of those were sold at a low or sale price (under $15/each) so even that number is deceiving.

When Boss 101 launched in November 2017 we sold the majority of ALL SALES TO DATE in the first three launch hours. This is exactly when we were on the front page of Steam. We were off the front page in about 3 hours and sales took a nosedive. In fact. If you total up all the money made after those first three hours (including console Boss 101 sales) we still haven’t matched that dollar amount. If a person had taken a job at Starbucks last November they would have made more money by today than all Boss 101’s sales. Take our profits and split it across three people over four years and you can imagine where we stand with our savings.

Boss 101 is the game we wanted to make and it was made with NO COMPROMISES. We made it as much for you as for us and we made it with our own money. Every time we felt there was something off, we adjusted it. Every time we thought something didn’t look good enough, we made it better. More animation, levels, weapons, hats, story. Everything serves one purpose, to entertain and give you the best value.

So here we are at the end of four years. Feeling great about the game itself but a sad we didn’t get the word out to more people. I know about one million ideas might be going through your head so let’s address a few of them. We want you on the same page as us after all.

What about a publisher? They could give you money and help with localization, translation, porting, marketing, etc!
We pitched Boss 101 to nearly every publisher that would listen. Letters, videos, gameplay, you name it. We offered as much as we reasonably could in terms of deals. Most publishers did a hard pass and a few did soft passes with “well, maybe next time”. We tried this route – believe us. Sure there might be more publishers out there but we did look long and hard!

What about YouTuber (insert name) or this awesome reviewer (insert other name) or what about (insert new name)!?!?! I just know they would love Boss 101!
We sent out nearly 1000 copies of Boss 101 to reviewers, YouTubers, media outlets and as many people as we could find. If they even looked like they might like Boss 101 they got a letter and a copy. In the end we had so few bites we didn’t even register on MetaCritic (you need four ‘verified’ reviewers to get a score). We even offered to partner with people to increase visibility by doing fun hats or promo things with them to promote Boss 101. Not one single returned mail on that idea.

What about Kickstarter? Crowdfunding? Etc
We never wanted to go this route. The goal was always to bring YOU the game FIRST and not ask for money until we had a solid product to deliver. We had seen so many failed crowd funded projects with bad time estimates and vast overpromising. We wanted to work at our own speed and unleash Boss 101 when the time was right. In the end that might have bitten us in the butt. At the same time we feel we did the right thing in MAKING the product before we SOLD the product.

Can’t you just port it to Switch, PS4, Ouya, Atari Jaguar? You would sell a TON OF COPIES!
Well, that is really about time and money and we just don’t have those resources at the moment. The game was always intended to go to console and if the fine folks and Microsoft hadn’t placed us in their great Indie Development program we might never had been on any console. Porting is not a press button affair and each iteration of the game on every system takes time and bug testing. We are three people (only one of us is a programmer). Boss 101 took nearly five months of work to bring to Xbox. We got those dev kits via the ID Xbox program. If we had to lease Switch Dev kits or PS4 or any other console we couldn’t do it easily.

Can’t you just translate it to Japanese, German or (insert language)? I bet it would sell a ton in (insert country)?
Same problem as above and maybe worse. Boss 101 has a TON of idiomatic expressions. It’s way more than a Google Translate away. It would take a lot of time (there is more dialog than you might guess). To top it off all the characters speak in particular ways that would best be handled by a pro. Again – this is time and money. Of course – that would also mean the insertion of all the new language text into the game via a system we don’t really have at the moment since Boss 101 is an English based game made primarily by English speaking people.

We DO have an option to bring the game to various regions and languages though! See the Boss 101 translation project here: http://bit.ly/2zifhaf

What can I do to help!?! I want to see Boss 102!
Simply put – we need to sell many more copies.

First – if you have bought the game – THANK YOU. You have done so much already. If you have not bought the game we would ask you continue to support us with recommendations on anywhere and everywhere. It means a lot to have a good rating or “Thumbs Up”. If you really don’t like the game or feel it’s not your thing fair enough. Sadly some of the negative reviews seem to amount to little more than “Good game but not my thing – THUMBS DOWN”. Haha. We always hope we are rated for the goals we set as much as the fun you had. Still – you opinions are you own.

If you bought the game on sale or won it in a contest – THANK YOU AGAIN. We are so glad to have you here and thank you so much for playing Boss 101. If you could recommend us or point a friend our way that would be awesome. Heck, if you want to gift Boss 101 to a buddy – please do! If you want to help with some Boss 101 Store translations then please check out the translation project (http://bit.ly/2zifhaf).

Streaming, posting, blogging, V-Logging, reviews and everything in-between all help us raise awareness and ideally bring in people to see and purchase Boss 101.

We’re hoping to continue to make more games and Boss 102 is at the top of that list. To do that we will need not only your support but the support from as many friends and fans as possible. We think the game is great and we want to see it succeed. We know it’s not for everybody yet we feel there is a player base out there. If you can help us – we would greatly appreciate it. Regardless, we’re hanging in there and bringing you our best!

Thank you and always remember to LIVE YOUR DREAMS!

-Tim

Boss 101 - Out Now
Xbox One: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/boss-101/9npzfzx1zf66
Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/380920
Please check it out if you would be so kind!


« Last Edit: July 08, 2018, 09:57:01 AM by SunWuKong » Logged

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« Reply #461 on: February 06, 2022, 07:26:45 AM »

Reading this makes me really sad. Great devlog, you guys poured heart and soul in the game, but it wasn't enough, the moment wasn't right perhaps.

I think that the game has potential and there are a lot of new publishers and stores that the game is worth pitching to. Remember that Among Us was more or less a flop until something magically happened.
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Ramos
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« Reply #462 on: February 06, 2022, 07:59:40 AM »




I really have no words, I remember seeing your dev blog years before, was wondering what happened to this project.

Truly I am sorry for the situation surrounding your project, I will do my part and share your game, and thank you for sharing this with us, must be hard.

May I ask how many wishlists did you had before you released the game and how did you make those 1000 Youtuber emails(aka custom list or downloaded already made list from the internet)?

Also do try porting this beauty to Nintendo switch, many publishers take care of both marketing and porting so you do not need to invest anything.


Best of luck & my sincere respect, I hope you return to game dev.  Gentleman

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« Reply #463 on: February 06, 2022, 10:37:33 AM »

I agree, i believe this game can have a great second life on switch. Try eastasiasoft, they are a great publisher.
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Alain
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« Reply #464 on: February 06, 2022, 11:41:36 PM »

Thank you for sharing your experience with Boss 101, SunWuKong. It is really sad to hear the sales did not go as well as you hoped. It is still a beautiful piece of work and I hope you and your team can figure out a financially stable way to continue working together.
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SunWuKong
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« Reply #465 on: February 14, 2022, 10:05:06 AM »

Reading this makes me really sad. Great devlog, you guys poured heart and soul in the game, but it wasn't enough, the moment wasn't right perhaps.

I think that the game has potential and there are a lot of new publishers and stores that the game is worth pitching to. Remember that Among Us was more or less a flop until something magically happened.

Hey there and apologies for the delay in the reply. Boss 101 (and a possible sequel) will always be a hope for us. I (Tim) have spoken with the team in the last few months and we all have very fond memories of the development and still love the final result. Can something still happen and Boss 102 get made? Sure - there is always hope but at this point there isn't a lot of forward momentum. Personally (and this is only MY opinion) it would take more than us willing it back into existence. Without getting into the gory details and telling sad stories let's just say it took a few years to financially stabilize after Boss 101 and Zazmo Arcade.

I really have no words, I remember seeing your dev blog years before, was wondering what happened to this project.

Truly I am sorry for the situation surrounding your project, I will do my part and share your game, and thank you for sharing this with us, must be hard.

May I ask how many wishlists did you had before you released the game and how did you make those 1000 Youtuber emails(aka custom list or downloaded already made list from the internet)?

Also do try porting this beauty to Nintendo switch, many publishers take care of both marketing and porting so you do not need to invest anything.


Best of luck & my sincere respect, I hope you return to game dev.  Gentleman

Thanks alot. A few answers -

All the Youtubers/Influencers/Possible publishers were hand picked based on their channel's content. We scoured websites, channels and various sources to find people we felt would be interested in our content. We then branched out from there to similar "feeling" people in close genres.

As for Wishlists, I don't have the number offhand but it was a good amount. I do recall thinking that if 10% of those who wishlisted would have purchased we would have done decently. That, sadly, did not happen.

Nintendo switch was always a top option for us but our attempts to contact Nintendo directly (via their main and indie developer channels) as well as MANY porting houses all yield exactly zero interest and no returned emails.

Appreciate the troubleshooting and things definitely have advanced since we finished Boss 101. The terrain is different for indie publishers and perhaps if we were shipping now things would be better. It's hard to tell and there is a lot of speculation.  In the end, we did our best and have no regrets about the final product - the only regret is we ended up in a situation where we had to switch development gears.

I agree, i believe this game can have a great second life on switch. Try eastasiasoft, they are a great publisher.

See the comment above. It's possible eastasiasoft is a new lead so thanks for that. One thing to remember is all the work we did was figuratively 'packed up' about three years ago. That doesn't mean we can't bring it all back out for a new publisher but it does mean all of us had to take on jobs other than Boss 101/102 development. We are all now in different places and positions and the company is basically on pause. I don't say all this to sound doom and gloom but to paint a clear picture of the situation.

Thank you for sharing your experience with Boss 101, SunWuKong. It is really sad to hear the sales did not go as well as you hoped. It is still a beautiful piece of work and I hope you and your team can figure out a financially stable way to continue working together.

Thank you! We basically went our separate ways (job wise) we are all still in touch but we are not a game development group at the moment. For me personally that is the biggest tragedy of making these games. Having such a great and talented group tegether and seeing bright future that didn't quite pan out as we hoped. It's totally fine in the end and that is just one of those life moments. What is the saying...... "Don't be sad it's over, be glad it happened!"

That is how we feel and that is OK!

-Tim (SunWuKong)
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