Hmm... I don't see anything wrong with what you're doing by reading that article. And having a lot of C2 games rejected is expected from my point of view. When you have an engine that is powerful and easy to use by anyone as C2 you'll have a lot of stinkers (no offense to anyone please). Your game looks absolutely great. Indie game dev is not an easy job these days unfortunately.

Oh it's not the rejection of many that is depressing, it's the floundering of the few that are in all respects, great games of their genre.

OddConfection

Thank you very much!

I had a bad exp with bundles for Star Nomad, IndieRoyale included it in their Greenlight bundle without informing me, a week AFTER it passed Greenlight by itself. It was selling on Desura for a few months before that and IndieRoyale is a part of Desura. Long story short, they went bankrupt and owe me a lot of $$. Not only did they gave away thousands of keys for peanuts with their bundle when I didn't need it or even knew about it, they ran away with every indie dev's $$ who sold their games on Desura...

No more bundle shenanigans this time.

C-7

The Next Penelope also did not do well according to Aurel, he had hope it would do much better. Honestly I thought that game if any, would be a success. It's amazing in production, looks fantastic, plays very well.

If there's anything one can gather from player feedback (which I've read a lot lately), they definitely prefer indie games that have a lot of replayability. I think its understandable, because big AAA titles can get away with fancy graphics, for indies, we have to focus on gameplay and part of that is replayability, it increases the perceived value of our game a lot. So while an indie game can be brilliant, but if there's low replayability (for a shorter game), its unlikely to do well on Steam. Mobiles is a different matter, there its more about consumable entertainment, so being good is good enough.

What are you doing wrong? I don't really get the numbers in the article. My game was launched on greenlight without any kind of marketing. Heck I didn't even share it on my social networks and I got more visitors and yes votes than they got with the help of the Dare to be digital expo the first days.

So I don't know if they tracked their traffic or just guessed it came from the expo

And if you need more visitors at some point join a bundle. Your game is great and with the votes from the bundle owners you'll get greenlit in notime

Good luck!

Most of these guides are always the same, its ALL about marketing.

Well for starter I don't have a social media group or used it to generate a following. I used it more as a news, when greenlight starts. I don't attend any expos because I prefer to work on my game. I've spent nothing on marketing because I think that a good game can market itself. Also my Greenlight page is pretty bland..

Really nice mobile games you guys have going there, excellent art style for the market!

Looks great and ambitious. I'll give it a thumbs up on Steam. Good luck!

Thanks mate, I'll need all the luck I can get!

It's pretty depressing reading the news of other great C2 games not doing so well on Steam.

This was a great read, just stumbled upon it on Gamasutra Twitter! Really sorry about the sales tho.

The markets are very saturated and we need to make crazy good games to really stand out. "Good is not enough" is a brilliant way to put it. Also, I think we need to be prepared for failure and simply push on even after failing.

Not everyone makes it.

Aurel

Made a great game, an excellent one, one of the best of that genre, The Next Penelope.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/332250

All positive reviews, I bought it and enjoyed it. But last I heard it was not a commercial success for him as he had hoped.

This is nuts because survival horror clones are making a killing...

I don't understand, is that just want gamers want these days?

I never really thought about all these things, especially marketing, when I think about being a gamedev, its always about making my own dream game, something that I want to play.

It's very sad to hear such bad news:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DanielWe ... n_2015.php

Airscape is held in very high regard by almost every gamedev who uses C2.

It seems you did everything "right", great marketing, lots of showcases at game expos, awards, even some very nice let's play from big name stars.

I don't even know what lessons can be learnt from this.

byondisoft

kelbiiz

PureDesoro

Thank you guys!

I'm reading up some marketing articles and stuff on r/gamedev, like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/commen ... ow_we_got/

and apparently I am doing it all wrong. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad">

Looks really cool so far, are you planning on making it into a full blown game?

OddConfection

That's a lot of great tips!

Great job. Voted as well

Thanks mate! Much appreciated.

I am sorry to say it, but I am starting to regret I've had chosen C2 instead of Unity or GM... Yes, I've earned more then the cost of C2 and learned important procedures, but I simply can't see it as a future option.

Everything is great (the software is easy to use, the community is great, the updates are fast and fix or bring new functionality) until you get to export your game and you are disappointed that a simple 2D game can't run smooth on anything (from smartphones to medium-high PC) no matter how much you optimize them, you can't get constant 60fps for a simple 2D game.

I'm not sure why you would think that.

Even a low-end PC is capable of running most C2 games smoothly at 60fps.

I'm pegged at 60fps constantly in mine.

I mean there are FLAWS its not perfect, for for PC, certainly NW 10.5 and 12 are pretty smooth & fluid.

On mobiles, with iOS8 WKVWebView, it's pretty smooth too.