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AppGameKit Classic Chat / This guy made a lot of money releasing cheap games on Steam

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2017 17:40
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Quote: "I just want to detect if two objects overlap without this automatically triggering a physic reaction."

And I do that in my game all the time. So if it doesn't work for you, you are either not doing it right or you want it to work in a specific way.
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2017 17:42 Edited at: 2nd Nov 2017 17:42
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Here's a Steam plugin made by adambiser:

https://forum.thegamecreators.com/thread/220819
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PSY
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2017 19:32 Edited at: 2nd Nov 2017 19:33
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Yeah, can't wait to give it a try
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basicFanatic
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2017 21:35 Edited at: 2nd Nov 2017 21:38
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Digital Awakening, maybe you're talking about 2D, not 3D? (But if you're not, you're more than welcome to post an IF [two objects collide] code, garnished with whatever snark remark you find appropriate.)
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PSY
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2017 22:42
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this is going totally off-topic
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basicFanatic
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2017 23:32
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Offtopic??? I said I personally felt that other areas needed more attention. I think that's on topic, even if it changes the angle a bit.

Still, looks like there's now a plugin that adds some of them Steam features, so happy ending?

While I don't personally like achievements much, I think they can be pretty fun if some thought were put into them. Zaccaria Pinball has a total of 2476 achievements, and unlocking a certain number gives you new tables to play at. On the other end of the spectrum, a game could have a single, hard-to-reach achievement. Or an achievement could require some secret task, randomly generated for each player.
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PSY
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 02:22 Edited at: 3rd Nov 2017 02:23
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I was, ofc, referring to this:

Quote: "
Digital Awakening, maybe you're talking about 2D, not 3D? (But if you're not, you're more than welcome to post an IF [two objects collide] code, garnished with whatever snark remark you find appropriate.)
"


...
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basicFanatic
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 07:40 Edited at: 3rd Nov 2017 08:24
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Yeah. Admittedly, the whole sub-thread spawned by my initial post has crawled further and further up its own hiney. I'm sorry about that.

Steamie stuff might be part of what made Bit Blaster XL a success. But still, lots of games have achievements and stuff without selling well. So what more can be said about the success of Bit Blaster XL?
After reading the article, I noticed this comment below it:

Quote: "I actually DO own these games, though to my shame, I’ve never played any of them. It’s just that when they a game in my steam recommendations is on sale for fifty cents, it’s kind of hard to resist. I know it’s a bad habit, but hopefully basically harmless."


I think a crazy low price of £0.99 and going for sale for £0.49, which seem to be the lowest allowed by Steam. Also, the soundtrack is a free DLC. Some Steam reviews of the game mention £0.39 sales, but maybe they got it wrong? Can only see £0.49 sales here:
http://steamsales.rhekua.com/search.php?term=Bit+Blaster+XL

I counted a total of 91 reviews marked as "Received the product for free", splattered almost evenly throughout the review history. (I said "almost", because strangely, there was only a single one in the early days between January and May 2016)
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Supertino
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 08:32
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I don't think it's safe to look at sales\units sold of any $1 or less game on steam that launched prior to trading card rules changing (May 2017), there was a whole hullabaloo around bot farming trading cards, where shady developers would release an asset flip on steam give hundred of thousands of keys away free to bot steam accounts who will bot farm the trading cards then sell them and each sale of a trading card would give the dev a kick back of a cent or two and after a while and over multiple games this turned into a money farm.

I am in no way saying that xl baster dev was one of these (he's clearly not) but I have to wonder how many shady types bulk bought his game/s when it was discounted to 25c or less just to bot farm cards for profit.

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basicFanatic
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 08:49 Edited at: 3rd Nov 2017 10:08
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(another offtopic bait deleted)
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PSY
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 11:35 Edited at: 3rd Nov 2017 11:43
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Quote: "Yeah. Admittedly, the whole sub-thread spawned by my initial post has crawled further and further up its own hiney. I'm sorry about that."

No prob. Sometimes, people just get carried away. Happens to everybody. No worries ^^


Quote: "Steamie stuff might be part of what made Bit Blaster XL a success. But still, lots of games have achievements and stuff without selling well."

True, but
- Those games would have performed even worse without achievements
- Most people love achievements. Some of them will buy your game because they like your achievements. Others will buy your game because it has easy achievements, so they can get one more perfect game or increase their average game completion rate. Still others will buy your game so they can show off with rare achievements
- Valve love achievements. They encourage devs to implement them. I bet games w/o achievments perform worse compared to games w/ achievements, when it comes to search inquiries


Quote: "I think a crazy low price of £0.99 and going for sale for £0.49, which seem to be the lowest allowed by Steam. Also, the soundtrack is a free DLC. Some Steam reviews of the game mention £0.39 sales, but maybe they got it wrong? Can only see £0.49 sales here:
http://steamsales.rhekua.com/search.php?term=Bit+Blaster+XL"

The lowest price you can set in SteamWorks is 0.99$
However, when it comes to special sales ( Winter Sales, Summer Sales, Halloween Sales etc. ), you can set discounts between 10% and 90% (!)
Low prices don't guarantee big sale numbers, though.
What's important is that your game reaches the right people.


Quote: "
I counted a total of 91 reviews marked as "Received the product for free", splattered almost evenly throughout the review history. (I said "almost", because strangely, there was only a single one in the early days between January and May 2016)"

I guess he just didn't give out a lot of free keys during the early stage, because he thought that wouldn't be necessary. Later on, he gave away a bunch of free keys to boost the sales and the reviews


Quote: "I am in no way saying that xl baster dev was one of these (he's clearly not) but I have to wonder how many shady types bulk bought his game/s when it was discounted to 25c or less just to bot farm cards for profit."

Got an email from a Russian guy some days ago, asking to buy wholesale my game, talking about 100k units. The game only costs 0.99€, and it's coming up for 0.49€ during the sales this year...
That's exactly the kind of shady you were talking about


Cheers,
PSY
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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 13:20
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Sad to hear it's not doing as well as hoped.. I've my doubts the conversion rate problem is a by product of achievements though, it'd certainly help if players in the market expect them, but solving the invisibility issue seems more important matter. Which is the real issue with these stores, which boils down to getting more quality eye balls playing the game to begin with..

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Supertino
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 14:00
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I am not so sure steam has an invisibility issue, not to get to much into it as I don't know if steams allows us to but a game I posted on steam a little under 4 weeks ago has got almost 800,000 impressions but that's only resulted in a 1% click through rate to my store page, is that normal? i don't know? should I improve my game description and/or images to get more people to click through? maybe. Compare that to itch.io stats which is 41 store page visits (it does not collect impression rates).

Thanks to adambiser addon I'll be adding Achievements this weekend and it will be interesting to see if visits\impressions increase as a result.
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2017 17:03
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basicFanatic:
Sorry my bad. You didn't say it was 3D and I only had 2D in my head I still think of AppGameKit as a really good engine for making 2D games.
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basicFanatic
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Posted: 4th Nov 2017 18:57 Edited at: 4th Nov 2017 18:57
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Oh, it was just THAT? Curiously enough, I started out by saying that "It feels like we're existing in entirely separate universes" Turns out that you were in the 2D universe, while I was in 3D...
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basicFanatic
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Posted: 6th Nov 2017 10:40
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One thing I notice about Bit Blaster XL, is that it seems tailored specifically to the impulse buyers: Cheap price, even cheaper on sale. The game is simple, and he is just a regular fellow who made a game. Even though the price stays the same, the content being presented as not all that big a deal makes buying it an easier decision. Another thing is the honest and personal style, which I think is great marketing. He talks directly to the potential buyer, and even ends with his full name, like if he was writing a mail to someone.

The trailer has a cut every 3rd second, making sure that the viewer sees enough to be intrigued, but not enough for him to have it truly revealed. The trailer reminds me a bit of the visual overload of various gambling such as lottery tickets or slot machines.

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Supertino
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Posted: 6th Nov 2017 11:42
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@basicFanatic - short games that you can complete in a 1-2 hours sold for a dollar likely do very well on steam. I'd be happy to drop a dollar on a game I know I can complete in a 1 or two sessions. I've been thinking about a short game series similar to my Elf Adventure and Lunar escape only with a load more polish. That's my next direction in the new year, though it all hinges on my current steam games generating enough money to fund some custom art\sound.
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antjohns
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Posted: 8th Nov 2017 23:30
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I'm having problems with collision too.
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Ancient Lady
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Posted: 12th Nov 2017 22:53
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Quote: "but doesn't AppGameKit support plugins?"

If you program in Tier 2, you can add any library available for the platform that you are working in.
Cheers,
Ancient Lady
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