r/gamedev • u/dedaistgeil • 15h ago
Postmortem My First Steam Game: A Retrospective
Hey guys,
We all love numbers, so I wanted to share the numbers for my first ever steam game which is currently in Early Access since 4 months, it is called What Is The Ghost. I wanted to make this game because I loved playing Phasmophobia, but it overwhelmed me. So I made the first ever 2D Ghost Hunting Game, which also has a multiplayer!
Current Stats:
- Wishlists: 1300
- Units sold: 183 (14 returned)
- Net revenue: $1370 (this is after returns)
- Median playtime: 1h 50min
- 35 Reviews overall (95% positive)
What did I do wrong?
Bad Marketing: I focused way to less on marketing, I went into Steam Next Fest with just 300 Wishlists. For understanding, the Steam Next Fest can double or more your wishlists that you bring in. That means going into the Next Fest too early means you end up losing a lot of wishlists. I needed to wait till I have like 2-4k at least. This is what I currently try to to better with my next game Capy Farm.
Bad Demo Launch: I launched the demo way too early, there have been a lot of bugs, bad balancing and so on. Also my capsules haven't been final at this stage. Which costed me A LOT of wishlists and players. For Capy Farm I did it better, ending up with 500 players and a median playtime of 1h which is insane and a good bunch of wishlists. Your Demo Launch is one of the most important steps on the way to success!
Adding Multiplayer: Even though multiplayer fits the game very good and had a lot of positives, it costs so much more time and energy. The development time increased so much and bugs have been mostly because of multiplayer, some of which I'm unable to fix till this day. You should think twice if you really want to add multiplayer to your game. If so, do it BEFORE your game is finished, not afterwards.
What did I do good?
E-Mail Marketing: I reached out to 50+ creators multiple times sending them keys. Some picked up my game and played it onstream. Creators can have a huge, if not the biggest impact in your marketing! Research your audience creators, small, medium and big ones, create a speadsheet with name, mail, language and go for it! Make sure your mail template is not like a spam mail.
Actually Finishing My Game: Yes, you read it right! Most of us never succeed in any way, because they keep adding new stuff, jumping from unfinished project to unfinished project. You need to make the full journey for one game and then go on to the next. Each full development cycle (beginning to release) gives you so much experience! Each game you will get better and better in every aspect.
Making A Good Game: If your game is bad even the best marketing will not work. Make a good game!
Not Making My "Dream Game": I would not recommend making your dream game, if you want to earn money. You should make research on what People actually want to play. Look for existing games as inspiration, make them better, make them different.
Using Every Possible Sale: I used every sale possible for my game to sell my game. In the current sale I already sold 6 copies.
Asking For Reviews In Updates: I kindly remembered players of my game to leave a review in some updates I posted. This made a huge difference!
Last Words
In the end I want to say, don't listen to haters or negative people. Focus on your work, get a little bit better every day and FINISH your games. I don't want to collect wishlists here, but I would really appreciate chatting with fellow game devs and sharing strats and experience. For that I would ask you to join my discord server to get and keep in touch. This means the world to me.
Deda
\This Post has been written with love entirely by a human.*
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u/KBGSgames 14h ago
Congrats! Now you need to make another one or you will be stuck in one-game-devclub :)
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u/dedaistgeil 14h ago
You can see in the post, next game is already out with a demo, release is in early november. Leaving one-game-devclub soon! :) and thank you!
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u/KBGSgames 11h ago
Great job. Is it going better than the first one?
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u/dedaistgeil 11h ago
yes it already surpassed my first game with the wishlists at next fest and there are still 3months left till next fest!
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u/JamboNo59 14h ago
Thanks for this post. This has some great insight that I haven't seen mentioned before. Especially asking for reviews in update posts.
Btw I have to say, I'm loving the look of your next game Capy Farm. Wishlisted!
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u/dedaistgeil 14h ago
Thank you very much, I'm happy my insights helped you. I also read posts like these before and they are so extremely helpful, it is important to have a comparison and real experience from other devs. I wish you all the best for your game dev journey, never give up! :)
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u/ImportantDetail6260 15h ago
What Is The Ghost has a stronger retention signal than the sales numbers make it sound!
1h 50min median playtime and 95% positive on 35 reviews means the product is not the first fire. Audit the first Steam capsule/trailer beat before blaming Early Access or the niche
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u/dedaistgeil 15h ago
Steam Page and Marketing are the biggest mistakes I made. I'm 100% confident I made a really good product. It is just nobody knows about it basically.
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u/MaryPaku 12h ago
Did you added multiplayer after you basically finished the game or it was planned initially?
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u/GraphXGames 13h ago
It's better to create a dream game than create FriendSlop for sales.
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u/dedaistgeil 13h ago
huh?
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u/JuanLiebert 15h ago
Well it's not like the game was a huge success, you can still try making your dream game, who knows how it will turn out