Are these the starting signs of a failing project? Thread

Hi,

I'm still working hard on my first game, which is gradually nearing completion. But despite early interest on social media and views through websites, forums etc, I'm finding that the interest from people seems to have drastically slowed up over the last few weeks, this is after various blog updates, new screenshots, videos and even a demo being released.

The thing I don't understand is that the videos had a good number of views, but the demo that followed has had hardly any downloads. I promoted the fact it was coming out through social media and various websites a week before it's release and obviously when it went live and even since. I could understand interest lowering if loads of people had tried the demo and decided they didn't like the game, but I can't understand that people aren't even bothering to try the demo. It's really confusing and quite depressing after so many hours of work that gamers don't even want to give it a go.

Is this just the way it is that unless a screenshot of a game looks AAA people are put off straight away? But then I assumed at least regular indie gamers would be at least curious to give it a try. Is it just normal for a demo not to get that many downloads if your not well known? Or is this a sign that the games failed before it's even been completed?

Any advice would be great.

Thanks

Matt

Edited by: M4347

It seems like the IndieDB site is not your main place to advertise the game. Which site is it? Which social media platforms did you use in what way? A game obviously does not need to be AAA to have a successful marketing campaign / release start. You did a mistake in the advertisement somewhere, but it's hard to tell you where, if you only post the IndieDB site, which has nearly no fans accumulated.

Best wishes,

Kjell

Edited by: iqew

Thanks for the reply, I've been using mainly IndieDB as the site, mainly as I can host all the things about the game. But I've been quite active on Twitter and Facebook talking to other devs and gamers, often posting updates on there with screenshots/videos etc (often linking to here for more info, as well as youtube). I've also been using Unity forums, reddit, indiegamer forum and various other sites to spread word when I've had an update or any new content to show off. Quite a lot of time was spent on forums and social media to try and start building interest about my game, but maybe I'm just not very good at that media/pr side of things then.

M4347 wrote:

Thanks for the reply, I've been using mainly IndieDB as the site, mainly as I can host all the things about the game. But I've been quite active on Twitter and Facebook talking to other devs and gamers, often posting updates on there with screenshots/videos etc (often linking to here for more info, as well as youtube). I've also been using Unity forums, reddit, indiegamer forum and various other sites to spread word when I've had an update or any new content to show off. Quite a lot of time was spent on forums and social media to try and start building interest about my game, but maybe I'm just not very good at that media/pr side of things then.

What numbers are we talking about? How many people saw those post and liked it? Showing content around does not automatically lead to new fans. Your IndieDB page has only 4 watchrs and under 2000 views. Most projects have > 100.000 page views and a couple hundred watchers before they release a demo. Building a fan base takes a huge amount of time, speaking of many months here, but it's possible as an indie developer. Give fans sneak previews and teaser every now and then and publish news updates regularly to form a habit within your community to check for updates on your site. Do not give up right now, keep the IndieDB page up and continue to publish updates. Spread the word and think of ways to interact with your fans to bind them even further to your project.

Best wishes,

Kjell

Edited by: iqew

Pretty much the numbers you've said are correct, the demo has only had about 12 downloads, I was just expecting that to be a little higher. I got a message from Twitter saying the tweet I posted with the link in had had more than 320 views, and on various forums the posts with the link to the demo have mostly had 50-80 views each. Still small numbers I know, but I just assumed out of those it would have got more than 12 downloads. Then again I'm quite new to all this and the game hasn't been going all that long so maybe I just had no idea what to really expect.

Thanks for the advice on what to do, I will keep working on the game, and I'll try as you suggest to get into a more regular update pattern.

Cheers

Matt

M4347 wrote:

Pretty much the numbers you've said are correct, the demo has only had about 12 downloads, I was just expecting that to be a little higher. I got a message from Twitter saying the tweet I posted with the link in had had more than 320 views, and on various forums the posts with the link to the demo have mostly had 50-80 views each. Still small numbers I know, but I just assumed out of those it would have got more than 12 downloads. Then again I'm quite new to all this and the game hasn't been going all that long so maybe I just had no idea what to really expect.

Thanks for the advice on what to do, I will keep working on the game, and I'll try as you suggest to get into a more regular update pattern.

Cheers

Matt

Those numbers do not surprise me at all. Only a very small percentage of the views convert into downloads, that's absolutely normal. Keep this info in mind for further advertisement. That's why you need a lot of views and that's why wide audiences are always the target for bigger games. It's a simple numbers game.

Best wishes,

Kjell

Making a game is a craft for which you get better at the more you develop.

I'd look at this as progress, not a 'sign' of a project starting to fail.

The name's cool. The art direction looks interesting. Looking forward to seeing the game become more refined.

I think you're on a great start.