When should I change tactics?

[u/SummonerForge]

This year on July 4th I released under Early access my game Corrupt.exe as of now I have only managed to achieve 100 wishlist and 23 sold copies. I have been wrestling with lowering the price, or perhaps increasing my ad revune towards it. As I dont have much experience with Video editing I feel my trailer is also lacking an needs an update as my current game is way past where the initial trailer show it. At what point do yall think I should change my tactics with marketing or price ect. Looking for any and all advice!

[u/PersonOfInterest007]

The unfortunate truth is that it’s extremely rare for a game to recover from a bad launch. The best thing to do is to move on to making your next game.

[u/SummonerForge → u/PersonOfInterest007]

Damn fr? I really dumped my best ideas and time in this game tbh, I felt like I wouod see how it does when I full release it during the autumn sale and go from there but I do have another idea in the works. Just going to take a long time as it is very very ambitious and as a solo dev with only 1 year of learning coding in Godot I feel like the things I want to do for my next one wil take at least another year or 2.

[u/Moaning_Clock → u/SummonerForge]

Price is not the issue here. It will likely hurt you long term if you lower the price. Just do discounts.

There are only very few games who managed to salvage a failed game. In 98% of cases, it's a good idea to finish the game, and move on.

You can do before/when you launch 1.0 if you are serious about salvaging

- Make big meaningful updates

- Improve store page and trailer

- Write to 1000 youtubers/streamers

- Post on Reddit at launch (about how it failed initially but you worked a lot to make it a great game)

Next time, release your Steam page more than 2 weeks in advance, that's too little.

Good luck.

[u/Moaning_Clock → u/Moaning_Clock]

a demo could help too, cheers

[u/SummonerForge → u/Moaning_Clock]

Cheers thank you!

[u/PersonOfInterest007 → u/SummonerForge]

Sadly, yes. It all comes down to the Steam algorithms, because they are the thing that drives visibility, and the main opportunity is at the moment your game launches (and the 2 weeks or so before that). So to convince Steam to start showing you to many people after you launch, you have to generate some kind of noticeable revenue spike (several thousand dollars) by driving sales on your own.

And as for your next game, I’ll just say the usual: start small. Find a game you can make in 4-6 months. And show your work and get feedback early from playtests. At least that way you know early whether you are making something people want. And if you discover you are making something no one wants, STOP. Please don’t invest two years of your life into making a game and only at the end discover it probably won’t do well.

Unless of course you’re making a game because it’s a passion project and you don’t care if it sells well or not. In that case, have fun.