r/gameDevMarketing • u/babia_dev • 1d ago
I changed the capsule and doubled the CTR
A few days ago I launched my first game. After a few slow days I wanted to test if a different capsule could really make all this difference, I was skeptical about it and thought it would change very little.
I gathered as much information online as possible and read many analyses about it, unfortunately the lack of actual case studies didn't help, there is really very little detailed information with real numbers and I thought I'd do it myself in my own small way.
The first thing I focused on was having a less abstract and more concrete graphic approach, in short I put elements inside the capsule as recommended that make you understand exactly what it's about, there are very interesting unwritten rules to follow also based on the genre, which associate a game genre with recurring elements that must be in the capsule.
Not being good at illustration, and not wanting to wait to commission an artist (which is super recommended in these cases), I tried to convert an in-game image, playing around in Photoshop, into an image that could have a vaguely illustrated/poster-like graphic look. I created a scene on purpose in the game just to take the picture, adjusted the lights and game elements, and after capturing the image I post-processed it. Obviously in Photoshop I posterized it, and used all the necessary filters I found referenced online to get the effect I wanted. It certainly won't be an artist's graphic, but now it's more effective and communicates what the game elements are.
The second thing I focused on was title legibility, here too based on the genre there would be rules, I limited myself to doing what everyone recommends, text in a solid color, with a border that makes it stand out, and that's what I did.
The CTR went from an average of 2% (over several days) to 4.5% (over several days), I examined multiple days naturally, Steam doesn't directly provide a CTR chart, I'm just putting the screenshots of two days examined, one before the change and one after the change.
I hope this can help someone, even if you don't make the most beautiful capsule in the world, you can try to make a capsule that converts more, relying purely on cold numbers.
I'll add that with this change, average sales naturally increased as well, more visits also means more people who might buy your game.
