Publishing

Started by Pfaber11, March 09, 2018, 12:23:50

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RemiD

Yeah, i am curious to see what you have made. link(s) !

Pfaber11

https://pfaber11.itch.io › Games › Action › Free

not sure if that will work but hope it does . It's a link to my game wingfighterz
It's only my second game using AGK2 . It's not much but i have improved.
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Pfaber11

well it's a link to all my games . Hope you guys take a look . Intend to make my next game a lot better. wingfighterz and attack by air were written in AGK2 and Alien invaders.exe was made with Blitz3d. I can only get better.
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Pfaber11

Well I have decided to try charging a dollar for my games to see if I can sell any of them . I will post back to let you know how I get on. I won't be giving up the day job anytime soon. Have a nice day.
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Derron

The visual quality of the games does not justify a price tag of 1 eur.

People will surely think you are not meaning that serious. These games look as if they there put together in less than a handful of hours. It does not matter if you put weeks of coding and learning into it - people do not see that. they judge by videos, screenshots - and not descriptions.



bye
Ron

RemiD

ahahah good luck with that (nothing else to say)  :P

Pfaber11

Yes I appreciate they are a bit rough around the edges. But from tiny acorns the all that. I intend to be knocking a new game out at the rate of 1 every 4 to 8 weeks. At least I havn't spent a year working on 1 project for it to be a flop. I'm thinking keep it simple. I actually think all games have gotta be worth a dollar.   If I were charging 10 bucks per download then yes some sort of quality would be appropriate. But for a dollar we are talking bargain basement.
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Derron

#22
Checkout what other games are offered for 1 dollar - and compare yours with theirs.

I understand that many games are sold cheaper than they should but still you need to "compete" with them. If you had luck and get 100 downloads for one of your games I bet the paid user count will be less than 2 - as this would still be a good "conversion rate".
But for these kind of games I am pretty sure that 100 downloads would be already a good download count.

As said: I did not check these games and they might have superior gameplay, but gameplay is not what people see when coming to your website or to a game-list-page-wherever-it-is.


bye
Ron

Pfaber11

Yes I take on board what you are saying. Gotta compete. Unfortunately a lot of the games are free and this does not not help anyone in the long run. I am happy my games are out there and a few people have played them. Gonna try something different with my next game.
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GaborD

#24
Quote from: Derron on March 16, 2018, 12:28:07
I did not check these games and they might have superior gameplay, but gameplay is not what people see when coming to your website or to a game-list-page-wherever-it-is.

I agree. In the current totally oversaturated marketplace this is actually a really important point.
First impressions are crucial. Having the best gameplay ever is irrelevant if noone ever gets to experience it because you don't back it up visually.

Quote from: Pfaber11 on March 16, 2018, 12:45:57
Yes I take on board what you are saying. Gotta compete. Unfortunately a lot of the games are free and this does not not help anyone in the long run. I am happy my games are out there and a few people have played them. Gonna try something different with my next game.

Agreed, unfortunately there is a crazy race to the bottom going on. Those people racing to the botton are mostly doing it because their products are crappy and they can't compete otherwise though, so there is hope.
Try to rise above the vast ocean of mediocrity and you have a chance to succeed. Admittedly, not a big chance, but still.
In the end, we can't do anything about the market situation, gotta roll with it.

In my opinion gamedev is all about putting in the effort.
There are no shortcuts, those few who put in the effort will always have more success than the masses who do not. (and Steam is my witness for the masses not doing it  :P )
You made several finished games, that already puts you above a huge percentage of the new aspiring devs.
Invest a lot of time into learning and practicing the graphical side of things and apply that knowledge, that will improve your games dramatically and catapult you much higher.
I'd say the key is to not underestimate or skip any part of the process, your product is only as strong as it's weakest part.

iWasAdam

#25
My suggestion is to try some game jams.

They not only help you focus on gameplay and graphics. But also how to compete against others (and their skills).
Game Jams also give an opportunity for you to try their games and see what you think is wrong or right.

It also means you start to get a reputation for being good at something or crap. And that brilliant game you just spent months on - no one is interested, no one cares and you only got 3 downloads <- Learn from this, take it onboard and try to improve.

If your graphics are crap, then play to your skills or learn how to make things better.
Can't do sound - buy some in or use some chip sounds.

You are NEVER going to doing AAA games, so don't try to. do some retro games, some atari ones. Find out what you are good at and what works...

Remember, your download page is your calling card; dump anything that make you look like crap. Only 3 downloads but you 'know' is brilliant < it's not. dump it. The downloads don't lie. And if it is brilliant - you now have all that knowledge and graphics to make your next effort even more impressive.

You won't get there today or tomorrow. But maybe with some thought next month or next year <- thats a good thing :)

Pfaber11

Well I've made them free again . Gonna start a new. Project very shortly. The next one will be way better. The interesting thing is wingfighterz is way better than the other two and yet hasn't had a single download yet. Can't believe how much free stuff is out there on itch.io. .
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Steve Elliott

Quote
Can't believe how much free stuff is out there

Yes, I know what you mean...While I can understand people not wanting the hassle of taking money, they are very gradually destroying the games industry by giving their work away for free.
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RemiD

#28
Quote
At least I havn't spent a year working on 1 project for it to be a flop
(oups that's what i did in the past...) :-X

I am trying a different approach, similar to yours : create more games but less complicated to create, and see what is appreciated or not.

You have to admit that you could at least add a brief video / animated gif with an overview of the gameplay / possibilities, because as it was, i personally would not pay 1USD (i don't even know if it is interesting / fun to play !)
Don't assume that what you know is what others know...

And about the graphics, you certainly don't need to have very detailed graphics, but at least nice / polished enough ?

Pfaber11

Yes that's what I think too. I think if itch.io game jolt and steam insisted that all Devs charge something for their work things would be better.
HP 15s i3 1.2 upto 3.4 ghz 128 gb ssd 16 gb ram 15.6 inch screen. Windows 11 home edition .  2Tb external hard drive dedicated to Linux Mint .
  PureBasic 6 and AppGameKit studio
ASUS Vivo book 15 16gb ram 256gb storage  cpu upto 4.1 ghz