My wishlist grows...

What a pathetic wimp! He should be happy to make no money on the game he worked hard on for four years! Or he could at least lie about making a shitload of money and disinform everyone interested in chances for a sequel, or the state of the indie game market. He makes me sick!

Seriously now, I'm sorry to hear that, it's always a pity to hear about something original doing poorly when any ugly ass pixelated roguelike no. 529873 would probably break even easily. But I have to admit, I'm complicit- I have not bought the game yet, and probably won't for a while. The price is rather high, so between my backlog and my already extensive wishlist of other games I want to buy, this one will have to wait for a good sale. That's just how it works when there are these many games around.

I doubt it's the name, probably more to do with people seeing a game that seems mostly based on text and still images (with no particularly shiny graphics) for the price of 20 EUR. Not saying the price is unjustified (I never played the game and devs have to calculate their risks themselves), but it doesn't seem very competitive in the current oversaturated market. I'd wager not many people will spend that kind of money on something experimental and visually kind of unremarkable at first sight,* when they can get several more shiny indies and even AAA games with sparkly colorful graphics and explosions for the same price. Gamers just aren't art lovers, for the most part, the majority just wants to be entertained.

* Maybe it's just me, but with all the new games coming out, I hardly even read their descriptions anymore, I just take a quick look at their screenshots and decide by the looks of them whether this could be something that appeals to me. It's a very superficial way of making decisions, yeah, but that's the reason why this game didn't make it to my wishlist, and I could imagine others reacting the same.

Do all sales reviews come with extra complaining that get picked up by multiple videogame journalism sites ? I should have made that the title of the thread.

not all post mortems gets picked up by game sites, but some do, like Ethan Meteor Hunter (fiasco), Race the Sun and Defense Quest (both successes). In this case it is interesting as the game had some good pr, several good reviews and even nominated for a couple of IGF awards.

edit - if you like post mortems, check out Gamasutra, many developers post them there also

http://steamcommunity.com/id/IFIYGD/recommended/447120/

Your premise is that his postmortem is actually a marketing tool. Where, in the postmortem, do you see any marketing? If anything, he brings up valid reasons for gameplay complaints, and also his own mistakes and shortcomings.

In case you haven't had a chance to read the postmortem itself, and instead only the articles that took snippets from the larger document:

https://medium.com/@johnnemann/where-the-water-tastes-like-wine-postmortem-211a1f9d791a

Especially when it has to compete against games like Curse of Monkey Island, which is currently selling for 7 USD.

This isn't exactly a fair comparison, but since the game lives or dies on presentation and writing, it was a close field.

Hands of Fate also has a similar system in place, now that I think about it, but there's actual interactivity involved. If Hand of Fate is fairly priced however is very much YMMV.

I also don't see how the Factorio devs plan to justify their upcoming 30 dollar price as of release, but that's a topic for another thread.

I realize that the topic of torrents is a little shady around here but....

The original pirated torrent of this game from CODEX has less than a dozen seeders on it currently. The updates have 3-4 each.

Maybe the issue is just interest in the title?

Somebody posted a leak of the upcoming Humble Monthly unlocks and this is in it. Take that with many grains of salt, of course.

https://i.imgur.com/5UVigQ8.png

Edit: added link to pic

If that's true, I don't really get it. I wonder what devs get for being included in the Humble Monthly, and if it's really worth devaluing the game that much, before trying sales. AFAIK the game only just came out a month ago or so and the highest discount it got so far was 18%. Why do devs seem to give up that quickly when Day One sales aren't satisfying? Maybe they're hoping that it's inclusion in the bundle will create more buzz and attention, but personally I don't think it will help sales much, I bet it will likely create less demand for it, permanently. They should have tried more attractive discounts first.

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Everybody knows that the symbol of hope is a cockroach, but I propose that we turn a black dude into the universal symbol for common sense.

what the bleeding heck are you on about here

edit - you obviously have no idea what Gamasutra is...