Wow, this is sad news. I will check out the Humble store.

What was the change on the Steam store he mentions, that had such an impact on his sale?

The last big steam store change was when they introduced the curator system + recommedations on the basis of your last purchases + popular new releases tab that only shows the games that were released and have high sales and are similar to games you played previously. So if you are an indie game you will soon disappear from the first spot in to oblivion. Before that the last released game was on the first place in the former new releases tab like on gog on the new tab. I think this is what he was talking about.

The issue is that popular new releases are currated by Steam on the basis of your previous buys.

For example if I log into steam with my account it shows Starward Rogue as most popular new release. But if I don't login it shows the new dlc for Microsofts Age of Mythology as most popular game. Steam is even more currated store then gog when it comes for picking out titles to your previous buying preferences. This means that you will never be shown games that are not similar to games you previously bought. The only difference is that gog currates games by hand while Steam does that with automatic algorithms.

This article explains this nicely: http://www.pcgamer.com/steam-update/

They've gone away from "Featured Sales". Now the games displayed runs by some algorithm on what games it thinks you might like. So individual games don't get a semi-exclusive "day in the sun" anymore.

Ouch. That's terrible news.

I suppose they're another victim of market saturation and poor marketing.

According to updates on the comments the sales do seem to be getting slightly better for them and it's ironic they have to resort to a post like this again to get some attention to their game.

119 positive to 1 negative reviews sounds crazy good. I'm tempted to get this on Humble since we probably wont see it anytime soon on GOG. Voted anyway.

No. The last big update was the Discovery update, and it went really well for other indie devs. Curators existed before that.

http://www.fortressofdoors.com/supporting-an-indie-rpg-for-four-years/ http://www.fortressofdoors.com/steam-sales-post-discoverability-update/

Actually we were talking about the same thing if you look at the article I linked. Curators where there a bit before which is true.

Actually, no, we're both wrong, but you're wrong-er. These are the changes from 2014. Arcen's income nosedived mid-2015: What changes? Damned if I know. The ranking algorithm, probably.

But you're still wrong about it hurting all indies forever, because Lars's second article is from 2016.

Indie games always "disappeared into oblivion". A more competent Google user than me can find dozens of developers bemoaning the inability to hold on to the front page spot and a plunge in revenue both before and after the inception of Greenlight in 2012. The 2014 changes couldn't have made the situation worse. Not appearing on the front page even for a blip didn't even hurt Starward Rogue, because Chris himself says the game has been seen and wishlisted plenty.

Does it suck when an apparently miniscule change kills your livelihood? Yes, of course. But it's not Steam like bent over for big publishers and indies are suffering across the board. Someone goes 100 positions down, someone goes 100 positions up. As much as I like AVVW, I can't really say whoever displaced Arcen's games in the rankings don't deserve the spots.

Why not? I'm officially (according to the IRS) CEO of my one-person company. Someone has to be in charge, and CEO is a title typically given to that person regardless of the size of the company or the scope of her or his duties.

No DRM-free build of Starward Rogue on Humble today.

Would someone update this thread if/when they notice it in case I otherwise miss it?

I will update it when it get's uploaded. Will ask Chris about it right now.


For anybody interested. Cynth a guy that helped a lot with the game is streaming it right now on twitch.

Link: http://www.twitch.tv/hyacint

Ok, got response from Chris about this.

Basically he is waiting for another few days to see if all the xbox/ps3-4 and other controller issues have been fixed, cause they had some issue with that post launche. They also upgraded the game engine to Unity 3D for better controller support. Basically they pushed the release back so that no big updates will be needed after the drm-free version is available and controller support can be a very big issue.

Eitherway Chris said that if you buy the game now or later the drm-free build will be added to your library page on Humble.

Awesome, thanks for the news.

I did the same. It's a shame, they make good games.

Small bump