cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37741347
Post content:
More than 10 years ago we started creating Planet Centauri, a 2D sandbox with terraria as main inspiration.
We released the EA many years ago and this is our start just before the 1.0 release :
103 400 units solds
138 675 Wishlist
the sells seem incredible but it’s not with so many years behind, when you work for 10 years and have to paid many people helping you with the ten of thousands of monsters frames animations and thousands of pixel art items, you don’t have much left on your wallet at the end.
So we were eager for the release of 1.0 because with so many wishlists, the game’s visibility would be good, we would appear in the new and trending categories due to sales, etc…
The 1.0 happen in december 2024… we sold… 581 units in 5 days.
The game didn’t even appear on page 2; we were invisible; the release was a total flop. And we never understood why until today.
We just received this mail from Steam
Steam Launch Wishlist Email Issue
Hi there, We found a bug that impacted a very small number of game releases (less than 100 since 2015) where wishlist email notifications for the launch of a game were not sent. Unfortunately your game Planet Centauri was among those included. We intend for this feature to work for every game and we’re inviting you to a Daily Deal as a way to help make up for lost visibility from your launch day.
It’s incredible to win the lottery like this: 100 games impacted in 10 years out of the 86,000 games on Steam. And to reward you, we’re giving you 24-hour visibility (which is nothing special; there are 6 slots available for this visibility every day of the year for various Steam invitations).
I don’t even have the strength to be angry. We’ve been so frustrated, disgusted, and in total confusion . Now we know, we understand better, it’s unfair, and we can’t change anything. We’ve started a second project because it’s financially impossible to continue patching our game, and we’re moving forward, because it’s the only thing to do.
This article was my way of expressing my anger, I guess, but also to see all the problems that a platform holding 99% of the PC gaming market can cause when the cogs don’t work as they should.
Have a nice day everyone, may luck be better to you
Comments
Said this on /c/gaming as well but
I have no doubt that this bug played a part in their sales… However… The game was in early access for a decade before it actually released in 1.0. This was the 1.0 change log:
So to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that that launch was much of a launch to begin with… While the bug definitely had a part to play, I’m not sure this would have sold anything in the first place. It’s a terraria clone that was dragged through early access for a decade before launching in a way that doesn’t actually feel like a launch.
No, you’re wrong. Every wishlist is a guaranteed sale on launch day. When people see that number tick from 0.5937.5 to 1.0, they can’t help themselves. It doesn’t matter if they wishlisted it 10 years ago and forgot the game exists. The trick is, they have to see it on launch day in an automated email. Otherwise the sale is lost for good. Literally every true gamer knows this.
No a wishlist is not a guaranted sale. We had 213 wishlist and 12 sales on launch.
Do you think your game would have sold better if you were better at picking up on sarcasm?
I think the other guy was being sarcastic.
That’s around 5%, assuming the same performance for 130k it’s 6500 copies
Also it had consequences such as
Many devs will incrementally update the early-access versions to be close to 1.0 before release. 1.0 doesn’t have to be a massive update, it just signifies the point when the devs think the game is complete.
This was not one of those situations though. Every reddit thread talking about this game has a ton of people who were playing at the time or after launch and all saying that it’s just a poorly done game.
That whole thread is filled with people talking about the state of the game before launch of 1.0 as well as the launch. Also some very good points about the weakness of their financial choices if they ended up broke at the launch of 1.0.
While I agree that the changes for 1.0 don’t look like enough to make it a full release, a lot of gamers categorically refuse to buy a game in early access and wait for the 1.0 release for the “full experience”. Nobody can say how many sales would have been generated.
Valve offers somewhat high visibility for a very short time as compensation. That doesn’t cost them anything and is very disappointing. Refund of some of the paid fees, or a discount for the players out of Valve’s pocket doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.
It’s an opportunity cost. What other games would have otherwise shown? If the game isn’t appealing, that’s poor use of ad space and could result in lost sales for another game that would then in its place.
I think it’s the right thing to do, though perhaps the window should’ve been longer, like 3 days. But saying it costs nothing isn’t accurate.
Yeah but this game was in early access for a decade. A decade. That’s giving me star citizen vibes, except in this case the game wasn’t popular.
I refuse to buy early access games just because if they sell enough, the devs won’t complete the game and it’ll be stuck in the “10 years in development” -phase
Early access works when it means the developer wants to craft the game around player input. Satisfactory is a good example, baldurs gate 3 is another.
to be fair, save for the length of time in dev (feature creep?) that is how early access was supposed tow ork
I would agree if not for this. This is a list of all of the things that they promised in early access that they would add to the full game. Guess how many of these things are there?
How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version? Here is the list of the features that we still need to implement:
Themed dungeons | Biomes: post-hell | Biomes: sky | Technology | Vehicles & Mechs Grapple hook / ninja rope | Modding compatibility | God Saucer (minigames area) Tower of 100 challenges | Themed parallel dimensions | Fluid dynamics Biomes: oceans | Fishing | Programmable robots | Wiring | Pipes | Thunder Fire (buildings can catch on fire etc.) | Achievements / Game encyclopedia / Compendium Temperature | Gas dynamics | Dynamic buildings (build your ship)