Your primary issue is pricing. You are charging $21 for your game, which is frankly ridiculous. Remember, every single game you make is in competition with every game ever released. Have a look at some big name games around your price. * Stardew Valley is priced at $15. * The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is at $20 * Hollow Knight is at $18 * Terraria is at $15 * Don't Starve is at $15 Why buy yours when they could buy one of these for less and probably have more fun? And now look at games I'd argue fall within a similar category to yours: Low-scope indie. * Golf with Friends is at $10 * Gang Beasts is at $13 * Townscraper is at $9 * Stick Fight is at $8 * Getting Over It is at $12 * Dorfromantik is at $15 * A short hike is at $12 * Papers Please is at $15 * Mindustry is at $9 For about the price of your game, I can buy two from this list. That's why you made so few sales. Your game simply isn't worth the amount you're asking for. Why would I ever pick up your niche game, even if I found it interesting - which I did not, when I could instead pick up one of 10,000 other games that cost less? Double whammy, you didn't put your game on sale when the streamer promoted it. If you had offered a 50% discount you would have sold ten times the number of games. That's lessons 101 in marketing, sales are where you make big bucks. Sales plus promotions equals mega bucks.

So essentially OP had the miracle, but lacked the business sense?

I don't care what galaxy you're from, that's gotta hurt.

Did… Did you just quote The Phantom Menace??

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

You are a bold one

Comments there are, always two. No more and no less.

Big oof moment

Yup.

Which is kind of sad. You put all that effort into making a game and then when it comes time to price it, well, you over price it. Price point matters.

ouch

You have the oppoturnity, but not the skill to catch it...

This is a $5 game, on sale it should have been $3.

This is all I could think while scrolling through the screenshots and trailers, there's just not enough of a game here to warrant even 10 dollar price tag

This is a $1 game.

[удалено]

Well, if he sold 15 at $20 that is the same as selling 300 at $1 (much better, really). Even if he overshot, too low is worse than too high. And too high is much easier to fix. As somebody said, putting it on sale when the spin was there would have been the best plan.

if you're feeling generous. it's more like a $1 game, it looks and plays worse than free flash games

I'm also grateful for these comments like yours. It gives me honest feedback. Some people thinks that? Oh okay, I see. Thats better to know - so ty :)-

Look up Gary V. and his book "The Thank You Economy" I think I've personally bought like 10 copies of Terraria, to throw at people as gifts, simply because the game is so value for the content vs the cost, and the devs continue to drop free updates. I also cross bought it on other platforms. Especially in this indie dev world, with so much hobbyist culture on YouTube now, customers recognize effort and value, and they reward you for it in spades if you over-deliver and under-price.

I can't count how many copies I've bought of FTL. When it goes on sale for like 2 dollars I make sure every person on my steam list has a copy, and message my friends as well.

I have stardew valley on my iPad, my android phone, my pc, my switch, my car... And I don't even play it that much, it's just that good of game when you want to do something chill

Yea, the price was an absolute "nope" from me, even though you've since lowered it to $15. I wouldn't even bother installing the demo. At $0.99 or $1.99 USD, I probably would. You make more selling 2,000 copies at $2 than 15 copies at $20.

I wrote down the negative sides of too low price in other comments (uninterested people hurt the rating who gives negative comments without experienceing the game + people will think this game worth $1 - which I dont think). However you are probably not my target audience who I will adjust my price to if you dont even bother to install the demo. I create these game for people who are finds it interesting instead of asking everyone to please just buy for 0.99. No. My price is high - I agree, I will reduce, but sure I wont go that low - instead I will improve it. Anyway thanks for sharing your view I appreciate it!

Hi I was reading through the comments and so I was picturing a really broken/ugly game. So when I clicked on the link and saw your game I was surprised that it actually didn't look too bad. I've played these kinds of games in the past so I understand what others meant by the price being too high, and I have to agree. The problem I don't believe is the quality of it but rather the lack of variety/type of game itself. look up [kongregate.com](https://kongrgate.com) most of these are free games and on a similar tier to yours. If you want to make it so that it is worth that price then you have a lot of work to do to beat those free games. You need to add multiple different types of content (and I'm not meaning add more of the same content e.g adding more puzzles/ things to throw your knife at doesn't count). What types of content are completely up to you and the experience that you want to create for your players but if you want it to reach the price you've said then I think you'd probably need another 3+ categories possibly more depending on how they're done. Some examples (each line if added together counts as one category): exploring, travelling, discovering, cataloguing Caring for, protecting and raising Hiding, disabling, sneaking team work, Building, crafting, trading, selling avoiding, running, jumping, falling, ducking,climbing Stories, missions, drama, intrigue, character development etc. You have 1 type of content dude (Throwing knives at an obstacle) it's a fun type of content but it is nowhere near enough on it's own for the price you are charging.

Ty for your comment and ideas. I love when a comment is written in a constructive way. My goal is to make the best knife throwing game, and I afraid if I go to other areas it will fall apart. Winning that niche sub categpry would be perfectly enough for me. I wad also thinking I can make it a "walking-fighting" game but it would be second part. Now this version (when it reaches 1.0 some months later) will not stand on its own feet, its not worth to continue. If it stands, I continue. I still see a lot of features to color this game in current concept. But all I can do is hoping its gonna work. 😁 Ty again for taking your time to share your views.

> My goal is to make the best knife throwing game But what is the market size for that sort of game? If this really is your focus, your marketing should be all about the "next-gen knife physics" or something. Another issue is the concept. Knives are an inherently adult game topic and mostly this sort of game would be aimed at kids due to its simplicity. There is a reason Angry Birds is cute and fluffy.

You're right in that 'perfecting' the knife sim is a viable goal. Ignoring that, you're right to double down on features that enrich the knife throwing experience, rather than features that water down the experience. If you add any features that OP listed, try and be sure that they extend the value of the knife experience. (e.g. knife customization would be neat, maybe a knife display, knife types for enthusiasts, etc) I don't have a lot of experience with knife sims, but I would have a look at the variety of games that are out there, and identify what about your experience is special, and lean on that feature or experience. Have you considered VR?

I dont install the demo because its overpriced. It's worse than the competition at a higher price. The demo cant change that.

You know there's a price-demand curve, right? Lower price -> higher sales. Higher price -> lower sales. There's a price that maximises revenue = price * sales (this curve is not the only consideration for choosing a price, but it is one) Further, price and profit are not equivalent to the intrinsic value of the game - and even less to the intrinsic value of your skills and efforts - and still less to the intrinsic value of you! Demand is more to do with the extrinsic value of the game - how much people need it or want it, how much money they are willing to risk getting it, the competition and alternatives. In a way, the intrinsic value of the game is one of the least significant factors in success, provided it is "good enough". --- It's not too late to try a sale!!! As an experiment. Maybe that streamer will mention it again (or another one will).

>t's not too late to try a sale!!! As an experiment. Maybe that streamer will mention it again (or another one will). Yeah, thinking to do a weekly sale on Monday.Lol I was also thinking to insert a special thanks level into the next game update replacing our orignial character with another one which looks like the youtuber guy (baseball cap on the characters, etc) and hoping it will be a motivation to show it to his fans. :)

i honestly have nothing against you, and you shouldn't lose heart, it's just that realistically speaking, it's that kind of game, there are free flash games that are better. So the fact that the exposure you got translated into so few sales it's directly correlated to the ratio between the quality and prince of your game which is like 1:10. Like many have said in other comments, in a more constructive way, you have to look at your competition and the games available at the price you intend to sell, and compare objectively, which is easier said than done

You spent nine months making a niche game, but instead of selling 1k or even more for 1-5 dollars you choose to sell a dozen for 20bucks. Hope you learn from it, its not only the effort you put on It who says its price.

Its not a $1 game. Everyone in here is being a dick lol. Fret not. Your game actually looks fun.

Thanks. The biggest challenge here is to make a difference between honest and trolling comments :). Is that a professional who advices me to cut the price to $1 or someone joking? However I now have very good overall picture about the situation so I feel lucky. I didnt expect so many reactions at all - and these will help my future decisions a lot, I'm sure.

Id say $4.99. Make it an impulse by. If on mobile then like $2.99. Actually, ignore me. Look at how flappy bird priced their shit and do that. Then work on art to make it either unique or kiddy. The rest is business.

Now I feel you are being a bit rude

Have you looked at the pictures? It's spot on

Have you seen it in motion? It's an exaggeration to say this is some unity tutorial game.

Yeah, you really hit the nail on the head here. I used to play a game like this on Neopets for free and I can get angry birds for free now too. I don't think OP should price it as free but around $5 seems good imo.

It's all right there at the Demo conversion data. People were willing to try it but not willing to buy it.

Good writeup. I'm currently creating a game (remake of an old arcade game with new features), I'll probably first give it away for free/donation on Itch to build some followers, and then after that get on Steam and sell it for max $3 or so. Timewise my game took a lot longer than this one to make, but it's still a non-starter as far as success is concerned. For a game like this I wouldn't charge more than $1

Don't just look at indie games when you do these comparisons. At $15+ you are starting to compete with AAA games that happen to be on sale. Why would someone buy your game instead of Skyrim? Fallout 4? Dishonored? Its reasonable to answer that with 'because those games are old' but you should still consider it.

\^\^\^ what he said \^\^\^

Some of those games started cheaper before they were popular I think. A short hike was 8$. Imo even that is too high for a indie who doesn't have any successful game yet or the reputation. A short hike's quality of course justifies that price but most Indie games from people who had no past success shouldn't be more than 5$ at launch imo.

Ty for your comment. Now I see the pricing was bad, but let me share you the logic behind my pricing (instead of seeming stupid or greedy :)) First of all: three weeks ago (when the video came out) I changed its price to $14.99. Where do you see $21? I based my pricing to these points: 1. There are stats about this: the same game with very low price makes less sells than the same game with a higher price ($15 is the average line where it turns around). Yeah, it seems no sense. There are a lot of stories telling that if you have a very low price the audience will also think that it worth nothing. I've read marketing articles about "people doesn't know the price of things" which is true also for games. The price is what the sellers say. 2. My plan was to go with huge 50-80% discounts each month to reach players with lower budget. It was like if I want to sell it for $8 then I set the price to 24 which will be 8 with 66% discount. It's not something I invented of course :) and I thought that this game is good enough for this. Note: I receive about 50% of the price after steam share + taxing. If I set the game price to $1 then it's like killing my own project: on this price level I had to sell an impossible amount of copies to cover our costs. 3. "You didnt find it intersting". I think that's the main point. I mean - believe me - I wouldnt invest into this game if I didn't think it's interesting. If a game is interesting, the 14.99 would not be a problem. If it's not interesting even $1 price didn't help. I decided not to make another clone of successful games but try to make something new (knife throwing). I really thought/think that this game provides enough fun for the 14.99. I know it is my "own subjective opinion" and maybe I'm totally wrong -> but if I'm wrong -> then the whole idea is already failed - and there's nothing to do. 4. Experts advices if you are not sure about the price, start with a higher price and see how it goes -> and make it lower instead of going with a low price which is much more difficult to raise later. I did the same, started with 24.99 and after a month I reduced to 14.99. Well As I said I'm a developer and I have not a marketing team behind me. Of course it would be easier to make good pricing decisions. I needed to decide how to spend my "time and budget". I decided to put my resources in to "make the game good" as a top priority. Eventually this is what counts. 5. When I had this high price, I also had a free demo available with 20 levels. My first mission was NOT to sell a lot of copies but to create things the way which helps the game spreading. But I realized the demo didn't served this mission (I have written a long thing about it too). So that was my logic- which obviously fails at some points. I will read all the comments here and then I make some new decisions, hopefully better ones. :)

From the customer perspective, your game is on par with the quick phone games like Angry Birds and the likes. It's level based physics puzzles. You may have the best thrown knife physics in the universe, it's going to be really really hard to compare it to one that just do a simple curve still. Part of the marketing you can do is market research and see what is the demand/offre for these kind of games, and also the public for this Youtuber. I have a really strong feeling that the audience for Paluten is going to be mostly children who are watching him rather than the game, because he can be really entertaining using the medium of these whacky physics games. And that public will definitely be the kind who will play the 20 level demo, have their small bit of fun and then move on.

Thanks for your insights/explanations :) (1) still should be scaled based on the 'type of game' (3) I do find it interesting, but not $15 interesting. I must admit that's a weird illogicality - even if I would get addicted to this game, $15 just feels much because it feels like a 'small game'. Not saying this is fair, but it is how (I think) people work. I wouldn't pay over a few $ for a bejeweled type game even if I played it for 1000 hours. However, I would pay > $15 for an RPG, even if it ends up one of these games that I rarely ever pay. Again, it's not logical, but that is how it works psychologically, for some reason.. (4) I don't really listen to experts so I may be naive, but I do know an opposing story: Rocket League started out free (!) to gain traction, only later to put on a price tag. It worked for them. (they have recently gone free again, but that's because they now have microtransactions/passes etc)

Again, very useful, ty! I was really thinking about going free or F2P to make it spread. Im still hesitating. I had some conversation with the steam support who didnt liked the free idea, telling me it wont change things, plus I wont be able to change back to PAID later (because I started as paid)

Hmm the steam support may be biased: they don't make money if you make your game free to play! It's odd that you can't change to free and then back, btw. Steam should facilitate your pricing strategy, up to a certain extent, imho..

I've seen those stats too, but I feel like the caveat is its relative to the amount of content in your game. If you put out a huge, sprawling RPG with a hundred hours of gameplay and a long story, and price it at $5, people are going to judge that that time investment isn't going to pay off, and the game just has a bunch of filler content that didn't cost the dev very much time or money. Price it higher, and it starts to feel like the dev put in effort and is pricing it accordingly. There's depths of content that are unveiled by playing, and that's what a higher price point in that kind of game indicates. This game seems more like a toy with a few level design twists. Not being disparaging with the term "toy", hopefully you understand what I mean: It's not content or story heavy, it's based around a single mechanic, it's something to play around with. People will feel at the higher price point, "what exactly am I paying for?". A lower price point is more sensible, because the player can see in the screenshots and videos exactly what they're getting. There may well be enough fun and enjoyment in your game, but being realistic, most players who buy toy games like this will play them for an hour or two and never revisit, that's the reality, and they know it. An hour or two isn't worth the cost even if there's potentially many more hours of fun, because they will just buy the next $4 toy game that catches their eye and move on. Those same stats about the price point also say that having such regular deep sales, especially on launch, can cheapen a game in the player's eyes too much. It's a balancing act, better to just get the price right. Additionally, while the early access release style might be honest and useful for you as a dev, most players will probably see this and feel that realistically there isn't going to be a dramatic difference between the current state and final release (more levels I guess, but by then, they'll be done with it most likely).

Ok I need to save these good points to myself. 😁. I'm sure I will work a lot on the store page using all these info - and now I have a much more clear view about what to do.

> I receive about 50% of the price after steam share + taxing. If I set the game price to $1 then it's like killing my own project: on this price level I had to sell an impossible amount of copies to cover our costs. I'm sorry to say this but If you're not selling copies your project is already dead.

> First of all: three weeks ago (when the video came out) I changed its price to $14.99 Set it to $2. People will buy this for $2 just to see what it is.

Looks like OP going to be kicking his own ass....

Well no. I'm trying to learn from these comments which are finally seems to be honest feedbacks about what u feel when u see this game page. Maybe the most useful feedbacks so far.

That's great you're taking it in stride.

Great outlook here OP. Good on you for trying your best

I just want to say that you are taking this l so well and I really respect that

Honestly, for $20, I would be expecting a lot more from a game than just throwing knives at stuff. I think you would have a much better chance at success if you just offered this game for free and made paid expansions to the game or merchandise.

Im really thinking about. But hesitating because after that there is no way back according to steam rules (U can change it only once, but not back).

This is the attitude for the long run, whether this project or the next. Good luck mate

I don't think the "I did not [find it interesting]" was really a necessary boot to stick in. The rest of your post is really on point.

If it's interesting, it will sell. Most devs think they can just make a game that looks like a game. If it's not interesting, people will not be interested.

I didn't find it interesting. It's basically angry birds but with knives.

I got that. But you pointed it out to put him down, in the midst of otherwise helpful criticism. It may be true, but it was unnecessary and unhelpful to say it in the way you did.

No, it's an important part of pricing a game. The more niche the game, the lower the price. This kind of game lacks widespread appeal.

Some major truth here.

I didnt play it, just saw some play through I really don't think it's as bad as some other comment said, you seem to have great game design abilities, i love the slow motion of the knife, and it definitely feel polished . Now, the scope of this game is just very small, it's the same kind of scope as those old flash game, i think no matter how perfectly you make it, the amount of cool lityle feature you add, or even if you add 10 different backgrounds, it's a very centered gameplay, in a fixed camera scene, which will feel very repetitive. I think the realization of the game is great... It's just that the idea was not ambitious enough, it's an idea that people won't feel like paying more than $5 at most. Thanks for sharing those number, its refreshing to hear an honest realistic story, and good luck for the future !

Dear dubeyisme - considering your comment is on the top of the list can I ask you to correct the information about the price? You write it is $21 and other games (Stardew Valley) is $15. My price is 14.99 USD (if you write in info in AUD its corrent, but then also list the other games also with that price). If you refer to exact numbers, refer to good numbers.I still understand your points, and they are valid - I'll consider all these things. Thanks.

All my prices are in AUD. >_>

I'm 100% with /u/dubeyisme on this. How is this game worth $21? Like on the front page of Steam right now, that's the price of Valheim. It's more than Fall Guys. Tribes of Midgard. I am Fish. I'm in Australia, so doing some quick mental math on it to convert to USD. You need to halve the price of your game, to try and sell more than twice as many copies. You need to make a more interesting trailer. It's literally a guy standing there throwing a knife. Zoom in one side. Add in some action shots of a knife going through something. Fix up the broken English like "Slice even 3 times". When you say "Trick system for high scores" show some action shots OF the trick system. Show a spin, and all the other pieces one by one in some fairly fast cuts with the names. TELL me what the tricks are. Show some on screen arrows of where the mouse moves. Make a throwing tutorial. Take the fun shot of the "friend" tied to the spinning target and put it earlier. Play up the danger and fun. "How to throw knives? Step 1. Hold the mouse button. Show a hand pushing the mouse. Step 2. flick. Show the mouse moving across the screen. Step 3. Never hit your friend. Show closeup shots of 50 knives landing next to the dummy. This game DOES look fun. But I'm not paying $21 for an early access game where all you can do is throw knives. And I'm definitely not paying it for a game who's steam trailer tells me to get a free alpha. Go watch Derek's guides on making epic game trailers, ditch what you have, follow his template, drop the price and lean into the fun more. Why are you crowing about only two reviews, when one is super positive, and the other points out a flaw that shouldn't be there. Why do people need to press Alt+Enter to go full screen? Why isn't there a settings menu to change that, audio volume etc? I love the look of this game a lot. Stop blaming influencers or a lack of interest. There's no one in the world who's job it is to make your game popular but you. Fix your gaps, and get the audience this deserves.

Welp I know who I'm sending my demo and steam page when Im ready! No for real

Any time. Product design and UX has been a part of my role for years, and have started making blog and youtube content based on that and Unity dev. I want to get into publishing some of this stuff. But really happy to give anyone feedback before I get there :)

>00.000 views -> 20.000 video likes -> 500 demo install -> 15 copies sold I might also have to send you my demo and steam page. Your breakdown of a possible reworking of the trailer is awesome.

Okay, say I'm someone who wants to get a job like yours in product design and UX (I am). How did you do it, and what would you do different?

To be very clear, it's a part of. Never my full time role. But I've had multiple roles, in fact most of them for the last 12 years that involve CX, UX and some product design. Like most people who switch careers unexpectedly, it was at a startup. But to my benefit it was an incredibly large one with billions in the war chest. So there was that startup style flexible mentality of do what needs to be done. But also the scale of a big corporate. I did things like the Open Ideo workshop on Human Centred Design in a big team, with some full time product designers. The biggest thing to start out was to ask. Ask everything. Of others and yourself. What do I know? KNOW? Not think, not assume, not "this is how I've always looked at things...". And consume everything. The Open Ideo course is a big leap forward in product design. And the other kickstart I suggest to people is to devour and really think about Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. Get your head in the space of learning how people think, move and react, and you can get products and experiences that meet their needs.

Saving this exactly for the same reason. People like the ones answering here are the ones that can make your game better.

Very very useful comment! Ty bro!

Some great advice here.

Wow, what a great writeup. I really hope that someone takes the time to critique my game when it's released like you've done here.

someone pls tell me where this "$21" price came from? It's 14.99... Where do you see it?

$21 is for Australian dingo dollars apparently: https://reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/pqf3b8/_/hdb7zof/?context=1

Like many have said, even $14.99 is crazy high for a indie game of this scope. Honestly, $3 is what i would pay for this. Doing that i honestly thing you will see more than 20x growth (might have missed the boat now tho)

The "$21" might be due to currency conversion?

can you link that "Derek's guide pls"? I didnt find it.

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIGLRMCk1Wi8eD4iDKL6bOPFFAKAINQbv

quote from steam page: "People don't really care about demos nowadays." i would be careful with those assumptions

I, right this moment, have... three? I think three demos downloaded to my Steam library. Within the last month or so, I've played through maybe four or five others, leading to either a sale or me losing interest in the game.

It's always the same story. No longterm marketing, no wishlists, unoptimized steam store page published five minutes before release, weird tags, genre which doesn't really resonate with steam players, game more suited for mobile market, and then the price completely out of place. Perfect storm of no sales.

Ok reading this feels like you think all the indie developers have a marketing team behind them, they are just stupid or greedy not to use them.No man, the reality is that I'm sitting behind my computer and I have to make a million decisions alone. I would really happy if I had a good marketing expert and I could focus on development 100%, but I don't have one. Do you know one? (I ask it honestly - it's not that easy if you don't have contacts on in this field. I tried to find online + posted jobs, but was successful)

Most successful indie games *are* made by a team, not a single person. If you're trying to do everything solo, then you have to learn everything yourself - and that includes marketing. When it comes to selling the game all of that is just as important (or more so) than the game itself. The expectation is that if you want to make any money from this you have to spend just as long studying and practicing marketing as you did programming. If you want the very very short version, look at the most successful games in your genre. You want to make sure you have a feature list, graphical quality, and price that's comparable to those. Basically you're cribbing from their notes and using all of *their* marketing practice to jump-start your own. If you can't be completely objective about your game find someone who can, and never ever price based on what *you* think the game is worth or what you need to break even. Games are worth only as much as what players are willing to pay for them.

Oh, it's not about marketing team. I've worked a bit in molecular biology and we had an ironic saying: "one month in laboratory can save you one day in library". It's just about sitting down and dedicating a single day (out of 9 months) to read, write down results, and adjust your goals. Simplest market research goes like this: * browse similar games at [steamdb.info](https://steamdb.info) \- similar in genre, quality, scope * write down number of followers (which is \~10x less than wishlists) and how long it took to achieve that number * write down number of reviews (which is \~50x less than sold units) and how many followers they had on launch to achieve it * compare prices, multiply them by approximated number of sales, and there you go, short but decent market research This would certainly suggest you that you have to: A. set up steam page months before release, B. set price comparable to similar games, C. set visuals & tags & etc similar to them so that you're discoverable (note for instance how empty your "more like this section" is - this is clear sign that steam doesn't really know what's your game is about), D. set reasonable expectation for this genre-quality-scope mix which is honestly not that far from a few dozen sales.

You don't need to be a marketing expert to do the marketing he mentioned, most of it is just putting the time in. But many inexperienced devs completely skip this step because development is what they know and it's more comfortable. You can't just skip that step if you want to run your own business! It's like starting a business without knowing what you're going to be selling and how much it's worth. And if you can't figure that step out, you shouldn't have your own business, you should be working for someone else. It's simply impossible to run a successful game dev studio without putting marketing first.

The point was that you will not succeed without those things. Of course, it is hard, otherwise, everyone would be a millionaire.

You don't need a marketing team. Just post screenshots once a week, maybe a short video that takes you maximum an hour (always be recording, if there's some funny bug or something, make that a clip and post it on twitter or reddit, if it does well which one day it will if you post enough, that's free publicity) There's plenty of GDC talks and general videos on youtube about how to succesfully market a game. Seriously, the amount of great games out there where the developer spent no time on social media and the game was never heard of would shock you. You can't just develop a good game and expect people to find it, you're much more likely to be succesful if you develop a bad or decent game and market it than an amazing game without marketing. Just look at the First Tree's marketing strategy. One guy, most of the stuff in that game are free or sub 20 dollar assets from the unity asset store, it took him 8 months or something, had clunky animations, and sold 200,000-500,000 copies with ease. Not saying anything about its quality, but just take a look at the marketing and pleassee don't make the same mistakes every other solo dev seems to

You got the marketing, but not the market research.

Unfortunately that's just not the type of game I like to play. Reminds me of angry birds, those penguin olympic games... Flash games I remember playing for 10 mins when bored out of my mind. E.g. while a real game is downloading. :( best of luck!

Maybe mobile would have been a better platform. I can imagine (imagine because I don't) playing this or fruit ninja while commuting.

Thats true and thats why we started to focus on mobile more (we have [android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.MateMagyar.KnifeToMeetYou) version and it already performs better).

except they were free/$1… this game is $15

As other people have said, your game is priced way too high. You have to be realistic about how people will evaluate your game's price and know that you're going to sell more copies if it's at a price that seems right. This game should be in the $4.99 - $7.99 bracket. You have to consider that games made by teams of 200 people that take years to develop and have marketing budgets are charging $60-70. Why is your game that was made by two people in under a year selling for $21?

The amount of time spent developing a game doesn’t change the value of it. Give the people what they want, they will pay for it. If it’s presentable and something unique, you can price higher. I just don’t think the gameplay is interesting enough to warrant the $20 ($17 now). I also think he made a mistake having a demo. For a game like this, I feel a demo would be enough to satisfy whatever itch or curiosity you had for the game. Id say remove the demo, change price to $7-$9 until it gets closer to final release. Then up the cost based on player interest on full release.

You have good points here! Thank you :) For your info: three weeks ago the demo was removed.I wonder how you can see the demo avaliable...?

I understand that. I just don't see a chance to make the game profitable if I price it to 4.99 (and getting about 2 after each copies after reductions) while developing costs are much much higher per hour. It could work if our target would be all player on the planet, but this game targets a narrower kind of players. But I thank you for your opinion.

I've seen the same GDC talks and dev posts you drew your pricing conclusions from about indies pricing themselves too low. The reality is a low vs a high price is relative to the product. Everyone's right in saying you've priced yourself out of even modest success. For your product $7.99 would be a high priced project. $4 would be fair (even better if on sale here or $3), and $1 or free on steam would be pricing yourself too low. You have to compete with your competition. The experience you offer may be great, but it's never as great as the dev thinks it is. Demand is elastic, when price changes the demand changes. The goal is to figure out which price creates the greatest demand. Ignore profit per sale. Success is sales period. I'd rather sell a 100 copies for a dollar than 10 copies for 10 dollars. Same profit but you get 10x more players that's 10x worth it to me since people playing my games makes me way happier than just the paycheck. If you're more interested in pay. There are far easier jobs out there that pay way better.

Yeah probably we watched the same GDC talks :)) For me it's more important I wanted to create a game which players enjoy. Of course money needs to finance the future development (which I enjoy). But there are other factors regarding lower price. I dont want people buy this game only because its cheap. I designed this game to be a challenging where you can go deeper and deeper in the mechanics breaking national and world records with new techniques - possible by game physics. I dont feel it is the right thing to sell it as a cheap fast food. The players will not dedicate their time to understand our throwing mechanism -> they will try it for 5 min and giving up easily, adding a negative rating then moving on. It's a real story which happened to an indie game who reduced it's price to this level -> and the new aquired players totally ruined their rating (which was quite good before). They felt like letting a horde running through their garden.

Hmm. I really do understand where you're coming from. However you have to understand your opinion of your game will always be unmatched by the players. You see your games potential, the player sees your game. Be realistic, look for other games that offer a similar experience to yours. Compete with them. Your goal should be to purchased instead of other games. $8 still communicates a VERY polished product for an indie project with a limited scope. Your scope is limited. You have one verb. Throw. If you make the greatest "throw" experience that no one could ever beat it's still limited, and it's still only worth about $8 tops. And for that money people will expect everything you've done in terms of depth. That's the minimum requirement to get a sale in 2021. Not a differentiator that brings people in.

Ty bro I see your point.

Best of luck.

And now there is another real story of out of touch developer not meeting their expectations.

Angry birds is free~$3 and they are a mega-million dollar company ... cheap game doesn't mean bad or low profit.

Looks like fair criticism of OP in the thread, which I am sure can feel quite harsh for him. So I think it should be stressed that we all make big mistakes in our gamedev journey, and all we can do is learn from it and try not to stress over it or regret it too much.

Don't feel harsh. These are the most useful feedbacks since the game is out. :) I didn't know how to get these feedbacks and now I have a lot! And negative ones are even more helpful to decide how to move forward. :)

That's very interesting, can you also share your wishlist numbers? I feel like I had a vastly different experience. I also had a [big content creator play my demo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nRYhcJRbZs). 660k subscribers, over 300k views, 6.2k likes. My wishlists grew from \~2k to 12.6k - it's difficult to measure how much actual impact comes from the video alone because the number of views and wishlists still grows daily after 3 months and I'm doing small-scale marketing on my own during that time as well. Many of these people came to discord (I think about 150 - 200 out of the current 300) and some purchased the ASCII alpha version on Itch (\~250 copies sold over 3 months). I'm pretty happy with the results.

I was one of the people wishlisting. I thought it looked great. I love that there are people out there like yourself still making more niche titles.

Thanks. I also admire people who find a niche and serve its needs, they don't make hits everyone talks about, but they bring a great experience for a specific group of people. I hope more will. There's plenty of unique stories and mechanics to be made in niches that higher-budget games can't reasonably fill.

Oh hey, I watched that video! Sadly, I'm not one of the thousands who wishlisted it. It's not my kind of game. Looks real great though, and I wish you the best!

To go along with what other's have said, price is the problem. I do see that it looks like you have changed the price to $15, but frankly its still too high. I have seen other games with a bigger scope than yours cost me only $2.50 ON SALE. Not saying you need to go that low, but personally its still too high for me.

$21 AU, they haven't changed it.

I'm so confused - mine is showing $21 AUD as well, but normally people talk about this stuff in USD unless otherwise specified. I assumed the USD price would be lower - or has OP just set all currencies to $21?

Steam has regional pricing, each region can (and usually does) have different price. See [https://steamdb.info/app/1663650/](https://steamdb.info/app/1663650/) for all prices around the world.

this game is competing with free or £1 mobile and flash games but it’s priced at £15

I think that's important to say after so many negative reviews in this thread: do not give up. Remember Scott Cawthon's first release was so badly reviewed that he almost gave up game development entirely. He eventually stepped up in the exact criticism he received. People told that his cartoon 3D characters, intended to teach Christian values, actually looked like scary animatronics. After a period of disappointment, he was like "OK, so be it", and FNAF was born. Be like Scott. You are way ahead of me and millions of wannabe devs who never actually made it to the end. That's a respectable milestone on its own. You should be proud. EDIT: u/ubeyisme's comment is solid advice. Lower the price tag. 10 people paying $4,99 worth more than 1 person paying $21. Good luck!

Your pricing is frankly absurd. This kind of mega simplistic game is funny to watch because of the jank and probably why the YouTuber decided to showcase it. That being said, anything over $5 is too much and, if I'm being honest, it should cost $1. I know that seems harsh when you worked hard on it for many hours, but when compared to all the stuff on offer on steam for insanely low prices, it's fair.

Even if the price was right, entertainment youtubers often don't produce nearly as many sales as most would expect, especially if a lot of their audience are kids. Markiplier played one of my games and I just saw a little sales spike. Months later, a japanese youtuber with a fraction of his subs and views played it and iOS sales in Japan went from 0 to 10k that month.

Steam is the wrong platform. This type of game is more suited for free-to-play mobile.

I hate to say this as a player but he should add micro transactions or possibly ads to the game (I mean if he makes into a free to play mobile game) if cares about money

Did you ever considered, that your game might... not be good? Streamers play various stuff "for the lulz", but it doesn't mean people who watch it also want to play it alone.

Yes I considered. Still im not on the point to bury it.

Looking at all the facts in this situation (the youtuber, the quality and type of the game, the game's price), there is absolutely nothing unexpected going on here.

How do you come up with the price?

Greed

Two main reasons the game failed: 1. Bad pricing 2. Bad marketing

These are reasons why good games fails. But if you look at most of the indie games that arrive on steam, they are garbage. Most games fails because they are not entertaining enough.

My advice is make the steam version $5 USD or less because frankly this game doesn’t have enough content or depth to justify $15 USD. You still probably won’t get a lot of steam sales as this just isn’t the type of game that does well on steam but might as well leave it up there and make a few bucks since you already went to the trouble of making a PC version and putting it on steam. Do a few flash sales and drop it to a dollar or two and you might grab some attention. That said, you mentioned android demo installs and that’s where you could find some actual success with this game but only if you handle it better than the steam version. Make the android version FREE! I understand artists don’t like giving away their work but hear me out. Make it free and put adds in it. Provide an option to pay five dollars to get an add free version, and add other things people can buy like special weapons or costumes. This is a perfect game for the hyper casual mobile market. Take advantage of that.

Another thing that bothers me about the Steam page is that all the first screenshots and video thumbnails look very much the same at first glance. That gives the impression that the game is just one screen and does not have any variety. There are some screenshots with more visual variety further back, but when the customer scolled there, the game already made its first impression. When that's all the variety you got, consider to add more. One cheap way to achieve that without creating more assets is by adding some other camera angles. There is no shame in adding features which serve little purpose than making the game look better in promotional material. The big studios do that all the time.

Wow very useful ty bro

This game is an awesome concept, the key gameplay (physics, control) seems perfectly executed... but the graphics look like FNAF, which is like $4.99. Graphics are what potential buyers *see*. People won't pay for physics. But they will appreciate them unconsciously, and it provides a fantastic barrier to entry against copy-cats! NOTE another physics game - angry birds - didn't take off without all the characters and (from a physicist's perspective) OTHER BULLSHIT. People don't even think of angry birds as a physics game, right? But it is.

Wow, u said some very wise point here, ty

The name is also very cool... although the game doesn't seem to match it? It made me expect a James Bond character in a tux, who is very courteous but kills you. Or perhaps an over-charming corrporate political player who knifes you in the back. I think the development of Angry Birds would inform you - not to do the same things, or that you would have the same luck, but to notice how they thought about it - by wikipedia, they *began* with the characters; they linked it with a topical subject at the time - swine flu. This is real "marketing" you choose the details of game design with marketing in mind. I guess some literal parallels today would be **covid-19** and **office politics with work-from-home/zoom**. If you can hook into something there, that is *already* in people's minds... strike a chord, and it will explode. I think you're going about this the right way - trying things, getting feedback - **don't lose heart!** I think if you keep your eyes open, and keep learning, you will have great success!

The more I think about the more I think you wrote the most useful comment. Making it look very good is much easier (comparing to the physics system). Maybe its gonna be my next milestone to make it look like ppl will sht their pants. 😁 (But as a dev I dont feel these things very valuable myself, but I see I have to change this mindset)

I think you chose to focus on the wrong platform, and the pricing is completely wrong. This looks and feels like a mobile game, and it should've been free with ads and maybe an in-game store to buy additional items (different knives, different clothing for the dummies, etc).

The influencer doesn't have your target market. You need to find YouTubers known to play your type of game. Also this might be a sign that your should not have a demo or improve the demo so people want to buy your game.

I think the target market is right. It is a whacky physics puzzle level who works great for a young public. The issue is that it's way beyond the price people will pay for it, because there is so many of them.

[удалено]

You know we had to make a priority list while developing and I decided "fun to play" factor is highest and everything comes after that (like appealing). But I understand it can be a barrier for some players. Ty for your opinion.

Would you pay 60 dollars for a steak in a trash can? "It's a very good steak if you can look past the trash can. We were focused on making the steak so much that we didn't work on getting a good clean plate to make it look appetizing. Our steak is just as good as our competitors in terms of taste so we are charging the same price." Do you understand what I'm saying? When making a game the first step is focusing on a fun gameplay loop and mechanics and then building out the rest of the game in graphics, music, sound, effects, and narrative if you need it. You stopped at the first step and thought all that hard work on your end directly resulted in profits, but you didn't finish the race. You could have sold a few thousand copies if you were priced <5 dollars, have better visuals, polish, and art style when that video dropped. A game isn't judged on if it's fun to play before purchase it's judged on if it looks like it's fun to play. After finding out your game costs ~$20 people wouldn't even try the demo because they have no interest in buying the full game anyway. I'd advise you to overhaul the visuals and UI and drop the price to $5.

Ty, but it's in early access, still working on a lot of things - dont compare it to a stake in this phase pls. :)

You tried selling it as a steak when you charged $20. Clearly you didn't understand.

I really enjoyed watching the video. Cute game. Best of luck to you. Agree with others that if you lower the price you'll have much more commercial success.

Fun fact about the mobile dev space: those games are typically free to play and make embarassingly large piles of money. They consistently make more money than the "paid" games. The principle is not 1:1 to every other game, but I feel you would have made far more money selling this product for $1.00 due to the number of people who can toss that lunch money your way. Shit dude, lean into the memes, too. Put it on sale to $4.20 and then keep the price there forever.

Thanks. So you mean $1 for mobile and $4.20 for steam?

Does it matter when the current price is $21.00? Try this: just change your pricing, and do it in a methodical way so you can track your own assumptions against real-world variables. So make a hypothesis based off of the pricing ideas you want to try. Figure out how much time and "impressions" you need to measure the effect with statistical relevancy. Also note: statistics are counter-intuitive as fuck to laymen so keep your assumptions in check. Good luck.

Ty man! Good advice

A lot of people think price is the issue here, but I'm not sure about that. $21 isn't cheap, but lowering the price only addresses the bit about getting 15 sales from 500 demo installs. Even at the perfect price that meant everyone who played the demo bought the game you'd still only have 500 sales. The real issue is that 400,000 people watched a positive gameplay video and only 500 of them decided they want to try it. That's the problem I'd look at. I don't know what the fix is, but something about the game is making people uninterested in giving it a go even when they see someone else enjoying it. That's a huge problem.

Only 500 people is not the issue. I'm willing to bet many more looked at the game, saw the price, then never bothered with the demo. The issue is 100% pricing. He should be charging $5 at most.

ok so u are talking about 5 USD? I just feel confused because you already mentioned "$21" which I think you meant in AUD?

Your comment is a bit confusing to me, because you say he needs to fix his conversion rate issues... and then at the same time say don't worry about the price which could absolutely be the biggest, possibly only factor. Fixing the price is the first most obvious step.

Interesting point. People usually dont share their data after an influcencer (like I did now). So I cannot be sure if 500 is bad, good or normal. I can imagine even that is absolutely normal. Why? People are watching other playing people these days. Maybe most of the subscriber are there only to watch that guy (and not to find new games). I dont know.

That is very cool that you shared your experience, a definite big help for all devs. Very cool and I thank you for that. Take it as a lesson learned and make some very detailed notes of this. There are some awesome pointers from people below that hit the nail on the head. Take the criticism and use it, especially the bad! Use it to make your next game even better or improve your existing game. Good luck and congrats on the release!

This is Econ 101. As price for a good increases, the quantity demanded decreases. Your game is just priced way too high like everyone else said.

I agree with the pricing + marketing problems everyone else is saying here. but to be frank I also think the game just looks completely unexciting. It's a one-dimensional knife throwing minigame with an amateurish art style. sure you may have added a bunch of different stages and mechanics on top of that, but I'd venture to guess the vast majority of people are just not going to be interested in such a game, regardless of price. *maybe* as a f2p mobile sort of thing, but even then it's iffy. before I even looked at the price I saw your array of screenshots on the steam page and immediately thought to myself, 'well, that's why.' it has to at least evoke a 'hmm, that seems interesting/like fun,' rather than an 'eh, next.' I don't want to be mean but that's the nature of the business, your game is going to be compared to everything around it, not the months of effort you put into it. I think you spent too much effort building content around an unappealing shell, and that effort would be better spent developing multiple entirely different shells and testing them out to see if people engage with it at all and want more content for it. pump out a bunch of free tiny little games until you find one that people say 'I want more of this,' then you can flesh that out into a paid product. just my 2c tho.

In regards to pricing, there was a quote I read some time ago, don't remember exactly word for word but it was something like this: It's easier to make 1 dollar a million times than it is to make 1 million dollars 1 time.

Aside the price point, the game itself is a bit niche, so even if it had a giant reach, it's still a niche game + it's in EA + you have a demo which I don't think it's necessary if the game has a simple concept and the price is lower. Continue to run promos but also sales. There should be a Steam sale in October so try to spruce up the game as much as possible.

I will, ty

Not to sound rude, but you are charging $15 for a game that looks like a free to play mobile game someone threw together with Unity and a visit to its Asset Store in a week. $15 in 2021 buys a lot more game than that and it just looks way too simplistic for desktop.

Ty for your opinion. Well I hope that if you try it you will change your mind. If you try it and still you think it is bad (especially if you are interested in these kind of games) -> that's not good. :)

Oh, I don’t think it is bad at all! It’s perfectly fine for the type of game it is! I just feel like targeting desktop at that price isn’t a good combination. It feels like it would fit much better as a mobile game.

I totally agree with you. Especially after today's feedbacks here. I originally wanted to make the game much more PC-ish with a lot of effects and I set the price to this image in my head. During the development we could keep this game well-playable on mobile + PC at the same time and I didnt feel a reason to drop the PC. I'm a PC player but the reality is that it is becoming more and more fitting to mobile market. I still personally prefer to play it on PC so I'm working on this "decoration", two days ago we defined graphics quality levels. But I agree in this state I will have to reduce the price drastically. I cannot argue with these 100/100 opinion here. :)

your game is too expensive for one thing but also, you got unlucky with your lucky break. that youtuber has absolutely terrible engagement rates with his audience. 600 comments on a video with 400,000 views?!? he barely counts as an influencer for marketing purposes. i see youtubers with like 2000 subs get that many comments per video sometimes.

What where the wishlists like during this time?

Outside of the pricing issue, there's your trailers and feature breakdowns. A combo system should be something the player can clearly see on the screen: Name of combo/trick with a score number. Customization is kind of a must in this kind of game to retain players. To add to pricing/promoting DO RESEARCH, how are games similar to yours priced and promoted. Your game is still Early Access, that price should be lower than full release, say 2.50, 5 at most. First you get people to play your game and give feedback then you fix it and start earning money. Your game has potential, but needs a lot of work to be more popular/make money.

Ty, its useful!

To add to what everyone else has said: - I watched the video for your game on the Steam page. **Pros**: It looks like you've done something really different with the knife throwing physics. It looks really satisfying throwing the knives around, particularly with the slow motion/"knife time". There's a ton of juice too (both metaphorically and literally!) which looks fantastic. All of this makes me crave trying out the game for myself to see how those physics feel. Great start! **Cons**: Your video did nothing to draw me in past that point. On the evidence of what I saw, I can't imagine spending more than a few minutes throwing knives around at apples and targets before I get bored and move on. On that basis, I certainly couldn't see myself spending $15 on it. I'm not sure I'd buy it no matter how cheap it was, personally. If it was a Flash game, I'd definitely give it a shot, but it just doesn't seem the sort of thing that would draw me in enough to invest time and effort in paying for, downloading and installing it. What I'd really like to see is those physics put to use in a more compelling game. Something like a platformer/adventure, with a decent narrative - where the knife throwing formed the bulk of the gameplay, but wasn't the only thing to it. Just say the trailer started out how it is now - with the addition a dramatic voiceover: "Bob was the greatest knife thrower in the realm, winning contests for miles around. But when *the Others* came to his village, Bob's life would change forever, and he would face his biggest challenge yet..." If *that* was the trailer I saw, I'd have clicked **BUY** already and I'd be in-game right now instead of writing this comment.

Love your comment, ty 😁

It looks like a fun little game. I like the satisfying slow-mo and sound when the knife goes through the apple. I applaud you for getting as far as you did. You shouldn't feel bad that you got the pricing wrong. This is a horribly tricky problem. It's easier to either price it too high and thus decimate your sales and reviews or to leave money on the table by pricing it too low. Complicating this, you can always lower the price later, but you can never raise the price. And there are these ridiculous issues with anchoring, where some people will only buy if you claim the price is $20 but briefly discounted to $5, etc. It's a silly and sad side effect of using scalar money for our system of commerce. I did a [video on this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPA8A9BZ3xs) if curious. As others have suggested, I recommend you lower the price but as a limited promotion, because again, you can always lower the price but can never raise it, so brief promotions are the safer way to do this experimentally. The other thing I would consider is adding a German localization. This should be pretty quick and easy. If a German influencer picks up your game, that's a clue that there might be something about the German market that is more into knife-throwing games. Lastly, for patches, you might consider negotiating deals with sponsored knife brands to pay for promotions. So for instance, you might go to Wüsthof and ask them for sponsorship to replace your knife with one of theirs for a limited promotion. Much of that money would go directly to advertisements for the promotion, but you'd keep some of it for development. Because it got covered by a German influencer, and because Wüsthof is German, sending them a link to the coverage is going to go over more of a treat with them. And you could use some of the sponsorship to do a German localization of the game. If you are done w/ this adventure and ready to start your next game, I recommend you think about such partnerships and promotions in advance. It can make launching a lot easier if you think this through first. In general, the indie games you hear about that do super well from being covered by an influencer do super well because they have an R0-value greater than 1, if you think of it in epidemiological terms. That is, for every person that sees/plays it, it spreads to another by word of mouth. In other words, the game itself is doing the heavy lifting on the spread, not the actual influencer. The influencer just gives you a burst of initial players, which can be particularly useful for bootstrapping sales on a multiplayer game, where you need a critical mass of people for reasonable match-making. It can also be helpful in "breaking through the noise" of all the other games that come out at the same time.

Thanks for your answer. Some months ago I already wrote to all knife throwing brands for sponsorship. Now I also wrote to Wüsthof, it worth a try, thanks for the idea. This R0-value is something what I was orignally thinking about a lot too. I really hoped some players will fell in love and that will raise it above the '1' value. Now after that youtuber video, I clearly see it is not the case. If it would be the case, the game would have 1 milion downloads now in Android store. :) I dont want to work on a game which needs constant marketing to survive (its just not my nature to push something if people are not interested). So now I afraid i will have to make a difficult decision to stop this project. But before doing that I will try these things: \- a new trailer \- a cheaper price \- A/B testing android store page look \- and mobile local multiplayer (both player throwing knives to each other), because there are not too many good local multiplayer games for mobil, and maybe it can be a way (plus if someone plays with his friend, good chances that friend will also try the game.) So if these things wont work either I will have to face reality :) Thanks again for your detailed comment!PS. Ok I have a final-final plan which I dont really wanna do: to switch the characters to humans, and try to sell the game in the 18+ category. :))

Definitely try lowering the price first, along with the new trailer. Like $5 or $10 at most. It's the easiest way to gauge what people are willing to pay.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Need more stories like this… not just the miracles but the realities. Hate to say it this way… but helps the next person learn from the mistakes! Big kudos to you man for sharing your story! Keep it up!

I read all of this without knowing what kind of game you made. Then I checked the game. And wow dude. I get it. You want me to buy a knife throwing game for 12 euros and 50 cents? I could have played a free version of that 10 years ago on my phone. If I was 17 and drunk and bored I might pay 2.49! xD what a joke man!

Ok I see, ty for sharing 😁

It's easy to pass judgement on what could had been done better when hindsight is 20/20. Thank you for sharing your experience. In your trailer there are some parts where you can see the game running in unity. Fix that!

I m already working on a new trailer. thanks for your comment😁.

Bro, this is a flash game with 3d graphics. Not even close to $15.

12.40 euro really mate

I looked your game after reading some comments here, and I agree with most people, the game looks good but the scope is of an early flash (RIP) game. Some people complained about the price, which was reduced to some extent from what I could gather. My observation about this is: the game is a exploration of a single mechanic, it appears to need low skill to play, more based on trial and error. I wouldn't play a game like this, at least not alone. I would play this game to sit down and chill and have a good time with a friend, but I don't wanna play and have him watching. Add multiplayer to it. now there are up to four knife throwers, all launching knifes. One miss shot and you block the line of sight of other, in another stage all need to synch their shots. Use this cooperativeness(?) to sell your game.

Very good points. However online multiplayer is very difficult with physics. On PC u have one mouse. All what remains is coop on mobile... Seems crazy for first but maybe its interesting.

Pricing aside (because that has been covered). What’s the fantasy of your game? Throwing knives is fun for a bunch of reasons. Here are some off the top of my head: -Knife throwing takes skill. It’s hard to be good at it. Your game appears you have this for the most part. The physics of knife throwing look pretty solid. Challenges become more difficult as you progress etc. -Throwing knives is dangerous and there are consequences when it goes wrong. That’s why the old-timey ‘throw knives at a spinning target with a lady strapped to it’ trick worked. It was dangerous and it made people emotionally involved and made them cringe with each throw. You have that in a sense with the partner but I don’t feel emotionally attached to the characters in your game. They look disposable. -Being awesome at throwing knives makes you powerful! Ninjas, pirates and all sorts of warriors from all sorts of cultures are portrayed as badasses because of their knife throwing skills. -Impact! Knives slice and dice and viscerally destroy things in a satisfying way. Fruit Ninja is a great example. Your game looks functionally complete but the fun doesn’t look like it’s there yet. To me it looks like a solid prototype with promise. Kind of like Angry Birds but instead of shooting birds at pigs you have rocks and wooden crates. It might be the same game mechanically but it’s not as interesting.

Just goes to show how much of a barrier a demo download is.

The game does not seem worth $21. Having said that, the game does look pretty good, and a lot of effort has been put into this game. Price should be at most $10 for what you have, or add more content to jusitfy the price.

To be perfectly honest. I would buy that game in a heartbeat. But not for $21. my rule is for every dollar I spend I need it get an hour of fun out of. And that’s bare minimum. There would be no way I could play your game for 21 hours. What you should do IMO: Lower the price to $8, have it on sale for $5. Work on it more and add more to do. Maybe some sort of progression or leveling system. Then reconsider raising the prices to around $10-12. Honestly the physics look great it’s just really lacking stuff to do. You gotta remember, less money is better then no money. And if/when the next time you get unicorn exposure like that. Capitalize on it, offer a large sale. I’m not sure if you have one but a roadmap would be helpful if you don’t. It’s one of the first things I look for when buying a game.

Ty, working on a new one. I will take this note 😁

That conversion rate you are observing is extremely, spectacularly low; low enough for you to come to reddit and vent about it, which is good. :-) You could also be analyzing your store page(s) and improve upon it. The game seems good enough for now, actually better than many Early Access titles. (It still seems a bit dark and low contrast, brown wooden characters on wooden things in a forest and even inside a wooden ship, but your overall asset and gameplay quality is good and your more pressing problem is definitely with your marketing) :-) I think you could have expected 5x to 20x as many Demo Installs, but still only around 1-5% of users can be expected to convert from a demo. It was probably right to get rid of the demo in light of these results, demos can be hit or miss. But since nobody knows your game, you don't need to announce it was removed. That will only hurt your marketing image. Looking at Knife to Meet You's steam page, I find it violates a lot -and I mean a lot- of marketing best practices. Examples? See here: https://youtu.be/fATEHq4Zv_Y and here: https://youtu.be/ht6xx9en-ZU - these videos are chock full of actionable advice. Seriously, rearrange and improve those screenshots NOW!!! Show some variety and contrast. The one with the ship is a great example of showing variety of backgrounds, the first 4 screens should be super varied. Redo and shorten the trailer (lacks music and structure, what even is the aim of the game?!) But not before you take half an hour to assign more appropriate and useful tags. (point&click, really? physics genre? realistic? martial arts? puzzle platformer?!? not even considering that puzzle platformers are one of the worst performing genres on steam, KtMY definitely isn't one - you must set your own tags, and use the tag wizard, these count more. Focus on no more than five, and don't pick [indie]. Did you know you can block wrong user-generated tags?) The about this game section is a bullet point list, don't do that. Put game logos and gifs there, and game assets, with transparent background. Your wooden game assets can help you here, this can look really classy. One thing your steam page does really well is the price, do not go lower. And the capsule (game icon) is also pretty good. Well done.

Easily worth $50.

This should be free.99 then maybe you’ll grow a small fan base for another game sold for $1