MRY
Wormwood Studios
It's a dumb way to feel, but not crazy -- lots of people feel that it was my birthday, so the ring belongs to me. The question is whether you can ignore that voice and just enjoy the cake instead of throttling your friend.
Who else should do it? A "community manager" who isn't a programmer or designer and thus can't help people or understand poorly described potential problems?Obviously you can still try and engage with these people, but small indie dev probably does this all by himself. I can relate how it can push him over the edge dealing with unspeakable idiocy on daily basis.
Who else should do it? A "community manager" who isn't a programmer or designer and thus can't help people or understand poorly described potential problems?Obviously you can still try and engage with these people, but small indie dev probably does this all by himself. I can relate how it can push him over the edge dealing with unspeakable idiocy on daily basis.
Remember when a Dead State's community manager flagged a negative review and the shitstorm that followed?
Not everyone who buys an indie RPG on Steam is an old-school player who remembers the Usenet. Quite a few folks list Skyrim and Dragon Age as their RPG 'old school' credentials ("Old-fashioned and boring mechanics even for those like me who have been dueling for years at TES V AND FALLOUT !!").Also, I've seen you guys interact with the AoD audience on Steam forums and I would say that you generally have an easier crowd to work with. While they're prickly, bitter and cynical as per RPG tradition, they're often from the old internet, been around the forums, trolled the Usenet, and aren't as notoriously thin-skinned and self-entitled.
If you're really passionate about flowery, artsy, rainbowy games, you should be able to talk to your audience about flowery and rainbowy things, no?Some bloke who makes some flowery, artsy, rainbowy indie games about unicorns and fairies might have different experiences than you.
A sensible approach, although something tells me that deep down you really are expecting that 250k number, which isn't that unreasonable if you'll get at least as much coverage in the media as you did with Age of Decadence. You really should consider adding these boob implants for females giving +1 charisma :] (or some other odd thing that might be spotted and mentioned about). Things like these get spotted/go viral, just like becoming a porn star in Fallout 2. Maybe it's not the audience you're going for but the more coverage you get the better and the more chances for people to look past such superficial and inane things and focusing on a truly great part.AoD sold 140k copies. I can take it for granted and expect the colony ship game to sell at least 250k but I won't. I will operate on the assumption that that it can easily fail (despite being a better game in my opinion) or sell half of what AoD sold because the market might be over-saturated (I don't think so but we have to be ready for it) and will work twice as hard to promote the game instead of expecting Steam to do it for me.
“There are people making quality titles that are getting the same level of support as troll games that were made in three days,” Michael Hicks, developer of Pillar, Path of Motus and other indie titles told me. “Then Valve takes a 30 percent cut for doing next to nothing. That’s my main issue with their whole system.”
Not everyone who buys an indie RPG on Steam is an old-school player who remembers the Usenet. Quite a few folks list Skyrim and Dragon Age as their RPG 'old school' credentials ("Old-fashioned and boring mechanics even for those like me who have been dueling for years at TES V AND FALLOUT !!").Also, I've seen you guys interact with the AoD audience on Steam forums and I would say that you generally have an easier crowd to work with. While they're prickly, bitter and cynical as per RPG tradition, they're often from the old internet, been around the forums, trolled the Usenet, and aren't as notoriously thin-skinned and self-entitled.
If you're really passionate about flowery, artsy, rainbowy games, you should be able to talk to your audience about flowery and rainbowy things, no?
I certainly don't expect to do well and certainly not that well. Not because I'm a humble person like MRY (I'm not) but because expecting a good outcome is always bad for business. You should expect and prepare for the worst.A sensible approach, although something tells me that deep down you really are expecting that 250k number...AoD sold 140k copies. I can take it for granted and expect the colony ship game to sell at least 250k but I won't. I will operate on the assumption that that it can easily fail (despite being a better game in my opinion) or sell half of what AoD sold because the market might be over-saturated (I don't think so but we have to be ready for it) and will work twice as hard to promote the game instead of expecting Steam to do it for me.
The product (the Bible) is the same in both cases whereas with games it couldn't be more different. My point was that you should know your audience and if your audience likes flowery, rainbowy games, you should know what these people are like, what kind of features they want, how to talk to them, etc.Of course, but that's entirely beside the point. It's a different audience consisting of different people and they might be easier or harder to interact with than yours. One Bible salesman can work an area where every door is opened by an old lady who offers him cake. Another Bible salesman can work in an area where every door is opened by a guy with a knife.
Just because you both make games doesn't mean you interact with the same audience.
What does it mean though?Whining aside, the idea of Steam providing devs with a customer support infrastructure of some sort is a good one, no?
What does it mean though?Whining aside, the idea of Steam providing devs with a customer support infrastructure of some sort is a good one, no?
I'm trying to figure out what more Steam can possibly do (other than permanently featuring AoD on the front page) and I honestly can't think of anything. Assign a permanent babysitter who'd comment on my every step and stop me when I'm about to make a mistake?
Steam is getting more and more automated, which is a good thing because developers can do everything themselves. I can change the name, the prices, run a discount, participate in a sale event, request keys, submit a store page for approval, and do tons of other things without bothering anybody. Isn't that a good thing?
I can’t tell you how many reviews I’ve got for issues which have nothing to do with the quality of the game. Forgot my password? Negative review. [Blue screen of death]? Negative review. These are things that are clearly support issues.”
Asked to describe what support tools are available to them, a different developer brought up the same issue.
“Well the tools are just the review system,” they said. “There’s no ticket management or way to allocate tasks. Or if there is I don’t know where it is. We try to push people to our Freshdesk support so we can manage there, but that’s tough. I’ve also tried to [private-message] people to fix issues and delve in deeper and that’s just potluck they check them and respond.”
It's called a forum?No, I'm talking about this part of the article:
I can’t tell you how many reviews I’ve got for issues which have nothing to do with the quality of the game. Forgot my password? Negative review. [Blue screen of death]? Negative review. These are things that are clearly support issues.”
Asked to describe what support tools are available to them, a different developer brought up the same issue.
“Well the tools are just the review system,” they said. “There’s no ticket management or way to allocate tasks. Or if there is I don’t know where it is. We try to push people to our Freshdesk support so we can manage there, but that’s tough. I’ve also tried to [private-message] people to fix issues and delve in deeper and that’s just potluck they check them and respond.”
Customer support for the players, not the developers.
It's called a forum?
Said by whom? People who don't know what this word means?It's often said that for indies on Steam, Valve is in effect their publisher.
It would make everything much worse.Would make sense then for Valve to offer additional services associated with publishing. It could be an optional thing, since AAAs might prefer to funnel people towards their own customer service portals.
You said that an optional publishing service might be a good idea, without specifying details. There's only one thing that Steam can do to make games perform better and that's exposure. If you have to pay to get exposure, it will fuck up the entire ecosystem.The sound of that strawman being pounded to death tells me you don't really have a counter-argument to what I said
I was talking about them providing the publisher-like service of a Steam-integrated customer service portal with tickets and so on. But it would be be staffed and operated by the developer, not by Valve. Just like they provide you with integrated forums right now, where you need to supply the moderating team.
It wouldn't actually be part of a formal publishing arrangement with Valve taking a larger cut of the $$$ (although of course if they were greedy they could do that).
A ticketing system where users are required to upload their saved game, PC specs and details of their issues would then put developers on the spot to resolve each ticket manually, instead of posting a link on forums that may or may not work. I guess each method has pros and cons depending on scale of issues reported and amount of staff manning the support.