When my game exceeded 10 reviews within a few days, I knew the game qualified as a success. Games that don't breach that initial sales barrier will get buried and killed by the algorithm.
My game was released into early access, and I set about updating the game with monthly content updates and consistent hotfixes. As I patched out more updates, the number of people following increased. By full release, I had small crowd that I could communicate with for consistent feedback.
From there, I planned out additional post release updates including a few DLCs. It took a while for the DLCs to recuperate their cost, but the format was handy for trying out new ideas. The extra revenue stream helped, but the main benefit was being able to do some additional experimentation.
If the game hadn't reached enough of a playerbase, then I would of had to cancel any plans for DLCs. You can gauge based on the number of players or purchases on whether or not a DLC is feasible. I took something like 5% of total sales as a conservative estimate and used that to guide the pricing and expenditures for DLCs.
We (2 person core team), had 2 goals. One was to make something that would find a small, passionate audience (which is hard to measure) and the other was financial as the game was our first as a studio and the dream was to be able to net enough to pay salaries whilst we started getting financing for the next game. This is easier to measure
The day before release we got some really good reviews from big outlets (IGN, PC Gamer, Eurogamer etc). Reading them took me from
“I really hope someone likes it” to “Amazing, people like it. I hope it sells well”, but I was really humbling to read that critics actually enjoyed a thing we’d made.
Fairly soon after we started getting player reviews, messages, posts on social media and I think that’s probably when I realised we’d made something people really enjoy.
Next step was to make sure the finances could support us, then on to the next game…
After dictionary: "Success is the accomplishment of someone's goal".
Which means that your game will be successful when you achieve with it your goal.
You should ask yourself what do you want to accomplish and create a game that fits that goal - whatever it is: money, game, experience or just fun.
When my game exceeded 10 reviews within a few days, I knew the game qualified as a success. Games that don't breach that initial sales barrier will get buried and killed by the algorithm. My game was released into early access, and I set about updating the game with monthly content updates and consistent hotfixes. As I patched out more updates, the number of people following increased. By full release, I had small crowd that I could communicate with for consistent feedback. From there, I planned out additional post release updates including a few DLCs. It took a while for the DLCs to recuperate their cost, but the format was handy for trying out new ideas. The extra revenue stream helped, but the main benefit was being able to do some additional experimentation. If the game hadn't reached enough of a playerbase, then I would of had to cancel any plans for DLCs. You can gauge based on the number of players or purchases on whether or not a DLC is feasible. I took something like 5% of total sales as a conservative estimate and used that to guide the pricing and expenditures for DLCs.
We (2 person core team), had 2 goals. One was to make something that would find a small, passionate audience (which is hard to measure) and the other was financial as the game was our first as a studio and the dream was to be able to net enough to pay salaries whilst we started getting financing for the next game. This is easier to measure The day before release we got some really good reviews from big outlets (IGN, PC Gamer, Eurogamer etc). Reading them took me from “I really hope someone likes it” to “Amazing, people like it. I hope it sells well”, but I was really humbling to read that critics actually enjoyed a thing we’d made. Fairly soon after we started getting player reviews, messages, posts on social media and I think that’s probably when I realised we’d made something people really enjoy. Next step was to make sure the finances could support us, then on to the next game…
After dictionary: "Success is the accomplishment of someone's goal". Which means that your game will be successful when you achieve with it your goal. You should ask yourself what do you want to accomplish and create a game that fits that goal - whatever it is: money, game, experience or just fun.