Are sales bad for games?

I am sorry, but what was wrong with KiA delivery method ?!

if they cared enough to keep up the players would. i've subscribed to every indie studio i've liked and plan on buying any DLC/games they release. (Well not EVERY game, but most)

Quoting: "avarisclari, post: 3052"if they cared enough to keep up the players would. i've subscribed to every indie studio i've liked and plan on buying any DLC/games they release. (Well not EVERY game, but most)

Who are you talking about?!

Quoting: "motorsep, post: 3045"I signed the contract because HIB told me that they will give he access to userbase afterward. So while I was very disappointed with HIB being capitalistic sharks and not passionate human beings, I was hoping to make it up with DLC sales, by letting _my clients_ (even though they got their copy through HIB, they are still my customers) know about DLC. Well, guess what, HIB not only didn't give me mailing list, but also refused to let people know about DLC.

I can tell you right now that as a Humble Bundle customer, I would have been grossly offended if I had have received an email from you guys. That said, I liked Steel Storm and I'm excited to see what else you can put together. I'm totally happy to give you guys my money (I even said I wanted to pay more for my SS2 in the merchant instructions for my pre-order, but nobody has gotten back to me).

Given that the Humble Bundle Privacy Policy precludes the type of sharing you're talking about, I find it to be pretty unlikely that you were promised contact addresses. I still don't know the ins and outs of the entire situation, and Humble Bundle have never publicly spoken about their side of the story, but it seems more likely that there was a miscommunication somewhere along the line.

Quoting: "motorsep, post: 3045"Also, the media coverage is still a huge issue. If you google for Tomes of Mephistopheles, all of the sites that mentioned it are Linux gaming sites. Incredible. Basically a lot of indie media think that KiA and its games are not worthy of coverage. It's been an issue from the day 1 with SS:BR and it continues.

Marketing is a huge challenge for independent developers. Are you doing anything aside from emailing media places and putting out press releases? The dev blog videos are nice, but they're not going to attract anybody who's not already interested.

Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 3054, member: 122"I can tell you right now that as a Humble Bundle customer, I would have been grossly offended if I had have received an email from you guys. That said, I liked Steel Storm and I'm excited to see what else you can put together. I'm totally happy to give you guys my money (I even said I wanted to pay more for my SS2 in the merchant instructions for my pre-order, but nobody has gotten back to me).

Eeh, why would you get offended? This is total non-sense to me. It's not like we are peeping through your web cam or something. Why wouldn't you get offended by HIB sending you e-mails, but you would get offended by us sending you updates or what not?! Anyhow, that's fine. But what stops HIB to telling you: "Hey, KiA has 2 new games coming up. Check out their website/blog/twitter." ?

Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 3054, member: 122"Marketing is a huge challenge for independent developers. Are you doing anything aside from emailing media places and putting out press releases? The dev blog videos are nice, but they're not going to attract anybody who's not already interested.

So far, it's YouTube, Twitter and GameTrailers. Once we have more footage, a website and description of the features, I will e-mail to whoever reviewed / previewed SS:BR (any Internet media). However, there are key websites who feels that what we do isn't interesting to the public (very subjective point of view). These key websites would direct a lot of attention to our new games. I guess they just don't take us seriously, or dislike us.. I don't know really. It's a big piece of the puzzle to me.

There is nothing else we can do. I do wish to have $20k budget for a week on RPS front page :D (yes, that's how much it costs for 1 week of advertising on RPS). Facebook was useless for SS:BR promotion, GoogleAds were useless too.

There are some websites/magazines with good userbase, but they are still very expensive to advertise on. Linux Format reviewed SS:Ep1, but I was unable to persuade them to review SS:BR. So, if you have any tips, please share :)

The worse thing is that we have 250k of people who owns SS:BR on Steam (most of those redeemed their copy on Steam from HIB3) and some people on Desura, however, there is absolutely no way to reach them. Desura is the same way as HIB. We can't have e-mails from them, and they are not willing to e-mail our users, not even if we do alpha funding through them.

So in a long run, staying away from Steam and Desura is very beneficial, because once the userbase is accumulated and satisfied, the developer can pretty much keep on making games for his users and strive. They are always within developer's reach as a result of direct sales.

Quoting: "motorsep, post: 3055"Eeh, why would you get offended? This is total non-sense to me. It's not like we are peeping through your web cam or something. Why wouldn't you get offended by HIB sending you e-mails, but you would get offended by us sending you updates or what not?!

Mostly because it'd be a breach of the privacy policy, but also because I don't like organisations sharing my personal information. If I want to be on your mailing list, I'll sign up for it myself, thanks.

People who tick the "Notify me about future Humble Bundles" checkbox want to know about Humble Bundles. That doesn't indicate they want to know about other stuff.

Quoting: "motorsep, post: 3055"Anyhow, that's fine. But what stops HIB to telling you: "Hey, KiA has 2 new games coming up. Check out their website/blog/twitter." ?

I agree, it'd be nice to for developers if they did that sort of thing, but I can't say it's explicitly bad that they're not (in fact, it has some positive aspects - a much nicer signal-to-noise ratio being one of them).

Quoting: "motorsep, post: 3055"There are some websites/magazines with good userbase, but they are still very expensive to advertise on. Linux Format reviewed SS:Ep1, but I was unable to persuade them to review SS:BR. So, if you have any tips, please share :)

Of course :)
Here are some thoughts:
Print magazines are probably a good move (if you wanted to make it more attractive to them, you could look towards something like limited time demo exclusivity for their cover discs).
I've heard that attending conventions can have a huge impact (though there are pretty significant costs associated with that).
I'm assuming you're already planning some competitions/giveaways. If you are, I'd suggest going for stuff that encourages entrants to be creative rather than stuff that requires them to spam tweets and facebook shares (make your user community want to tell others about your stuff of their own volition, don't force them).
It's extra work, but you could look at offering some free content updates (not free DLC, since that doesn't automatically get rolled out to users) for SS:BR in the lead up to SS2's release. One possible clever approach could be to run a modding/mapping competition with the prize being to be included in an official update.

At the end of the day, it takes money/effort to get the word out, and balancing that can be really hard when you don't have the resources for a brute force marketing campaign.

Oh, and you've created a potential marketing nightmare by calling it "Steel Storm 2". Make sure you put a lot of effort into expectation management.

Quoting: CheesenessI even said I wanted to pay more for my SS2 in the merchant instructions for my pre-order, but nobody has gotten back to me

I'm curious about this. Do you guys get to see the merchant instructions? If so, do you pay attention to them? That's totally an opportunity there.

Quoting: "motorsep, post: 3055"The worse thing is that we have 250k of people who owns SS:BR on Steam (most of those redeemed their copy on Steam from HIB3) and some people on Desura, however, there is absolutely no way to reach them. Desura is the same way as HIB. We can't have e-mails from them, and they are not willing to e-mail our users, not even if we do alpha funding through them.

IMO, you're doing a good enough job of contacting your customers via the in-game stuff you have in SS:BR. Steam and Desura both have news feeds for stuff related to the game (Steam's is probably more likely to catch people's eyes, but I suspect that Desura users are probably more likely to care).

There are people who are willing to pay for your games but don't want to ever hear from you directly. Steam and Desura are pretty good places to catch customers like that if you want them.

Moving back on topic a bit more, bundles and sales are a way to potentially reach people beyond those that have existing interest, and you have absolutely no idea whether they have positive or negative predispositions towards your game (which can be a double edged sword).

Do you really expect that all those 250k users want to pay $5+ for a sequel that (as far as we know) may never come out? We don't know how dedicated you are to this, or how long it will take. Your only one person, so how is throwing money at the problem gonna help YOU code faster? If I like a game I'll look into updates/sequels myself, I certainly wouldn't want you e-mailing me unless I signed up for it. If you really wanted to reach all your current users then you should have built in a news section in the menu of the game that updates over the internet, don't rely on a third party to inform these people. And finally, don't whine cause you can't fund shitty game with a shittier game.

Quoting: "Joe, post: 3057"If you really wanted to reach all your current users then you should have built in a news section in the menu of the game that updates over the internet, don't rely on a third party to inform these people.

Actually, the current "Message Of The Day" as seen from the main menu of the game does just that (it currently talks about the weapon pack DLC and Steel Storm 2 development).

Quoting: "Joe, post: 3057"Do you really expect that all those 250k users want to pay $5+ for a sequel that (as far as we know) may never come out? We don't know how dedicated you are to this, or how long it will take.

I am sorry, but apparently making 2 games and releasing them while working full time at non-game job is not a good indicator any more.

Quoting: "Joe, post: 3057"If you really wanted to reach all your current users then you should have built in a news section in the menu of the game that updates over the internet, don't rely on a third party to inform these people.

Our engine allows to download updates for the game data and game logic. However, it doesn't allow for updating the online. It's totally insecure. And what does this have to do with reaching them? If a person finished the game, (s)he won't launch it again. So how on Earth are they going to get an update? o_O

Quoting: "Joe, post: 3057"And finally, don't whine cause you can't fund shitty game with a shittier game.

Oh, is it you, Joe The Plumber, the Troll of the Trolls? Thank you for "supporting" hard work of a few indie teams striving to bring high quality games to the platform.

Quoting: "Joe, post: 3057"And finally, don't whine cause you can't fund shitty game with a shittier game.

so much for your post......