Issue #83
PUBLOG
What we're going in with
August 20th, 10AM PT. Feed the Scorchpot goes live.
We wanted to get this out before the day itself, so you knew how we were feeling going in rather than hearing about it after (yes, that will come).
We've worked with what we had. For us and for Jakub (the developer) that was:
Limited time
Our own cash
Deals with others to get visibility
Wearing multiple hats
Pooping ourselves (a little)
Sound familiar? Pretty much every indie dev is bootstrapping just like us. With more money we reckon the numbers would be bigger. For a first release though, we think we've done alright to get here. As of writing we're at 11,300 wishlists and 12,000 demo downloads. Everyone would love more, but this is where we are, one week before launch!
So what does “success” look like? Jakub will have his own number for when the revenue adds up, and we won't put words in his mouth. For Indieformer it's about 20,000 units. That keeps us steady and lets us put money into the other games we're building. It won’t pay us though; we're playing a long game here.
“Only” 20,000 units
The algorithmic feeds only ever show you the games that worked. The ones that didn't aren't interesting enough to post about. Or are there just too many of them?
So when we say “20,000” it sounds small next to everything scrolling past you. But when we look a the gap:
We'd have to double our wishlists to get there (and then have everyone buy it). Or, every person who downloaded the demo would have to buy it, and then that many again. Like, selling one car is hard enough, right?
Right now it's business
This is a product business now. We need to move units. Nobody's asking about new features or colour palettes any more, that's all locked in. The only job left is getting seen, and getting seen fast.
We'd love to tell you it'll work out. We don't know. Whatever happens, you'll read about it here.
We’re working on bundling with other similar games, running reddit ads, and emailing creators & press left, right, and center to try get coverage.
If you want the game (like, genuinely), pick it up on the 20th and leave a public Steam review. The faster those go up, the better our odds of getting to make the next one!
See you on the other side, we’ll definitely tell you how it went.
Josh & Clem