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Death Squared developers pleased with Switch sales, underperformed on Steam

J

joker3782

Neo Member
I bought this recently on the Switch before going to a friend's house as I was sold from watching the trailer they had on the eshop. My friends and I had a blast going through the 40 4 player co-op levels. If you own a Switch and need a good coop game for when you're with friends, I highly recommend this game.

Glad to see that it's selling well on the Switch. SMG deserves those sales. Shame about the Steam sales numbers.
 
H

Hektor

Member
Jonneh3003 said:
What reluctance? It came out last week.
Click to expand...

It released on steam on March, 14th.

That was within 10 days between:

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey
Lego Worlds
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Styx: Shards of Darkness
Nier: Automata
Mass Effect: Andromeda (Well, not steam but PC nonetheless)
Zero Escape: The Nonary Games

Just to put this games release into a bit more perspective
 
J

Jonneh3003

Banned
Hektor said:
It released on steam on March, 14th.

That was within 10 days between:

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey
Lego Worlds
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Styx: Shards of Darkness
Nier: Automata
Mass Effect: Andromeda (Well, not steam but PC nonetheless)
Zero Escape: The Nonary Games

Just to put this games release into a bit more perspective
Click to expand...

So it did, thanks for the correction.
 
M

MUnited83

For you.
GwyndolinCinder said:
I mean the size of the store plays a role in whats happened, but it really just comes down to "Did people hear about your game".

You plop a great game on steam with no marketing, yea its gonna get buried.
You plop a great game on the switch store, which highly favours new releases then its probably going to get some attention.

This is ignoring the fact that playing local multiplayer on a switch is amazing,
and on pc it sucks.
Click to expand...
Playing local on PC is also great. Switch does have the advantage of the joy-cons that come with it immediately allowing 2 player local MP. PC is also the platform with the most local MP games by quite a big margin, so you need something more to stand from the crowd.
 
Z

ZombiePlatypus

Member
bytesized said:
I've yet to see any videos of this game where I understand what's going on.
Click to expand...

This is what's keeping me on the fence. I'm super up for a local multiplayer puzzle game, but the footage I've seen or the game seems incomprehensible. I'm sure it'll all make sense once you sit down to properly play, but I hate not having a sense of how it plays before buying.

Really wish it had a demo up.
 
SmokedMeat

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
If you're putting out a game that doesn't look the least bit interesting the Switch is by far your best bet. You'll at least standout among the Neo Geo dominated e-Shop as opposed to the Steam Store that's drowning in all the latest big games.
 
K

Kureransu

Member
AmFreak said:
Maybe, but the 74 score tells you something different.
I don't want to be harsh, i'm only stating the facts.
Click to expand...
The score reveals it's an average game. To me that means it does what it sets out to do successfully, but doesn't stand out on any fronts. You'd be surprised at how many people don't put stock into scores. I think that's it's more so that it release on steam was drowned in other major releases surrounding it, where as it was highlighted in the eShop for a well or two before it's release.
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
I like the responses in this thread... some are pretty funny.

The Switch has a somewhat decent digital library already actually (over 100 I think, I know a drop in the bucket to Steam, but some posts make you think there's only 20 games to pick from), large enough that it can't even display all the games in it anymore (unless this has been fixed, older games can only be found by searching for their titles).

Part of the reason is how new releases are handled, on Switch, every new release is essentially spotlighted and shown to the entire userbase. On Steam not so much.

Now, I get Steam has tons and tons of games, and many are higher quality, but should that really matter to the extent here?

We're talking about potential sales here as low as the 100s (up to 1000s)! Shouldn't a team with a game selling that few copies not be a little offput by the platform? Clearly something went very, very, very wrong if you release a game and it only sells a couple hundred copies. I think they needed more advertising on PC personally, develop more interest in communities. Ultimately to me it sounds like on PC they designed a product the audience did not care for, perhaps this type of game doesn't do well for a PC audience and is missing many features they expect to be standard.
 
K

Keinning

Member
Kureransu said:
The score reveals it's an average game. To me that means it does what it sets out to do successfully, but doesn't stand out on any fronts.
Click to expand...

There's your problem then. There are thousands of games like this (good but not enough to stand out) on Steam. Which is why they... don't stand out in the middle of a huge library and become huge hits. I'm very curious about what were the expectations of the dev for steam if they're disappointed. This is also a local MP only game for PC. Not exactly a selling point.
 
O

OCD Guy

Member
So this is gonna be the new thing right?

"Game sells well on Switch because there are no games".

The same way people would say "The PS3 has no games" for a few years.
 
T

test_account

XP-39C²
Even with less competition on a platform, you still need people to be interested in the product. While it might be a bigger chance for people to try out games, people wont just buy anything. Good to see that they are happy with the sales on Switch at least :)
 
K

Kureransu

Member
Keinning said:
There's your problem then. There are thousands of games like this (good but not enough to stand out) on Steam. Which is why they... don't stand out in the middle of a huge library and become huge hits. I'm very curious about what were the expectations of the dev for steam if they're disappointed. This is also a local MP only game for PC. Not exactly a selling point.
Click to expand...

But like I said in the rest of my post, I don't think that's why it sold less that 1500 copies. It's still surprisingly low.
 
O

OCD Guy

Member
test_account said:
Even with less competition on a platform, you still need people to be interested in the product. While it might be a bigger chance for people to try out games, people wont just buy anything. Good to see that they are happy with the sales on Switch at least :)
Click to expand...

Exactly. I love the notion that people will just buy any old shit if there's not much choice.

If there's not many good games on a platform I actually buy less games, not more lol.
 
S

ShemhazaiX

Member
Switch is going to be great for Indies, until it's not. Just like every indie friendly platform. Eventually you just have too many games being released and it becomes too difficult to stand out.

Happened with Steam, happened with mobile, happened with home consoles.
 
S

Sloane

Banned
Relaxed Muscle said:
That's....bullshit.

The problem is that the number of Steam games is infinitely bigger than on Switch. There's a lot of competition on the platform, while on Swicth your game may be more visible and has less games to compete with in your genre.

People think that just putting your indie game on Steam will magically make it famous or something.
Click to expand...
Pretty much. There are dozens, nah, probably hundreds of at least somewhat similar games on Steam already, and puzzle games in general tend to do a bit better on portable devices these days. Not sure why some people consider this throwing shade at Switch, it's just a testament to how many fucking games there are on Steam, for better or worse.
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
ShemhazaiX said:
Switch is going to be great for Indies, until it's not. Just like every indie friendly platform. Eventually you just have too many games being released and it becomes too difficult to stand out.

Happened with Steam, happened with mobile, happened with home consoles.
Click to expand...

Switch does a few things differently though, they push news articles to every user by default informing them of every release during the week and later the month. So even when there's 1000's of games on the Switch, unless it changes, every new game released will have a spotlight on it, even if only briefly. With Steam (and mobile), I am not greeted as far as I know with a screen that shows me every single release that came out during the week and month, unless i'm specifically searching for them through the store.
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
Minsc said:
I like the responses in this thread... some are pretty funny.

The Switch has a somewhat decent digital library already actually (over 100 I think, I know a drop in the bucket to Steam, but some posts make you think there's only 20 games to pick from), large enough that it can't even display all the games in it anymore (unless this has been fixed, older games can only be found by searching for their titles).

Part of the reason is how new releases are handled, on Switch, every new release is essentially spotlighted and shown to the entire userbase. On Steam not so much.

Now, I get Steam has tons and tons of games, and many are higher quality, but should that really matter to the extent here?

We're talking about potential sales here as low as the 100s (up to 1000s)! Shouldn't a team with a game selling that few copies not be a little offput by the platform? Clearly something went very, very, very wrong if you release a game and it only sells a couple hundred copies. I think they needed more advertising on PC personally, develop more interest in communities. Ultimately to me it sounds like on PC they designed a product the audience did not care for, perhaps this type of game doesn't do well for a PC audience and is missing many features they expect to be standard.
Click to expand...

In PC you can't put the dozens and dozens of releases on the front page, is actually curated to your tastes, because otehrwise is imposible. There's still a highest selling chart, new games tab and popular games tab. You are also greeted with the daily offers, etc... Is well beyond of what Ninty does on Switch.

I mean, it should be improved, but I don't think is any worse to eshop.

The problem is when the game may be one of the few puzzles game on the platform, the PC market has a lot of these games. You don't compete only with newer games, you compete with a platform with a legacy of decades of games too.

We can argue if the Steam market is saturated, or maybe that some games are more suitable to some platforms, sure. But I don't think Steam is the problem in this case.
 
K

kiguel182

Member
Right now I'm more inclined to buy games on Switch if they release there vs any other platform.

Altought here the focus on local multiplayer which is a big Switch focus probably helped.
 
K

Keinning

Member
Kureransu said:
But like I said in the rest of my post, I don't think that's why it sold less that 1500 copies. It's still surprisingly low.
Click to expand...

Is it? Death Squared isnt exactly a revolutionary game by any means. Maybe the potential public for it already have played a similar game before, or have it in their backlog. Maybe puzzle games are not being requested right now and releasing it in march with no fanfare when you had hot releases dropping left and right wasn't a smart idea. It had little promotion (some people even think its a new release), so expecting too much from what basically is one announcement lost in the middle of craigslist is unrealistic. Game had enough spotlight on the e-shop to make people aware of its existance and the switch lends better for the genre and gameplay limitations they have (ie local MP).

Minsc said:
With Steam (and mobile), I am not greeted as far as I know with a screen that shows me every single release that came out during the week and month, unless i'm specifically searching for them through the store.
Click to expand...

You would hate it if it happened, that's why you're not
Just the thought of being notified every new steam release is enough to send shivers down my spine
 
O

Oregano

Member
Minsc said:
Switch does a few things differently though, they push news articles to every user by default informing them of every release during the week and later the month. So even when there's 1000's of games on the Switch, unless it changes, every new game released will have a spotlight on it, even if only briefly. With Steam (and mobile), I am not greeted as far as I know with a screen that shows me every single release that came out during the week and month, unless i'm specifically searching for them through the store.
Click to expand...

The news section is a bit underrated IMO. Niche games like Fate/Extella and Disgaea 5(nevermind indie games) are getting free marketing directly to the entirety of the Switch userbase. It might not have a massive affect but a few thousand sales you might not have got are massively important to the smaller publishers.
 
K

Koren

Member
AmFreak said:
Maybe, but the 74 score tells you something different.
I don't want to be harsh, i'm only stating the facts.
Click to expand...
Not sure it's a fact... at least not of the quality of the game. Fantavision is 72% on MC, and most of the average reviews come from people that don't have a single idea on how the game work (they call it easy, so I doubt anyone of them actually tried to juggle the fireworks to make them last longer so they can build combos). It's not 95, but it's definitively not 72 for the stated reasons.

So while I have no idea about this particular game, I'm REALLY cautious with scores on puzzle games, a quite niche genre (though if the game is good only for a small number of people, they won't get huge numbers)
 
K

Keinning

Member
Plum said:
He wasn't talking about a popup showing up right in your face before you can start Steam. That's not how the Switch does it.
Click to expand...

i have a switch, i know how the e-shop is.
but popups would be the only way to "promote" your new release on steam the same way, just because of the massive number of games hitting it. a section with "new releases of march" would be as pointless to make your game more know as the store is today when in less than a week your game would have been pushed to page 28 or more
 
K

Keasar

Member
Steam has turned into the new iOS store.

There is way too much to compete with. Starting to just not get worth it.
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
Plum said:
He wasn't talking about a popup showing up right in your face before you can start Steam. That's not how the Switch does it.
Click to expand...

I guess my point is, if the game was on three platforms, the only one I had been aware of it being on is Switch. I had no idea it was on Steam or Mobile (which it probably isn't, just saying). The Switch informs its users (that care to look) of what is being released, which I imagine helps sales. But many other factors are at play, I do think visibility on the Switch is one of its strengths. And that has to do with the smaller number of releases for the specific week a game is releasing in. I'm not sure how many games are released each week on Steam and Mobile (it could be 1,000s per week), but Switch has only a handful, so I suppose it's natural they'd have more exposure on the platform, especially given how you're informed of the new releases by the platform itself in these three platforms.
 
T

The Greek Freak

Member
Not surprised, decent looking indie games are a dime a dozen on steam (if you can find them through the piles and piles of trash).

Barely anything is out for the switch.

I would never have bought this on steam for even one fifth the price but I almost bought it on my switch because I'm desperate for ANYTHING on it.
 
P

Plum

Member
Keinning said:
i have a switch, i know how the e-shop is.
but popups would be the only way to "promote" your new release on steam the same way, just because of the massive number of games hitting it. a section with "new releases of march" would be as pointless to make your game more know as the store is today when in less than a week your game would have been pushed to page 28 or more
Click to expand...

Minsc said:
I guess my point is, if the game was on three platforms, the only one I had been aware of it being on is Switch. I had no idea it was on Steam or Mobile (which it probably isn't, just saying). The Switch informs its users (that care to look) of what is being released, which I imagine helps sales. But many other factors are at play, I do think visibility on the Switch is one of its strengths. And that has to do with the smaller number of releases for the specific week a game is releasing in. I'm not sure how many games are released each week on Steam and Mobile (it could be 1,000s per week), but Switch has only a handful, so I suppose it's natural they'd have more exposure on the platform, especially given how you're informed of the new releases by the platform itself in these three platforms.
Click to expand...

Yeah, curation is always going to be an issue on Steam even with the best possible visibility. Doesn't mean visibility can't be improved because now the "New Releases" portion of Steam is something you have to scroll to and, if you want to see more than just ten-or-so games, you have to load an entirely new page. Even if they limited the "Monthly" games section to just ones that have higher than Mixed reviews it would be an improvement. Steam needs to look at its automatic curation and placement systems rather than bolting on new features like tags, queues, etc that only obfuscate the process by putting that process onto the user instead.
 
N

Narroo

Member
wrowa said:
Even if you disregard all of the trash completely, there's an endless amount of quality indie games on Steam. The problem isn't just that good games get drowned in bad games, it's that there are so many good games that it's hard even for good games to gain visibility among other good games.

Switch on the other hand has a userbase that is hungry for more but only a modest amount of new releases each week. It's much easier to be seen this way.

If all good indie titles would release on Switch, games like Death Squared would have similar visibility problems.
Click to expand...

It depends on what you mean by good: There are a decent number of 'competent, but completely forgettable' games on steam, which isn't what most people want. It's like Flash games: Plenty of flash games back in the day were 'decent,' but not enough to make a hobby of. Plenty of indies are decent, but not in a way that makes it satisfying in the long run. Add to that most people don't have the time or will-power to wade through trash and competent indie games on Steam. There are better uses of a person's time.
 
T

TheYanger

Member
Minsc said:
Switch does a few things differently though, they push news articles to every user by default informing them of every release during the week and later the month. So even when there's 1000's of games on the Switch, unless it changes, every new game released will have a spotlight on it, even if only briefly. With Steam (and mobile), I am not greeted as far as I know with a screen that shows me every single release that came out during the week and month, unless i'm specifically searching for them through the store.
Click to expand...

If the switch had as many games releasing as Steam, this feature would be just as useless though. I think valve does a lot wrong with a lot of things, but this is not one of them. It's not their job to make this one random game stand out, every bit of exposure has to come at the expense of something else's - there's simply a vast vast vast difference in the amount of things vying for it on the platforms, not just because Steam has a huge back catalog, but purely in terms of contemporary releases as well.

The way to make the game more appealing to people is PROBABLY to A) advertise it. B) not release a block game that is local multi only on the single platform that is less used for local multi, where there are infinity nearly identical looking games. It's irrelevant if the game is actually good or not when there's literally no chance that the average consumer even stops to look at it in a sea of similar looking indies (which is floating in a galaxy of better looking non-indies at that).

People saying Steam needs less crap: Sure, but it's reductive to pretend it's all crap, I mean the switch has fucking vroom vroom, that's probably the same ratio of shit to good as Steam has, honestly, the volume is just manageable.
 
S

Son of a Witch

Member
It's a very good game, but one that I feel it's impossible to sell on Steam because it has nothing special at a first glance.

I've had a blast with it though. It's one of the best couch coop experiences I've had and it even works well alone.
 
K

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
A marketplace over a decade old with thousands of quality games vs one that is 4 months old and maybe one hundred games total?

I've never heard of this title, seen any advertising on Steam/Switch for it or any buzz anywhere for it.
 
SmokedMeat

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Minsc said:
I guess my point is, if the game was on three platforms, the only one I had been aware of it being on is Switch. I had no idea it was on Steam or Mobile (which it probably isn't, just saying). The Switch informs its users (that care to look) of what is being released, which I imagine helps sales.
Click to expand...

There's a whole section on Steam devoted to new releases, but just like Switch, it's only if you care to look.

The only way I knew Death Square existed is because I wandered onto the e-Shop to see if there were any new demos available.
 
killatopak

killatopak

Member
Either the Switch people are thirsty, there are better games on steam, or steam is just clustered with a bunch games that drowns new releases.
 
C

CANLI

Member
Hello. I'm really interested about this game.
And the reason why I prefer playing indie games on switch/wii U besides pc : pc consumes way more electricity than a nintendo console and more power consumption means earlier death of my pc or devices on it.
I hope this game will dhave satisfactory LTD sale number. ..
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
ShinUltramanJ said:
There's a whole section on Steam devoted to new releases, but just like Switch, it's only if you care to look.

The only way I knew Death Square existed is because I wandered onto the e-Shop to see if there were any new demos available.
Click to expand...

There is, but on Switch I'm pushed a news item informing me of every release, like I said. On Steam, I get nothing (outside a banner highlighting 4 or 5 games upon launching Steam), and I have to manually go to the store (steam normally only displays my list of games), then manually go to new releases (the store doesn't really highlight the new releases), then manually find a way to see every last one (even new release section only shows a small subset of the new releases, curated, so I'd be missing a bunch, not sure how do you even do this). On mobile it's even harder I believe.
 
Lister

Lister

Banned
Minsc said:
I guess my point is, if the game was on three platforms, the only one I had been aware of it being on is Switch. I had no idea it was on Steam or Mobile (which it probably isn't, just saying). The Switch informs its users (that care to look) of what is being released, which I imagine helps sales. But many other factors are at play, I do think visibility on the Switch is one of its strengths. And that has to do with the smaller number of releases for the specific week a game is releasing in. I'm not sure how many games are released each week on Steam and Mobile (it could be 1,000s per week), but Switch has only a handful, so I suppose it's natural they'd have more exposure on the platform, especially given how you're informed of the new releases by the platform itself in these three platforms.
Click to expand...

It's adouble edged sword though.

For the lucky devs that get in ont he ground floor, it can pay off, like in this case. But for everyone of those there are probably 10 devs, posisbly with better games, that will be simply told NO by Nintendo, and will never even have a shot on that platform it's the nature of the curated garden.
 
D

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
There's a lot of misinformation in this thread.

Two things I'll mention is Nintendo currently is being very limited with what indies they let on the system, there have been a lot of developers with fantastic games that have tried but Nintendo either hasn't gotten back, denied for now, or have them on some waiting list.

Steam doesn't have piles of garbage actually, most of what releases is at least decent, and a surprising amount is actually good. The number of straight garbage perceived by many is exaggerated due to exposure; so much middleground remains uncovered by most media while some titles catch on to be popular, and meanwhile the shittiest gets picked up for attention because it garners interest, thus the games that manage to spread get the eye of the people and that means the good and the bad. Meanwhile most things released remain ignored or niche, but as people haven't heard of it but heard some shitty things of some shitty developers that blew up they assume since they haven't heard of it then it must be in the latter category mostly.
 
R

Rncewind

Member
i pulled up my switch

there are 78 items and to look at every game title screen and price i needed 3 minutes

i mean like duh
 
B

BHK3

Banned
Chauzu said:
All I'm reading from this thread is more devs should take advantage of the growing Switch userbase.
Click to expand...

Shovel knight got most of their sales from the Wii-U i think they said. Not releasing a game on the switch shop is pretty dumb since you know the fanbase will buy everything up since the system gets no support from any big developers. Also it's still a very fresh system that doesn't have a million games yet.
 
P

pastrami

Member
Phediuk said:
It blows my mind that people try to sell local-multiplayer-only games on Steam.
Click to expand...

It hasn't prevented developers from finding good success on Steam. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Towerfall: Ascension, and Overcooked are all local MP only, and all have sold around 200k. You will be limiting your audience for sure, but there is a decent market on Steam for local MP games.
 
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