ashecitism
Member
Might as well make a thread for this. Not everyone is a fan of the latest Discovery update, but figured people would appreciate a dev chiming in on this. Also
https://medium.com/@andrewspearin/first-24hrs-results-from-steams-update-de7cd18c4a31
Hoping others will share their opinions too.
edit:
Defender's Quest dev's blog post
And here's another one.
https://medium.com/@andrewspearin/first-24hrs-results-from-steams-update-de7cd18c4a31
Yesterday, Steam made some major changes to their Store and Insurgency is already seeing positive results.
We’re little guys, but perhaps on the bigger side of the indie spectrum. To date we’ve sold over 400,000 copies, all through Steam since being one of the first Early Access titles on the platform. For visibility we rely upon the annual sales and promotions, plus whatever attention we can muster from the press — which isn’t much when they think you’re ‘just another shooter’ (Spoiler Alert: We’re not. See the User Reviews). Our advertising spend has been focused on our social networks and Twitch during major release milestones. We rely most upon grassroots marketing, word of mouth, and visibility on Steam.
Since the update yesterday, we’ve added more than 3,000 members to the official game group, presumably from people clicking the Follow button on the Store page. We’re gaining around 100 members per hour. This is important because the group is our primary communication channel to our player base. We post game update news, host beta testing events, and it connects to the forums where we monitor feedback. The more players we can reach, the more active they become.
Visits to our store page (recorded by Google Analytics) went from 5,800 on Sunday to over 21,500 on Monday. Our sales were up for a typical Monday as well. Another valuable number is being on 138,000 user wishlists, as that will help estimate copies sold during the next sale.
As for Curators, I’m unsure of how much impact they directly have in the above numbers. I think the majority of that traffic is from the new recommendations system based on what you’ve viewed on Steam, games/genres you play, and what your friends play and recommend.
However, we are recommended by TotalBiscuit along with 94 other Curators. This Curators list also represents high priority targets to become a cornerstone of our marketing efforts. We now need those top Curator recommendations. They represent a potential new audience to reach that is already a few clicks away from purchase.
The User Reviews % is the new Metacritic score. As a customer, I buy what my friends recommend (and what’s on sale) in conjunction with the overall consensus. I value honest reviews and can usually call out the bullshit ones. I’ve read more articulate, insightful, and objective reviews written by players than by games journalists.
So, as a developer with a “Very Positive” 92% rating from over 13,000 reviews, I’m happy to see this at the top of our game page. I’ve also read every single one of those user reviews and provide customer support to help resolve technical issues, resulting in a switch to a positive recommendation.
Overall, the numbers clearly show the changes immediately heightened visibility for Insurgency on Steam. If you’re measuring results by the visits on the game’s store page, it’s increased our game’s visibility on Steam by 370% over night. Of course this is a spike since these are new changes that people are checking out, so it’s expected to taper back down. However, I’m certain these changes will help increase sales in the longer term, especially once we reach our next milestone.
Hoping others will share their opinions too.
edit:
@crimsonhead: Thanks for the link to my blog post.
Just a quick update on the store page visits for Insurgency:
Sunday (pre-update): 5,852
Monday: 21,591
Tuesday: 83,284
So yeah... continues to rise rapidly. And I would consider us 'the little guy.'
Also, we surpassed 10,000 members in the official group (up from just under 6,000 pre-update). If you take a look at The Long Dark, they've accumulated over 40,000 members in a few days, having the benefit of prominent placement at the launch and being an Early Access title that people want to keep an eye on.
Despite all the neigh-saying speculation, the results speak for themselves.
Update on some data, when looking at the new traffic analysis in the Steam backend...
Impressions (times Insurgency has appeared to people on Steam) in the past two days are over 1.7 million.
More than half are from the Discovery Queue. 5.16% of those are from Curators.
Out of more than 150k visits to the game's store page, 0.88% are referred from Curators. Again, most are from the Discovery Queue.