{"id":114973,"date":"2020-07-03T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/365903"},"modified":"2020-07-03T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T14:00:00","slug":"game-discoverabilityland-the-season-of-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/07\/03\/game-discoverabilityland-the-season-of-discovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Discoverabilityland: The Season Of Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra\u0092s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. <\/small><\/i><\/strong> <\/p>\n

\n

[Hi, I\u2019m \u2018how people find your game\u2019 expert Simon Carless<\/a>, and you\u2019re reading the Game Discoverability Now! newsletter<\/a>, which you can subscribe to now<\/strong><\/a>, a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]<\/em><\/p>\n

So, time for the next weekly \u2018Game Discoverabilityland\u2019 newsletter. As per normal, this round-up is going to be flitting around a whole bunch of relevant \u2018summer season\u2019 topics in a swift fashion.<\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019re hanging in there OK, by the way. I know there\u2019s a lot going on in the real world. So I appreciate you taking time to read my thoughts about doing what we all love: making video games that elicit goofy, beautiful, and dumb emotions in people. Sometimes all at once. Aaand, onward to the info\u2026.<\/p>\n

Xbox gets Summer Games Fest demos too!<\/h2>\n
\n

Xbox is proud to reveal that our Summer Games Fest Demo Event will be live on Xbox One from July 21 to July 27. Details here: https:\/\/t.co\/RoTcx957jo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Xbox Wire (@XboxWire) July 1, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As anyone who has an upcoming Xbox One game probably knows, Microsoft has teamed up with Geoff Keighley to offer an Xbox version of the Summer Game Fest demo showcase that already took place<\/a> on Steam.<\/p>\n

Sounds like there will be at least 60, and maybe 75-100 game demos available in the July 21st-27th showcase. Here\u2019s a couple of notable points from the Microsoft write-up<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of these demos are early, and some are for games that won\u2019t be out for quite some time. We\u2019ve never done this before\u2026 In other words, think of these as akin to \u201cshow floor demos\u201d and not necessarily indicative of the final product.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThese demos will only be up on the Xbox Dashboard for a week. Some might be re-published to the Demo channel later, but many will simply evaporate at the end of the week, so make sure to check them out while you can.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

One issue\/quirk for console versions of this demo showcase is that it does put a bunch of extra strain on the game submission process (which you still need to clear for TRCs, etc.) So it\u2019s actually quite a lot more work for Xbox. But I think it\u2019s pretty darn cool, and looking forward to hearing – off the record, perhaps – how it goes.<\/p>\n

iOS things – China blockers, Apple Arcade?<\/h2>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t been covering premium mobile games much, partly because the business doesn\u2019t generally scale to Steam\/console revenues. (F2P mobile game revenue scales WAY beyond Steam\/console, of course, but that\u2019s a whole different animal.)<\/p>\n

Anyhow, there are a couple of notable updates around iOS games that it\u2019s worth pointing out:<\/p>\n

– Apple now requires you to get a Chinese ISBN<\/a> to publish your paid (or IAP-including) game in the China App Store, starting July 1st, 2020. So you will now need a Chinese partner and to submit the game to the authorities – likely with a long approval delay. (I\u2019ve heard that select premium mobile games, even indies, did very well in China. So this isn\u2019t great, and a likely blocker to revenue success. Let\u2019s hope we never get there with Steam, eh?)<\/p>\n

– The subscription-based Apple Arcade service has scrapped a number of deals for Apple Arcade exclusives<\/a>, as it reframes and looks for titles with stronger engagement\/hook. The service has been giving carte blanche – and great $ deals – to independent and medium-sized devs. So it\u2019s a shame for those affected.<\/p>\n

Am guessing the choice of boutique-style games for Apple Arcade – high quality, critically acclaimed, \u2018slightly artsy\u2019, more than hook-heavy – has not been a subscription hit for them so far. Some say this is another bad sign<\/a> for short, sweet titles. Perhaps so.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, it may be more of a portfolio rebalancing, since Apple still has plenty of other intriguing-looking games with active deals. So we\u2019ll see. Personally, I\u2019d love to see a better balance of games, since the titles I played the most on Apple Arcade (What The Golf?, Cricket Through The Ages<\/em>) are definitely on the shorter-play but hookier side.<\/p>\n

Hype to sales: a logical ratio?<\/h2>\n

Following up from my recent data-crunching on your first-week Steam sales compared to launch wishlists<\/a>, I did end up making an additional graph out of the data, as follows (Y axis is logarithmic, line of fit is polynomial, nerds):<\/p>\n

\n

New graph: here’s how 50 Steam games sold in their first week, compared to the dev’s rating of their pre-release ‘hype’\/interest on a 0-10 scale. (Data via: https:\/\/t.co\/M7djcx2rFu<\/a>.) pic.twitter.com\/jei1OjkDBS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Simon Carless (@simoncarless) June 18, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The results may seem obvious – the better pre-launch interest, the better sales on average, albeit with major outliers. But it\u2019s interesting because some of these games rated 1 or 2 on pre-launch hype definitely had a lot (>10,000) of wishlists, but still sold poorly.<\/p>\n

So this suggests that developers should pay attention to how much interest their game is getting, and not (solely) your wishlists. Wishlists can be highly misleading in isolation. Bottom line: you can\u2019t sit back and relax after a bunch of wishlists, if you don\u2019t know how convertible they are.<\/p>\n

[And I know there\u2019s an inherent bias in this pre-launch hype data, since devs were asked to provide it _after_<\/em> they knew how well the game had done. I\u2019ll look for other, better metrics.]<\/p>\n

Other things\u2026.<\/h2>\n

Look, I\u2019m going to start this roundup by simply linking an embed of Ryan Clark\u2019s latest Clark Tank game success\/metrics stream<\/a> (the archived YouTube version, since it has skippable chapters in it. But you can go to the Brace Yourself Games Twitch page<\/a> to catch it live & ask questions.)<\/p>\n

Why? Ryan\u2019s streams are the video version of what I do here (empirical but non-moneygrabby careful analysis of the market). And his studio\u2019s games<\/a> (Crypt Of The Necrodancer, Industries Of Titan, Cadence Of Hyrule, Phantom Brigade)<\/em> are proof that his well-planned business strategy actually works, and he wants to tell others about it.<\/p>\n

[embedded content]<\/p>\n

Moving on, here\u2019s the rest of the goodness:<\/p>\n