9 months after its 1.0 launch flopped, an indie dev just learned that Steam never emailed the 130,000 people who wishlisted its game

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Pro@programming.dev⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1nfd2ji/this_is_how_steam_can_ruin_more_than_10_years_of/

cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/37741347

Post content:

More than 10 years ago we started creating Planet Centauri, a 2D sandbox with terraria as main inspiration.

We released the EA many years ago and this is our start just before the 1.0 release :

103 400 units solds

138 675 Wishlist

the sells seem incredible but it’s not with so many years behind, when you work for 10 years and have to paid many people helping you with the ten of thousands of monsters frames animations and thousands of pixel art items, you don’t have much left on your wallet at the end.

So we were eager for the release of 1.0 because with so many wishlists, the game’s visibility would be good, we would appear in the new and trending categories due to sales, etc…

The 1.0 happen in december 2024… we sold… 581 units in 5 days.

The game didn’t even appear on page 2; we were invisible; the release was a total flop. And we never understood why until today.

We just received this mail from Steam

Steam Launch Wishlist Email Issue

Hi there, We found a bug that impacted a very small number of game releases (less than 100 since 2015) where wishlist email notifications for the launch of a game were not sent. Unfortunately your game Planet Centauri was among those included. We intend for this feature to work for every game and we’re inviting you to a Daily Deal as a way to help make up for lost visibility from your launch day.

It’s incredible to win the lottery like this: 100 games impacted in 10 years out of the 86,000 games on Steam. And to reward you, we’re giving you 24-hour visibility (which is nothing special; there are 6 slots available for this visibility every day of the year for various Steam invitations).

I don’t even have the strength to be angry. We’ve been so frustrated, disgusted, and in total confusion . Now we know, we understand better, it’s unfair, and we can’t change anything. We’ve started a second project because it’s financially impossible to continue patching our game, and we’re moving forward, because it’s the only thing to do.

This article was my way of expressing my anger, I guess, but also to see all the problems that a platform holding 99% of the PC gaming market can cause when the cogs don’t work as they should.

Have a nice day everyone, may luck be better to you

Comments
- Reddit.

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Comments

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doeinthewoods@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
It sucks but my impression is that people familiar with releasing games on Steam all seem to immediately see why this could happen and gave feedback. Now Valve is trying to help them market

Steam for the most part is the primary marketing platform for indie games. Not just for PC, also PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo because of how lackluster those shops are for discoverability of games that aren’t front page advertised with large thumbnail/poster placements. Success on Steam is viral marketing for other platforms

Still recommendations are always to try to build a following both on and off Steam. Twitter for a while were the major social media accounts indies should spend time building up a following. Now it’s Tiktok. YouTube and Twitch influencers are also a good choice for getting viewers converted to customers but you can’t just pick a popular person, got to be mindful for if their viewers watch for game recommendations or for the personality only. So in that way, it’s not as simple as pay a popular streamer to play your game and their fans will play the game

Regardless Steam is the best for marketing. Steam curators are way smaller than YouTubers, streamers, Tiktok but it’s highly directed at spending customers. Some Steam reviewers have followers. You can follow game developer/publisher pages. That’s how I learn of some games. I get emails and check out publisher Steam pages of games I like.

Until any competitor actually tried to compete with Steam as a service, I’m not going to knock Valve heavily over Steam. They keep improving. Itch is not anything close to marketplace that can compete with Steam. It’s even more barebones of a service than Desura over a decade ago. At the basic level to compete with Steam, it needs a desktop client and social media functionality for developers to build followers. Maybe it needs to open source and join under the Linux foundation or KDE or something to help guide it to the next level

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vane@lemmy.world ⁨40⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
At least they haven’t removed game because some payment processor don’t like it.

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- SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works ⁨21⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Did that ever get resolved?
  
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it_depends_man@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

And to reward you, we’re giving you 24-hour visibility

(which is nothing special; there are 6 slots available for this visibility every day of the year for various Steam invitations).

He has no clue what he’s talking about Steam in 2021 had 69 MILLION daily active users. WTF do you think is a bigger number 130.000 wishlists or getting even 1% of 69 million people to look at something in the reel?

People don’t understand the size of steam or the value of that space (that one of six slots) sometimes. It’s wild.

And also, THEY noticed, THEY informed him, THEY apologized, and THEY offered some form of compensation, which they legally don’t have to.

I am soooooooooooooooo tired of indie devs blaming everything from the constellation of the stars to the quality of the donuts on a different continent for their game not doing well, except that maybe the game isn’t that good, and also those 100.000 already sold units is the actual size of the market for that game.

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- Tangent5280@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  And the numbers are ridiculous - 100 out of 87000 is ~0.1% - I’m sad that this dev’s project got kneecapped on release, but Steam is making things right here. An actual asshole move would be to have said nothing and done none of the things they’re doing now to make up for the loss. The 24 hour visibility boost should have been a bit longer though. Somewhere between 3 and 7 days sounds better.
  
  Either way I hope the dev team recoups their losses and more with the millions of eyes that their game gets now.
  
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  - 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Yeah but if other games where affected as well then they also have to give time to those ASAP, plus they also have their regular commitments for those Daily slots and they can’t delay too many of those without kneecapping another dev who wasn’t even yet involved.
    
    Maybe the idea is that 24 hours is enough to build the momentum and if it does well then it’ll stand on its own within the ecosystem (move up sales-based listings, reviews, etc) and the remaining promotion will be attained organically?
    
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- Cyberflunk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Insufferable much? you clearly lack the skill of discernment, painting exceptions with the same brush makes you no better than some neckbeard armchair quarterback. OP doesnt follow your clearly axe to grind shitty opinion.
  
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  - 4am@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    found the indie dev
    
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  - thaklor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Username checks out.
    
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Stamets@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Said this on /c/gaming as well but

I have no doubt that this bug played a part in their sales… However… The game was in early access for a decade before it actually released in 1.0. This was the 1.0 change log:

Changelog 1.0.0 - 12 december 2024

Adds:

Guidance system: uses the completion tree to display objectives and help the player to progress. The guidance system can be disabled in Game options.

Option to change the direction only when moving with the keyboard (player is not facing automatically the mouse)

Changes:

Quests and dialogs with the crystal have been removed and replaced by the guidance system

Worm transformation is always visible

Various bugs fixed

So to be honest, I’m not entirely sure that that launch was much of a launch to begin with… While the bug definitely had a part to play, I’m not sure this would have sold anything in the first place. It’s a terraria clone that was dragged through early access for a decade before launching in a way that doesn’t actually feel like a launch.
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- chisel@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  No, you’re wrong. Every wishlist is a guaranteed sale on launch day. When people see that number tick from 0.5937.5 to 1.0, they can’t help themselves. The trick is, they have to see it on launch day in an automated email. Otherwise the sale is lost for good. Literally every true gamer knows this.
  
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  - Mangoholic@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    No a wishlist is not a guaranted sale. We had 213 wishlist and 12 sales on launch.
    
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- Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  to be fair, save for the length of time in dev (feature creep?) that is how early access was supposed tow ork
  
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  - Stamets@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I would agree if not for this. This is a list of all of the things that they promised in early access that they would add to the full game. Guess how many of these things are there?
    
    How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version? Here is the list of the features that we still need to implement:
    
    Themed dungeons | Biomes: post-hell | Biomes: sky | Technology | Vehicles & Mechs Grapple hook / ninja rope | Modding compatibility | God Saucer (minigames area) Tower of 100 challenges | Themed parallel dimensions | Fluid dynamics Biomes: oceans | Fishing | Programmable robots | Wiring | Pipes | Thunder Fire (buildings can catch on fire etc.) | Achievements / Game encyclopedia / Compendium Temperature | Gas dynamics | Dynamic buildings (build your ship)
    
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- minimalfootprint@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  While I agree that the changes for 1.0 don’t look like enough to make it a full release, a lot of gamers categorically refuse to buy a game in early access and wait for the 1.0 release for the “full experience”. Nobody can say how many sales would have been generated.
  
  Valve offers somewhat high visibility for a very short time as compensation. That doesn’t cost them anything and is very disappointing. Refund of some of the paid fees, or a discount for the players out of Valve’s pocket doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.
  
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    
    That doesn’t cost them anything
    
    It’s an opportunity cost. What other games would have otherwise shown? If the game isn’t appealing, that’s poor use of ad space and could result in lost sales for another game that would then in its place.
    
    I think it’s the right thing to do, though perhaps the window should’ve been longer, like 3 days. But saying it costs nothing isn’t accurate.
    
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  - echodot@feddit.uk ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah but this game was in early access for a decade. A decade. That’s giving me star citizen vibes, except in this case the game wasn’t popular.
    
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  - Tonava@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    a lot of gamers categorically refuse to buy a game in early access and wait for the 1.0 release for the “full experience”
    
    I refuse to buy early access games just because if they sell enough, the devs won’t complete the game and it’ll be stuck in the “10 years in development” -phase
    
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- Pyro@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Many devs will incrementally update the early-access versions to be close to 1.0 before release. 1.0 doesn’t have to be a massive update, it just signifies the point when the devs think the game is complete.
  
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  - Stamets@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    This was not one of those situations though. Every reddit thread talking about this game has a ton of people who were playing at the time or after launch and all saying that it’s just a poorly done game.
    
    I got it when it came out and tbh… it’s just not very good. I think a big reason games in the indie world become well sold is because of positive word of mouth (Balatro, slay the spire, vampire survivors etc) and this one was just… not good. I wouldnt recommend it personally. Source
    
    That whole thread is filled with people talking about the state of the game before launch of 1.0 as well as the launch. Also some very good points about the weakness of their financial choices if they ended up broke at the launch of 1.0.
    
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Saledovil@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Thing about wishlist is, I treat it more as a “Games I found vaguely interesting at first glance” rather than a “Games I want to play” list. I assume I’m not alone in this matter. Of 214 games on my wishlist, there’s like 3 I’d play right now if they were gifted to me. 2 that I’d buy. So, assuming 1% of people who wishlisted a game will buy it on launch, that would have been 1368 sales (rounding up). Assuming the game cost 20$ at launch (it currently costs ~14$), that would be 27360$ from launch day sales. Nice payday, but not if you have to work 10 years to get it (also taxes and steam’s cut, so that number would actually be much lower)

Thing is, just because you worked hard on something doesn’t guarantee that it will be good and/or popular.

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- sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  I’m the same way. I’ll periodically prune it, but most of the games there have been there over a year. If the game goes on a really good sale, I might get it, but I probably won’t.
  
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- MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I don’t have a source in hand but I thought I read somewhere that devs calculate 10% of wishlist so as actual buyers since a lot of people do it your way.
  
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  - Pringles@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Which would mean they missed out on 12400 sales. Not negligible for a game that sold 100k total.
    
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Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I know that is a terrible blow and it sucks. However in this corrupted age you have to admire that valve acknowledged its error where any of the main players would have just kept it quite.

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- ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Valve continues being the goat. The benefits of being a private corp with a service-minded CEO.
  
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  - A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    yeah yeah, and if any other company had done this same thing everyone would be screaming about them just covering their ass and it doesnt change how they fucked over the dev and blah blah blah.
    
    but Valve always gets the free pass, and people always conveniently forget that all the pro-consumer things we have like refunds are the results of lawsuits brought on by states, or the threat of regulator intervention.
    
    Tired of this fanboy cultist shit that always gets formed around everything and anything.
    
    Valve doesnt care about you. its not gonna take you to prom. if it thought it could get away with it, it’d fuck you 10 ways from sunday.
    
    This isnt valve been the consumer champion , or the “goat”. its valve getting a head of a problem to control the narrative.
    
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  - ratten@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Once gabe goes, it’s all over.
    
    Try not to become too dependent on the corporation.
    
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  - dukemirage@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Companies are never your friend.
    
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WaitThisIsntReddit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I check my email for info on wish list games approximately never.

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- apex32@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I find it useful. They send an email when a game on my wishlist goes on sale. When it’s a steep discount, I’ll take another look at the game.
  
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Really?
    
    I just open the Steam app on my phone periodically. I have over 100 games there, so there’s usually a few on sale on any given day. I have my wishlist set to “discount” so only games on sale are shown, and I check it periodically and buy when a game gets to an interesting price.
    
    I never look at Steam emails.
    
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- BigPotato@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I have games on my wishlist from 2015. Almost a decade at this point.
  
  My wishlist exists more to let Internet friends know what to get me when they feel like it.
  
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  - sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Your friends buy you stuff?
    
    Mine exists so I can avoid the front page. I have it filtered to show only discounted games, so when I need a game, there’s almost always something I’m interested in that’s on sale since I have over 100 games on that list.
    
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ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Do that many people rely on emails for that?

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- GrayBackgroundMusic@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I do, constantly.
  
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- XM34@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  No, most people have email notifications disabled (like me). That 24h visibility boost will do way more than wishlist mails ever could!
  
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  - Cyberflunk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    how tf would you know this? what data could you possibly have access to that no one else does
    
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  - RipLemmDotEE@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    If we’re going to just random spout unsupported opinions based on our personal preferences, that 24 visibility boost is completely useless, because most days I open Steam and go to my library without even looking at the store.
    
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1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi@piefed.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Why was there no mention from Steam that they have belatedly sent out the emails? Were the people who wishlisted the game still not notified? This is no way to fix a issue.

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prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Seems like an open and shut case for a lawsuit

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Whostosay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Pressing X to doubt on this one

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bytesonbike@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
This is going to sound weird but I never actually get Steam emails, outside of receipts. Maybe I disabled them years ago. And I wishlist/follow hundreds of games.

Uncertain if I’m a unique edge case who hates email clutter or not.

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thessnake03@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Link to their steam? I’ll buy it

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- can@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Link
  
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- Nelots@piefed.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/385380/Planet_Centauri/
  
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OrteilGenou@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
You should meet my friend, Sue…

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