Alora Fane

Have you ever heard of a game called Among Us? Probably not. It's really obscure. I mean, it only has 104,597 reviews on Steam. I feel sorry for the developers, honestly.

It's not the sort of game I'm interested in myself, but I - like probably everyone and their dog at this point - have at least seen some of the gameplay, and how streamers and youtubers seem to absolutely love it. I'm mentioning it because I looked up ∞ the game's Wikipedia page ∞ a few days ago, as I was curious about the development, how many people worked on it, etc. I found this interesting:

In June 2018, the game released to Android and iOS. Shortly after release, Among Us had an average player count of 30 to 50 players simultaneously. Programmer Forest Willard deemed that "it didn’t release super well" which designer Marcus Bromander believed was because studio InnerSloth "[is] really bad at marketing".

Being bad at marketing is more common than not for indie developers, from what I've seen! Interesting that it exploded so long after the original release, but I suppose it's not like it was dormant during that period:

According to Willard, the team stuck with the game "a lot longer than we probably should have from a pure business standpoint", putting out regular updates to the game as often as once per week. This led to a steady increase in players, "snowball[ing]" the game's playerbase. Bromander stated their ability to do this was due to them having enough savings, allowing them to keep working on the game even while it was not selling particularly well.

I'm surprised that it turned out that way. I've read about other devs continuing to support their games long after release but just seeing the userbase - which was almost entirely formed at release - dwindling over time.

Its popularity came from it being played by Twitch streamers and youtubers; we already know they're crucial for games to succeed these days. Makes me concerned about Atonal Dreams, since that's not exactly streamer-friendly, but I've also been privately working on a couple of different ideas with "how would a youtuber/streamer play this?" driving the whole concept. I'm also considering replayability and the "just jump in and play" approach; I wouldn't be able to keep updating Atonal Dreams for months after release since it's a linear narrative and that wouldn't make any sense for it.

I had a look at ∞ the developers' website ∞. Three games are mentioned on their main page: Something that looks like a fairly mediocre mobile game with only a handful of meh reviews on the play stores, Among Us (listed at the bottom for some odd reason), and something called The Henry Stickmin Collection, which I vaguely remember passively seeing but never playing from the old Flash days. It seemed like one of those products of the Newgrounds culture and general art style which seemed so popular back then, and it's interesting seeing that an old Flash creator has gone on to make something that's gripped the world... at least for the moment, though are people playing Fall Guys anymore? That exploded similarly, but seems to have faded just as quickly. Fifteen minutes of fame and all that.

(I was going to mention Fall Guys too, but I haven't got much to say, really. Seems it was made by a bigger, more professional team with a bunch of games under their belt, though, so it's an entirely different animal to this self-published indie game.)

The Henry Stickmin Collection received an update/revamp/remake/addition-to/conclusion/whatever, which seems to be common for these old popular Flash things, and which people obviously wanted me to do with MARDEK. On ∞ his Newgrounds page ∞ (wow, haven't been to that site in a while), the guy who's presumably the main developer mentions that he spent three years on the collection. Seems it was released more recently than Among Us, too; less than 2 months ago? It's currently at 9,078 (Overwhelmingly Positive) reviews on Steam, and I wonder how much of that is due to nostalgic fondness, and how much is due to the ludicrous popularity of Among Us.

The dev's ∞ About page ∞ lists three developers; the main guy in the middle, and two what-seem-like-hirelings? Or maybe they were friends who decided to join up together; I always wonder how these little dev teams form. Whether there's just one ideas person who's already on a path but needs help reaching its end, or whether groups of people come together and form the ideas collectively without any singular mind being the primary creator. It's a tiny team though, and I wonder if they're millionaires now!

I've been very aware of my Twitter follower count recently, for the first time ever. I only have 556, which is more than the average non-creator, but very low for someone who's hoping to make a living from the things I put out into the world. I use something called Tweetdeck to check Twitter, which allows you to add columns for things like specific users or tags, and I've got one for the tag #indiedev, which gets new tweets added to it several times a minute. I try to check most of the accounts of indie devs that I see, and while there are a bunch with fewer than 100 followers, it seems quite common for them to have something like 2000-4000. I'd be interested in collecting a list of them and their follower counts and checking the distribution, though; I wonder whether the lower ones or the higher ones are the outliers. I might do that when I've got some time.

I've been wondering about the correlation between follower count and game success, though. I can't find any right this second, but I remember seeing a few developers with thousands of followers, but when I checked their linked-to games, I only saw a handful of reviews, if that. I suppose follower count shows your popularity on Twitter and not much else... though it can't hurt? I'll need to look into how to increase mine, anyway. Engagement with the platform is surely the biggest way people get noticed, and I've only just started following people and using tags despite having ∞ my account ∞ since 2015. I know there must be a ton of variably-useful guides out there, so I'll look into them when I devote myself to promotion research, which I'll do soon.

(Notably, the three Among Us devs have 30.1K, 13.8K, and 3,255 followers!)

One final thing that I wanted to mention is that I've been watching a bunch of Pokemon challenge playthrough videos recently. I started with a couple that seemed mildly interesting - "Can I beat Pokemon Red With A Magikarp?", that kind of thing - and the algorithm keeps suggesting them, so I watched a few more thinking maybe I could get some ideas about gameplay balancing or something since my mind's been on that recently for Atonal Dreams. There are interesting moments, but mostly they just drag on and I spend a lot of time wondering why I'm wasting my limited time doing something like that when I could be doing so many other better things with it.

They get a ton of views though, perhaps from similarly depressed people having them shoved in their face and watching due to a bland blend of insipid familiarity, nostalgia, and curiosity.

I'm mentioning this because I recently saw one (which was quite interesting in concept actually, since it covered a romhack and I've never played those but am curious about how people have tweaked the games to better suit their liking; seems valuable to know as someone who's attempting to make my own) which got almost a million views:

His videos routinely get high view counts, so I was really surprised to see at the beginning that he mentioned that someone had become his very first patron on Patreon. The video's from February, so I assumed he'd just set it up, and that if I checked it, I'd see he was earning thousands a month for making videos of him playing Pokemon games. "Easy for some!", I thought, and checked... but currently he only has 7 patrons giving $33 a month! (I'm sure it was 6 when I last checked though, for considerably less, so maybe one new person joined the weirdly high $25 a month tier since I last checked?)

So even if you get a ton of attention on one platform, that doesn't mean it'll translate to money for you (though the videos themselves must pay out a ton, come to think of it). There are so many other factors than just viewer or subscriber count. Seemed worth making a note of!

The more I see from other creators' Patreon accounts (and I check every one I see these days; I'm absolutely not anxious about it anymore), the more grateful I am that ∞ 58 people have enough faith in me to be collectively donating $309 a month to help me bring my ideas to life ∞!

I'll need to devote myself to researching promotion stuff sooner rather than later, but I'll likely write about that on the weekend!

I'll also post about testing, which I'm hoping I can do soon; it'd probably make sense to allow my patrons to take part in that.

9 COMMENTS

Maniafig222~4Y

As someone not interested in Among Us Fall Guys, I'll be glad when the weeks or two of fame die out and I can stop seeing people talk about it. To be instantly replaced by the new big trend, of course.

I've not even bothered to watch any content yet it still pops up in my YT recommendations!

I think the Henry Stickmin collection's success is a combination of Newgrounds nostalgia and the game having an easy format for YTers to pick up on, since it's just a string of quick and amusing CYA segments. Snappy gameplay that constantly hands out new content.

I'd say follower count isn't a useful metric, follower retention and investment is more important. You've said yourself that your tweets often get more likes than those of people with more followers, right?

Most of those challenge runs aren't really that interesting since they're foregone conclusions, often relying on cheesy tactics like X-Item spam and overleveling. The only series of challenge runs I follow is a 0 EXP challenge run, where EXP gain is turned off and you have to constantly rotate new wild Pokémon into your party to keep up. Far more interesting since every fight tends to play out differently and often features interesting tactics! [LINK]&list=PLbSv8zSDR9c1yFi5pg4zf5yWnbidDTm_l

Of course none of these get nearly as many views. Alas. Oh, and it does actually seem like the runs do get easier as time goes on, Sword/Shield especially had to tack on a ton of extra self-imposed challenges to not be a total curbstomp.

As for Patreon, I imagine that nobody's going to give money to a Patreon for Pokémon challenge runs since there's already so many other people doing the same, and nobody needs money to make videos like that anyway, so what's the point of donating?

I've not even bothered to watch any content yet it still pops up in my YT recommendations!

I think the Henry Stickmin collection's success is a combination of Newgrounds nostalgia and the game having an easy format for YTers to pick up on, since it's just a string of quick and amusing CYA segments. Snappy gameplay that constantly hands out new content.

I'd say follower count isn't a useful metric, follower retention and investment is more important. You've said yourself that your tweets often get more likes than those of people with more followers, right?

Most of those challenge runs aren't really that interesting since they're foregone conclusions, often relying on cheesy tactics like X-Item spam and overleveling. The only series of challenge runs I follow is a 0 EXP challenge run, where EXP gain is turned off and you have to constantly rotate new wild Pokémon into your party to keep up. Far more interesting since every fight tends to play out differently and often features interesting tactics! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK7cQ8-Bcnw&list=PLbSv8zSDR9c1yFi5pg4zf5yWnbidDTm_l

Of course none of these get nearly as many views. Alas. Oh, and it does actually seem like the runs do get easier as time goes on, Sword/Shield especially had to tack on a ton of extra self-imposed challenges to not be a total curbstomp.

As for Patreon, I imagine that nobody's going to give money to a Patreon for Pokémon challenge runs since there's already so many other people doing the same, and nobody needs money to make videos like that anyway, so what's the point of donating?

Tobias 1115~4Y

I feel like I should at least briefly look into these super-popular games to get an idea of why they're popular, if I'm trying to make my own! Multiplayer isn't really something I can do though, unfortunately.

I do seem to have a higher quality of followers, which is personally more valuable to me in terms of feedback, though I'd still like to increase it since it takes stupid numbers of sales to earn enough to survive, unfortunately...

Looks like I need to fix the url detection code! Most of the Pokemon challenges I've seen don't allow items in battle, and I have seen a 0 EXP one! All of them get me thinking about the potential challenges something I make could allow with their mechanics...

You could say that so many other people are doing anything (indie games, selling nudes, etc), but a lot of why people support creators on Patreon seems to come from the personal connection they develop with them moreso than the content. So that guy getting millions of views on his videos but so few forming enough of a connection to help him out just seems surprising to me statistically! Maybe he's just completely repulsive!

I feel like I should at least briefly look into these super-popular games to get an idea of /why/ they're popular, if I'm trying to make my own! Multiplayer isn't really something I can do though, unfortunately.

I do seem to have a higher quality of followers, which is personally more valuable to me in terms of feedback, though I'd still like to increase it since it takes stupid numbers of sales to earn enough to survive, unfortunately...

Looks like I need to fix the url detection code! Most of the Pokemon challenges I've seen don't allow items in battle, and I have seen a 0 EXP one! All of them get me thinking about the potential challenges something I make could allow with their mechanics...

You could say that so many other people are doing anything (indie games, selling nudes, etc), but a lot of why people support creators on Patreon seems to come from the personal connection they develop with them moreso than the content. So that guy getting millions of views on his videos but so few forming enough of a connection to help him out just seems surprising to me statistically! Maybe he's just completely repulsive!

MaxDes45~4Y

Hey, I just got into Among Us recently! It's so fun, but honestly I can't handle it because some people take the game too personally.

Besides that I haven't been commenting since the normal people that comment always share my thoughts so there's nothing much I can add. Seeing the Stickman collection steam page made me wanna check MARDEK's, so I'm just here to say that I'm confused why the MARDEK steam page says it was released on Steam in 2010? I feel like you can totally say it was released in 2020 since you touched it up, and it'd help it's store page look more genuine.. but I am talking about something that was released months ago, so...

Tobias 1115~4Y

I could change the release date, if you feel that'd make a difference? When adding a game to Steam, you have to fill out a ludicrous number of pages with information (takes days), and one of the questions was asked was 'when was this game originally released?', so I felt I should answer that honestly. I wonder what other ports of old games do though; do they use the game's original date, or consider the port a new release in itself?

purplerabbits147~4Y

For me with the rise of Fall Guys and Among Us, I think it ties into virality and the type of people that that type of game apeals to.

I remember you talking about the different type of gamers based on personality where some are explorers, skill masterer's, pvp'ers and so on. (I don't exactly remember the exact breakdown)

I remember watching a Game Theory on the breakdown on type of people who enjoy playing Fall Guys, Matt Pat bring up the "Lame Triforce" of gaming where the break down for playing games comes down to 3 main points: Competency, Autonomy, and Relationships.

Competency: for feeling like you are getting better at a game. The biggest example would be Dark Souls where the catch phrase is to "get gud" . Another example would be the Mario games where the main mechanice is precision jumping.

Autonomy: for allowing the freedom of the player to do things on their own. Breath of the Wild and Minecraft are the two examples that come to mind.

Relationships: for playing with your friends. Among Us and Town of Salem are two that come to mind for me.

For me , I am not a fan of Fall Guys, or Among Us. I can see the appeal of playing it, but to me it's more entertaining to watch someone else play it.

I feel like it's a bit similar to the Town of Salem boom a long time ago. Youtubers and everyone was all over it, then it fizzled out.

I really dont like to compete with others because it feels like a lost cause where I will lose.

I guess PvP is not my type of game xD

With all this talk about the reasons why people play games, I'm bringing up the point that Fall Guys and Among Us partially seem to go viral because they appeal to the Relationship seeing aspect of why people play games. While, Atonal Dreams seem more to hit upon the Competency, and Autonomous side. So it may be a good idea to look at games similar to yours to see how they suceeded or failed.

For me with the rise of Fall Guys and Among Us, I think it ties into virality and the type of people that that type of game apeals to.

I remember you talking about the different type of gamers based on personality where some are explorers, skill masterer's, pvp'ers and so on. (I don't exactly remember the exact breakdown)

I remember watching a Game Theory on the breakdown on type of people who enjoy playing Fall Guys, Matt Pat bring up the "Lame Triforce" of gaming where the break down for playing games comes down to 3 main points: Competency, Autonomy, and Relationships.

Competency: for feeling like you are getting better at a game. The biggest example would be Dark Souls where the catch phrase is to "get gud" . Another example would be the Mario games where the main mechanice is precision jumping.

Autonomy: for allowing the freedom of the player to do things on their own. Breath of the Wild and Minecraft are the two examples that come to mind.

Relationships: for playing with your friends. Among Us and Town of Salem are two that come to mind for me.

For me , I am not a fan of Fall Guys, or Among Us. I can see the appeal of playing it, but to me it's more entertaining to watch someone else play it.

I feel like it's a bit similar to the Town of Salem boom a long time ago. Youtubers and everyone was all over it, then it fizzled out.

I really dont like to compete with others because it feels like a lost cause where I will lose.

I guess PvP is not my type of game xD

With all this talk about the reasons why people play games, I'm bringing up the point that Fall Guys and Among Us partially seem to go viral because they appeal to the Relationship seeing aspect of why people play games. While, Atonal Dreams seem more to hit upon the Competency, and Autonomous side. So it may be a good idea to look at games similar to yours to see how they suceeded or failed.

Tobias 1115~4Y

I've never even heard of Town of Salem! Looks from the Steam review count that it wasn't as big of a boom though? Still huge though. I can't imagine the interest in Among Us will last long.

Seems there are a bunch of different ways of trying to categorise players' motivations, and that's a particularly interesting one! It completely omits immersion, though, which some of the others included, and which I'd personally say is the biggest reason games appeal to me or don't and why I play them at all.

I wouldn't say Atonal Dreams excels at appealing to Competency (there are battle mechanics, but they're not tricky or a big deal), Autonomy (it's quite on rails), or Relationships (at least in terms of multiplaying with other real humans), though it'll hopefully appeal to people who want to get lost in a world, to really feel fascinated by its characters and lore. I think someone omitting immersion in their categories says a lot about why they play games themselves, so I'm guessing Matt Pat (who I've never heard of) doesn't play games for their stories?

I'm currently vaguely planning a couple of different games I could potentially make next which appeal more to Competency and Autonomy, though I can't see myself making something multiplayer any time soon since I never play multiplayer games. If Atonal Dreams fails to find an audience, it'll be interesting to see if those ones could instead.

I've never even heard of Town of Salem! Looks from the Steam review count that it wasn't as big of a boom though? Still huge though. I can't imagine the interest in Among Us will last long.

Seems there are a bunch of different ways of trying to categorise players' motivations, and that's a particularly interesting one! It completely omits immersion, though, which some of the others included, and which I'd personally say is the biggest reason games appeal to me or don't and why I play them at all.

I wouldn't say Atonal Dreams excels at appealing to Competency (there are battle mechanics, but they're not tricky or a big deal), Autonomy (it's quite on rails), or Relationships (at least in terms of multiplaying with other real humans), though it'll hopefully appeal to people who want to get lost in a world, to really feel fascinated by its characters and lore. I think someone omitting immersion in their categories says a lot about why they play games themselves, so I'm guessing Matt Pat (who I've never heard of) doesn't play games for their stories?

I'm currently vaguely planning a couple of different games I could potentially make next which appeal more to Competency and Autonomy, though I can't see myself making something multiplayer any time soon since I never play multiplayer games. If Atonal Dreams fails to find an audience, it'll be interesting to see if those ones could instead.

purplerabbits147~4Y

For Town of Salem, the game originally was on their own site, then got ported to Steam. So that'll factor into the total number of sales. I think they make most of their money on in game cosmetic sales though.

kalkra19~4Y

It reminds me of something I read in a Malcom Gladwell book (I forget which) about how late bloomers and abject failures look exactly the same until late bloomers bloom. Similarly, Among Us looked like a failure at release, and the devs looked like all the other devs keeping at a failed game until it made it big. I'm not sure whether that's inspiring or not.

donutsizzle2~4Y

I dearly hope and, actually, honestly believe, that your greatest success(es) lie(s) ahead.