Steam Greenlight: "Parallels" - The Experiment :)

Discussion in 'Buildbox General Discussion' started by Kevin W, Sep 29, 2015.

  1. Collin Wade Thiessen

    Collin Wade Thiessen Avid Boxer

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    Amazing Kevin! Keep moving forward and pushing traffic. I'm sure you will do well. The new gifs on the page look great!
     
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  2. Simon Crack

    Simon Crack Avid Boxer

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    I'd say those stats are looking sweet! Good luck dude. (Voted as promised :) )
     
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  3. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    @Collin Wade Thiessen - thanks man - I built them before posting up and totally forgot - ha!
    @Simon Crack - Cheers buddy, or should I say Dorothy :p super appreciated
     
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  4. djseanmcclellan

    djseanmcclellan Boxer

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    Looks great man!
     
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  5. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    So here's the 48hr update:
    Things have definitely stalled as we're not on the homepage now - which was always to be expected. Hopefully we should have a screenshot feature on IGM in the next week or so, so hopefully that may help - This was always gonna be long haul :)

    [​IMG]

    @djseanmcclellan - Cool thanks!
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2015
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  6. Jamie

    Jamie Avid Boxer

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    @Kevin W
    I see some people commenting saying things like "no, not another ios runner - I will play it on my phone, but we want a platformer on our computers," which does remind me a lot of what @Collin Wade Thiessen and I talked about in a marketing thread in the old forum. You might get more upvotes if you announce it as a platformer, accompanied by a mobile runner version - and clarfiy that the platformer will have a sharper set of leveled obstacles... just a thought.
    Either way, as more of us try on steam and show support for each other, we will collectively break through the steam obstacles and get our games greenlit.
     
  7. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    thanks @Jamie
    We fully expected the inevitable mobile comparison, and to be honest, it's a totally fair point. I'm gonna be keeping an eye on all the comments over the first week and draw more conclusions then, and probably make some changes like you suggest. I'm actually surprised there's not been more, so overall I don't think it's too bad.

    The real decision for us is how long we give the process time wise. We are still building out, so right now it's not too important, but we do have a publishing deal for mobile in place - but I really wanted to go through this process for the experience nonetheless, and all the marketing assets needed to be done anyways, so either way it's pretty cool to have that side of things done :)

    Thanks again for the comments and I'll post the updates for this first week
     
  8. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    @kevin, I appreciate the vast customer base of around 75 million on Steam, but please excuse my ignorance as I'd only ever heard of Steam when I first got into publishing, but what's the biggest advantage of getting green-lit on Steam? Cheers mate.
     
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  9. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    @Phill Mason
    No worries dude, I'm a total newbie too, hence the "experiment" ha!
    So basically, unlike mobile stores, to get on Steam you games need to get greenlit by Valve which essentially means they'll publish the game on their store - this is done by the greenlight process.

    You submit a video and screenshots and the paying members of the Steam platform vote on whether they want to see it live or not - There's a lot of blackbox stuff underneath also, but essentially the goal for us developers is to reach the top 100 list and that will greatly sway your chances. It has to be said that it's not critical though, and, from what I have read, it's possible to get the greenlight if you reach top 300 and is more to do with the yes/no ratio's.

    Hope that helps and this is exactly why I started this post :)
     
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  10. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    Thanks for the quick response @Kevin W, much appreciated. What's the standard monetization method over there? Are you going paid, free with IAP's etc? have you decided that yet? Sorry for all te questions, just that it's an interesting alternative market to iOS and I'm keen to grasp business side of it all.
     
  11. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    @Phill Mason - no problem at all :)
    I'm going paid and will be under $5 - I've yet to fix on a concrete price exactly as I'm still sniffing around trying to research similar games and getting a realistic price point. I really like the idea that there's no ads and the game can be played for what it is.

    If people slate the game that's fine, but at least it won't be because of the necessary ad model on mobile. But that will probably just be replaced for bad reviews on the high price lol. That is of course if I'm lucky enough to make the cut.
     
  12. Phill Mason

    Phill Mason Serious Boxer

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    Thanks @Kevin W, good to hear you're going paid, it'll provide an honest perspective of your game for what it is, great feedback. Thanks for sharing your journey so far. I need to sign up for Steam so I can send Parallels some vote love :) Good luck mate.
     
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  13. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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  14. nickm33

    nickm33 Boxer

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    This looks soo amazing @Kevin W! The whole combination of theme and music and movement is all just ideal. About to log in to Steam right meow and vote for sure!

    Best of Luck!
    Cheers.
     
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  15. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    @nickm33 - thank you, such kind words - that's so appreciated :)
     
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  16. Jamie

    Jamie Avid Boxer

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    @Phill Mason I think there is a way to monetize things in a Steam store game, but it requires programming to implement and integrate various services and features the Steam SDK offers. For buildbox games published on Steam, the trend will likely be a sales price of under $5 (unless some people decide to expand and integrate the Steam SDKs). From what people here in the buildbox community tell me, and from what I see going on in Steam voting/commenting, a lot of steam users want what @TreySmith would call a "console experience" -- a game that does not necessarily have robust, highly detailed graphics and effects, but a game experience that does allow for playing levels (progressively from level to level with scaffolding of difficulty and mechanics) and using controls that a controller or computer keyboard would allow. I imagine that once Buildbox 2 comes out, a lot more of us will be trying to get our leveled games (with world maps) greenlit since this will more closely fit what the Steam users want. Ouya was a platform that Buildbox initially supported, but Ouya was acquired by a different company with a different agenda (bye bye Ouya, basically). For now, and for the future, we can publish buildbox games onto the mac app store and windows desktop app store, but Steam might be a more booming gamer ecosystem, and getting on and through greenlight means a massive marketing accomplishment in and of itself. In the old forum, I wrote about strategies I plan to try with steam: create a version for mobile first (e.g. an endless runner version) and create a bare minimum (enough to optimize it for steam greenlight) leveled "console experience" version that you can build out and release updates on as you run a steam campaign for it (and upon success, continue building it out and release on steam; upon failure, release it on desktop app stores, or revamp it and try again?). For example, if you create a hit game that gets featured on the Apple app store and it gains a bunch of app store ratings and some good press (basically it does well on mobile), then this information would be a great foundation for a marketing campaign on steam for when you gear up to market a leveled console version of your hit mobile game, on steam (assuming this leveled version is sufficiently adding new level arrangements that were not necessarily in the mobile endless version). Lots of steam users are expressing that they would play a console experience game on their laptop, but not a mobile game on their laptop. Any "mobile-ish" steam game may get lots of downvotes from steam users who just don't want a "moblie-ish" game on the steam store, and they may be giving downvotes for this reason without actually revealing that reason in comments. If we can make it clear in our steam campaigns that we are offering console experience versions based on a successful mobile game, then steam users who are down voting it without leaving comments might upvote it and leave positive comments. I think this strategy could really work, and my guess is that as more indies are publishing their games on all platforms, we'll see more and more game product strategies that resemble what I just described. It is certainly possible (though risky, as others in the community here have mentioned) to get a "mobile-ish" game greenlit, but I am betting that the products put on steam that fit the product design strategy I am describing here, will end up accepted more easily. I could be wrong about it, but our experiments will help us all figure out how to best approach the market of users on steam.
     
  17. AndyG

    AndyG Miniboss Boxer

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    got my vote ;)
     
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  18. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    @AndyG - Awesome - thanks man :)
     
  19. Kevin W

    Kevin W Avid Boxer

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    So time for a quick update as we're now a week in :)
    Here's the snapshot:

    [​IMG]

    So no too shabby really, marketing and driving traffic is certainly the biggest challenge by far. The free exposure from Steam itself has all but died. I've posted a few video's on Twitter and Facebook and they've been pretty well received which is really encouraging.

    I've also updated our Steam listing by adding a logo to the description along with 2 new short gameplay video's. I was hoping our Indie Game Mag article would've been out this weekend, but not yet so fingers crossed it might be soon. Anyways, onward we go :)
     
  20. Collin Wade Thiessen

    Collin Wade Thiessen Avid Boxer

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    Awesome! Keep pushing man.
     
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