Author Topic: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?  (Read 31236 times)

Offline ET3D

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #30 on: January 28, 2016, 04:51:31 pm »
Someone posted about your troubles on the GOG forum, and I was sorry to read about them.

Two thoughts:

Is it possible for a dev to set up a free Steam weekend? Or is it for Valve to decide? You need to get more people to check out the game, and that would be one way.

The other thing is the price, at $11.99 and $10.79 after a 10% discount it's just over the psychological $9.99 barrier. I think it's a bad place to be.

Offline Bluddy

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #31 on: January 28, 2016, 04:55:17 pm »
As a not, I'm personally guilty of having quite a few games on my steam wishlist that I don't intend to buy soon.  I put them there so I don't need to go digging through steam to find something new when I actually have time to start playing a new game or something different.

That's a good point. Wishlists are misleading, because they're more of a bookmark than a real desire to buy the game. I'm not sure it's a useful statistic.

Offline Aklyon

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #32 on: January 28, 2016, 05:02:23 pm »
At first, I thought this was pretty bad, but not the worst thing I'd heard. But then it turns out things are so bad you'd be down to only you and Keith and Blue, and no Pablo? Owch. :-[

Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #33 on: January 28, 2016, 05:22:39 pm »
Thanks for the detailed write-up, Chris. That must've been really tough to write. I don't really know what else to say. You made a kick-ass game, probably the most well received since AI War, and you had what seemed like a pretty good promotion lined up with the Humble folks, but things just didn't work out as expected. The whole Humble thing probably turned out to be a bit of a curveball. Without the pressure to get the game out for that promotion you could probably have put one or two more weeks into doing some more traditional marketing before launch. Hey, that's a gamble I would've taken, too, though. I'd also like to echo some thoughts that Misery made, working on this game for the last couple of weeks for myself has been amazing. I knew when this game was first announced that I was going to try and help as much as possible with testing and stuff,  because I thought that it had the potential to become a dream game (at least for myself!). To actually have been contracted to work on it, if only for a few weeks, was like a dream come true. Thanks for that!

As for the future, I will still be working on the game on a volunteer basis, of course, in conjunction with all the amazing modders on the forum who have already provided some fantastic content, in order to keep making the game even more kick-ass. Hopefully in time we can grow the fanbase as people start realizing how much fun the game is.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #34 on: January 28, 2016, 06:47:33 pm »
Last time this happened you were marred by releases of rather mediocre games, if I remember correctly. This...just doesn't make sense. To me, Starward Rogue is a freaking amazing game. Sure, there's Binding of Isaac, but this is entirely different. I don't see why it's not selling better. Perhaps it's just drowning. :/
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Offline Breach

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #35 on: January 28, 2016, 07:06:54 pm »
I'm so sorry to hear this, my best wishes go out to the entire Arcen staff both those who have lost jobs and those who still have them (as I imagine neither case is a pleasant one at the moment).

I will say that the lack of marketing must really have hurt you a bit.  I only found out about Starward Rogue when the Humble Store Bionic Dues giveaway started, I clicked through to the Arcen catalogue just to review all the classics and saw Starward Rogue and thought "...that seems unfamiliar, is this an expansion pack or very old game?"  To my shock it was entirely new and that was the first I've heard of it.  I don't even recall an email from the Arcen forums, either on release or about beta testing!  Just an email to all forum users would have done a great deal of good I think, anything to spread publicity.  You can count on the faithful to spread the good word in any case, if only if it's about a new idea for a game that's in development so at least the game is on people's radar and it's not just skipped over when they see it.

Again, best of luck to everyone affected and I sincerely hope Arcen survive long into the future.


Offline GiantPotato

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #36 on: January 28, 2016, 07:31:11 pm »
Well this just sucks. My condolences to the entire team, I guess all I can really say is that Starward Rogue is a really good game that deserves a lot more success than it's getting right now.

I'm starting to think I don't understand the games market either, but maybe that's because it doesn't make sense.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #37 on: January 28, 2016, 07:32:37 pm »
I'd make a video, but unfortunately most of my 500 subs are bots, and even if they weren't, 500 people is miniscule. And I'm also deathly ill, so it would be mostly coughing :P But I have spread it to others via links and emails. I also gifted it to one of the most popular Smite streamers who plays Binding of Isaac between his ranked queues. He said it sounded intriguing, so hopefully THAT could give some traction.
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Offline dday007

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #38 on: January 28, 2016, 07:58:32 pm »
It kinda feels like unless TotalBiscuit covers an indie game, you're screwed. :/

TotalBiscut's having problems with cancer right now.  You won't see him review games much, even if he did give glowing reviews to The Last Federation and played a part in its success.

Actually, I feel that other youtubers like NorthernLion ,TearsofGrace, and Vinesauce could give you a lot of exposure if someone like TotalBiscuit isn't available.  Northernlion is a chill guy who reviews indie games while playing The Binding of Issac: Afterbirth (abbreviated to BoI).  He's the most likely IMHO to go along with reviewing it and you're getting attention from the same audience as those who play BoI.  TearsofGrace will somehow make your game funny just by editing a video of it.  Vinesauce has his own little microcosm, and he usually tries a game at least once.  I watch these guys constantly and this is coming from a guy who stays away from obnoxious youtube personas.

There are some other youtubers mentioned in reddit that play games from a similar genre (roguelike bullet hells):
https://www.reddit.com/r/bindingofisaac/comments/3kjvgm/binding_of_isaac_youtubers/?ref=search_posts
https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearThrone/comments/3nnkou/good_youtuber_to_watch/?ref=search_posts
I can't do all your research for you.  But it should be a start as to who you should contact if you want to cater to those who stream games in the same genre.

I do want to point out though that if you do give out review copies that you emphasize to these people that they can change the difficulty.  Some of these people aren't used to actual bullet hells and are leaning more towards the roguelike part of the equation.  I don't want a streamer to not have the reflexes for it and then put the game in a bad light due to a misunderstanding.  I find while Arcen games are experimental and great, their UI could use some work and sometimes some polish is needed.  If you can't get them right away with the gameplay, the streamers(and therefore their viewers) will think that the game is unfinished when in reality it's the way you guys roll.  I like the programmer aesthetic, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

That's my two cents on the whole business.  I don't usually go on forums, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned this already.

Offline Tomasdk

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #39 on: January 28, 2016, 08:10:36 pm »
I'm really sorry to hear that you got in finance trouble. I think that the market changed, you get a ton of releases each day and I've heard about great games not being successful before, mainly due to low exposure caused, in part, by the tons of releases each day. But I also believe that a great game will have legs thanks to word of mouth. Unfortunately, if you need the income now, it won't help, but it can help in the long term, hopefully.
Either way, I wish you the best of luck, you managed to get out of a similar situation before, I'm sure you can do it again. :)

Offline cupogoodness

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #40 on: January 28, 2016, 08:15:13 pm »
Actually, I feel that other youtubers like NorthernLion ,TearsofGrace, and Vinesauce could give you a lot of exposure if someone like TotalBiscuit isn't available.  Northernlion is a chill guy who reviews indie games while playing The Binding of Issac: Afterbirth (abbreviated to BoI).  He's the most likely IMHO to go along with reviewing it and you're getting attention from the same audience as those who play BoI.  TearsofGrace will somehow make your game funny just by editing a video of it.  Vinesauce has his own little microcosm, and he usually tries a game at least once.  I watch these guys constantly and this is coming from a guy who stays away from obnoxious youtube personas.

There are some other youtubers mentioned in reddit that play games from a similar genre (roguelike bullet hells):
https://www.reddit.com/r/bindingofisaac/comments/3kjvgm/binding_of_isaac_youtubers/?ref=search_posts
https://www.reddit.com/r/NuclearThrone/comments/3nnkou/good_youtuber_to_watch/?ref=search_posts
I can't do all your research for you.  But it should be a start as to who you should contact if you want to cater to those who stream games in the same genre.

I do want to point out though that if you do give out review copies that you emphasize to these people that they can change the difficulty.  Some of these people aren't used to actual bullet hells and are leaning more towards the roguelike part of the equation.  I don't want a streamer to not have the reflexes for it and then put the game in a bad light due to a misunderstanding.  I find while Arcen games are experimental and great, their UI could use some work and sometimes some polish is needed.  If you can't get them right away with the gameplay, the streamers(and therefore their viewers) will think that the game is unfinished when in reality it's the way you guys roll.  I like the programmer aesthetic, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.

That's my two cents on the whole business.  I don't usually go on forums, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned this already.

Thanks for this, we have reached to NorthernLion already, and I'll get an email out now to the other two you mention. We've suggested playing around with the various mechs and difficulty levels in every email we've sent out, good to go there.

Offline Misery

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #41 on: January 28, 2016, 08:24:45 pm »
The main one I could emphasize is SleepCycles.

The guy is no stranger to difficulty, roguelikes, bullet-hell, and is absolutely freaking hilarious.  Never ragequits or seems to get angry at anything either, which is a huge plus with stuff like this. Always good when you can get someone that typically seems to genuinely be having a good time.

Big audience that is mostly used to Nuclear Throne, but he tries and often continues playing other games too, like Deathstate, which is another roguelike with some bullet-hell to it (plays very, very differently from this one though).

Offline NichG

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #42 on: January 28, 2016, 09:37:17 pm »
This entire thing was kind of strange. I normally check Steam daily and I didn't see SWR pop up there. Instead, I heard about it on a thread about Bionic Dues on Giant in the Playground. Meanwhile Steam is running various indie visual novels in the main bar, so this isn't AAA priority or diverging. I've bought one VN but several Arcen games, and I'm on Linux which usually heavily filters towards indie, so I'd expect SWR to get in through 'like other things you play' Weird point #1

Weird point #2, I was curious about the sales so I Googled 'steamspy starward rogue'. Nothing. Instead it got changed to 'star wars'. So I went to Steam Spy directly and scrolled. Nothing. I had to specifically search for it, at which point I did find it.

Could this be a technical issue on Steam's side?

Offline Matruchus

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #43 on: January 28, 2016, 09:44:59 pm »
Weird point #2, I was curious about the sales so I Googled 'steamspy starward rogue'. Nothing. Instead it got changed to 'star wars'. So I went to Steam Spy directly and scrolled. Nothing. I had to specifically search for it, at which point I did find it.

Could this be a technical issue on Steam's side?
It wasn't just Steam. Youtube had about five days the issue of not being to able to see the difference between Starward Rogue and Starwars Rogue one. It automatically changed the description to Star Wars. I guess this could be one of the reasons why people couldn't find reviews or gameplay videos there.

Offline Bluddy

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #44 on: January 28, 2016, 10:25:34 pm »
This entire thing was kind of strange. I normally check Steam daily and I didn't see SWR pop up there. Instead, I heard about it on a thread about Bionic Dues on Giant in the Playground. Meanwhile Steam is running various indie visual novels in the main bar, so this isn't AAA priority or diverging. I've bought one VN but several Arcen games, and I'm on Linux which usually heavily filters towards indie, so I'd expect SWR to get in through 'like other things you play' Weird point #1

I saw SR on the Steam main page once, and then never again.

BTW, while we're talking about marketing advice, Chris should really get on the twitter bandwagon. A lot of people follow devs on twitter nowadays. I don't mean the company -- that's a separate twitter account, and it appears to me that people prefer following the actual devs. Twitter is much easier to communicate on than a dev blog, and it's a relatively easy way to get access to potentially thousands of people. When you release a title, a dev who's friends with you will retweet, giving you access to all of his fans, etc. It's a shame not to make good use of this marketing platform.