Author Topic: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?  (Read 31262 times)

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #45 on: January 28, 2016, 11:01:31 pm »
hey so I came on today to find this sadness ): the fact that star ward rogue hasn't sold well enough(yet everybody who's played has practically praised this to death) is a little upsetting

 but I agree with those that said that its due to the lack of pr before this game came out if I didn't actively follow this forum and been involved in the beta testing of this game I wouldn't have know it existed on the day of release I didn't even see it on the front page which weirded me out a bit

 but yes I definitely agree with hitting northern lion up on this also may I suggest nerd cubed? the games he covers are pretty random but he's a very intelligent man and would do this game justice I think

 also Chris acnolging(I know I spelt that in absolute  shite way but my brain has a mental block of the real spelling of this word at the moment) your mistakes that you may or may have not made is  okay as long as you don't let that consume you and forget about all the wise decision making you've been doing(weird grammar I know but I cant think of a better way to do  that sentence)

I intend to buy this game and send it to a couple of my friends

also I wish the best of luck to those poor saps who are going to lose their jobs if things continue like this i hope you manage to survive ):.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2016, 11:13:09 pm by crazyroosterman »
c.r

Offline Shrugging Khan

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #46 on: January 28, 2016, 11:14:28 pm »
Sh!t.

Sh!t sh!t sh!t.

This is pretty much the last thing I'd ever wanted to have heard about you guys,  maybe short of you all having been run over.
I can't say that I enjoyed any Arcen title after AI War, but what you've done as developers still gets my admiration any day - I very much wish that you can stick around, no matter how often things go wrong.

Please don't give up, either Arcen core team or temporary Arcen staff!
The beatings shall continue
until morale improves!

Offline cupogoodness

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #47 on: January 28, 2016, 11:17:14 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).

Already contacted SleepCycles, but will send a follow-up. Also found out we already contacted TearofGrace and have followed-up. Sent to Vine Sauce as well.

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #48 on: January 28, 2016, 11:24:28 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).

Already contacted SleepCycles, but will send a follow-up. Also found out we already contacted TearofGrace and have followed-up. Sent to Vine Sauce as well.
have you done nerd cubed? I think heed do this game justice personally.
c.r

Offline Tolc

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #49 on: January 28, 2016, 11:32:32 pm »
Aw, man...I was so rooting for you and a successful launch last week. That sucks big time.  :'(

Can only agree about the missing PR, though. Just listened to TotalBiscuit's Co-optional podcast from last week and was wondering why it didn't come up in the "releases" section...

Another youtuber to contact, if you haven't already, is bisnap: https://www.youtube.com/user/bisnap He has 100k subs and mostly plays Binding of Isaac nowadays, so he would be a natural fit for SR. Add MathasGames to that as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/MathasGames

Still rooting for you! Keep up the fight for good games!

Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #50 on: January 28, 2016, 11:39:41 pm »
Aw, man...I was so rooting for you and a successful launch last week. That sucks big time.  :'(

Can only agree about the missing PR, though. Just listened to TotalBiscuit's Co-optional podcast from last week and was wondering why it didn't come up in the "releases" section...

Another youtuber to contact, if you haven't already, is bisnap: https://www.youtube.com/user/bisnap He has 100k subs and mostly plays Binding of Isaac nowadays, so he would be a natural fit for SR. Add MathasGames to that as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/MathasGames

Still rooting for you! Keep up the fight for good games!
it didn't?! I hope todays podcast gives star ward some attention because I think total biscuit would love this game if he was actually aware of it I'm convinced at the moment that this problem has come from the lack of pr.
c.r

Offline KingIsaacLinksr

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #51 on: January 28, 2016, 11:39:57 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.
Twitter isn't more reliable than a blog. If anything, it's less.

« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 06:53:40 am by KingIsaacLinksr »
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Offline Professor Paul1290

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #52 on: January 28, 2016, 11:40:15 pm »
That's really unfortunate to hear, honestly Starward Rogue is probably my second favorite game from you guys behind AI War and the fact that it failed to sell as well as it had to feels kind of wrong.


I do have a "view from the outside" I really want to voice on this.
Granted, I only have the limited view of how Arcen works internally through the window you've offered and I hope I'm not spouting too much ignorance, but I'm going to really critical and I'm probably going to say some things you probably already know or discovered yourself, so I apologize if I'm being aggravating because of that.

I feel it has to be said that some aspects of Arcen Games have not made sense in the context of the the larger game dev scene for a while now:
  • "Look and feel quality" has been low relative to team size. Yes you put out more games, but games are judged more individually than other software and are judged by their covers.
  • Extremely (perhaps detrimentally) rapid release schedule driven by "burn rate". I can't think of any other dev that has to put out games as fast as Arcen to stay afloat and while I appreciate Arcen discipline and workflow, to some extent I suspect there are reasons for that.
  • Lack of time to do "slow" and "soft" marketing. Like the above, this is also related to the fact you have to put out games so quickly that they never get a chance to build up much visibility via videos, screenshots, blog posts, and the like. Many games don't even build hype in the time an Arcen game is in dev!

Arcen's games are time and time again criticized for numerous "softer elements" which are the sorts of things that suffer under short dev cycles even if the quality of the code and assets being put out are sound. These are things tend to be vague topics like the "look and feel", aesthetic themes, how satisfying the sounds are, and various minor moment to moment elements that are difficult to evaluate and tweak on an accelerated schedule. Sure Arcen's assets have been getting better and are pretty good when evaluated individually, but how they're being applied has been lacking.
Many other game dev teams of similar size and budget seem to have these aspects come along more naturally and effortlessly, and I think that is because their games have more time to "sit and be evaluated" while they are being developed so they're not struggling with "why does this feel slightly wrong" as much. Ironically, I think that's because they're less efficient and slower than Arcen and thus don't have to address that problem as directly and intentionally.

While I do appreciate Arcen's discipline and aggressive workflow and believe that they're your biggest strengths and that if anything those qualities should be retained, at the same time I do feel that you need to somehow carve yourself room, both financially and planning wise, to adopt a more sensible pace of development.
The thing is you keep having to turn out games within a limited time frame due to financial pressure, which applies to most game devs sure but very few have had to put out games at the rate you do and that seems like the indirect source of a lot of issues.
While I do feel it's unfortunate that you're having to lay some people off, I would suspect a "slower burn rate" may be beneficial in the long run.

Perhaps you've come to the same conclusion already, but maybe Arcen Games should be just Chris and Keith.


Again, you probably already thought about a lot this or maybe you disagree, and I apologize if I'm being aggravating, but that's my "view from the outside" as another software developer and I hope at the very least it helps lend perspective.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2016, 11:41:55 pm by Professor Paul1290 »

Offline Tolc

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #53 on: January 29, 2016, 12:07:02 am »
Aw, man...I was so rooting for you and a successful launch last week. That sucks big time.  :'(

Can only agree about the missing PR, though. Just listened to TotalBiscuit's Co-optional podcast from last week and was wondering why it didn't come up in the "releases" section...

Another youtuber to contact, if you haven't already, is bisnap: https://www.youtube.com/user/bisnap He has 100k subs and mostly plays Binding of Isaac nowadays, so he would be a natural fit for SR. Add MathasGames to that as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/MathasGames

Still rooting for you! Keep up the fight for good games!
it didn't?! I hope todays podcast gives star ward some attention because I think total biscuit would love this game if he was actually aware of it I'm convinced at the moment that this problem has come from the lack of pr.

Haven't watched it yet, but I don't think it will. You'd have to bring it to his attention directly (which you can't do as a non-dev as he doesn't take requests). Other than that, he's very much into Darkest Dungeon, Warframe and XCOM2 at the moment, so I don't know about coverage of other games than those. A shame really. SR might not be for him, but he likes Arcen as a dev so he would probably make a video if he could.

Offline cupogoodness

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #54 on: January 29, 2016, 12:25:35 am »
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).

Already contacted SleepCycles, but will send a follow-up. Also found out we already contacted TearofGrace and have followed-up. Sent to Vine Sauce as well.
have you done nerd cubed? I think heed do this game justice personally.

Sorry, didn't see this before. Yes we did, I just followed-up thanks to your reminder. I'll start going full follow-up mode now, was going to wait until early next week, but timing is out the window at this point.

Aw, man...I was so rooting for you and a successful launch last week. That sucks big time.  :'(

Can only agree about the missing PR, though. Just listened to TotalBiscuit's Co-optional podcast from last week and was wondering why it didn't come up in the "releases" section...

Another youtuber to contact, if you haven't already, is bisnap: https://www.youtube.com/user/bisnap He has 100k subs and mostly plays Binding of Isaac nowadays, so he would be a natural fit for SR. Add MathasGames to that as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/MathasGames

Still rooting for you! Keep up the fight for good games!

Already contacted and have now followed-up with both, thanks for this reminder. Hope you guys are seeing a pattern here, we have been trying, the timeline has just sucked.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 12:37:22 am by cupogoodness »

Offline Billick

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #55 on: January 29, 2016, 12:43:04 am »
It sucks to hear this.  You guys are my favorite indie developers. You have 6 different games that I have at least 30 hours, including AI War and AVWW, which I have over 100 hours in both.  There are so many games coming out these days, it's hard to stand out.  Starward Rogue is an awesome game, so hopefully word of mouth will eventually help it find an audience.

Offline garpu

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #56 on: January 29, 2016, 01:28:08 am »
Quote
On another tangent, going forward as possible it might be worth considering the Kickstarter model that I've seen become used recently.  I've seen a few studios (InXile in particular) use kickstarter to as a presale platform so that they can keep all of their staff onboard and don't need to risk losing talent inbetween projects.  For Arcen, this might be a good way to get the word out about future projects and potentially get some idea of what the total revenue will be for that game.

I know, Chris, that you're worried people won't like SBR, but I think you've got enough of a loyal fanbase that a kickstarter for SBR might make a lot of sense.  If it retails for $20, I know I wouldn't mind kicking in a bit more.  The goodies given out can be things that don't cost y'all any more time/money, either.  (Signed promotional material, authentic pocket lint, in-game goodies, soundtracks, a "making of" video, a multiplayer game session with y'all in AI War, etc.)  Even without goodies, I think people would chip in.

Offline Rythe

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #57 on: January 29, 2016, 01:42:09 am »
I'd also join the choir in saying that, although you made some mistakes, Chris, it kinda seems like changes that Steam has made to its platform have done most of the damage to your finances.

And since we're tossing around names of youtube types, let me offer AngryCentaurGaming which I haven't seen mentioned in the thread yet.

He's quite good with his reviews and makes an entertaining listen. Also, not as angry as the name suggests. :P

I started getting the itch to check back in here, but really only noticed the launch when RPS did its short blurb on Starward Rogue, myself.

Oh, and really sorry to hear about the loss of those jobs. Always hard, always a hit, and far too common in the industry.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 01:45:42 am by Rythe »

Offline Cyborg

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Re: Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?
« Reply #58 on: January 29, 2016, 01:42:48 am »
Nobody died.

Everyone comes in here and gives their two cents worth why things turned out the way they did. I can do that too, but I doubt that's what anyone needs right now. You are the company that made the games, made the millions, so you can decide what your analysis is.

Remember how awful things felt a few years ago? And somehow it got better. It's awful now, it will get better. How do I know? Because nobody died.
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