Great work on Starward Rogue, team! Now you’re all laid off...?

[Matruchus]

What were the mid-2015 Steam store changes that were detrimental to sales?

I think it was the refund option that was introduced on Steam in June 2015 enabling you to refund any game you play less then two hours. Since TLF and Ai War (main sellers) are long haulers this might have been very negative for them.

[Misery]

My theory on the Steam thing is still the same as always:  That damn change they made to their store format.  How it now only shows, by default, the "popular" games (which are often the sort I consider terrible), and only for a short time as they are slowly scrolled.  You have to specifically tell it, via a nearly hidden button at the very bottom, to show ALL releases, or to show more than just a single page even of just the popular ones.  I cant count the number of games I nearly missed out on because of this.  I completely hate it now.

And yeah, this game appeared on the stupid popular section, but it's already been scrolled off of that first page.   And I suspect most people dont actually click to go to other pages.

And of course Steam keeps trying to show me things it thinks I would buy that make no sense (really?  jRPGs?  To *me*?  You've got to be kidding) while not really showing things related to what I DO buy.  That stupid banner thing is basically useless to me at this point.

[LaGrange]

My theory on the Steam thing is still the same as always:  That damn change they made to their store format.  How it now only shows, by default, the "popular" games (which are often the sort I consider terrible), and only for a short time as they are slowly scrolled.  You have to specifically tell it, via a nearly hidden button at the very bottom, to show ALL releases, or to show more than just a single page even of just the popular ones.  I cant count the number of games I nearly missed out on because of this.  I completely hate it now.

Actually, if you click to show ALL releases, then as of right now, eighty-seven releases have occurred in the ten days since Starward Rogue's release! And their attempt to help us navigate this bloat with the whole 'exploration queue' mechanic is a bust; it's like we're in the days of AltaVista or Lycos before Google swooped in with their superior search algorithms. Steam's selections for us are rarely helpful.

[TheVampire100]

For some reason Steam wants to shove me Visual Novels int he face. I don't play them, I don't have them but still I always get them on the "new, improved and personalized storefront".

[garion333]

Steam Spy is hopefully showing some good news about the game:



HMargin of error puts the game at at least 2,000 copies, which is double what the first few days had. Hopefully that's a sign of things to come.

[Misery]

For some reason Steam wants to shove me Visual Novels int he face. I don't play them, I don't have them but still I always get them on the "new, improved and personalized storefront".

Ugh, same here.

I always want there to be a "DAMMIT STOP DOING THAT YOU STUPID THING" button available instead of just a "not interested" one, for times like that.

[eRe4s3r]

Nhhhh it's a bullet hell game with loot, and it doesn't drop interesting crazy loot, and it doesn't look unique. That's the problem right there (I mean bullet hell and no interesting unique look and loot) ... if you click on the tags within steam itself, you will see why.

So why you ask anyway, despite me just telling you to look that up yourself ;P

Rabi-Rabi - http://store.steampowered.com/app/400910/ (This is a big one)
Space Moth DX - http://store.steampowered.com/app/425340/
Starward Rogue <--
Close Order - http://store.steampowered.com/app/383800/
The Bug Butcher - http://store.steampowered.com/app/350740/ (another big one)
Endica 4 the Dream King - http://store.steampowered.com/app/343150/
Sora - http://store.steampowered.com/app/390730/ (Something SHMUP fans especially know about, but very niche)




So lots of bla bla and text and links... I just wanted to show that chronologically, SR released right between 2 big SHMUP / Bullet Hell releases one of which even I (someone that hates bullet hell) would want to play at some point (That's Bug Butcher obviously ,p). Look at the sales of the games I listed above on steamspy and you see... Shadow Rogue.. .. Stalwart Rogue.. Starward Rogue fits right in the middle sales wise. (Btw, that was a joke on the naming.. don't just type Rogue, you never find this game in steam :p)

Also for the record Bug Butcher steam discussion has a very Interesting topic about Spanish translations in case you ever thought translation work was as simple as translating words ,p

Point being: Genre flooded in January, very unusual to see that many games in the same genre (kind of) And tons of other games I didn't even list released, the week SR released especially.. so lots of contenders, huge swath of other games. Market flooded, literally. Still not even half way through my discovery queue for LAST month. ^^

[Captain Jack]

Translation work is really complicated, yeah. It's why I tend to laugh and ignore people who demand direct Japanese to English translations of games and other media. It just doesn't work, even putting aside issues of syntax, words just have different connotations in different languages and expressions rarely translate directly.

[TheVampire100]

Bug Butcher looks the most interesting of those. But the rest? Rather plain. Well Sora looks somewhat good except the awefully plain background (but I heard that this is common in bullet-hell games because it makes the bullets better visible).

[chemical_art]

Nhhhh it's a bullet hell game with loot, and it doesn't drop interesting crazy loot, and it doesn't look unique. That's the problem right there (I mean bullet hell and no interesting unique look and loot) ... if you click on the tags within steam itself, you will see why.

This is something I have thought about: There is no hook to make me want to play "just one more time" The loot is simply too boring. There are no item (combos) that lead to me drastically adjusting my gameplay. I don't feel like I am going to meet something wildly different then what I saw before. I just don't feel like the game plays differently enough between runs.

[Captain Jack]

Nhhhh it's a bullet hell game with loot, and it doesn't drop interesting crazy loot, and it doesn't look unique. That's the problem right there (I mean bullet hell and no interesting unique look and loot) ... if you click on the tags within steam itself, you will see why.

This is something I have thought about: There is no hook to make me want to play "just one more time" The loot is simply too boring. There are no item (combos) that lead to me drastically adjusting my gameplay. I don't feel like I am going to meet something wildly different then what I saw before. I just don't feel like the game plays differently enough between runs.

Explain a bit more. Is it more because of the items or the enemies?

[chemical_art]

Due to the random nature of both enemies and levels I understand that enemies can be only so unique. The only enemies I remember are bosses, but even then they come and go so quickly I can drive no real connection/emotion/impact from them, so they are not something that drives me.

Items are more of what I talk about. There are no items for me that have such an impact of how I normally play. There is no item so powerful/unique/interesting that I would adjust my playstyle around them. Instead, I typically very quickly find one item I find ok (if at all, I'm perfectly fine with starting items) and stick with it the item the whole round.

[eRe4s3r]

Nhhhh it's a bullet hell game with loot, and it doesn't drop interesting crazy loot, and it doesn't look unique. That's the problem right there (I mean bullet hell and no interesting unique look and loot) ... if you click on the tags within steam itself, you will see why.

This is something I have thought about: There is no hook to make me want to play "just one more time" The loot is simply too boring. There are no item (combos) that lead to me drastically adjusting my gameplay. I don't feel like I am going to meet something wildly different then what I saw before. I just don't feel like the game plays differently enough between runs.

Explain a bit more. Is it more because of the items or the enemies?

That's not what I meant, I am not talking about replayability, I talk about what would make someone play it to begin with, outside of the genre reach, aka perception in a sea of competitors, what makes SR stand out, does it offer something beyond bullet hell / shmup standard formula (enter room/clear room/rince/repeat) does it offer unique characters, story and stuff? My saying is that SR sits next to (Beat em-up style, with bullet hell bosses) bunny girls (7,268 owners currently + trading cards with very high value as always with moe cards) and a (very neat art-style, high polish) bug butcher (15,870 owners currently) on the steam store right next to each other. That's imo strong opposition even on a slow month (January was NOT slow, and we have the Division, Xcom 2 and various other things that release too).

Btw, Rabi-Ribi is also a competitor to SR so don't ignore that one (released after SR, but probably draws sales away), that game does story/CG/loot/exploration/bullet hell bosses and puzzles ^^

[chemical_art]

I was going from the perspective of needing replayability in order to stand out. For this genre I will get bored very quickly if things are too much of the same. Having items that are powerful to have me adjust my tactics on the fly would be a very large positive for me to investigate and ultimately buy a game.

[eRe4s3r]

Yeah that can also be a factor for people I can only speak for my own perception.

Also that said, I watched the Scot Manley video of this game and .. well.. Scot Manley and bullet hell, what were you guys in PR thinking, can't believe he picked the worst mutator in the game by accident too ;P