this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2025
130 points (100.0% liked)

Indie Game Development

119 readers
137 users here now

A Space for Game Developers

This community is dedicated to game developers of all levels – from hobbyists to professionals. Here, you can share your projects, ask for feedback, exchange knowledge, and discuss the art and craft of game development.

About Community
Reddit Community
Game-Dev Communities
Matrix Community

Community Rules

founded 3 months ago
MODERATORS
Singular@lemmy.world
130
My game hit 1,500 sales today, so I'm sharing some stats (infosec.pub)
submitted 19 hours ago by justdaveisfine@piefed.social to c/indiegamedev@lemmy.world
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is the game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/652770/Zofia/

Some other fun stats:

  • The demo had 27,719 downloads (Almost all from Steam with 45 of those being from itch.io)
  • ~334 players (demo and game owners combined) played splitscreen at least once
  • ~12% of players beat the game
  • ~70% of players quit playing when they encounter the first town
  • As of today, the game has had ~2 million impressions and ~800k page visits
  • I showed the game at three local expos (which made no noticeable impact on wishlists/sales/views)

I've been told the early access release was 'the release' and going to 1.0 was essentially a minor update, though my stats have reflected a little differently. Zofia went into early access almost entirely unnoticed and it wasn't until 1.0 that it got some attention, and more or less bursts here and there since then.

All in all I ran into pretty much every pitfall you could along the way, so I didn't walk away learning what the "correct" answers are, mostly just things to avoid doing - Which was unfortunately a lot.

That's it, thanks for reading.

top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Interesting that the game mostly saw traction after 1.0. So many games spend their whole life in beta that I would think most people wouldn't bat an eye at it. Though a 1.0 launch means the dev feels it's a full experience, and with so much to play, I can see holding off until that point. Also, it's legitimately crazy that the trade shows didn't impact sales at all!

At any rate, this post has gotten me to try out the demo, and I'm a few minutes in so far. There are certainly a number of QOL improvements I'd have expected, but I think your team of 5 has done an awesome job :D

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 10 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Two million impressions and only 1500 sales, never knew the ratio would be so rough. On the one hand it's nice that steam pushes obscure indie games so much (I guess that's where the 30% is worth it). On the other hand, they do it for everyone so I bet it's hard to stand out and get conversions on those impressions/clicks.

I know I'm guilty of speeding through my discovery queue. Although I at least wishlist things that interest me.

(PS I've seen games from major publishers do worse than 1500 sales, but I can't say more since it's nda lol)

[–] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah the conversion rate is pretty bad. I've been told its not visually standout enough to really grab much interest.

[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

There's a lot of factors, but a lot of it is also luck. You're looking at an incredibly saturated market, though, so even if you had striking visuals it might not be enough (and usually, it isn't). I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a fairly typical conversion rate given the Steam method of conveyor belt showcasing.

Besides, you did have otters. That's a plus!

[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Why haven't you updated the game in over a year?

[–] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 3 points 5 hours ago

I burned myself getting through 1.0 and some of the subsequent patches. When I finally got back to it, I started chasing what turned out to be massive slogs in terms of effort: Upgrading to Unreal Engine 5, getting voice actors, localizing the game, and adding a new area.

All of those essentially 'failed' because of technical barriers or other issues, leaving me with very little to show for all that effort.

As for minor patches, I don't have any excuse.

[–] chickenf622@sh.itjust.works 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have data in how many people that downloaded the demo bought the he game?

[–] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 1 points 4 hours ago

I don't believe I do - Unless Steam tracks that somewhere, but as far as I can tell, I don't think they do.

[–] BroBot9000@lemmy.world 18 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing! How long did development take?

[–] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

And please share with us the lessons you learned. I’m going to pick up a copy of your game tomorrow to check it out!

From the reviews, it sounds like you’d make people really happy if you added a kick ability haha.

[–] Gerudo@lemmy.zip 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I noticed you have a demo, did having that spark downloads?

[–] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 9 points 15 hours ago

If I'm being honest, I'm not certain.

I didn't see any notable increase in wishlists when the demo released, and according to Steam, the demo's 'time played' average is actually way below most other games. The numbers didn't really get decent until the late early access or early 1.0.

Fs5bNMcpFYwNXfh.png

I did have people ask me to set up having the demo save file carry over to the main game so there must be a decent number of people who played the demo and ended up wanting to check more of it out.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

What's an impression in this context?

[–] justdaveisfine@piefed.social 12 points 17 hours ago

Ah sorry, I mean't impressions on Steam, which is any case where Steam shows the game to someone like search lists, the discovery page, friends list, etc.