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Indie publisher of “Not Tonight” talks about Steam’s helpful data tools that are missing on other storefronts
- Thread starter BAD
- Start date
nintendo being 1. nintendo and 2. "new"ish to a digital storefront, not surprised.
Curious what MS and sony provide. Also metrics from a digital storefront on a personal computer vs metrics on a digital storefront (mainly) accessed only via console cant be a 1:1 comparison right?
Curious what MS and sony provide. Also metrics from a digital storefront on a personal computer vs metrics on a digital storefront (mainly) accessed only via console cant be a 1:1 comparison right?
Why wouldn't it be a 1:1 comparison? In the end, the digital storefront accessed by console is still the same backend, with it being clicked by people and you wanting to know if the PR you have been doing has been effective and which one is the one that attracted more people to focus on that.
Because typical metrics, IE time on page, bounce rate, origin source, even ways to convert, are either not the right metrics or don't exist.
EShop, even on Switch alone, is years old now and he's saying it has no tools compared to Steam. If you say you're gonna make an appealing and competitive platform when there's existing competition, you aren't gonna get away with missing tons of features and saying "it's still new for us"
See: Google Stadia. Build your features before you screw people over. You know what the clients are expecting by now in 2020.
Why are those typical metrics not the right ones or dont exist?
Origin source even inside the store can be important as it shows you where the people came from, did they came from the upcoming page, the tag page, the "more like this" page of a game?
Heck, more jarring for me is not knowing if people are wishlisting your game.
Im honestly surprised to see people praise the Switch as a haven for Indies when consistenlty I've seen developers have ridiculous sales of 90% and above to just couple of cents just so they can guarantee eyes at the top of the page.
Not all do especially established indies but it is more prominent on Switch than Ive seen on Steam.
Not all do especially established indies but it is more prominent on Switch than Ive seen on Steam.
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At least you can do that on Switch, on PS4 and Xbox Live from what i saw it is even harder to arrive to front page.
Indie games are still going to release on Switch because it's still a huge market with lots of players liking indie games, it's just a shame that they have to fly blind with regards to this stuff.
This does not apply to the majority of successful indie games on the platform. Games that are well marketed and highly polished and successful on any other platform don't really do this at all. Nintendo just have a kind of open door policy and so games which take this approach are allowed on there too.
Steam might have more of this approach on their store, but they let devs generate effectively unlimited keys at no charge, so it usually happens outside of the Steam store.
This does not apply to the majority of successful indie games on the platform. Games that are well marketed and highly polished and successful on any other platform don't really do this at all. Nintendo just have a kind of open door policy and so games which take this approach are allowed on there too.
Steam might have more of this approach on their store, but they let devs generate effectively unlimited keys at no charge, so it usually happens outside of the Steam store.
I wonder how other PC storefronts are on that sense, which is a comparison that would make more sense.
Honestly, I'm not surprised Switch is behind the curve on that front, Nintendo is what it is in the online space.
Honestly, I'm not surprised Switch is behind the curve on that front, Nintendo is what it is in the online space.
From what we know no store comes close to Steam backend features.
I dunno about this, I've read that Valve is basically robbing people and stealing their livelihood.
And I'm sure your average forum user knows more about development than this guy
Yeah, reading down thread, and the impression I get is that Steam has the consensus best analytics package. I suppose you can argue that the consoles have two page types, one for browsers and another for consoles (vs Steam being strictly browser based), but that doesn't excuse giving devs absolutely zero analytics.
I don't understand how much of a difference it makes if they give you statistics or not, if any?
Nintendo should definitely provide this information, but it's not that your game is going to sell better if you have access to them. First, your game has to be good, fairly priced and a good port.
Game has a 71 Metacritic score, it's 25€ and I can find at least 5 games I'm more interested in that release on the eShop THIS WEEK (Aviary Attorney, Kentucky Route Zero, Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire, Skellboy, Coffee Talk), all cheaper than this one.
I would not blame lack of statistics if sales prove to be poor.
Nintendo should definitely provide this information, but it's not that your game is going to sell better if you have access to them. First, your game has to be good, fairly priced and a good port.
Game has a 71 Metacritic score, it's 25€ and I can find at least 5 games I'm more interested in that release on the eShop THIS WEEK (Aviary Attorney, Kentucky Route Zero, Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire, Skellboy, Coffee Talk), all cheaper than this one.
I would not blame lack of statistics if sales prove to be poor.
With proper data you can plan far ahead and even do something before launch to improve things if they are bad because you will have data to know if it worked or not.
I get the dev wasn't speaking specifically about sales, but sales are of the utmost importance, aren't they?
What I'm saying is that statistics don't guarantee sales, period. You do your best, market the game properly, tell fans you have support planned. What if those data were bad and the devs thought it's not worth the effort and abandoned support completely?
Again when you have that data you can look into the future. You can see roughly how game will do and plan support in advance. IF you need to wait release date (or even few days after) to see any data you need to delay any announcements regarding support and things like that.
Same. Just added it to my wishlist, lol.
Thanks for this thread
feels like some people are missing the point, but that seems to be the point when it comes to Steam
This post does not imply his game will sell worse on Switch because it fails to give the developer any sort of statistics. In fact, The tweeter couldn't be any clearer on the intention of his message.
This post does not imply his game will sell worse on Switch because it fails to give the developer any sort of statistics. In fact, The tweeter couldn't be any clearer on the intention of his message.
Slightly continuing off topic but I just pulled the trigger on the Steam version the other day and have been enjoying it loads (being a Brit who voted to Remain, I'm loving the jabs and satire), now I find out a Switch version is coming out on Brexit Day? I'mma nab that!
I love that PC indie games, which have been some of my favourite games to play over the last few years (Halcyon 6, Slay the Spire, Chroma Squad and now this) are releasing for Switch but things like storefront analytics would help smaller devs a ton, especially when a lot of the time they're doing the marketing themselves.
People seriously underestimate how valuable it is to have even a rough idea how your product will do.
Like, I cannot emphasize how huge that is.
Like, I cannot emphasize how huge that is.
I can't say I'm surprised that Nintendo offers nothing like this to developers and publishers, the consumer facing side of the eShop feels like it was thrown together in an afternoon when they realized the Switch was about to launch and they have to have some way of selling digital games, then decided that was good enough for 3 years.
Good on Valve for providing so much data to developers and publishers.
Good on Valve for providing so much data to developers and publishers.
Statistics help you with marketing and figuring out if your approach is effective.
I was outraged at first, but after reading some posts in this thread, now I think that it's awful that those indie devs are targetting Nintendo to promote their game. Truly a shame.
It seems less that the eShop offers no functionality and more that it just doesn't offer some of the ones the dev uses to gauge popularity that Steam does
We have actual Switch devs on this site who can probably provide more clarity on what metrics devs actually get from the eShop
We have actual Switch devs on this site who can probably provide more clarity on what metrics devs actually get from the eShop
I get most of my news about indie games from the indie directs Nintendo has, I'm surprised you can't see if your game was wish-listed or not.
I mean it's 2020 after all, nintendo should be more open with 3rd parties on what metrics they offer and ideally should be open about what they plan on offering as well.
If Msft and others have dev roadmaps with votes from users on what can be implemented next, Nintendo certainly should have something similar.
If Msft and others have dev roadmaps with votes from users on what can be implemented next, Nintendo certainly should have something similar.
Just as with the likes of Epic, being new is not really a good excuse in this day and age.
There have been first, second and third movers already to show them the way.
Everyone has(or should have) criticisms of Steam/Valve ( lack of moderation on the forums first and foremost for me) I guess it's hard to shake the tech libertarian mindset. Like you said no other storefront offers comparable features and none of other platform holders combined do as much consumer facing stuff or just general overall improvements(almost everything to do with VR) as Valve does.
It was a haven...before it started having like 20 games released every week. Now the sale page is filled with dozens and dozens of games without the ability to filter them, that's why they put such large discounts since you get a spot at the top of the page. Is totally fine let everyone release a game in your store, but you should offer those devs a proper store in the first place.
What? That's insane. On the App Store and Play Store you get so much data, I'd be lost without it.
...Also created a handful of GOATs? Or did I just miss sarcasm?
So you think the developers are the same people who work on the storefront???
You make it sound like they can't do all of these things at the same time, which is nonsense.
Don't worry devs, you can play Breath of the Wild while you wait for your quarterlies.
Something that I imagine many people already know, but it's worth mentioning again, Steam is exponentially easier to do patches than any of the consoles since you can do it all yourself. GoG is easy as well. Don't know about EGS.