There are escape games, but none of them have the budget and the scope of. Sometimes ‘going where the market isn’t’ can work out: Another very important facet of the game’s success: “If you looked at Steam, there is not really a game like ours. Minimum viable Escape Simulator would NOT have: room editor, character models, support for more than two players in multiplayer, etc.” Online co-op and modding can make such a big difference - the team was right to focus on both for launch. Online co-op and Steam Workshop? Also vital : As Tom says: “You often hear about Minimum Viable Product, and Escape Simulator goes against the grain there. Making this counter-intuitive move paid off. Not making Escape Simulator AR/VR was key: Tom noted: “Escape Simulator started development as AR mobile game… we decided that we have a better chance on Steam, and it is a more accessible platform to develop for.” Bingo! Although AR/VR seems like the perfect platform, the target market for a game like this is so much larger on Steam. It looks like it’s attracting casual gamers who want to play, but don’t care about reviewing? This means the game sold something like 300k+ copies, but it only had 2,238 Steam reviews at the time. The game’s doing even better than we thought: it’s still difficult to estimate sales via reviews or CCUs, and we were surprised when Tom said “the game just passed $4M in gross sales”. How did this happen? Well, with the help of a Reddit ‘postmortem’ post from Pine Studio’s Tom, we can make a bunch of extra commentary on its road to success, as follows: And with 3,100 CCUs right this second, it’s clearly becoming a bit of a sleeper hit - we’ve been paying attention to it. That was #41 out of all games released that month on our Plus charts - not bad, and a 0.30 ‘Hype to Reality’ score, double the median.īut fast forward two and a half months, and the game is now averaging 260 Steam reviews per week, which is #17 out of all titles released on Steam in October 2021 (!) That’s a major jump-up in rank. It had 332 Steam reviews in its first week on sale. So, when Pine Studio’s first-person co-op escape room game Escape Simulator launched in October, it looked, well, medium popular to us. Escape Simulator - why is it a (semi)-surprise hit? Imagine if we all still marketed via infomercials? ( Devolver’s E3 press conferences are probably the closest concept nowadays. ![]() Semi-offtopic: musing on the weird viral ways that content gets discovered nowadays, I just discovered this bonkers 30-minute Philips CD-i TV infomercial from the early ‘90s. It’s a borderline giant newsletter this time out, so bear with us - we’ll take you through a cornucopia of relevant content. If only the section on top of the middle was filled in, however, the number would be "6" instead.As you ease back into work, welcome to Wednesday’s newsletter, my friends in video game discovery. ![]() For instance, the top triangle on the left of the paper is the number "9", since every triangle around the middle is also filled in. From there, depending on what sections around the middle are empty or filled in, the triangle corresponds with a different number in the key. If the middle section is filled in, look to the “9”, the “6-8”, or the “5” codes that also have the middle filled in. The key is to look at the middle section of each triangle first. It might seem complex, but each triangle in the set of three is a different number. On the phone is an app with a TQ code key, which can be used to decipher the codes on the paper pieces found inside the paper shredder. You can find the key to interpreting TQ codes by erasing the pattern found on the back of the whiteboard and using it to open the blue cellphone on the desk. You might be thinking, "great, now I need to know how to code?". To log into the computer in "The Office" of the Omega Corporation episode, you need to understand TQ codes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |