KickStarter The Legends of Eisenwald Thread

[vonAchdorf]

I hope you won't reduce the second DLC because of the mistake, of which I unashamedly took advantage - making it the first season pass I ever bought :D
Is the sale going as well as you expected?

 

[Celerity]

I already had the game from a few months ago. I will shamelessly take advantage of the season pass though.

 

[Jinn]

Just popping in to say that I bought your game right when it came out, Aterdux Entertainment. I love the setting, atmosphere, and found the battle system to be very serviceable and fun.

I know you addressed this earlier in the thread already, but I really wanted to drive home the thing that really got in the way of continuing to enjoy the game: the typos, syntax and diction errors in the english text. I know it seems like a minor, superficial thing to get in the way of enjoyment, but it really tends to pull the player out of the experience. I also know you said you didn't really have the resources to devote to it, but I have a feeling that there are very competent people in the gaming community who would be willing to help you out with proof-reading and edits if you reached out.

The only reason I'm pointing this out is that I want to see your studio have great success in the future. You guys have some serious potential to flesh out your gameplay and world building skills. Thanks for the great game. I hope there are many more to come.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

I hope you won't reduce the second DLC because of the mistake, of which I unashamedly took advantage - making it the first season pass I ever bought :D
Is the sale going as well as you expected?

It's not bad but still beats me that our wishlist doesn't decrease. As developers, we can see now the dynamic of additions-deletions-buying-activating from the wishlist. Usually during the sale additions should be less than people who buy the game. We lowered the overall price to make it more attractive, yet it seems we didn't manage to break this curse The second DLC won't be reduced for a while, in the beginning for sure. But it will be more expensive too!

Just popping in to say that I bought your game right when it came out, Aterdux Entertainment. I love the setting, atmosphere, and found the battle system to be very serviceable and fun.

I know you addressed this earlier in the thread already, but I really wanted to drive home the thing that really got in the way of continuing to enjoy the game: the typos, syntax and diction errors in the english text. I know it seems like a minor, superficial thing to get in the way of enjoyment, but it really tends to pull the player out of the experience. I also know you said you didn't really have the resources to devote to it, but I have a feeling that there are very competent people in the gaming community who would be willing to help you out with proof-reading and edits if you reached out.

The only reason I'm pointing this out is that I want to see your studio have great success in the future. You guys have some serious potential to flesh out your gameplay and world building skills. Thanks for the great game. I hope there are many more to come.

We spent roughly 20k on translation and editing. But I guess we need to hire more editors/proofreaders.

 

[Antigoon]

I hope you won't reduce the second DLC because of the mistake, of which I unashamedly took advantage - making it the first season pass I ever bought :D
Is the sale going as well as you expected?

It's not bad but still beats me that our wishlist doesn't decrease. As developers, we can see now the dynamic of additions-deletions-buying-activating from the wishlist. Usually during the sale additions should be less than people who buy the game. We lowered the overall price to make it more attractive, yet it seems we didn't manage to break this curse The second DLC won't be reduced for a while, in the beginning for sure. But it will be more expensive too!

The wishlist was broken until a couple of hours ago.

 

[Archibald]

Couldn't some of it be simply be fixed in some patch or together with new DLC? I think people wouldn't mind to compile a list, if they haven't already, that pin points some of the biggest offenders.

About wishlist, ever considered making a free weekend or something like that? Seen some games doing that, maybe its worth considering a week or so before you launch new DLC?

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

The wishlist was broken until a couple of hours ago.

It seems to work now, but yes, it is always delayed. I will have a discussion later with our Steam contact. They seemed to think lowering the price and 75% on top of it would decrease the wishlist. I wonder what they will say after this sale is over.

Couldn't some of it be simply be fixed in some patch or together with new DLC? I think people wouldn't mind to compile a list, if they haven't already, that pin points some of the biggest offenders. About wishlist, ever considered making a free weekend or something like that? Seen some games doing that, maybe its worth considering a week or so before you launch new DLC?

You mean typos fixed? Definitely. But someone needs to do that It's very easy to fix anyway and I fix what I can.

As for a free weekend, I'd love to do that but it's not up to us. I will ask for it but unsure if they take us or not. It seems, they have tiered structure for front page visibility. Only big games get midweek deals. Also, bigger games are for free weekends. And I don't know if our stats are good enough for oug game to be placed into free weekend deal.

 

[Celerity]

If you're selling decently well but the number of people that want it isn't decreasing, it probably means they're being replaced with more people that want it. That doesn't seem so bad.

PS: Should the season pass only be a 55 kb download? Seems like the one DLC that's currently out would be bigger than that.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

It's not bad but according to Steam that might be a sign the game is overpriced. I don't agree and I think visibility makes all the sales. I doubt we would sold less if the game remained $30. Looking at the wishlist dynamics, it's about the same as it was during the Daily Deal in October. I will have a short discussion with my contact next week, curious what he has to say to that

Season pass alone should not download anything at all - it's just a compilation of DLCs added to that. And there is only one DLC at the moment, which is about 4Mb. Maybe our latest quick fix is what you downloaded, that was fairly small...

 

[Celerity]

What I mean is I bought the season pass, I figured that'd give me the Iron Forest but I didn't see any download for it and there's no 4 MB download here even though it shows as checked in my library.

As for the game price, I don't think 20 dollars for a full and proper game is unreasonable at all. 30 would make people apprehensive, and in the Steam sale culture many people will wait, especially fi they know they can get 75% off if they're patient.

I think your problem is lack of exposure. If you don't specifically follow certain niche sites you won't know Eisenwald exists, and a common weakness of indie games is lack of marketing budget making them dependent on word of mouth advertising... which in turn requires a certain critical mass before it begins snowballing. Now if someone is seeing a game they don't know about for the first time and it's either 20 dollars or heavily discounted that will make different groups apprehensive for different reasons. Of course the alternative, be conservative with discounts so you do not devalue your product only works if you're selling very well at full price... something that just is not reasonable when most people's definition of a "hardcore strategy RPG" is linear character developments and OHKOing enemies. You will have a small audience regardless, but from observing other companies in a similar situation you can still raise audience engagement.

I'll have a talk with some of my contacts and see what we can do for you. :D

 

[Antigoon]

What I mean is I bought the season pass, I figured that'd give me the Iron Forest but I didn't see any download for it and there's no 4 MB download here even though it shows as checked in my library.

As for the game price, I don't think 20 dollars for a full and proper game is unreasonable at all. 30 would make people apprehensive, and in the Steam sale culture many people will wait, especially fi they know they can get 75% off if they're patient.

It was priced at 30 before. But with almost 56k units sold in like 10 months it doesnt look so super bad to me. Not sure of course how many were sold discounted.

 

[Celerity]

56k at that price is pretty good. That's actually better than the usual for hardcore RPGs. Still, more exposure couldn't hurt and I have no problem helping out good devs.

 

[Archibald]

I think it was discounted quite a few times so I doubt that they sold many copies at full price.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

60k+ is since October 2013. To sell so much even at discounted price after the release would be great but unfortunately that's not the case.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

I think your problem is lack of exposure. If you don't specifically follow certain niche sites you won't know Eisenwald exists, and a common weakness of indie games is lack of marketing budget making them dependent on word of mouth advertising... which in turn requires a certain critical mass before it begins snowballing. Now if someone is seeing a game they don't know about for the first time and it's either 20 dollars or heavily discounted that will make different groups apprehensive for different reasons. Of course the alternative, be conservative with discounts so you do not devalue your product only works if you're selling very well at full price... something that just is not reasonable when most people's definition of a "hardcore strategy RPG" is linear character developments and OHKOing enemies. You will have a small audience regardless, but from observing other companies in a similar situation you can still raise audience engagement.

I'll have a talk with some of my contacts and see what we can do for you. :D

Thank you. I realize that lack of exposure is the issue. We did reasonably well with press but things were pretty bad with youtube - none of the bigger youtubers did anything. And since press doesn't really matter these days, I am surprised we sold this much. These days you have to make games that would be interesting for youtubers but SRPG genre is not really that good for that. I am afraid, in the long run we will have to move away from this genre.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

He'll set you up good he has all the contacts.

 

[Jinn]

I am afraid, in the long run we will have to move away from this genre

Move away from SRPGs or RPGs in general? I think it would be great to see you guys try out a straight up turned-based RPG. Again, your team has great potential for going in this direction, so I hope we don't have to watch you guys walk away from RPGs all together. Maybe you could even take your established Eisenwald setting and explore it in a more personal way (aka, no troops and HoMM map exploration, just characters and classic RPG exploration)?

 

[Bubbles]

I am afraid, in the long run we will have to move away from this genre

Move away from SRPGs or RPGs in general? I think it would be great to see you guys try out a straight up turned-based RPG. Again, your team has great potential for going in this direction, so I hope we don't have to watch you guys walk away from RPGs all together. Maybe you could even take your established Eisenwald setting and explore it in a more personal way (aka, no troops, just characters)?

They've been talking about F2P plans.

 

[Jinn]

They've been talking about F2P plans

Oh, wow. That's extremely unfortunate, but I guess they have a business to run.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Breaking into F2P is probably even harder than making a (financial) successful (S)RPG. IF you do't have the networks to acquire ("buy") users, it's probably bound to fail and that basically means a F2P publisher.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Many options are on the table. Another RPG is unlikely at this time. We worked on this game 5,5 years and taking another 3-4 years on a new game is simply out of question for a simple reason of financing - we had some money to start Legends of Eisenwald, then there was Kickstarter, then investors, Early Access and investors again. But I don't think we are in a position now to repeat it all with another game. It's not realistic to find financing for a big game and that's why another big RPG is unlikely.

So, we look for financing and whatever we find money for that will be done. And for both cases, be it a PC or a mobile f2p game, we need a publisher. In 2013 when we hit Early Access things looked good and we didn't think we need one. But in 2015 when we saw what's happening with the market, we tried to find one but everyone said no since the game "has already been presented to the public". I know there are different publishers. But some of them are really good at promoting their genre.

 

[agris]

I really hope you guys can build on your existing experience, content production pipeline and other resources to make a follow-up game that's fun to play but doesn't drive you out of business. Pyke's Cayne is doing much the same for Stasis, and in prep for a crowdfunded game after its release. It makes the most sense for a small indie studio truly dependent on its fans, not a me-too or paint-by-numbers pixel art side scroller.

Best of luck.

 

[Saxon1974]

Dang, I wish this would have done better, I really like this game thank you for making it.

 

[Celerity]

I think your problem is lack of exposure. If you don't specifically follow certain niche sites you won't know Eisenwald exists, and a common weakness of indie games is lack of marketing budget making them dependent on word of mouth advertising... which in turn requires a certain critical mass before it begins snowballing. Now if someone is seeing a game they don't know about for the first time and it's either 20 dollars or heavily discounted that will make different groups apprehensive for different reasons. Of course the alternative, be conservative with discounts so you do not devalue your product only works if you're selling very well at full price... something that just is not reasonable when most people's definition of a "hardcore strategy RPG" is linear character developments and OHKOing enemies. You will have a small audience regardless, but from observing other companies in a similar situation you can still raise audience engagement.

I'll have a talk with some of my contacts and see what we can do for you. :D

Thank you. I realize that lack of exposure is the issue. We did reasonably well with press but things were pretty bad with youtube - none of the bigger youtubers did anything. And since press doesn't really matter these days, I am surprised we sold this much. These days you have to make games that would be interesting for youtubers but SRPG genre is not really that good for that. I am afraid, in the long run we will have to move away from this genre.

Yeah, the trouble is "Youtube fodder" and "actually good game" are almost diametrically opposed. There are Youtubers who favor strategy RPGs but not very many of them and it seems like they mostly focus on higher profile titles like Civilization and XCOM. Meanwhile, gaming media is primarily composed of non gamers so if you're not making a walking simulator you shouldn't expect much from them.

Doctor Sbaitso is trolling, but my reputation as a critic has given me some measure of connections for positive promotion. I haven't heard anything back yet though.

Any hardcore RPG, be it standard turn based or strategy is gonna be small, that's inevitable. All you can do is get word of yourself out there for those interested in it.

I don't think I can help much on the Youtube side. It seems like most of them just get bought out when they're needed, even if they're interested in the genre. And my schedule's erratic enough I can't do it myself, not that my amazing 13 subscribers would be of much help.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

I really hope you guys can build on your existing experience, content production pipeline and other resources to make a follow-up game that's fun to play but doesn't drive you out of business. Pyke's Cayne is doing much the same for Stasis, and in prep for a crowdfunded game after its release. It makes the most sense for a small indie studio truly dependent on its fans, not a me-too or paint-by-numbers pixel art side scroller.
Best of luck.

Kickstarter can only fund a very small portion of the budget. Last time we were a bit delusional, this time we are not. Yes, we probably would be able to make a new game for 500k but unfortunately getting this amount on Kickstarter is not realistic. That's why I don't think we can stay too long in this genre unfortunately. We will do a few smaller things for sure but I doubt they will drastically change the situation.

Any hardcore RPG, be it standard turn based or strategy is gonna be small, that's inevitable. All you can do is get word of yourself out there for those interested in it.

I don't think I can help much on the Youtube side. It seems like most of them just get bought out when they're needed, even if they're interested in the genre. And my schedule's erratic enough I can't do it myself, not that my amazing 13 subscribers would be of much help.

After all this is a market. If people in general don't want such games or there are too few buying, money should move elsewhere. I wish we would be able to do what we want but for us making games is not a small hobby, it's a business and business should bring money. We don't need much but we need some to survive.