Maybe it's uncouth, but I will share with everyone my game's statistics, since it relates to this topic, and because it was successfully released on Steam almost 2 years ago to this day (wow!), November 23rd (I believe?) to be exact. So that's almost two years on Steam. Darkblood Chronicles has sold 168 total units. Please excuse me for a moment as I

into this bucket.
All jokes aside, I won't regurgitate what has been said in this topic already, as I think the discussion here has been very enlightening, and seems to be on the nose. There's just
too many games on Steam now. Another thing I have a particular beef with is how the algorithms work. It seems to be similar to Facebook and other platforms where if you don't hit the right numbers (views, reviews, sales) out of the gate, you get buried
to the very bottom of every page. You can improve your odds by throwing money at it (probably? I've never tried with Steam).
Also, while my game is certainly not going to win any awards for innovating game play systems, it's been positively reviews by everyone who has played it. While the numbers are small, it at least tells me that people who are genuinely interested in it, are playing it.
By the way, I saw a jump in sales (relatively speaking) during sales, but,
only when the price was lowered to a certain point. The sweet spot seemed to be sub $10 CAD (so, like, $7 US?). After release I got a
ton of emails from people coming out of the woodwork begging me to put the game into a bundle, where I would get like 13 cents per sale. Even though the sales have been abysmal, I don't regret not including the game in a bundle, because that seemed like a sure fire way to devalue your game
right out of the gate. What this means is that once you lower that price barometer, the small amount of people that are actually interested and who might've purchased it won't - because they'll know you're willing to lower the price, thus, have devalued your game. I stood my ground on the initial price, and only lowered the price on the anniversary of release to see if I could generate some additional sales.
One thing I don't see a lot of people talking about is that while your initial release has the
potential to see the largest sales traction, this isn't always the case. I've had blips of interest throughout the years with Darkblood Chronicles, usually spurred by sales. Applying this logic, you can continue to make the rounds with your game on the social media circuit (or even other platforms), and it'll still appear "fresh" to an audience that is not familiar with it from before. In this way, you can expand the longevity of your product. Unfortunately, except anecdotally, it's hard to find a lot of examples of this with concrete data to back it up. At the end of the day though, I guess what I'm trying to get at is that games don't have an "expiration" date. If you are not successful out of the gate, does not mean your game will never be. It only takes one person (granted, the right person with a ton of influence) to potentially spread your project through word of mouth, their blog, their YouTube channel, and so on. And this might be a game you released years prior.
Another interesting note, Darkblood Chronicles is sitting on 1130 unpurchased wish lists. That's ... pretty significant, IMO. That means like 12-15% of people purchased the game, assuming it may've been first on their wish list. I don't know what's stopping the remainder from purchasing the game, as they would assumedly get an alert when the game is on sale? Unfortunately, Steam does not let you mass spam your wish lists customers
What have I personally learned? Again, a lot of this has already been discussed here, so I'll try to bring something new to the table.
- Generally, more "steam lined" games do better. This goes for anything from graphics (think Stardew Value, that was a huge success on Steam, huge) to game systems. For my next project, even though it is still RPGMaker, I am eliminating battles completely, and focusing on story and exploration. Looking at Darkblood Chronicles, the battle system was a means to an end, it was there because supposedly "that's what makes an RPG".
- Crank up that hype train two months before release with daily postings if possible, on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blog, whatever. Anything. And stick to the release date once it arrives. Darkblood Chronicles was in development on and off for seven years. There was a soft release in 2014, and the game was quickly taken off the market afterwards due to reports of bugs. In the following three years, I inconsistently kept up with blog posts, but the excitement very quickly fizzled.
- Attach a "name" to your project, if possible. Doesn't have to be someone huge. The best thing an indie project can do is team up with another fellow indie artist, musician, writer, etc. This way, you bring in another audience by association. I am very interested in working with an indie musician for my next project. And not only to bring that "indie" flavor to the project, but because it works in context with the game.
Awesome article by the way
@jkweath ! As well as your take on all of this. Great read.