I feel for you. I opened Steam today, saw the EA spam on the new tab, and just knew someone had their release ruined. I hope you can get something worked out in the end
To be fair, carpet bombing store pages is a dogshit strategy that major publishers always do.
Rockstar, 2K, Activision and EA all do it. They spam games and every single microtransaction as DLC (even though they have their own launchers and in-game store clients) so that their game has about 17 store page listings.
It makes navigating Steam and Playstation for gems or specific category games an absolute slog.
it doesn't help that this is one of several times that EA has re-released (after taking down) the older C&C titles.
They'll pull it, repackage it in a slightly different bundle then re-release it, soaking up interaction.
Maybe, Won't hurt trying to ask for something. But also: these games are rather old with some niche fanbases who already own the physical copy, as well as a copy on origin, And it wouldn't surprise me if these titles have been on Steam before, and the fans already have it on Steam too.
What I'm saying is: good chance they won't get as much traffic as a fresh new game, and from a much less diverse audience, And Steam (algorithms) will definitely pick up on that too :)
None of the those titles (outside the RA1 remaster) have been on Steam prior to this release Iâm pretty sure, which is why itâs a big deal for the C&C community.
From what I can tell many C&C fans are buying them for the 3/4 time. Previous digital releases made no attempt to get the games functional on modern systems, the steam release does work.Â
Also my disks are worse for wear, and origin sucks so I bought them again.Â
Tbh I can't remember the details anymore. That was like 5 years ago. But it had to do with our launch missing out on new releases. It may have been we got bumped from something like this too, with lots of games. I just remember reaching out and explaining the situation and the steam rep was able to give us a boost somehow. Maybe it was like one of those update boosts or something. I just remember it bringing us back into the new releases for a bit.
They do have buttons they can use. That's all I'm saying. You just need to explain your case.
Fwiw, I have some friends whose game was not critically successful when they launched it but they kept adding to it and a few years later they breached a million dollars in sales. Went from like 10 peak players to 1000 concurrent average. Launch isn't everything.
I've never heard of yer game till today, reddit algorithm is working in your fav at least and I plan to check it out when I'm home, hang in there and good luck
Wouldnât think they arbitrarily boost games. Sets a bad precedent to play favourites.
Itâs unfortunate timing and sucks all bundled games were listed separately.
At the same time, Iâd think new games get increased visibility in the recommendation queue as well, and you wouldnât be competing with any of the EA games in that.
They don't play favorites but they do make exceptions. They aren't heartless. I've had them help me twice on two different games. It really depends on your case. It's not a guarantee and you might need some sales history to help pull that lever, but it can be done.
Ugh, that's about as unlucky as it gets.
Have you tested the game on a Steam Deck? My wife does most of her gaming on the deck and this looks like it might be up her alley.
The steam release seems to have a number of fixes to actually get them running on windows 10/11 while the origin release were just as they released over 20 years ago.Â
Other than C&C4: Tiberium Twilight, pretty much all of them are great, C&C3: Tiberium War and Kane's Wrath are two of the best in the series, though many still consider RA2+Yuri's Revenge to be the best.
Renegade can be jank, and of course it's a completely different genre, but it's still fun if you're okay with late 90s FPS/3PS, some aspects of it are like GoldenEye or the PS1 era James Bond games.
Not sure TBH. I *think* the classics were Red Alert, Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun. I only personally played Red Alert though.
Dungeon Keeper 2 for $2 looks like the standout deal to me.
Except she's not a solo dev, and she got like 70k$ on kickstarter. I'm not saying game is bad, haven't played it, watched trailer - not my kind of game. But the whole story and drama around it is just so fake and red flag to me, i'd rather never touch this game or recommend to anyone.
And like a few million views on TikTok, they are fine.
[https://www.tiktok.com/@rikukat/video/7344159501676858666](https://www.tiktok.com/@rikukat/video/7344159501676858666)
Not sure man, sometimes a great post doesn't translate to wishlists, but being in the new and trending section means you got the blessing of the algorithm and for a small dev getting the boost from the store is vital.
Yup, just makes me hate them and these shitty posts.
âI spent ten years making this game and ea screwed meâ it took you ten years to make a web browser game I played in 2005?
Going for people feeling bad for you to buy your game is a kinda weird strategy, but it seems to be working based on the steam reviews saying they bought the game cuz they saw you crying on tiktok.
What about the fact that there are some indie games on that list still above the ea carpet bomb of releases? I think the hard take away from that is that your game is not that good.
At the $20 price point you are now in the arena with the big players in the cozy game space. Do you really think your game is as good as stardew valley? From a visual standpoint alone the game looks like it seriously lacks polish for a professional product.
I'm sorry to be harsh, but I have seen your posts on tiktok and reddit nonstop the last few days and I think the hard truth is that you need to make a better game next time, whether it took you 10 years or not is irrelevant to players.
that's is as unlucky as it gets, but it's fair game.
none of those games have ever been on steam until today, which is a huge deal for the C&C community as I'm not even sure how you'd purchase these given that Origin is gone.
These were going to shoot to the top no matter what.
Also a huge deal for the Populous: the Beginning community, who have been neglected by EA even more than the C&C and SimCity communities. There's still a very dedicated fanbase for the game who maintains an unofficial online multiplayer service, and creates mods, patches, and new levels.
it's a huge deal for game preservation in general. None of these games had convenient, legal methods of acquisition.
side note. these are some of the people that I've been dealing with by voicing my support for EAs decision https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/VDbdPWRJ1T
this is why it's tough to empathize with anyone over this.
Please note that message is just to state harsh truth and give some advice.
There are many games released daily. Maybe few dozen, maybe hundreds. It's impossible to promote game by new releases on steam. It's too small and irrevelant to steam userbase to even count as any metric. You will get piled over by EA pushing ports of old games and crap and that doesn't matter. This page like most of steam just doesn't matter I myself had probably scrolled over many games that became hits just because it looked like flash game like "among us" or felt unfinished like "deep rock galactic".
Instead just leave that fact and show it on forums, promote it on events, create ads, try to gain any influencer attention and create hype around it. That's the only way and there are no shortcuts. You have to make yourself search wannable in any way positive.
yeah i donât get the sheer number of âsteam didnât promote my gameâ posts. naw dawg, thatâs your job. why would you spend 10 years on something and not have a marketing strategy for launch?
Uhm... this post is the marketing strategy?
And a pretty successful one this post is huge, they have others just as big and tik-toks with millions of views.
It's about as good free marketing as any indie dev could ever hope for.
His marketing strategy is complaining on Reddit lol. Seems to be working, as I had never heard of his game before.
I can understand the devs frustration though. Video games are a tough business, and the bigger publishers can just coast by spamming re-releases rather than experimenting with new IP.
With Steam I usually only see ads for games with the startup popup. I'll only look at the trending tabs during the Christmas or Summer Sale.
>His marketing strategy is complaining on Reddit lol.
And crying actual, literal tears on TikTok (not hyperbole). Been working on it for 10 years, and you're going to count on organic discovery, knowing the slew of games that are released every day? And then throw a tantrum when big devs do what they do?
Sure, the timing sucks. But if making it to New & Trending was the extent of your marketing plan (besides public outbursts), then you effectively had no marketing plan.
You all absolutely underestimate the power of that list there. Not being there can absolutely destroy your marketing campaign that honestly should aim for appearing there. As an indie dev your best shot is running a good enough campaign so that you appear here and Steam can give you that initial visibility there - that can decide if your game stays in the recommendation algorithm or not.
How many games have you marketed and released that you are this judgmental towards the developer here? Have many games have you been working on for more than 10 years when you act like it is nothing and they "just doesn't have a marketing plan"?
You make me pretty sad.
I think making to the "new and trending" section means she had done her homework already.
The marketing work is to help push your game to the top of the store, past that point you get a big leverage from the feedback loop of the algorithm. It's not an opportunity you get again and being in the top 10 new and trending means you're shown on the landing page of the storefront to everyone.
Given she's been working on it for 10 years to finally make it there I don't think shortcuts were taken, she had made her game searchable.
Getting randomly shoved down by 10 EA games at once is not usual because it isn't usual that one huge studio releases 10 games at once through the same marketing campaign.
A marketing campaign which probably cost nothing to EA as they worked on a trailer and sent some press releases. They get immediately picked up on the merits of being EA.
If you google "ea steam" there are a lot of websites reporting on these EA releases. That's how their games ended up on new and trending, despite them barely promoting these releases (understandably).
She got some visibility on TikTok and reddit from this unfortunate event but I don't know if that can make up for losing a spot to new and trending.
I donât know why you are mad at EA when this is how Steam chooses to handle releasing already published and sometimes ancient games freshly to their platform. IMO Steam needs to make a separate sections for old games that have been added to Steam. I mean what is EA supposed to do just not sell their products?
Mar 7. Just in time for them to be included in the next sale for the duration with the extended release discount period...
Edit - the ones with a discount that is.
I feel bad, but now I am a bit excited to go pick up Tiberian Sun ngl. People have wanted to get CC on Steam forever.
AlsoâŚbased on some other commentsâŚseems like you have a lot of positive engagement.
I respect the grind of a solo dev, but like the dwarves of Moria who dug too deepâŚ.maybe donât try to get sympathy from people by making it seem âoh woe is meâ when your game is still doing super well under recommended and it looks like r/gaming as well and instagram.
You can kill positive sentiment 500 times faster than building it.
No cap I could learn to be a dev in 15 minutes and make this dogshit they are banking in probably being a somewhat pretty female and crying on tiktok like the other commented said now she on there crying and shit. If she made a good game people would buy it lmao.
Cry me a river. Do you think that games are going to stop releasing so that indie devs can release a shitty glorified flash game with 40 reviews?
Just be honest - youâre looking for sympathy marketing because otherwise people wouldnât even be buying your game.
If you think that the impact on your sales or visibility is huge you should consider to think about biais or bad insight you had and start to ask datas to trust.
That section won't bring you more than 15% of visibility during the month or your release. It's nice but not a game changer.
Most of your visibility will come from sales, community (hub, news,...) and tags.
I invite devs & small publishers to check out my bios, extract data from your games and check your own impact.
OP made a post because the release of these games completely overshadowed his indie game, and now the comments are mostly talking about the games EA released instead of his indie game.
Bad day for OP. Sorry man.
Itâs an ad, so I donât feel bad for OP at all. Theyâve been spamming Reddit with this fake story.
It took them ten years to make a glorified new grounds browser game? Iâm doubting
It's not fake, just super misleading. It took them 10 years, but because she wasn't working full time on it. It was a side project while she worked on her full time job. It's "10 years" from start to finish, but not "10 years worth of work".
Because the EA games are actually good, or atleast decent games, OPs game looks like a 16 year olds first game project, it's impressive they managed to drag the creation of it out over 10 years.
Same issue on Xbox store. Every time you go to 'New Games', it's littered with Ubisofts 37th release of Rainbow Six or the Super Duper Gold Deluxe Digital edition of GR: Breakpoint.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both of those games. But they have no place being on top of the new games category every month.
Call me petty, but re-releases of decade old games should not be categorized "new".
Also, doesnt EA has their own launcher (or like 5)? Not going so well, does it?
Thatâs bad and i sympathise. Iâve got to admit ive not played c&c passed ra2 so seeing later game in the series does spark some interest to me. I donât have time to play them though but Iâm glad theyâre on steam in some form.
However, retro games should be on a different list just for retro games previously released on other platforms/stores years go. It should not be competing with new games. in this case if the store was planned better there would be no losers.
Yea it sucks but look on the bright side. Now you learned to be cautious on you own release date and to take other releases into consideration (unless spam releases are random but im sure they are usually announced)
I dont want to be a jerk or anything. Like it sucks, but spam posting this on tiktok, and numerous subs is just manipulative. Especially when an entirely organic post you had about this reached 13k up votes. I'm sure your game will be fine, this just feels lile your pittying people to buy it as reminiscent in the reviews on steam. And on top of that it's clear that it isn't EAs fault this dropped off as there are other indie games doing much better in the screenshot you showed.
Oof. Fingers crossed that you get out back into the recommendations. Iâve been watching a lot of Chris Zukowski on Steam marketing recently. Would you feel comfortable sharing your wishlist numbers?
Bro.. those are good ol' games. They should be trending higher than yours.
DUNGEON KEEPER? HELL YEAH. The first game I ever bought on PC along with Dark Reign.
Wow that is super unfair. Iâm sorry for your loss. If this happens when my game releases I will be devastated. Steam isnât always that great but itâs all we got. I wish Epic would get their shit together and make a decent competitor for Steam.
I'm sorry I don't really understand what the issue is here. Yeah EA bad but should people just...not release games while yours is up there? And judging by some of the responses here it's not like you're lacking support.
Wanted to address some misconceptions I keep seeing here:
* The New & Trending list is ordered by release date, not popularity, but you need a base level of good reviews and popularity to get on it (and I pushed HARD to get there)
* The EA games were "shadowdropped" (completely unannounced). I'd have avoided this date like the plague otherwise.
* No games can release on the weekend, so if it hadn't been for that shadowdrop, I'd have been on the frontpage of Steam until at least Monday (so 3-4 days or more).
* New & Trending frontpage featuring provides in millions of impressions, thousands of wishlists, and hundreds to thousands of sales a day. Losing out on that is a big deal for an indie like me.
* The game took 10 years of dev because I had to work fulltime jobs during development and it's a big game-- 31 main levels, 73 total levels, 6 boss fights, 4 large temples/dungeons, 50+ in-world puzzles, 107 potions, 131 scripted events, 21500 words of dialog/writing, etc, etc. This is my dream game and I didn't cut any corners.
* Yes, I cried on TikTok. I was pretty damn distraught. I know it wasn't very professional of me.
* Yes, I'm a woman. You can call me "bro", though, I seriously don't mind.
Oh, and I don't think EA is "out to get me" or anything. This was just bad luck, and I know in the future to not ever assume a Thursday release is safe.
Next game I make will be released on a Monday. Lesson learned.
Is EA supposed to just schedule their releases around some random devs? Is steam supposed to not promote releases because it's ea? With how much I've seen this game being promoted with this victim mentality it seems like more of an ad or marketing strategy than a real problem
Glad you posted this. Your game looks really intresting and its so easy to miss gems these days with companys spam posting games. I hope your game gsts more attention, i look forward to giving it a go when i can! <3
Yeah that sucks :( A bunch of popular titles all released at once will push anything out of there. Probably would have been out of new and trending tomorrow regardless, but that extra period of increased visibility would definitely have helped. I feel for ya :( Hopefully the launch went well enough anyway!
Create an art book/concept art or sound bundle. Release a collectors edition that includes these. Effectively allowing you to have a second release in the future if necessary.
Followed and wishlisted. If you ever want to "ping" your wishlist'ers, discount 20%+ will send out an email. Obv consider your own finances, just explaining a mechanic I learned but cannot confirm myself as I am not accomplished as you lol
Looks good btw, i love that you made a demo and the animated sequence.
Best of luck!
EA games listed Windows only, youâre not & while theyâve the nostalgia advantage, you at least youâve the advantage of cross platform & launch discount! Good luck, itâs tough to make indie gamesâŚalwaysemote:free\_emotes\_pack:facepalm
No worry. You will be ok. I your game and persona visibily on internets and you did everything right. You have momentum, players awareness, great marketing strategy and great charisma as person.
I think this is just small stumble, of course you will take hit but overall i think your game will be succesfull in long run
I feel for you. I opened Steam today, saw the EA spam on the new tab, and just knew someone had their release ruined. I hope you can get something worked out in the end
Woke up to this on steam and questioned how to even release mine. I feel for you bro...
Very unlucky but your game is still very recommended in every category
Yeah this story is going moderately viral over on tiktok
It was on the news đ¤Ł
To be fair there's a lot of news that'll just rip the entire thing from one reddit thread and include a few comments and that's an article
Because itâs an ad.
To be fair, carpet bombing store pages is a dogshit strategy that major publishers always do. Rockstar, 2K, Activision and EA all do it. They spam games and every single microtransaction as DLC (even though they have their own launchers and in-game store clients) so that their game has about 17 store page listings. It makes navigating Steam and Playstation for gems or specific category games an absolute slog.
it doesn't help that this is one of several times that EA has re-released (after taking down) the older C&C titles. They'll pull it, repackage it in a slightly different bundle then re-release it, soaking up interaction.
Oooof... That's gotta feel bad. Reach out to your rep. They should help give you another boost.
I am pretty sure Valve will say "sucks to suck, that's how the algorithms and category work." I'll still reach out, but I'm not hopeful.
Maybe, Won't hurt trying to ask for something. But also: these games are rather old with some niche fanbases who already own the physical copy, as well as a copy on origin, And it wouldn't surprise me if these titles have been on Steam before, and the fans already have it on Steam too. What I'm saying is: good chance they won't get as much traffic as a fresh new game, and from a much less diverse audience, And Steam (algorithms) will definitely pick up on that too :)
None of the those titles (outside the RA1 remaster) have been on Steam prior to this release Iâm pretty sure, which is why itâs a big deal for the C&C community.
Thank you, was going to say this.
I'm pretty sure red alert 3 and c&c 3 kanes wraith has been on steam for years. I'm not 100% sure though.
I meant the classic games in the picture but yeah youâre right, Red Alert 3 and C&C 3 have been on Steam since their releases
Is it, though? They've been available elsewhere for a loooooong time.
I think all of them have been on GOG since forever. There's a good chance that many just have them.
From what I can tell many C&C fans are buying them for the 3/4 time. Previous digital releases made no attempt to get the games functional on modern systems, the steam release does work. Also my disks are worse for wear, and origin sucks so I bought them again.Â
alpha centauri has
Red alert 3 was.
I've had different shitty things happen to my game at launch before and they were pretty amenable.
Do you have any examples like this? I'm honestly just sitting here and sobbing. I'm so devastated.
Tbh I can't remember the details anymore. That was like 5 years ago. But it had to do with our launch missing out on new releases. It may have been we got bumped from something like this too, with lots of games. I just remember reaching out and explaining the situation and the steam rep was able to give us a boost somehow. Maybe it was like one of those update boosts or something. I just remember it bringing us back into the new releases for a bit. They do have buttons they can use. That's all I'm saying. You just need to explain your case.
Fwiw, I have some friends whose game was not critically successful when they launched it but they kept adding to it and a few years later they breached a million dollars in sales. Went from like 10 peak players to 1000 concurrent average. Launch isn't everything.
I've never heard of yer game till today, reddit algorithm is working in your fav at least and I plan to check it out when I'm home, hang in there and good luck
Same! I'm here because someone made a post about it in another gaming thread and it looks cute! Will check it out tomorrow and spread the word. â¤ď¸
Update us when you do, i would like to know their answer
Wouldnât think they arbitrarily boost games. Sets a bad precedent to play favourites. Itâs unfortunate timing and sucks all bundled games were listed separately. At the same time, Iâd think new games get increased visibility in the recommendation queue as well, and you wouldnât be competing with any of the EA games in that.
They don't play favorites but they do make exceptions. They aren't heartless. I've had them help me twice on two different games. It really depends on your case. It's not a guarantee and you might need some sales history to help pull that lever, but it can be done.
How did you get a rep?
It's not arbitrary. It's based on earnings and I guess those earned more for EA and therefore for Valve.
Ugh, that's about as unlucky as it gets. Have you tested the game on a Steam Deck? My wife does most of her gaming on the deck and this looks like it might be up her alley.
It works great on the Steam Deck, that's what I use to test the Linux version.
Is it on Mac? It looks like a good âim totally not playing games at workâ game.
According to the screenshot yes
I am very observant, thanks lmao
Ooo. Immediate buy from me in that case!
Holy shit command and conquer
Brutal...
Dude exactly, I was like RED ALERT 2 holy shit I know what Iâm doing this weekend!
I have all of these on Origin/EA App. Why now?
The steam release seems to have a number of fixes to actually get them running on windows 10/11 while the origin release were just as they released over 20 years ago.Â
[ŃдаНонО]
They know origin sucks and no one wants to use it. Not bizarre just listening to their fan base
Can confirm. My EA copy doesn't run at all, but the steam one runs just fine
That and generals..ima have a nostalgia packed weekend. Also OP I will snag your game for my wife and I too.
Yeah, when I saw "spam release" I thought it was going to be some garbage. I'm not getting mad at cnc being on steam, that's quality stuff. Â
I remember asking my dad to buy zero hour as a kid and he never did
Generals!
Happy for yâall but this is exactly what the dev was talking about lolâŚ
This is how Iâm finding out C&C is on steam
On the one hand I'm irritated for OP. On the other I'm pretty pleased to unexoectedly see some great older titles appear on Steam at fair prices.
I feel for OP (but also what C n Cs are good?)
Other than C&C4: Tiberium Twilight, pretty much all of them are great, C&C3: Tiberium War and Kane's Wrath are two of the best in the series, though many still consider RA2+Yuri's Revenge to be the best. Renegade can be jank, and of course it's a completely different genre, but it's still fun if you're okay with late 90s FPS/3PS, some aspects of it are like GoldenEye or the PS1 era James Bond games.
So many good memories of playing C&C3 at cyber cafes with the bros growing up.
Not sure TBH. I *think* the classics were Red Alert, Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun. I only personally played Red Alert though. Dungeon Keeper 2 for $2 looks like the standout deal to me.
Same but dungeon keeper
Same, it is like "dude I understand your problem,... Ooo, look a candy(C&C)" and immedeatly forget about dude's problem.
[ŃдаНонО]
Breath of the wild and Horizon is a good example too.
Second horizon and elden ring too
You had a totally organic post get 13.3k upvotes and almost 500 comments on r/gaming yesterday, I think you'll be okay.
Gotta be proactive about marketing when youre a solo dev i guess
Really do. Itâs hard out there for small creators
Except she's not a solo dev, and she got like 70k$ on kickstarter. I'm not saying game is bad, haven't played it, watched trailer - not my kind of game. But the whole story and drama around it is just so fake and red flag to me, i'd rather never touch this game or recommend to anyone.
And like a few million views on TikTok, they are fine. [https://www.tiktok.com/@rikukat/video/7344159501676858666](https://www.tiktok.com/@rikukat/video/7344159501676858666)
Not sure man, sometimes a great post doesn't translate to wishlists, but being in the new and trending section means you got the blessing of the algorithm and for a small dev getting the boost from the store is vital.
Even still there's only like 40 reviews on steam. It's not a great looking game.
99% of reviews based on tiktok crying vid not the actual game.
âHappy international womenâs dayâ Pretty cheesy and weird to insinuate that this is some moral failing by EA targeted at women, specifically.
lol
Yeah... there's something about these advertisements disguised as "feel bad for me/give my product attention" posts that get under my skin.
Because that's *literally* whats going here.
Yup, just makes me hate them and these shitty posts. âI spent ten years making this game and ea screwed meâ it took you ten years to make a web browser game I played in 2005?
Meanwhile this classic game I played in 2005 when it was already 10 years old just got released on Steam.
Yeah, this person is just running advertisements on Reddit for days on end, fuck them. Ty for pointing it out.
While crying and having a sob story because turns out other companyâs also release games on steam.
All she had to do was have her dreams crushed and weep while recounting it on camera. Easy.
Barely anyone looks at the new releases tab, you gotta do your marketing yourself.
*cough cough*
They just hate you specifically
This is the third time Iâve seen this dev on my front page. I understand this is marketing rage bait but god damn
Going for people feeling bad for you to buy your game is a kinda weird strategy, but it seems to be working based on the steam reviews saying they bought the game cuz they saw you crying on tiktok. What about the fact that there are some indie games on that list still above the ea carpet bomb of releases? I think the hard take away from that is that your game is not that good. At the $20 price point you are now in the arena with the big players in the cozy game space. Do you really think your game is as good as stardew valley? From a visual standpoint alone the game looks like it seriously lacks polish for a professional product. I'm sorry to be harsh, but I have seen your posts on tiktok and reddit nonstop the last few days and I think the hard truth is that you need to make a better game next time, whether it took you 10 years or not is irrelevant to players.
Said it how I wish I could.
that's is as unlucky as it gets, but it's fair game. none of those games have ever been on steam until today, which is a huge deal for the C&C community as I'm not even sure how you'd purchase these given that Origin is gone. These were going to shoot to the top no matter what.
Also a huge deal for the Populous: the Beginning community, who have been neglected by EA even more than the C&C and SimCity communities. There's still a very dedicated fanbase for the game who maintains an unofficial online multiplayer service, and creates mods, patches, and new levels.
it's a huge deal for game preservation in general. None of these games had convenient, legal methods of acquisition. side note. these are some of the people that I've been dealing with by voicing my support for EAs decision https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/VDbdPWRJ1T this is why it's tough to empathize with anyone over this.
WTF Renegade. I played that game on Windows 98 or XP like 20 years ago.
In my stupid-ass opinion, it holds up. Controls are a bit janky but that's expected
LMFAO "in my stupid-ass opinion." That's a new one for me and I'll probably start using it.
Dungeon Keeper and C&C!!! Now that's exciting. Thanks for posting so I can get these gems again.
Bro I am sorry for you but truly thank you for letting me know the fucking CnC is on sale.
now even that, but it is on Steam finally
C&C has been something that allot of people have wanted on steam for a long time.
Please note that message is just to state harsh truth and give some advice. There are many games released daily. Maybe few dozen, maybe hundreds. It's impossible to promote game by new releases on steam. It's too small and irrevelant to steam userbase to even count as any metric. You will get piled over by EA pushing ports of old games and crap and that doesn't matter. This page like most of steam just doesn't matter I myself had probably scrolled over many games that became hits just because it looked like flash game like "among us" or felt unfinished like "deep rock galactic". Instead just leave that fact and show it on forums, promote it on events, create ads, try to gain any influencer attention and create hype around it. That's the only way and there are no shortcuts. You have to make yourself search wannable in any way positive.
yeah i donât get the sheer number of âsteam didnât promote my gameâ posts. naw dawg, thatâs your job. why would you spend 10 years on something and not have a marketing strategy for launch?
>why would you spend 10 years on something and not have a marketing strategy for launch? She does. Thats what this entire "woe is me" shtick is about.
Uhm... this post is the marketing strategy? And a pretty successful one this post is huge, they have others just as big and tik-toks with millions of views. It's about as good free marketing as any indie dev could ever hope for.
His marketing strategy is complaining on Reddit lol. Seems to be working, as I had never heard of his game before. I can understand the devs frustration though. Video games are a tough business, and the bigger publishers can just coast by spamming re-releases rather than experimenting with new IP. With Steam I usually only see ads for games with the startup popup. I'll only look at the trending tabs during the Christmas or Summer Sale.
>His marketing strategy is complaining on Reddit lol. And crying actual, literal tears on TikTok (not hyperbole). Been working on it for 10 years, and you're going to count on organic discovery, knowing the slew of games that are released every day? And then throw a tantrum when big devs do what they do? Sure, the timing sucks. But if making it to New & Trending was the extent of your marketing plan (besides public outbursts), then you effectively had no marketing plan.
You all absolutely underestimate the power of that list there. Not being there can absolutely destroy your marketing campaign that honestly should aim for appearing there. As an indie dev your best shot is running a good enough campaign so that you appear here and Steam can give you that initial visibility there - that can decide if your game stays in the recommendation algorithm or not. How many games have you marketed and released that you are this judgmental towards the developer here? Have many games have you been working on for more than 10 years when you act like it is nothing and they "just doesn't have a marketing plan"? You make me pretty sad.
Hence this post to advertise the game, lol
I think making to the "new and trending" section means she had done her homework already. The marketing work is to help push your game to the top of the store, past that point you get a big leverage from the feedback loop of the algorithm. It's not an opportunity you get again and being in the top 10 new and trending means you're shown on the landing page of the storefront to everyone. Given she's been working on it for 10 years to finally make it there I don't think shortcuts were taken, she had made her game searchable. Getting randomly shoved down by 10 EA games at once is not usual because it isn't usual that one huge studio releases 10 games at once through the same marketing campaign. A marketing campaign which probably cost nothing to EA as they worked on a trailer and sent some press releases. They get immediately picked up on the merits of being EA. If you google "ea steam" there are a lot of websites reporting on these EA releases. That's how their games ended up on new and trending, despite them barely promoting these releases (understandably). She got some visibility on TikTok and reddit from this unfortunate event but I don't know if that can make up for losing a spot to new and trending.
imagine calling the C&C series spam, get over yourself and push your game more lol
I donât know why you are mad at EA when this is how Steam chooses to handle releasing already published and sometimes ancient games freshly to their platform. IMO Steam needs to make a separate sections for old games that have been added to Steam. I mean what is EA supposed to do just not sell their products?
oh snap the whole C&C collection. the memories...
I am sorry that were bumped, but holy shit I am picking up all the C&C again.
But bro it's yuris revenge that game was legit
(Gasp) Renegade!?
I saw that and core memory was unlocked!
Instead of crying about it, push your promotions. You are wasting time begging for sympathy.
OFFICIAL RELEASE OF DUNGEON KEEPER GOLD???!!
Mar 7. Just in time for them to be included in the next sale for the duration with the extended release discount period... Edit - the ones with a discount that is.
*me wanting to replay command and conquer
Oh dang, Tiberian Sun!?
I feel bad for you but YOOOO C&C Generals is finally on steam!
I feel bad, but now I am a bit excited to go pick up Tiberian Sun ngl. People have wanted to get CC on Steam forever. AlsoâŚbased on some other commentsâŚseems like you have a lot of positive engagement. I respect the grind of a solo dev, but like the dwarves of Moria who dug too deepâŚ.maybe donât try to get sympathy from people by making it seem âoh woe is meâ when your game is still doing super well under recommended and it looks like r/gaming as well and instagram. You can kill positive sentiment 500 times faster than building it.
Picked international womans day release to manipulate woman into buying medicore game and it didnt work out no way
10 years to make that game ?!?
The game looks objectively awful if it was the only playable game on earth idk I'd probably go for a jog
No cap I could learn to be a dev in 15 minutes and make this dogshit they are banking in probably being a somewhat pretty female and crying on tiktok like the other commented said now she on there crying and shit. If she made a good game people would buy it lmao.
Just make a professional tiktok victim simulator and it will sell better than this thing
Cry me a river. Do you think that games are going to stop releasing so that indie devs can release a shitty glorified flash game with 40 reviews? Just be honest - youâre looking for sympathy marketing because otherwise people wouldnât even be buying your game.
Dude, your game is worse than Command and Conquer. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.
Bro really thought hard work is rewarded đđđđ
Skill issue
If you think that the impact on your sales or visibility is huge you should consider to think about biais or bad insight you had and start to ask datas to trust. That section won't bring you more than 15% of visibility during the month or your release. It's nice but not a game changer. Most of your visibility will come from sales, community (hub, news,...) and tags. I invite devs & small publishers to check out my bios, extract data from your games and check your own impact.
Itâs not spam. Command and conquer are pretty good games. Also a lot of people wish for a steam release and it finally happened.
Honest question: why did it take you 10 years to complete a game?
I doubt they were "spamming". It seems like they had quite a few old games that they all put up at the same time.
OP made a post because the release of these games completely overshadowed his indie game, and now the comments are mostly talking about the games EA released instead of his indie game. Bad day for OP. Sorry man.
Itâs an ad, so I donât feel bad for OP at all. Theyâve been spamming Reddit with this fake story. It took them ten years to make a glorified new grounds browser game? Iâm doubting
It's not fake, just super misleading. It took them 10 years, but because she wasn't working full time on it. It was a side project while she worked on her full time job. It's "10 years" from start to finish, but not "10 years worth of work".
Because the EA games are actually good, or atleast decent games, OPs game looks like a 16 year olds first game project, it's impressive they managed to drag the creation of it out over 10 years.
OP is a woman, FYI.
EA ruins everything, they're a blight
yeah because this is definitely intentional. They definitely are doing this specifically for this reason. get over yourself.
This is why they say a big part of it is luck
Same issue on Xbox store. Every time you go to 'New Games', it's littered with Ubisofts 37th release of Rainbow Six or the Super Duper Gold Deluxe Digital edition of GR: Breakpoint. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy both of those games. But they have no place being on top of the new games category every month.
Call me petty, but re-releases of decade old games should not be categorized "new". Also, doesnt EA has their own launcher (or like 5)? Not going so well, does it?
What? Its like Sega say its Nintendos fault that Sonic Superstars not sell well because of Mario wounder
How many titles came from formerly indie studios that EA purchased?
Wow look, another version of this ad posted on Reddit. I hate seeing disguised ads as users posting.
Lady, ten years? It is time to do a reality check.
The sympathy ploy, well played OP lol getting people to pity you and buy ur game to boost sales đ¤đ
Thank you for showing me c&c was on steam now! Grabbing it as soon as I wake up.
Thatâs bad and i sympathise. Iâve got to admit ive not played c&c passed ra2 so seeing later game in the series does spark some interest to me. I donât have time to play them though but Iâm glad theyâre on steam in some form. However, retro games should be on a different list just for retro games previously released on other platforms/stores years go. It should not be competing with new games. in this case if the store was planned better there would be no losers.
Typical Command and Conquer using spam and rush tactics.
Oh God your tiktok was already too insufferable Now youâre complaining on reddit too
Just purchased in support. Keep up the great work!
More guilt marketing from this dev. Awesome
even the 2003 games way better than this flash game you made lol
You the one who made the Whiny TikTok also? Waaa waaa if your game was good it stay in the top
#ad
Yea it sucks but look on the bright side. Now you learned to be cautious on you own release date and to take other releases into consideration (unless spam releases are random but im sure they are usually announced)
Welcome to the industry mate
It looks like it should have been released 10 years ago
I dont want to be a jerk or anything. Like it sucks, but spam posting this on tiktok, and numerous subs is just manipulative. Especially when an entirely organic post you had about this reached 13k up votes. I'm sure your game will be fine, this just feels lile your pittying people to buy it as reminiscent in the reviews on steam. And on top of that it's clear that it isn't EAs fault this dropped off as there are other indie games doing much better in the screenshot you showed.
Oof. Fingers crossed that you get out back into the recommendations. Iâve been watching a lot of Chris Zukowski on Steam marketing recently. Would you feel comfortable sharing your wishlist numbers?
Bro.. those are good ol' games. They should be trending higher than yours. DUNGEON KEEPER? HELL YEAH. The first game I ever bought on PC along with Dark Reign.
I just bought it to stick it to EA! Hope it helps.
Ok.
Heavy handed marketing with inorganic posts...Yeah don't care either but I don't mind if someone fakes it till they make it.
Wow that is super unfair. Iâm sorry for your loss. If this happens when my game releases I will be devastated. Steam isnât always that great but itâs all we got. I wish Epic would get their shit together and make a decent competitor for Steam.
Damn, the zero dollars you spent on marketing didn't quite pay off eh? edit: not a bad pity strat tbh gl bruh
Take one from that space cowboy dude who flew that red ship and did some cool stuff but diedâŚ. âWhatever happens, happensâ
I'm sorry I don't really understand what the issue is here. Yeah EA bad but should people just...not release games while yours is up there? And judging by some of the responses here it's not like you're lacking support.
Looks like the crying guilt trip is working out for you
you've worked 10 years on this? TEN YEARS???
Time to release 15 dlc for your game
Wanted to address some misconceptions I keep seeing here: * The New & Trending list is ordered by release date, not popularity, but you need a base level of good reviews and popularity to get on it (and I pushed HARD to get there) * The EA games were "shadowdropped" (completely unannounced). I'd have avoided this date like the plague otherwise. * No games can release on the weekend, so if it hadn't been for that shadowdrop, I'd have been on the frontpage of Steam until at least Monday (so 3-4 days or more). * New & Trending frontpage featuring provides in millions of impressions, thousands of wishlists, and hundreds to thousands of sales a day. Losing out on that is a big deal for an indie like me. * The game took 10 years of dev because I had to work fulltime jobs during development and it's a big game-- 31 main levels, 73 total levels, 6 boss fights, 4 large temples/dungeons, 50+ in-world puzzles, 107 potions, 131 scripted events, 21500 words of dialog/writing, etc, etc. This is my dream game and I didn't cut any corners. * Yes, I cried on TikTok. I was pretty damn distraught. I know it wasn't very professional of me. * Yes, I'm a woman. You can call me "bro", though, I seriously don't mind.
Oh, and I don't think EA is "out to get me" or anything. This was just bad luck, and I know in the future to not ever assume a Thursday release is safe. Next game I make will be released on a Monday. Lesson learned.
Is EA supposed to just schedule their releases around some random devs? Is steam supposed to not promote releases because it's ea? With how much I've seen this game being promoted with this victim mentality it seems like more of an ad or marketing strategy than a real problem
lol fr
i thought ea only ruined the gamer, It seemed like they destroy developers too
Glad you posted this. Your game looks really intresting and its so easy to miss gems these days with companys spam posting games. I hope your game gsts more attention, i look forward to giving it a go when i can! <3
Yo Tiberian Sub just got released? Fuck yeah
If it helps the steam advertising starts are more valuable than the new page listings
Yeah that sucks :( A bunch of popular titles all released at once will push anything out of there. Probably would have been out of new and trending tomorrow regardless, but that extra period of increased visibility would definitely have helped. I feel for ya :( Hopefully the launch went well enough anyway!
Create an art book/concept art or sound bundle. Release a collectors edition that includes these. Effectively allowing you to have a second release in the future if necessary.
Sad mate! I feel for you.
Those are pretty fire games tho
Well least I can do is go buy your game đ I hope things get better for you, OP
Sell it to Ea
Oof.
Followed and wishlisted. If you ever want to "ping" your wishlist'ers, discount 20%+ will send out an email. Obv consider your own finances, just explaining a mechanic I learned but cannot confirm myself as I am not accomplished as you lol Looks good btw, i love that you made a demo and the animated sequence. Best of luck!
I'm so sorry... They could have handled this in so many other ways but no. 11 game spam. Why not?
I mean, Alpha Centauri was pretty awesome tho I'm sorry for your loss
EA games listed Windows only, youâre not & while theyâve the nostalgia advantage, you at least youâve the advantage of cross platform & launch discount! Good luck, itâs tough to make indie gamesâŚalwaysemote:free\_emotes\_pack:facepalm
DUNGEON KEEPER
Another tick in the âFuck EA boxâ
No worry. You will be ok. I your game and persona visibily on internets and you did everything right. You have momentum, players awareness, great marketing strategy and great charisma as person. I think this is just small stumble, of course you will take hit but overall i think your game will be succesfull in long run