I released my first major game this year: Project RyME. I've done a number of small games on itch.io, but nothing that went through all the hoops for a proper public release. I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about marketing or selling a game, and I handled Project RyME entirely on my own, so it could have gone better, so say the least.

My strategy for marking the game was... nothing. I did essentially no marketing. Back in October 2023 I put my faith in Steam Nextfest to (hopefully) get some eyes on the game. I think that was a major mistake because, other than a couple wishlists, it received next to no visibility. Nextfest is sort of a microcosm of the greater Steam ecosystem where games that already have traffic and interest will float to the top, leaving unknown projects to rot at the bottom. A full marketing campaign is needed for the lead up to Nextfest to help it from getting lost in the shuffle. On launch day, about 6 months after Nextfest, the game had about 1,100 wishlists. I've heard that around 10,000 is when Steam starts to give a new release increased visibility, so it was a little shy there.

What could I have done to market Project RyME? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. I could pay for a sponsored segment from a streamer or youtuber. I could hire someone to design a much better trailer or title image, or other materials. I could reach out to various gaming news outlets. I have a strange relationship with the game myself, so I really didn't feel like any of those were appropriate. It's also just a very weird and niche game. The one big of marketing I did do was buy a listing on cohost's artist alley. Considering cohost is full of the weirdo computer-touchers that the game most appeals to, that listing did pretty well.

Anyway, you're probably just here to look at some numbers, so here you go. As of December 23, 2024 Project RyME's stats on Steam are:

The most sales were on release day, unsurprisingly, with 52 copies sold. Within a week, sales were down to less than one per day.

The next significant spike was during the summer sale where, over a 2 week period, it sold about 70 copies.

Late September was when the next sale started, bringing in about 30 sales.

The 2024 winter sale is still ongoing and, at the time of writing, it has sold 17 copies.

Steam is where most of the action is, but the game is also available on itch.io. The analytics there are a bit skewed since the game spent much of its development time available as an incomplete free browser game, but the majority of the activity has been since the commercial release. Not as many fun numbers but:

So there's the revenue, but what about the expenses?

And the grand total (so far):

So there it is. Less than $500 in profit, assuming you don't count the over 6 years of development time. Overall this is about what I expected from the game. I wasn't expecting to make bank off of it.

It could have sold much worse; most indie games make even less. One big thing that I think helped the game was a $15 price point. Many indies tend to undervalue their games, with prices of $5 or under. The thing with that if someone is interested in your game, a higher price isn't going to dissuade a sale at a linear rate. If you sell 200 copies at $5 each, instead of 100 at $10, you're more realistically going to see something like 160 copies at $10. It's just generally better to charge more for your game (up to around $25, I believe).

What have I learned form all this? The main thing is: marketing, marketing, marketing. Allocate a non-trivial budget to marketing. No one's going to know about or buy your game if they don't know about it. Leaving it to word of mouth, your friends and social media followers isn't going to work in the vast majority of cases.