Cheers for the great video John! I have been fortunate over the years to have my games featured by a number of huge streamers - the key, in my experience, is to have a game that has a fast gameplay loop and something a little left of field. High fidelity graphics and so on, not so important - rather more important to lean into the craziness, memes and whatever. There's a lot of randomness, silly sounds and unpredictability to Swords and Sandals that I think appeals to the streaming crowd. I can say it has helped me immensely over the years having them play my games, I almost never get any coverage from the 'real' games media but I've had many millions of views worth of videos from streamers which more than makes up for it. Many of the bigger streamers actually grew up playing the early S&S games, so that really made my life easier. You cannot rely on streamers to play your games, but if you design your game in such a way that you think 'oh this might be something an audience would find amusing / engaging for a short time at least', you may find yourself getting coverage like this. I've been doing this for many years and have had many failures and some successes - indie game dev is an absolute lotttery and survivorship bias is a real thing, so what works for one game may not work for another - but make a game that stands out and you could well be on your way to making it a real career. Best of luck to all you game devs out there! - Oliver Joyce

@roach590

Жыл бұрын

This is actually a sad reality for me as I'm working on a realistic and slow game. It would be really boring to watch, but I enjoy making it and I'm sure there are people out there who would want to play it. Also I have to say your games are my childhood man! It is so nice to see you are still making great games after all these years.

@whiskeybarrelstudios

Жыл бұрын

@@roach590 Thankyou mate! If the subject matter is interesting enough and well executed, it may just find its niche regardless of streamers or not. Best of luck to you!

@BrannoDev

Жыл бұрын

I always appreciate it when people who are talented and have worked hard are still able to acknowledge that there is luck involved.

@BrandonCourt

Жыл бұрын

thanks for the insights man

@anommymousse1224

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for making your data available, and thanks for making the video of this, very kind of both of you to do this. ❤

Oh man, getting Charlie playing your game is like a goldmine.

@LostRelicGames

Жыл бұрын

I know right!? I'm a huge Charlie fan so it was quite exciting to have my friends game featured. We watched the first hour of the stream together, absolutely giddy.

@ArmwrestlingAcademia

Жыл бұрын

@@LostRelicGames ​ Blood and Mead on there next, eh?

Sword and Sandals is a series I've been following since middle school and I can proudly say that it was already pretty popular back then, so I'm glad it got traction again. They've also played it on stream maybe mostly because they've also played the earlier titles back then! That game is part of our old school days

When I see a dedicated indie developer get a chance like that to sell more copies of his/her game makes me really happy for them. I really like seeing indie devs achieve success in their career.

I've had some larger creators (1M+ subs) play a closed beta demo of my game, and I was surprised how few wishlists it converted to. Interested to see how that will change when the demo is publicly available. Perhaps the actionable nature will drive more traffic. It could also be a naturally low conversion rate for those specific creators' audiences.

@LostRelicGames

Жыл бұрын

How 'actionable' as you say, is a huge factor. I've seen other devs share stats from YTbers like JackSepticeye, and the sales were barely a blip on the graph. Some game genres also just don't seem to convert well, namely story driven games. People watch the streamer play, and that's it, no need to buy. Good luck with your full release!

@milesparker557

Жыл бұрын

I think the same thing with Pinstripe. The creator got big KZreadrs to play it and even got them to do some voices (I think PewDiePie voiced a character) but it didn't convert into as many wishlists as they had hoped. Definitely depends on many factors including the type of game and the streamer/KZreadr's audience.

@imperfectgamedev7533

Жыл бұрын

@@LostRelicGames For sure it being single player and story driven is a factor as well. I have purposely made more emergent gameplay aspects to combat the “I already watched this” problem. We will see!

@basimaziz

Жыл бұрын

​@@LostRelicGames AAGH... It's so TRUE... Story based games, while we need the marketing too, weirdly suffer from let's plays and streams. They fully play the game, people see the whole story, and go "Welp, I don't need to buy it." Then it really hurts when those people go "Why'd this story based game dev go under?" or "Why does he release games so slowly?" And it's like, did you buy his games? No, you didn't. SO HE WENT UNDER! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! It stems from people not understanding that we need funding to continue our work quickly... Full-time game deving requires money.

@mrpirate4100

Жыл бұрын

@@basimaziz Should be special versions for streamers with 100x the price xD, indies give them content and they should share a revenue fraction with devs.

I hope you enjoyed the video. May the big streamers find your games also! S&S Immortals on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/1707650/Swords_and_Sandals_Immortals/ Oliver's YT channel: kzread.info Come hang out on discord: discord.gg/yeTuU53

@darkaniaworks.romania

Жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Awesome video! Thanks for sharing this info and kudos to your friend for sharing the data. This is very interesting to see how big youtubers and streamers have effect on the game. I will keep this is mind. Keep it up! :)

Hey, When you get dev's willing to share their data, also ask them for the Steam Marketing Report. It's found on: Marketing Tools & Data / Marketing & Visibility / Store & Steam platform Breakdown / Sorce - External Traffic. With that data, you can actually get a better understanding of how many impressions you get from a Streamer, the CTR, and if you combine that with the sales data, you get a clear view of the whole event.

I agree its a dice roll but when it sparks it can be life changing for the developers. Recently Asmongold played "Halls of Torment" on stream and posted on KZread. The game avg users increased by 385% which I assume tracks with a similar increase in sales.

Thanks for sharing, very insightful indeed

Very insightful. Thanks!

Man I can’t even put my headspace into speculation about how my game would perform when I’m ready to go into this stage. Congrats to him for getting noticed 💯

Awesome contents, love them all. You were gonna make a new PC building video.

@LostRelicGames

Жыл бұрын

The new PC is now built and running, I had to rewire it twice after my RGB stopped working! I'll have some content around the new system and it's potential probably soon :)

@afrasiabmahdy

Жыл бұрын

@@LostRelicGames awesome, can't wait to watch it. Keep up the good work.

I often wonder how to get a streamer to play my games. Any advise? I'm working on a new project so will have something to showcase soon.

Always insane to me to see this... in some occasions I tend to believe Devs buy the placements, but from content creators that big, this would be Impossible. If stuff like this happens, it totally outplays any Marketing campaign by far...for zero dollars. :D Love to see this.

Hey John fantastic video. My name's Jessica, I'm from Adelaide and wondering if you completed a degree and if so what degree did you complete? I've just applied for a bachelor of IT majoring in Games technology 🎉 exciting. Now I will be as knowledgeable with programming as you are! That's my aim anyway! :D keep up the good videos I watch all the time.

@LostRelicGames

Жыл бұрын

Hi Jessica! Yes I have a degree in Digital Media; which is pretty much a generalist course covering everything from coding to 3D modeling and animation. It was a really useful foundation. Back then we there was little focus on anything game related, now it's everywhere! Good luck with your studies!

project templates) and import stuff in.

Interesting. Did he mention how he got the streamers/youtubers to play the games ? Is it just that they felt like it ? Or did he send some keys or something ?

@LostRelicGames

Жыл бұрын

xQC and the early Cr1tikal streams were a 'felt like it' thing. With his new game, Oliver may have shot Charlie a key knowing he was a fan of the series - that's what I would have done! :)

@milesparker557

Жыл бұрын

He said in the video that they picked it up organically.

@RockyMulletGamedev

Жыл бұрын

@@LostRelicGames great ! Thanks for the answer.

@darkaniaworks.romania

Жыл бұрын

In my case it was random! Penguinz looked for a horro game that day and it so happened I released mine a few days ago!

@whiskeybarrelstudios

Жыл бұрын

Charlie has long been a fan of the Swords and Sandals series and we are 'friends' on Twitter so that certainly helps - I wanted to honour his fanship of the game by adding him in as an arena champion and he was gracious enough to provide his voice. Other than him though, its almost always just dumb luck - I don't really send out keys to streamers but because the games have been very popular with younger players the last decade and a half, they tend to get lots of streaming coverage.

I'd love if someone plays my game online like that but then I'd be scared if the game broke or wasn't fun.... Nerve wracking situation.

@microdavid7098

Жыл бұрын

I'd be very self conscious for sure

@dibbieknight7886

Жыл бұрын

I think creators of anything all feel that way when you make something you worked on for a long time public, if its feasible you could setup "test groups" and find places to demo your game to a small controlled group of people who can share their initial thoughts before you release a beta/early access or the full game - this lets you understand right away if there are any major flaws in your design, if players didnt understand your game in the first 15 minutes for whatever reason, and if it was frustrating or fun to continue playing, it wont tell you everything but it may certainly help alongside analytic tools, whats important is that its as close to early organic feedback with first impression and your difficulty curve to people with little knowledge of your development - that means they have no biased knowledge or muscle memory of your games content, levels, abilities, sounds, interactions, etc

interesting how a yt video is more beneficial over time compared to a live stream

Gosh yes... We all covet that Stream or that Let's Play from a big Streamer/KZreadr. It's nice to see there are people who understand this. I honestly get so frustrated when I see rich and famous people say "It's not about the money or getting noticed~. But doing what you love~." Now yes, it's important to game dev for the love FIRST and FOREMOST. But there is NOTHING wrong with getting paid for your work and to claw and reach for our dream of making it our full-time job. Nothing wrong with desiring that PHAT Mat Pat or Markiplier video. Edit: Yes, I know you should still keep your day job. But in the meantime, I'm gonna go hard on trying to make game deving work. =3=)

@gijane2cantwaittoseeyou203

Жыл бұрын

If you want money, work in accounting, engineering or any other respectable job. Game is an art form and you should do it for passion. It would be a bad business strategy to rely on streamers playing your game and if you make a game for them, they wont probably be interested in it.

@darkaniaworks.romania

Жыл бұрын

I agree!

@showthebeebub

Жыл бұрын

@@gijane2cantwaittoseeyou203 are you saying game dev isn't a respectable job?

@showthebeebub

Жыл бұрын

@@gijane2cantwaittoseeyou203 also it doesn't have to be a good “business strategy”. You can pursue making games for passion AND being able to live of it. It doesn't need to be for profit. Op said it should be passion first and foremost so it doesn't need to be good “business” to be enough to live on.

@gijane2cantwaittoseeyou203

Жыл бұрын

@@showthebeebub What? Cant live from your games if your not making a profit. If you want to live from your game, you should not make games you want to make but instead games the market wants. There's nothing passionate about that. If you are bored making games for few bucks, you might as well being bored being a well paid accountant.

I laughed when XQC got called a fortnite streamer 🤣. Really good informative video tho

@LostRelicGames

Жыл бұрын

haha sorry, I don't watch his stuff. I just hit his page up and saw what looked like a bunch of Fortnite streams 😅

Thanks

😄 Awesome and thank you! Penguninz played my game on Twitch and then shared bits of the gameplay on youtube last month, just a week or two before the release! I shared my experience on your discord, if anyone is curious! Thank you very much!

Adi Zhavo replied on an old video of yours, you should interview him about his games

GL bro

Why are 98% of my tutorial gears

I just came from one of Charlie’s vids

change it to Analog app 1 TE

It didn't happen to me and it probably never will so I don't have anything to say about that from my experience

Speaking of positive twitch/youtube coverage, how many people have just gone and looked at after this video?

I wonder how many sales this video brings to the game

@whiskeybarrelstudios

Жыл бұрын

Haha, a few but not so many to be significant. What I have found is other game devs are your peers but often not your customers, so it's important to share your work with gamers and not so much devs. Great way to share advice and knowledge tho!

XQC is definitely not a fortnite streamer haha, he's more of a variety streamer. He averages around 50-60k viewers per stream

@LostRelicGames

Жыл бұрын

I'm not too familiar with his streams, When i checked he was in the middle of a fortnite session :) Thanks for the heads up.

I hope they will make huge mistake and stream my game Lol

very insightful video, but the fact that you called xqc a Fortnite streamer hurt my soul

You calling xqc a fortnite streamer is way too funny lol

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's such a missed opportunity with the price of the game! He would have likely killed it at a lower price.

@whiskeybarrelstudios

Жыл бұрын

Hi, developer here - I have the evidence, and you're in fact not right here. Charlie has played three of the games in my series, and two of them were priced much lower than S&S Immortals, and the revenue for Immortals was greatly higher than the other games after his playthroughs. You need to sell a LOT more copies at a low price point. Without being able to give you the hard numbers, I can tell you that Immortals has made, in 3 months, more money than every game in the series except one and it's on track to be my highest selling game ever within the next 12 months - and with fairly significant revenue especially for a solo developer. Reason I mention this is because I think too many game developers completely underprice their games to try and attract a larger audience. Have faith in your game , price it at what you think it's worth. This game is orders of magnitude bigger than the other games in the series for roughly twice the price - so it was a very calculated decision that has paid off very handsomely so far.

@BenDol90

Жыл бұрын

@@whiskeybarrelstudios I respect the decision but totally disagree. Either way good luck!

When i look at the Steam stats from this game, 161 all time peak players , and on average 20 players. Game development is hard i know, but i can't call this a sucess yet.

@whiskeybarrelstudios

Жыл бұрын

Well I guess it depends what you define as success. Worldwide acclaim and riches ? No. Significant returns so far ? You bet! I can't share my sales figures with you but as a solo developer, I don't need massive numbers to generate some really decent revenue. The sales from this game (and added to the folio of games I already have on Steam ) have allowed me to live pretty comfortably, feed my family and work on my games full-time for the last two years and the foreseeable future to come. So that's a success to me. The good thing I find is these games have crazy long tails. I'm still making money on the games I put up on Steam 6 years ago - if you can build a suite of niche games over the years you will find you can start building a loyal following and a ready made audience. Good luck !

@kingdaghost4558

Жыл бұрын

@@whiskeybarrelstudios Congratulations on your amazing game and your success. All the very best to your future ahead.

@JohnK68

Жыл бұрын

@@whiskeybarrelstudios Thank you for your answer. Game popularity is a strange phenomenon we can agree on that one.

I don't like streamers lol

@rayecast

Жыл бұрын

@@molochz okay failed streamer lol

i like how he called xqc a fortnite streamer lololol