You should write a post mortem on the project and post in in articles. I am sure I am not the only one curious about your experiences a long the way and if going back what you would have / could have done differently. Congrats by the way!

Steam Geenlight page of Pocket Space Empire.

Very very well done!

congrads!

how about a "lessons learned" article about your greenlight experiences?

it could be of great help to us who may follow in your footsteps.

My advice would be "don't do it the way I did it " :D As I see it I have failed every single marketing/promotion thing :) Except one thing, "the concept looks great on paper", I have a feeling this alone did all/most of the work... Some people/press got hyped about the game, it was surprising. I did a lot of controversial design choices (like you can't construct buildings on planets) in order to focus on the things I wanted (like no micromanagement), strangely there were no people complaining about it, instead, out of nowhere, popped out a horde of people who had identical/very similar views on how such a game should be made to my views :)

So, I guess, if I had to give some advice it would be: "don't design your game the same way others do" and "originality pays off".

But again, I'm not very qualified to give any advices on greenlight.

You should write a post mortem on the project and post in in articles. I am sure I am not the only one curious about your experiences a long the way and if going back what you would have / could have done differently. Congrats by the way!

It's just greenlight, the project is not completed yet. So it's too early for a port mortem.

Awesome news, congrats!

It's very inspiring :)

You should write a post mortem on the project and post in in articles. I am sure I am not the only one curious about your experiences a long the way and if going back what you would have / could have done differently. Congrats by the way!

It's too early but I have a few thoughts.

- I would not spend that much time on promotion: it's shocking how much time it sucks out (compared to coding) and in the end it didn't make much difference, if I were to start now I would focus only on Twitter/FB/YouTube, press, maybe 2-3 forums and that's it

- One thing straight, if you want to make games you *HAVE TO* learn how to make YouTube videos :) It's the critical skill.

- Twitter should not be underestimated, not for promotion, but to keep in touch with various people in the industry

- People in the game press are surprisingly nice, don't be afraid of them :)

- There is an insanely huge stigma to crowdfunding (that one was surprising), nowadays a lot of people outright refuses to back *anything* via crowdfunding (due to "previous experiences"). I knew it would be harder than in the past, but... well, kind of feels to me like the crowdfunding for videogames is basicly dead today...

- Originality pays off *BIG*, making things the way others do is surely a kiss of death

... if I were to start now I would focus only on Twitter/FB/YouTube, press, maybe 2-3 forums and that's it

I'm curious, if I may: you seem to imply that you engaged in promotion beyond those channels--what else did you do?

well, kind of feels to me like the crowdfunding for videogames is basicly dead today...

I'm not sure about this: we seem to still see games being crowdfunded, after all. A quick search on Kickstarter shows a number of recently-funded games, even aside from big projects like Bloodstained. I daresay that crowdfunding is more difficult than it previously was, but on that site at least I doubt that it's dead.

That said, a look at Indiegogo (which, alas, I find a little more awkward to search) does seem to suggest that video-game projects don't fare as well there; given the country restrictions that Kickstarter puts in place, this might be a bit of a blow to video-game crowdfunding... :/

Well, good old days of having a KS campaign and getting "shut up and take my money" crowd is long gone. Now you need serious work before starting a campaign, creating some hype and awareness before. And IndieGoGo isn't as popular as KS (seems I'll use IndieGoGo as well, having KS campaign from "outer rim" needs investment therefore a higher goal)

And for campaign, wish Acharis had flexible funding (no need for full amount to finish after all) and a better video.

First of all, I feel that I should note here that I haven't done any serious research into the viability of crowdfunding--my thoughts on the matter are based primarily on the impression that I've gathered, and the above-mentioned quick looks at Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Well, good old days of having a KS campaign and getting "shut up and take my money" crowd is long gone.

I do imagine that this is correct--and I'm not sure it's entirely a bad thing. I admit that I don't like that it may well make crowdfunding rather more difficult for those with fewer resources, and those less-adept with social media. Conversely, however, if some of that reduction in fervour on the part of potential backers comes from an increasing tendency to look at least somewhat critically at campaigns, then perhaps it will add some small bias towards projects with a decent chance of completing their product. Further, perhaps it might encourage project creators to be more thorough in their preparations, and thus have a better chance of a good foundation on which to build, and hopefully a better impression of what their project might entail.

Crowdfunding is something that I feel to be rather important: it's a means for people with limited resources to get help in starting their projects, and a means of bringing consumers into the question of what gets made. It's... not something that I want to see fail.

And IndieGoGo isn't as popular as KS ...

True, but I seem to think that it had previously been easier to find recently-successful game projects. I may well be mistaken in this, however.

I suspect that the "flexible funding" option may have hurt their perceived trustworthiness, as it might be particularly attractive to people who are either ill-prepared (and thus more likely to not produce their stated product) or who intend to disappear with the money.