Hi,

I released my first game (some kind of voxel RPG in space) on Steam Early Access about 3 weeks ago and I'm wondering what I could do to increase sales. The problem is that I'm working on this alone and I'm not good at graphics design etc., so it is not finished, meaning it lacks some textures and animations for the voxel models. The voxel world itself is kind of "finished", but since I had no time to add more biomes, it looks like Minecraft. The unique selling point is that the blocks are smaller, mountains are higher, there are quests, and different planets that you can fly to on your spaceship.

I don't know how to continue... I need money to live, but I can also understand that people hesitate to buy the game in this early stage - but this is not helpful since I cannot continue the development without any money, so I would have to find a job and do the development in my spare time. It would basically take decades to finish the game if I did it alone. So far, I sold less than 100 units. The price is $8.99. I feel like I just cannot charge less (with the exception of sales) given that the game has been in development for over 3 years and I need to make money.

I tried advertising my trailer on YouTube, but that doesn't look promising so far, although I got 36% view rate (30 seconds watched or clicked on the ad out of all impressions), which seems a bit high given that I personally skip ads much more often.

Anyway, do you know what's best here?

Cheers

Can we see a link to your game on Steam? It will help if we can see the game and how you're describing it.

Have you tried any marketing other than sharing the trailer on YouTube?  Do you have social accounts for the game, have you sent out press releases, etc.?

Yeah a link to a steam page would be nice

I was not sure if I'm allowed to share that link, but since you asked...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/820070/Cube_Universe/

No, I haven't sent press releases to anyone because I'm not sure if that is benefical in this "early" stage and also have no idea to whom I should send them. I have social accounts, but I'm not sure how much time I should spend on that given that I still have to develop a game here.

Also, I probably should wait until I have at least a logo. I'm not sure how important that is, but it has to be done anyway. Any idea on the design of the logo and the background for the graphical assets on Steam? I think it should in some way show the USP, but I don't know how that could be done.

Edit: 40.89% view rate for my trailer? WTF? How can such a high percentage of people not click "Skip ad"? More than 25% are watching it completely. How on earth is that possible? But also only one click out of 577 views/1410 impressions... Well, people can search for it on Steam/Google, but I don't know if they do. At least they heard of it, I think that's a good thing. But is that worth the money (€0.01 per view)? Can I somehow find that out?

These screen shots on your Steam page aren't especially exciting - especially the first dark one where I can see hardly anything.  I would strongly consider replacing these with more interesting images.

Likewise, spending time in your video on what appears to be the same scene isn't very interesting (I was watching without sound if that makes a difference).

Make sure your marketing materials (screenshots, videos, etc.) are showing the most exciting parts of your game, and keep in mind that what's exciting or interesting for you as a developer may not be interesting or exciting for a player.  Maybe that dark screenshot shows some cool feature you were excited to add to the game, but it's not visibly interesting to a potential player.

Spending time and effort developing your game is of course the main priority, but either you or someone else do need to be spending time and effort on marketing as well if you want to attract players.

Check out Pixel Prospector's Marketing Guide for Game Developers, and the 'Indie Marketing for Noobs' articles in the GameDev Unboxed column.

Hi,

Working with the app marketing team for 6+ years, I must say that the biggest mistake you ve made is having launched an app without any pre-launch marketing activities.

Youtube promotion is totally useless until it drives app users. you need to review your targeting options, campaign goals etc. 0,01$ per view means nothing if the targeting is too broad.

great channel to drive quality installs can be Facebook ads as it presents an extraordinary opportunity for mobile app promotion. There could be no better guide to a successful app install campaign launch than Facebook’s, have you tried facebook app install ads?

I'd be really glad to share more insights on your app promotion

Well, I didn't have that much to show, the game was in development and I had no one who could make anything pretty enough for marketing.

Without enough money for a marketing campaign, there is no point in paying for any ads. I would need a good trailer or banner and I don't even have that. And Facebook app install ads are only for mobile apps, not desktop applications.