Step by step: Why go First Access on itch.io
Tommy: Today I'm going to talk a little about our first-access push on itch.io and why we opted to go that route prior to a proper launch in 2017.
It's a mixture of pragmatic and personal for me, as we move towards actually getting the game out for its final release. To set the scene, we look back to the summer of 2016 when Matt and I were back to having a debate over when Sure Footing will actually be finished. This has always been a touchy subject given that Sure Footing is something of a labour of love as well as an evening/weekend job for us. I want to be open about often feeling stressed balancing all of my extra-curricular activities - of which I have many like helping to organise AI conferences and hosting the AI and Games YouTube channel. Plus there is the need to try and balance all this with my personal life (a separate issue for another blog I fear).
As a result, the deadline of when the game would be finished was continually being pushed back.
However, it's never been as straightforward as that. The longer we played around with the ideas of what Sure Footing is in our heads and in the codebase - AND what it should be - naturally the more it changed in shape and size. Often to the point it almost became too big in its scope. We had to trim down our expectations more than once because ultimately, the more we do that, the higher the chance that Sure Footing will be released.
Now while this all might sound rather fatalistic, one thing that's proven true and came to light is that for over a year now we always had a build ready to show whenever we need to. We were pretty strict about ensuring the game is always in a playable state [we’ve linked to a video below of all the playable builds we’ve ever shown at events] so that we can hand it to people and let them have a go. On the backside this always brought out the questions at shows “When the game would be finally released?”, which always jump into “flee-mode”, as it was a question we dreaded ourselves. Ultimately, the real answer was always the same: "the game isn't ready...yet".
At the time of writing this, I'm working on a number of big additions to the game that our first-access supporters will see in the coming months, as well as dealing with the usual bug fixes and other minor improvements throughout - and I've not felt comfortable pushing what I know is incomplete to a wider market, especially with a price tag involved. This is compounded by my general fears of actually trying to release a game and watching it fail. In short and very honest, I've been scared to release it.
However, during the summer of 2016 I had a change of heart. Our producer Verena came on board largely to keep us - specifically me - in check and to help us get the game launched. We don't have the experience of launching games or dealing with marketing or the 101 other challenges we haven't faced yet. I knew Verena through my involvement in nucl.ai (an event she had a hand in shaping) and could trust her to give me an honest and frank opinion of the game: Is this even worth pushing to the market? Like many projects, the longer you stay with them, you become so close to it you fail to see the value of what you have produced. Fortunately, Verena saw something in the game that I no longer could and was happy to come on board to help us steer the game to launch and ultimately, it was Verena who raised the idea of pushing towards the itch.io first-access program.
If you're not familiar, first-access is akin to Steam early access except you can add a layer of exclusive rewards as well as limit the number of keys that exist in the wider world. This ability to limit the number of keys was certainly appealing, given we could ensure that the game is ultimately still limited in its distribution and prevent us from suffering from a premature launch that some early-access games suffer. It's an issue where coming out of early access has next to no value, given the excitement or interest in the game you have established has long since evaporated. So I'm hoping can avoid that as we head towards the actual launch.
Since we went live on first-access back in September, the game has slowly began to take better shape and it has allowed us to focus on delivering a playable game every month that maintains a quality level that arguably the game did not have before. Not only are we finding new bugs through help of our players, but we're also being forced to consider the issues of providing gameplay options early, to build the game for working on (32 and 64 bit) PC and Mac systems and many other small considerations we did not have at an earlier stage. If anything this has helped direct our efforts and better prepare us for the Steam launch in 2017.
As I sign off, I do wish to extend my gratitude to each and every one of you, who has bought into our first-access program: It has helped us refine and build the game and also give us a little confidence that we're on the right track. It really does mean a lot to us.
