Some Numbers & Data for Small Indie/Solo Developers
It's only been a day since Amadeus Episode 1 launched, but I have already learned a lot and would like to take a moment to share some numbers and some of my experience as a small (and I do mean small!) developer making a niche game. I have realized some valuable things that I think may be useful to others.
The intended audience of this post is other small no-budget developers releasing games on both Steam and itch.io. While it may still be interesting to other readers, if that's not you feel free to keep scrolling!
Pre-Release Numbers
Disclosure of The Numbers (TM) so you have a frame of reference when reading the rest. "Indie"/"solo" developers can range from well below this to WELL above this, so I feel this data is useful to situate what follows.
Steam wishlist count going into release: 880
Age of store pages at release: 1 year 9 months
Itch.io followers on release day: 37
Game price: $7.99 (no launch sale)
Release Day Numbers
This is how the game has performed over the first 24 hours (and some extra). Statistically this will be the best single day it ever has—that may or may not be true given my intended 5-episode release structure, but let's assume it's accurate.
Sales on Steam: 29 (~3.3% of outstanding wishes)
Wishlist sale conversions: 9 (~1%)
New Wishlists: 50 (2nd best day ever)
Steam reviews: 6
Sales on itch.io: 3
Tips on itch.io: $29
New itch.io followers: 1* (...a friend who made an account for this purpose)
New itch.io reviews/comments: 0
Analysis
My biggest takeaway from this is that the storefronts Steam and itch.io should be treated uniquely to suit their respective algorithms, demographics, and general platform use cases. In BOTH cases, external marketing is necessary, but I'm talking about just visibility on the platform itself for now.
Specifically, for the demo -> full release workflow, Steam as a platform is designed to maximize visibility on your full release. The entire wishlist function is explicitly created for this purpose. Itch.io, however, is designed to maximize visibility when the game page is first published. If you publish a "Major Update" devlog on full game launch, it may be eligible to receive a visibility boost again, but it will not appear on the "new" pages again and therefore the visibility boost will only be compounded by momentum from whatever following you as a creator already have.
Therefore, I think in the future it will be useful to consider Steam a platform where you advertise the game itself, and itch.io a platform where you try to advertise yourself as a creator. I think the people who make a variety of smaller-scoped projects on itch.io are very wise to do so, and the people who focus a lot of time iterating on a single project will not find as much success unless they are able to direct traffic from elsewhere.
On the other hand, itch.io is very much a platform about supporting indie creators, and the tip function is built-in and encouraged. I only made 3 sales on itch.io but the total amount far exceeded what 3 sales on Steam would come to. It's an incredibly valuable space... but it should definitely be approached differently than Steam!
I hope this comes off as a neutral communication of information. These are all data points I would have liked to have available to me before release, so I am posting them in the hopes they are valuable and helpful to someone else.
Thank you for reading (and if you have supported Amadeus, thank you so much); and happy development!
