How Many Games is Too Many?
And what will developers do when 99% of them go unplayed?
We built a marketing tool for games, and organic sign ups have never been better… right?Everyday we scrape the latest games 30 days away from launch, make them a custom trailer, and send it to their Steam email. Example:
We average 10 sign ups for Conduit everyday from this, which is 20 - 33% conversion rate considering the 30-50 developers with a new game coming out each day.
But, we’ve got a case of the leaky bucket. Developers sign up, try the tool, and don’t stay or don’t come back.
So what’re we doing about it? We’re running weekly experiments to see if there’s another solution better suited to the problem of games going undiscovered, unplayed, and unmarketed.
Experiment #1: Press kit creation and outreach queuing.
Gaming press outlet coverage can boost a game update or launch, and some developers aren’t sure how to contact or what to send to a press contact.
Experiment #2: Steam page optimization.
Organic store page traffic is one of the largest channels for sales today, sometimes accounting for > 80% of sales, according to developers at Tokyo Game Show.
But we also worry about a bigger question, what if there are just too many games, not enough gamers, and most developers will never succeed?
We’re going to chew on this question in the coming weeks as we decide what to build next. And whether 99% of games will go unplayed and unknown at some point in the near future.
Let us know what you think in the comments below!