Player population Steam Charts HELP

[Kegstand]

Greetings, I have been watching this game for a lil bit of time and it looks amazing.

@developers Steam Charts is working against you. If there is an actual population even if it's only a hundred or a couple hundred non steam players then you need to figure a way to get that to reflect on steam charts. I think a big factor in sales is that people just look at steam charts for player pop then move right on by because it appears there are only three players.

I want to buy the game and help you stay working and even more so I need a good space game. The problem is that I have invested in so many failed games on steam to date that I am very paranoid about low numbers etc. Seems like some companies are in it for the initial cash grab then abandon their games for whatever reason. (I have to assume in cases of low sales that studio execs cut funding which sucks because there have been SOOO many good game concepts that failed because of stupid reviewers review bombing games for no reason etc.)

So my question to the community is this, do the devs work at this game still and do they listen at least a little to community concerns? I will try and help get views for this game and adverstise it so long as the devs are still active and working passionately to help bring this mmo to life...

[GrymNeko]

The devs have been developing this game for 10 or more years. They haven't stopped yet nor will they so the regular updates show. They do have their own website too with forums for reporting bugs etc.

[Kegstand]

Thanks for the reply. Mainly the post was so they could hopefully figure a way around the steam charts those really do detract people from buying products unless they are really interested and do some homework

[Kegstand]

Well games with low pops on steam charts anyway. Also the positive reviews are keeping people like me interested. I will buy in any case just to support development, just hope they continue work. maybe get a good streamer for space games to do a walk through like Obsidian Ant.

[Ghojo]

Originally posted by GrymThor88:

The devs have been developing this game for 10 or more years. They haven't stopped yet nor will they so the regular updates show. They do have their own website too with forums for reporting bugs etc.

This is incorrect, they have been working on the engine more or less for 10 years, but this game is only a few years in development.

[Kegstand]

Interesting. Considering Star Citizen has been in development for what 8 years now and had barely any content. Tons of ships to buy but no real content.

[Clan called clan called [Clan]Cl]

Their official discord is more active than the steam forums.

[Kn0whereMan]

I have scoured Steam looking for games like this and I have NEVER seen this game until today... That alone confuses me, but it looks absolutely awesome... I saw the dearth of players but a game has to start somewhere and it's also in early access so it's not necessarily ready for a full publishing push. I'm dropping the money for it... Hell, maybe I'll start streaming it...

[Kegstand]

Ya same here man. I stumbled apon it recently and have been watching it for awhile. I hate pulling the trigger on games lately so many crashed and burned. Not that they were bad games just no population or dev updates etc.

[INovaeKeith]

We're definitely still here and chugging along. Summer is always the slowest part of the year due to people taking vacations etc. We have a big update scheduled for October with the initial implementation of our new fleet/squad system along with in-game VoIP. We should also have some new explosion effects we're very excited to show off! Overall, the update should be a major step forward for team play. We've mentioned this elsewhere but we are currently not investing in marketing/advertising *at all*. The reason for this is that it's *very* expensive and the game is still missing a few key features, like a squad system with VoIP ;), that are hurting retention. Once these issues get addressed and we see our retention numbers begin to rise we'll look into increasing our marketing budget. In the meantime, if you enjoy the game, please go tell all of your friends and post on the forums/Discord's you visit as word of mouth is the best form of marketing.

[INovaeFlavien]

Some more feedback:

@Kegstand Yeah the game is being sold on our website. There's no way to integrate it into Steam's statistics, Valve is in control of how it works, not us.

As Keith said we've done zero marketing on the game so far, so it's not exactly a surprise to us that the sales didn't skyrocket. Not to say that it would, even with marketing, since we're niche anyways, but yeah, we reserve our marketing push for when the game will be in a ready state, like.. having tutorials. Otherwise we consider it's just a waste of our (limited) budget.

In terms of dev timeline, yeah the engine's been in the works forever, however Battlescape as a game entered development right after our Kickstarter, so around early 2016. It shouldn't be confused with the Infinity MMO, which started as a hobby project of mine back in 2005, and which never had any company or funding behind it.

[Kegstand]

Everyone I know is jonesing for a good space game.

Eve was fun in it's hayday. I had 10 accounts been everywhere did everything was in the BoB/AA wars. Did wormholes fought the "bad Russians" Fought everyone in wormhole space. Now the game is just a bunch of groups of bullies and there isn;t much for the small groups unless their elite pvpers with deep pockets.

Elite Dangerous is like watching paint dry, nice game but for whatever reason just makes me snore after a bit.

Everspace seemed cool but single player.

Star Citizen...well 2050 maybe.

Dual Universe, not what we expected and not in a good place with their time based skills.

Space Engineers fun but not massive. Also a bit of a snore.

STO well I have a love hate relationship with it. IT's great but no pvp, no wars also a bit PTW.

Star Wars ToR: Love me some light sabers!!! Love player owned hideouts but last time I flew in it it was like Star Fox (On rails no real space to play in)

Black Prophecy: RRRRIP.

Ascent good but dated and no one playing.

Some good minecrafty type games but their mine crafty...

Eve was fun in it's hayday. I had 10 accounts been everywhere did everything was in the BoB/AA wars. Did wormholes fought the "bad Russians" Fought everyone in wormhole space. Now the game is just a bunch of groups of bullies and there isn;t much for the small groups unless their elite pvpers with deep pockets.

Elite Dangerous is like watching paint dry, nice game but for whatever reason just makes me snore after a bit.

Everspace seemed cool but single player.

Star Citizen...well 2050 maybe.

Dual Universe, not what we expected and not in a good place with their time based skills.

Space Engineers fun but not massive. Also a bit of a snore.

STO well I have a love hate relationship with it. IT's great but no pvp, no wars also a bit PTW.

Star Wars ToR: Love me some light sabers!!! Love player owned hideouts but last time I flew in it it was like Star Fox (On rails no real space to play in)

Black Prophecy: RRRRIP.

Ascent good but dated and no one playing.

Some good minecrafty type games but their mine crafty...

Empyrion and Osiris are good but small and over too fast.

So I bought your game especially since your not even advertising yet so being a dead game means nothing until you finally make that push for marketing. I wish you the best and I will play the crap out of it if it's fun. Will be testing soon and thanks ever so much for actually replying and explaining things! I know I am not on your forums but I suspect I will be soon and hopefully a fan!

(Honestly I bought the game specifically because you guys took the time to respond which means a ton to me and says a lot at the same time!)