This game has a "First Impressions" problem.

[11clock]

I don't just mean Barbuta. I think that the entire first 5 games in the collection are problematic for attracting new players. Based on negative reviews, I have seen plenty of refunds due to not liking the first few games.

Let's go step by step. The first game is Barbuta, which appeals to a very niche demographic of people who actually grew up in the 1980's.

Then you have Bug Hunter. This is a fantastic tactics roguelike, but it's also a game with a steep learning curve. This likely causes players to quickly bounce off of it, cause they still got the other 48 games to try and don't want to spend time learning this one.

The next 3 games in the collection are all very simple arcade games. Fun, sure, but they don't have much substance and aren't likely to change players' minds by this point.

So basically, you're banking on new players getting all the way to Mortol.

I think that having the games sorted chronologically by default was a mistake. There should be a "Recommended" sort that puts the most substantial games up front, and that be the default instead.

[Ninethousand]

Maybe the devs should not advertise this as 50 games, if literally 45 of them are complete garbage joke games?
Or you know, do the unspeakable and make the games FUN instead of being "Bad because old haha!"?
The only issue UFO 50 has, is that it's a scam. None of the decent games are worth 5 bucks. I can play better tower defense games than this on any website that has flash games, for free!

[Alex The Dragon]

Originally posted by Ninethousand:

Maybe the devs should not advertise this as 50 games, if literally 45 of them are complete garbage joke games?
Or you know, do the unspeakable and make the games FUN instead of being "Bad because old haha!"?
The only issue UFO 50 has, is that it's a scam. None of the decent games are worth 5 bucks. I can play better tower defense games than this on any website that has flash games, for free!

🐟

[baldradiohead]

Originally posted by Ninethousand:

Maybe the devs should not advertise this as 50 games, if literally 45 of them are complete garbage joke games?
Or you know, do the unspeakable and make the games FUN instead of being "Bad because old haha!"?
The only issue UFO 50 has, is that it's a scam. None of the decent games are worth 5 bucks. I can play better tower defense games than this on any website that has flash games, for free!

Okay bud, we've got your copy pasted adolescent whining on enough threads now. You're welcome to find something you DO like and maybe spend time boosting creators up who you do like rather than trying to tear down one product you don't.

The game has overwhelmingly positive reviews. That doesn't mean you can't hold a contrary opinion but the obnoxious tone in your criticism is just you throwing a tantrum and screeching into a massive crowd of people who are having fun. Buzz off

[possessedCow]

It has a 96% positive review score. Clearly this isn't a substantial problem.

[Simbabbad]

I said it in other threads: IMO either the collection should have gone the "full retro with retro flaws" route with a complete "historical" context about the LX like in Retro Game Challenge (or Atari 50 that did it with real content), with fake manuals and fake ads and fake magazine reviews etc. and maybe challenges that help us appreciate the clunky "old" games, OR it should have gone the full "Shovel Knight" route with a retro style with modernized gameplay and visuals, without context but without retro flaws (something some games do, like Mini & Max which is very modern in design).

Here, there is some retro clunkiness but with zero context about what the LX was supposed to be. It's particularly a problem, like the OP says, for the very first games, some of which are very good but feel very simple and cheap. Many games also suffer from the two button limitation.

I really like Magic Garden, for example, but it should look better for a single screen simple game.

Originally posted by possessedCow:

It has a 96% positive review score. Clearly this isn't a substantial problem.

A lot of people (myself included) don't review games they immediately refund. Most people who review games are happy with the game, the "average" score is 75%, below is terrible (with the exception of scandals on big games).

[baldradiohead]

Originally posted by Simbabbad:

Originally posted by possessedCow:

It has a 96% positive review score. Clearly this isn't a substantial problem.

A lot of people (myself included) don't review games they immediately refund. Most people who review games are happy with the game, the "average" score is 75%, below is terrible (with the exception of scandals on big games).

Ah, yes. Ignore the overwhelmingly positive response and invent reasons why it doesn't count despite very few games achieving it.

[⑨ ChocolateMystia]

I understand your concerns, and yeah there's going to be a lot of impatient people who try out Barbuta and immediately refund, but in my case, after not clicking with Barbuta (I now love it btw), and getting kinda addicted to Bug Hunter, I used the remaining of the refund window to jump around trying a bit of everything for 5-10 mins and that sold me on the collection as a whole, which is what I assume most people probably do instead of refunding at Barbuta.

[Simbabbad]

Originally posted by baldradiohead:

Ah, yes. Ignore the overwhelmingly positive response and invent reasons why it doesn't count despite very few games achieving it.

Are you arguing that reviews equal sales? In particular for a retro style game? Because I know tons of retro games with good reviews and poor sales.

This will sell because media-wise it's by the Spelunky guy, it's the indie darling of journalists, and the Steam reviews are really good, but it doesn't mean it's without flaws, or that some decisions don't make it miss broader sales. I'm not worried for this game but the points are valid, and strawmen aren't worth anything.

[Ninethousand]

Originally posted by Simbabbad:

Are you arguing that reviews equal sales? In particular for a retro style game? Because I know tons of retro games with good reviews and poor sales.

Check out Karma Zoo, 90% score and it has literally 0 players, because you need 10 players to play it, and groups can't form anymore.

So basically, a score of 90% can translate to "Actually 0%".

Before Valve opened the floodgates, Bad Rats was the worst game on steam, and it had like... over 60%, meaning even then, 60% basically meant 0%...

[baldradiohead]

Originally posted by Simbabbad:

Originally posted by baldradiohead:

Ah, yes. Ignore the overwhelmingly positive response and invent reasons why it doesn't count despite very few games achieving it.

Are you arguing that reviews equal sales? In particular for a retro style game? Because I know tons of retro games with good reviews and poor sales.

This will sell because media-wise it's by the Spelunly guy, it's the indie darling of journalists, and the Steam reviews are really good, but it doesn't mean it's without flaws, or that some decisions don't make it miss broader sales. I'm not worried for this game but the points are valid, and strawmen aren't worth anything.

Yes, I'm arguing that a game that has over 1,600 reviews (Overwhelmingly Positive) in a little over a week is selling like gangbusters. I never said it doesn't have any flaws, and I wouldn't have replied at all if you hadn't tried to handwave the response the game has had, which you're still doing.

[baldradiohead]

Originally posted by Ninethousand:

Originally posted by Simbabbad:

Are you arguing that reviews equal sales? In particular for a retro style game? Because I know tons of retro games with good reviews and poor sales.

Check out Karma Zoo, 90% score and it has literally 0 players, because you need 10 players to play it, and groups can't form anymore.

So basically, a score of 90% can translate to "Actually 0%".

Before Valve opened the floodgates, Bad Rats was the worst game on steam, and it had like... over 60%, meaning even then, 60% basically meant 0%...

"Uh you see here, if you take the 96% positive reviews UFO 50 has and compare it to a crypto scam + one of the worst games ever made, you'll see here by my calculations (let me remind you, I dropped out in middle school) that AKSHUALLY, UFO 50 is probably a huge flop."

[Tyrant]

I agree with OP, there should be a "recommended" default sorting to ease new players into this pack. There are a lot of great things on offer in UFO 50 and I think getting a bad impression off the first several isn't doing any favors. I'm up to 5 cherries and 4 more golds, only opened about 30 of the games so far. I just don't know what you would put in the recommended section - younger people that didn't play games from the 80's basically don't have anything appealing to them. 90's - 00's kids might have a bit more to work with, if they have a nostalgia for flash games, but that's about as far as I can imagine it.

[11clock]

Originally posted by Tyrant:

I agree with OP, there should be a "recommended" default sorting to ease new players into this pack. There are a lot of great things on offer in UFO 50 and I think getting a bad impression off the first several isn't doing any favors. I'm up to 5 cherries and 4 more golds, only opened about 30 of the games so far. I just don't know what you would put in the recommended section - younger people that didn't play games from the 80's basically don't have anything appealing to them. 90's - 00's kids might have a bit more to work with, if they have a nostalgia for flash games, but that's about as far as I can imagine it.

Honestly I would put Mortol as the first game. It's in the "early era", has a novel concept, saves your progress, and is one of the more highly regarded games in the collection. Then one of the multiplayer-oriented games as the second game, to showcase that this game could be fun to play with others if you have others, but would still be fun by yourself just going through the campaign. After that, one of the tactics/strategy/puzzle games as the third game, to say "hey we got lots of variety, not just action games!" Then put Ninpek as the 4th game as a representative of the smaller arcade games. The 5th game could be Pilot's Quest to get the idle stuff going early. After that point, the devs can probably poll on what games are the most loved in the collection, and order the rest of the games based on that as well as what the devs' own preferences are.

[Simbabbad]

Originally posted by baldradiohead:

Originally posted by Simbabbad:

This will sell because media-wise it's by the Spelunly guy, it's the indie darling of journalists, and the Steam reviews are really good

Yes, I'm arguing that a game that has over 1,600 reviews (Overwhelmingly Positive) in a little over a week is selling like gangbusters.

Not able to read what you quote => blocked.

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by Simbabbad:

Originally posted by baldradiohead:

Ah, yes. Ignore the overwhelmingly positive response and invent reasons why it doesn't count despite very few games achieving it.

Are you arguing that reviews equal sales? In particular for a retro style game? Because I know tons of retro games with good reviews and poor sales.
.

Reviews DO equal sales. You can roughly gauge how well (or badly) a game has sold by the amount of reviews it has. You can also gauge its player retention vs returns by how positive or negative its rating is.

So far this collection has done pretty well sales wise for an indie game with extremely high player retention. That's not an opinion by the way, that's a solid fact.