His Dream Game Crashed And Burned... But He Sold 1 MILLION Copies... (w/ Indie Game Joe) — Ep 72

Close your eyes for a second and imagine this with me. [music] You're indie game Joe. Perhaps you've heard of him. You're a success story. You're a former painter and a decorator who cracked the code on indie marketing. And [music] you've launched hits like the viral horror sensation Don't Scream. And you played a key role in Hypercharge [music] Unboxed, which became a massive top seller. You've built a reputation as a marketing expert, and you know how to make things happen in [music] the indie game world. And then you drop your next game. It's called Don't Scream together. You hit the launch button and suddenly everything falls apart. Reviews tank. The community is frustrated. The game is buggy and broken. It feels like the worst night of your life. Everything you've built, every lesson you thought you learned, it suddenly looks like it's just crumbling in real time. So, what do you do? Would you just disappear as a game dev? Would you make excuses? Or do you roll up your sleeves, listen

like crazy, and ship non-stop updates for your game and turn the whole thing around and come out [music] on the other side wiser, stronger, and with hundreds of thousands of copies sold anyway? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today with Indiegame Joe. We're going to sit down with this man who [music] lived that exact story. We're going to talk about his incredible career, about his successful launches, about his failed launches, and how you can manage that as an indie game developer. We're also going to talk about what you're probably thinking about, which is [music] that viral Steam refunds blog post that he wrote, basically defending Steam's refund policy, and it's honestly a master class on marketing indie games that you and I can both learn from. If you've ever felt like your project was falling apart, this episode is going to hit you [music] right in the chest. And by the way, if you want to make 2D games or maybe even 3D games like I'm doing and potentially turn them into an actual full-time gig, I have a course [music] called Full-Time GameDev and it's 50% off with a summer sale. I've gone full-time with just a

demo on three separate occasions. And by the way, look here. These are some students who went full-time [music] with the help of what I teach. In this course, you're going to learn just that. How to land publishing deals with just a demo. [music] How to get funded on Kickstarter with just a demo. Make a 2D or a 3D game in Unity. GDO or Unreal. You're going to learn how to market your game, get press [music] coverage like I have, hit the Steamfront page, and so much more. Everything that I teach in this course is stuff I've done, so you're learning from an actual indie game developer, not somebody who's just [music] wanting to make games. I'll also throw in my 2D and 3D art courses, completely free. And as a bonus, I'll also throw in a private 1-hour mastermind meeting with me and a handful of other developers where I'm going to answer any questions you have in a private [music] setting. This summer sale ends soon and I don't do many of these during the year. So, be sure to click below to enroll and [music] join 4,500 other students. Dude, you've taken over X. Like, you are Mr. Mr. Twitter. Um, can I ask you a

question for clarity for everybody listening right now? This is important. Are you just a marketing guru? I think I want to say yes, but then like kind of not because if we talk about what I do as well outside of Mr. Twitter, like I'm heavily involved in like a lot of the creations of games I make with my friends. So, we can get on to that at some point. But like my role, it isn't just I always find it difficult to talk about. It's not just like making tweets. [laughter] It's not just like looking at paid paid for ads and thinking, okay, how can this be cost effective? What's the return on investment? I don't really do that. My job more is looking at a game and that can be if uh from the very like even before the con even before the concepts like my job is like the guys will come

to me for example or I use me for example if I'm thinking of a game to make I am trying to think okay what is the feeling and the intent I'm trying to create here and that's when I say it's not just
it's not just marketing and tweets what I do it's way more like what what is the hook of a video game and how is that fantasy served and how is it delivered? Does it match what you see? And I'm all I'm really big Thomas on like how does something make somebody feel? Cuz my motto is marketing isn't just selling something, it's making somebody feel something. And it may sound very simple that but at least to me there's a massive difference when you think of it like that. not in just how you communicate uh your game, it's also how you design games because it's it's art at the end of the day and art is what it's making somebody feel something and that's what that's how I see marketing as well. It's an extension of I don't

know if what's that when people say like mutually exclusive I don't that makes sense here but I see game design and marketing very much like connected they're not very separate to me if that makes sense.
I agree. I agree. Now for clarity I want I want to I want to dive into that but for clarity you've released how many games with your own studio?
Yeah. So I've only done one game just under me.
Uhhuh. which is
and that was Don't Scream. Don't scream 2023. That was
okay. And then what about Don't Scream Together. That was also
that was with uh my my friends Digital Cyber Cherries.
Okay. But you still you still helped develop or helped market or helped consult on that game?
Yeah, I was I'm again I'm heavily involved in like the the design uh the features, the mechanics, everything.
Y just I got to say this though, Thomas, for everybody watching. I'm not talented like you guys.
No, sorry. Like I am not I can't write a

single line of code. I can't do any of that. The running joke I made that's the big thing in my community now where I call myself the Teu game dev buted by stars. No, but like it's kind of true. So I'm with Don't Scream just for clarity because I want to make sure I'm I'm not hiding anything here. I've told you this in the past before, but like Don't Scream was essentially I wanted to test my skills, my marketing skills with Don't Scream. And I also wanted to test my I suppose you call it like producing maybe like maybe I'm more akin to a game producer that has to No, that makes complete sense. Like kind of like a film producer. They come in, they they provide financing perhaps, but they also come in and they just they're the consultant and they're the mind and the they are the puppeteer of the project, that kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. That that's what I think I'm more more like. And with Don't Scream, I wanted to see could I come up with, you know, ideas guy. Could I come up with an

idea and from the very ground up conceptualize that, bring it to life on paper and then bring it to somebody, a talented developer, which was one of my friends, and say, "Look, here's what I've got."
Yeah.
I I will lead the direction. We'll stick to the plan. Here's the mechanics. Here's everything. And you do all the technical stuff while I do all the marketing and everything else. And that's essentially there's obviously more to it, but that's the
Why does that why is that difficult to talk about? My my my theory is hate to put words in your mouth. My theory is you feel like that's not traditionally what indie developers do. But that's what that's what double A and AAA studios do all the time. You have a producer and you have a director. Like Ken Lavine, for example, he's been on the podcast, but Ken Lavine, he's the he's the idea guy. And that's no small thing. Not at all, you know.
Yeah, I know what you're saying there. That is true. Maybe I'm Maybe that's

just a confidence thing then I guess in me because I don't have again for people watching I don't I don't have like any academic background into marketing video games or marketing at all. I was a painter and decorators. I left school at 15, absolutely failed at school and I did that for 13 years painting and decorating. Yeah.
And I went straight from that then to helping to make games and marks and games with my friends. So it's very untradition untraditional.
Yeah.
And I guess I probably do feel like I think I mentioned this to you before. I probably do feel like I've snuck into this back door in the games industry and I'm waiting for somebody to say, "What are you do? Get the [ __ ] out. What are you doing?" I guess. And I've been afraid. I'll be honest. I've been quite I remember speaking to Chris Sakowski about this years ago and he gave me a lot of good advice because I was really

I feel awful saying this but I really felt not not ashamed I'm not ashamed about my background at all. I'm very proud of my decorating background cuz I worked with my dad and my brothers. Like it's a it taught me a lot,
but I was very almost scared to talk about it publicly like
who's going to believe somebody who hasn't got like a degree in public relations or who's going to believe somebody who's
you know that sort of thing. And I was like I never wanted to talk about it. And it was probably this imposter syndrome like I just I was really scared to talk about it. Well, I'll tell you, I [sighs and gasps] you know, this is my third commercial release that I'm about to release on August 18th. And I lay awake at night thinking about mixed reviews. I always think that's the first thing I think about. And we'll talk about your launch and I know that you experienced mixed reviews. I think um and I lay awake at night and I think about that and I think that that's going to dismantle all of my credibility because like I have this YouTube channel. I sit around giving advice and

it just I think the older I get, the more I'm like, man, I don't know what I'm talking about, you know, or at least there's a voice in my head or there's like a demon on my shoulder that's like, dude, you are BSing everybody. And I know I know that there there's another part of me that knows that's not true. But there's a part of me that with when I wake up in the morning and I'm particularly grouchy and I need a cup of coffee, that's when all of this guilt, like you said, comes in where you're like, "People listen to me. I give advice. I'm about to launch a game that took me 5 years and I blew through a ton of my savings." I sure hope that all of the things that I say and all of the advice that I give is correct and that it's proven correct. And it's scary. You know, I look at, sorry to go on a little soap box here, but I look at developers who have had flops in the past. Um, Gavin, I I Gavin and I are friends. I talk to Gavin now.

He had a hard time with his game. And I look at that and I go, that does not remove your credibility as a game developer. in my opinion that that gives you in some way more credibility in the sense that you can come back to everybody and say don't do what I did that did not work uh this is not the way to make a game but he can look at his other games and say well that is how to do it right so he has this this collage of launch failures and viral successes and many successes and I look at that and I go that that is a well-rounded developer who does have credibility And so anyway, my point there is I think that feeling like you're a fraud is kind of just part for the course for anybody who decides to amplify their voice on social media. You're just going to feel that way. You know what I mean?
Yeah. No, [clears throat] it's super interesting. I I appreciate sharing that as well. Like
that's super interesting. It's always not in like a twisted way, but it's very

validating when you're going through something like that and you hear somebody else saying it. And especially like someone and I mean this constructively someone like you because you've said it yourself like somebody who I mean you you are a well-known voice in the industry like indies pretty much every indie knows you [laughter] and for you to sit here and say that like I imagine it takes guts and also it's kind of like wow if Thomas is feeling it then maybe I'm not as sort of I don't want to say insane but maybe I'm not as you know maybe this imposttor syndrome thing or this imposter. Maybe there's something to it. Maybe that's what makes us do what we do improve and strive and that's a good thing. So I think so too and and for clarity you know um I don't make viral games. I don't make games that do like gang buster numbers. Um I I make mediocre by by mediocre I just mean they bring in half a million some dollars and then

that's it. You know, my hope is that Twisted Tower brings in millions. Um, but point being is like my my big thing is like I know how to make decent games that help me go full-time. Like that's that's my thing. And for you, your big thing is you're Mr. Marketing. You understand marketing and I went I just went to your website and I was scrubbing through it. You're so good at brand, dude. Like your brand is I'm just gonna I don't want to steal it, but like I want to just get [laughter] I want to be inspired by it. your your brand is so good. I'm looking at your website. It's just so clean and simple and and you are so consistent on Twitter with how you tweet about stuff and how you blog about stuff. So anyway, I just wanted to kiss your ass a little bit. [laughter] It means a lot and I love what you've done and I love that you've also put your money where your mouth is um when it comes to uh Don't Scream and and the games you've worked on and consulted with. Okay, so all that said, let's shift gears here and we are not go with

this with this little portion. The goal is not to disparage anybody. Um, I don't want to even I think he's gotten enough attention or backlash, so there's no reason to bring it up. His name and he's he's a buddy of mine. We we talk on Discord. Um, but all that said, let's talk about Steam refunds and clear the air here because there was a big hubhub two weeks ago. I think it was two weeks ago, right?
About um Steam refunds and are you okay talking about this?
Yeah, I'm absolutely fine. Yeah. Okay. Definitely
big big hubbhub about Steam refunds and the developer of Paddle Paddle Paddle basically said that it was a it was a a tweet that got misconstrued. Basically, it seemed like Steam refund. Steam needed to change their refund policy because people could play the game for less than two hours and submit a refund and have a great time. So, they they loved the game. It was the greatest

game ever. They leave a review that it was the greatest game ever. And then they say, "And by the way, I refunded it." Right? Which sucks. You know, that does suck. And it's it you should not do that as a player. I think it's I think it's unethical. Um, that said, it turned into a firestorm where all these press outlets started to basically say that Steam needed to change their refund policy. And you came in swinging pretty hard with some thoughts about this about why you don't agree and that the Steam refund policy is actually wonderful for developers. So, do I'll give you the floor on your thoughts there. Yeah. So I do again this like I agree that it is very frustrating if somebody a player is going to enjoy your game this thing you have created and put love into it and time care and some player just refunds it leaves it a positive review and then bloats out the uh boast that

they've refunded it. I get why that's frustrating. That wasn't like the thing I was, you know, that isn't that wasn't like my issue really. The issue was more like trying to point fingers or blame at a broken system cuz that's what I really got from it. And I I don't think the Steam refund policy is broken. Is it perfect? I don't think any refund system in the history of refunds is kind of can be perfect. But the biggest thing for me was on Steam the the the the biggest fear stopping someone from from buying anything is not having a safety net which is the refunds. And the core sort of point I was making with paddle paddle paddle was yes you may have had I believe it was 55,000 refunds out of 270,000 sales but the very thing

you're wanting to change the policy the refund policy is the main driving factor in my opinion as to why you got that many sales in the first place
because of the safety net people the these smaller claims that that we see are being made so much more now. They're even policy protects. It it encourages buyers to be like, you know what, there's this unknown developer here. And I don't mean that in any disrespectful way. That's just the logical fact of it. Yeah. You know, the ecosystem of of of buying games from on from from people you don't know. Like
Sure. Most people don't know us either. You know, if we were to release they they don't know. Our fan base does, but like random people from the algorithm from Steam, they don't know us either, you know?
Exactly. So, it was just like I'm I guess I'm trying to say like refunds create buyers.
Yeah.
Lowering the risk of a purchase gets like it gets more people to to buy in

the first place. Like, and without it, I just think word of mouth would be way more cautious be because people recommend games more freely knowing there's a safety net. I just think there's so much weight behind it and all the the the like alternatives. Again, in my in my opinion, I'm not claiming to be an absolutist here. Like I want to I'm not saying I'm right, but [laughter] like I feel like the the alternatives were were just creating an even bigger problem. One of them one of the biggest ones I saw was let's create a label of average play time. And at first I thought that's pretty cool. And then I sat with it over the the course of the night and I was thinking but I was thinking about like don't I was thinking about don't scream. Funny enough I was like when I launched that in 2023 it was literally advertised as an 18minute experience. Right. Very short.
Was it really?

Yeah it was 18 minutes and that was part of the hook. [laughter] So you're meant to like survive in a pitch black forest for 18 minutes and
but you get it's replayable so it's it's more of a gimmick of a pitch. It's not actually
definitely yeah that was just that it was just that was the it was an experience horror experience sort of thing.
So but what I found was there were players that had way more play time and then I thought about like okay how do I play games? Well it's very personal play time. Yes I know Steam the back end has a median play time. You can you can see the average, but it's still like you think about it. Imagine you're gonna buy a new game on Steam, right? And has a big label that says something like
two hours average.
What if you're the type of player who could get eight hours out of it? That can work.
Yeah, that that's that happens. Sorry. What if you're um the type of what if as well like streamers jump onto this game and speedrunners? It's going to skew

that data of this big badge. I'm getting mixed up with what the badge was the solution, but it was this dynamic badge as a time. You get what I'm trying to say? Like,
oh yeah. Oh, yeah.
It's going to skew that the most important moment when you need buyer trust is at the start of your launch with, you know, with the reviews and whatnot. And you could put yourself off a game if if you're just going to put two hours when it's not two hours. So, like I think the system that's in place, player reviews, and you can go and search the player reviews manually yourself. I know they've got all the graphs and all this stuff, but I think that's very close to having a fair system.
Sure.
I'm just not seeing I've not heard anything that really like doesn't exacerbate the problem unless I'm just not understanding it properly.
Well, I think honestly, dude, like the Steam ecosystem is I don't want Steam to touch it. I don't want them to mess with it because it's so wonderful that we get to release

independent games absent of a label, absent of publishers and just release them and then and then Steam pushes them if they're good. I mean, it it's it's not that simple, but it kind of is. You know, if your game is good, if it's a great game and there's a rockolid hook, Steam will kind of do the work for you. Now obviously that you've it's best to start pulling some marketing levers just to sort of I don't know like an insurance policy but in terms of marketing but it's just cool that Steam can do that. I mean I think about I want to I want to start making movies. I want to make horror movies and I've made a few short horror films and it is hard. It is hard to get these the other than the YouTube algorithm and letting it push my short horror films which it has and I'm really grateful for it. There's no platform that allows me to distribute my horror films and just let them go and people pay for them and then they just grow and then they rise up the charts.

There's nothing like that for film. The fact that Steam exists is so crazy to me. in the fact that it works and like so I don't want to mess with it. I don't want to touch the refund policy. I'm just like let's just keep it the way it is. Uh so I'm grateful to it. You know, grateful is a good word. And then also um wise with how we we try and attack a potential problem on Steam. like as a community um indie especially indie game developers who have had success on Steam, we need to be very careful about how we word the problems and the solutions for Steam because what we don't want is man can you imagine if Steam took this advice to heart that IGN has and PC Gamer has and all like who Destructoid and they're like we need to change the refund policy.
It would it would really hurt us as indie developers if the refund policy just willy-nilly changed. Right. I am. So, I want the refund policy to be longer. Like, for my courses and stuff

that I sell, that's a there's a 30-day refund policy. You can consume the entire course, 40 hours of content, 40 plus hours of content. You could participate on the Discord server. You could do all of that and then email me on the 39th or the 29th day and say, "Hey, I don't want this anymore." And I'll refund him.
No question. I won't even ask him a question. I just boom, there it is. And the reason why is because I want people to have it. Well, I don't want people's money if they don't want it. If they don't want the product, they don't want their money,
right? I just want them to I only want players who who who were happy to give up the money. That's all I want.
And so, yes, a line needs to be drawn, I guess, kind of. I mean, I you you wonder what would happen if there was no line. You can refund four years later. I bet you people wouldn't even do it anyway.
Yeah, because I see what you're saying. Like I think there is a lot of weight in

like you have people who if you give real value for money and a good experience a good game. I know we can get into the semantics of what is a good game. But like I do think you're going to keep that that that video. You will keep that game. And also like let's be real here. We're being honest. Let's take that user in particular who did what he did with the refund. Yeah, it's it's a little bit it is lame. Again, like I said, it is lame. But
the way I would look at it personally is if refunds didn't exist, that user would probably I would bet my money on it would pirate the game. So, like, why are we getting fixated on these on on these people? I know I know like it might sound a little bit like what's the word? Uh I don't know what word, but like it's still you still got Yes, you got a refund, but you still got a positive review. Mhm.
which was purchased purchased through Steam and I believe it still even counts to the review score. Correct me if I'm wrong there. So, it's been it's a winwin.
So, it's a win-win. Like, at least he's

at least this guy pirates in your video game and then then boasting about it, which I know still happens, but you get what the point I'm not trying to like belittle or undermine the whole sort of topic. I'm not. So, don't like nobody sort of hope that's not coming across here. I'm more trying to say like I guess one hand Thomas I'm trying to say I kind of can understand a lot of the frustration because if anybody wasn't living under a rock this was a this has gone massive this this topic like I can understand a lot of the frustration because it's like it's like you said no don't change it it's working and then it's also like from players perspective they're like wait this is our consumer rights what you know and then it's also like I think from my perspective my head I'm I'm I try always be very neutral and I'm like well I can understand the frustration but
at the same time I think you're looking at this wrong. Like
it's a great problem to position to be

in.
I believe in I'm curious your thoughts here.
I believe in in a not a balanced exchange of value when it comes to products. I believe in the consumer getting 10 times as much as what I get in return. That's sort of my
my belief about value. If if I have a product, it should be 10 times as valuable to the consumer than it is to me. When I get, let's say, 15 bucks. If I get 15 bucks from a game, I want them to get 10 times as much as what I got. Not monetarily, but like in terms of value.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is customer is always right. And I think that helps us make more money because if the customer feels like the barrier of entry is so low that the refund policy is so flexible, they're going it's called reciprocity. You know all about reciprocity because you're a marketing guy. Reciprocity is if I give so much of

a game to somebody and and Team Cherry did this with with Silkong. When you give so much to the to the to the consumer, it's highly unlikely they're going to ask for a refund. Even if the refund policy is ridiculously flexible, they're still going to say, "You deserve the money because that was such a good experience." Right. So, that's my belief.
No, no, I I I absolutely agree there. I agree. And I think what the way that got misconstrued as well, the post was it it kind of was like the whole 50 all those 55,000 refunds were because of users abusing the refund policy, but actually if you dug into the data like just do a little bit of manual searching the negative reviews, check the discussions, which I did cuz I was, you know, I wanted to understand what was going on. Hell of a lot of the review view negative reviews were actually net code

issues. They were quality of life issues. They were bugs. There was I I literally didn't see more than a handful of anybody abuse like publicly abuse saying they're abusing the refund. Yes, I know there's silent silent that people will be doing it in quietly. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it is friend slop. A lot of these games are friend slop and that's okay. Friend slop is a we didn't come up with the term. That's what people call it. That's what the developers of Friends slop call it. And it's it's a it's a it's a fun genre. I don't play it, but it's a fun genre. I don't have an issue with it, but it's a fun genre. And yeah, I think you're right. I think it's probably just going to get more refunds. Also, here's another one. This is another marketing fact. The higher price something is, the lower the refund rate. And I M
I don't I don't know at what point it becomes especially true, but I know like for example, if you if I were to charge

$30,000 for consulting, which by the way, I don't, but let's say I did. I wish I did. If I were to charge $30,000 for consulting, guess who's going to buy that? People who are dead serious about their game. It's probably a bigger studio. It's probably somebody with a little bit more money. And so it's probably somebody who frankly they take their actions way more seriously than my own, right? And so what they do in that consulting, they're going to take it very seriously. Aka, they're probably not going to do a refund. People think the more money or more expensive something is, the higher the refund rate is going to be. But the truth is is that if a game is like a dollar, it's probably going to have a much higher refund rate because it's it's just random people from all over the world just giving you a dollar and they're going to go, "Well, I want my dollar back."
You know?
Yeah. Yeah. I That's a great point. I don't know how I can compare this to games, but like with what you're saying with consultancy, it's interesting

because it's almost like the higher you do price like what what you know your services whatever or your hourly rate like you you kind of get to inadvertently pick your clientele and I think also it gets to a point I'm trying to think like if this relates to games what I'm about to say but like you're also investing uh when you go to a certain price point as a consumer like with in consultancy like you are investing. I always say the best thing you can invest is in yourself and I think that's the clientele you get. They know like it pays dividends like you're investing in the long haul but I don't know how I can relate that to games
and I don't I don't know if it translates to games necessarily.
Yeah.
I just know I know that a there's a $2 game is going to you're going to bring up that that you're you're the people who buy this game are not dedicated fans. That's about the best way I can describe it.
Yeah.
I will say this.
Sorry, Tom. It's gone.

I was just gonna wrap up with if you charge $70 for an IP that is very precise and it has a base and a built-in audience, they're going to be dedicated and they're my opinion is they're they're less likely to be random people buying a $70 game. It's people who know that IP. They know it well. I was talking to Jonathan Blow about this about his game uh Order of the Sinking Star. And my theory is is that the reviews are going to be higher for the 1.0 launch than for the free demo because the people who are buying a Jonathan Blow game that's let's say 20 bucks. They know what the genre is and they know what they're getting and they're dedicated to that genre. They bought it. They they gave up $20 to play a John Blow game. They know what they're getting. Whereas demos, it's like free and you get tons of people who don't even care about the genre playing the game because it looked cool.
Does that make sense?
That's true.
No, it does. That I agree there. That that makes a lot of sense.

I wanted to quickly just as well say before I forget. I do think as well like when I'm saying talking about expect sort of refunds that isn't somebody could then say well a Valve incentivizing making longer games and I would say well no I think it's the opposite again there is a there is a short co-op or friend slot boom at the moment people love shorter experiences so I think it's doing the opposite I think the refund policy is incentivizing this creativity But also like I want to say guys there is also like I don't want anyone to go away feeling negative like oh this short we'll say this shorter experience game I was making is it going to have loads of refunds like it all depends about the quality it all depends about like what's the hook what's the fantasy and how well do you serve that fantasy that's what matters because if you want to get spec talk about the semantics like with friends there I don't have the data at

hand but there that I feel there's a bit of bias towards like friend slop fatigue to a certain degree. And what I mean by that is if you actually I've got I got the numbers somewhere uh the amount of friend slop games on Steam. There's loads and loads of friendlop games on Steam that never hardly sell anything.
And it's like well why? Because it comes down to again like
there is it's making a good game. There is good friend slop which is just essentially it's good game design but it's not easy making a good multiplayer experience that is very very difficult. We know from experience do making a multiplayer game like a co-op experience it's hard. So you can certainly make a good short friend swap game or a short game and it do maybe not have as high as refunds as another the the other sort of version of that I was talking about was more like if you're going in this knowing the quality is going to be low

if I put it uh brutally like if you know okay that's fine if you want to do that and you can make money doing that that's fine do that but don't like it don't Don't be so shocked if yeah, the return is, you know,
I agree. I agree. Uh I think it's something like opportunity cost as well. And we'll we'll we'll wrap up the the um the refund conversation with this. It's something like opportunity cost. When I sign a deal with a publisher, this is a good example. When I sign a deal with a publisher, they'll say, "I want 30% of the revenue." I can go, "But that's you're going to take 30% of $100,000." Oh, no. I I'm left with 70,000. Another way of thinking about it is well, how much are you going to bring to the table in terms of sales and revenue? A publisher should be able to they should they don't always, but they should be able to bring in more than

30%. Additional revenue, right? And the same is true with a refund policy. The refund policy should bring in more sales than refunds you get.
Yes.
Right. It's opportunity cost. It's weighing, okay, this is going to cost me how much, but what am I going to get in return? The same is true with a great refund policy, a flexible refund policy. The same is true with publishers taking a percentage of your revenue, assuming that they put in their money where their mouth is, they should be able to generate more revenue than the royalty cut that they get. Right? So, I think that I think that's pretty obvious and I think that you did such a good job with this post. I recommend I'll put it below for people to read. Um, I think it's very very helpful. And what's cool about your posts on on X and I read them all the time is that they don't feel they don't feel like they're written by AI, which is a big deal. [laughter] They feel handwritten. They have a voice. And also, they are very surgical

and granular. Um, there's a lot of detail in this post about refunds. So, yeah, I just wanted to to say you you're doing a great job. I love your blogs. They're really really good.
No, thank you. It just take me too long to write that. That one blog took me all day.
Did [laughter] it really?
Were you nervous writing it?
You know what? Uh, I felt because I felt very strongly about it. I wasn't nervous on that one. Uh I think I'm realizing more I've come to realize anyway that like it's not about sort of being right that like say you know I'm right or like I said before and claiming to be claiming absolutes. It's more if I feel strongly about something I want to at least put it out there and then maybe somebody can learn something from it. And that's that's what that's where like I'm at now sort of thing. Like I don't really I care what people think, but I also don't I'm learning not to care too deeply, you know, because we've got to like

it's how boring would the life be if everyone just agreed with each other? I welcome it. Like it's cool. Like you've got to I'm I'm massive on self-development. So I wasn't like mega nervous to be honest. No, not really. It was going against the grain I think at first, but a lot of people agreed with it. couldn't figure out the grain until you determined what the grain was for me when you posted your cuz your your blog really helped clear the air. Everyone was like, "Okay,
Indie Game Joe said, [laughter] but I I I I tweeted out like basically a flexible refund policy is is a win-win."
That's what I I just a simple tweet. I didn't want to I just didn't want to get involved in the firestorm, yet here we are.
Um, [laughter] okay, let's let's shift gears here. I wanted to ask you a big big fat question that entered my mind the moment we started talking. You said something like a hook is a marketing tool but it is related to the game's design. Do you remember saying that?
I remember. Yeah. Yeah.
Can you clarify and you can you can you

provide thoughts on what you mean by marketing and design are actually handinand?
So how can I say this elegantly without [laughter] So trying to think if I can use Don't Scream as an example. When I set out to design Don't Scream, marketing wasn't an afterthought. It wasn't something where I thought, okay, now what do we do? It was baked into the game design from the very start. And when I set out to design games, again, this is just this isn't the way, it's just a way I found works is I have found that if you can make your game, if you can help your game to market itself through the game play,
Mhm.
you're already like swimming with the current or you're already halfway up the mountain in my view. And the hook in Don't Scream was that it was I was

trying to think of something. Okay, what what can help sell itself so I don't have to be there posting every time. I just need to light that flame and the game can do most of the heavy lifting. And that that's kind of what I mean. And doesn't apply to every single game. I get this very hookie gimme game. Like
don't scream is a very gimmicky hookie game. It's more of an experience just to make that clear. I know it is. And it was designed to be.
Yeah.
But like I still think with any like take Twisted Tower for example like the way you have done things in my opinion I see this is I don't know if this is actually technically right but like I see it as marketing. So you can you've made for example that uh the big hammer the impact that gives and the way things ragd doll it's so satisfying right like and to me I'm like marketing brain okay that's great because if I'm going to do a do do a a clip on social media

because you've you've baked that into the game design like this the way the ragd doll uh the the enemies ragd doll the the sound that that is yes, it's in the game, but but the game's allowing or amplifying the marketing. They're working together.
That's right.
Um, another example was this. I did some uh free consultancy for um a game I posted. It was this was a few months ago. I think this will connect. Just stop me if it doesn't. [laughter] But it was you were a vacuum cleaner, one of those robot ones. And they said, "Oh, hey Joe, we've got this game. you're a vacuum cleaner, there's also a cat and you've got to go around and clean rooms. And I was like, "Oh, that's super satisfying." Yeah. Saw the trailer
and and again, I I saw and I could have just posted it, but I thought, "This isn't going to do as well." Like, they're missing so much stuff and it wasn't just a marketing thing. Like, so I end up having a two-hour call with

them. I was like, "Guys, like I think you've got a really good hook here, the vacuum cleaner and the cat. However, the fantasy, the feeling it's giving, it's not I don't feel it's going to resonate like you think. I said, "Okay." So, and they're like, "Well, why, Joe?" I was like, "Okay, well, when the Hoover is cleaning up the dirt from the C from the floor.
It doesn't feel like it's hard to to differentiate if is that is it a shadow from the light or is it actually dirt cleaning up?" And I was like, and also it's I tried to explain to him like with a game like this, you really want to try to create that feeling of not ASMR, but like when I hear this Hoover, I don't want to be getting annoyed. I want to be like, "Oh, that sounds nice. I want to keep hearing it." No, you see what I mean? The bumps when it bumps into the wall, I don't want that to sound annoying. I want that to be nice and tactile. Yeah.

So they they went away for a few weeks, came back.
Man, the trailer they sent, it went viral. Again, I don't have an AB test. Maybe the other one did well, but from my experience and knowledge, I do feel that helped. And this is what I mean when I try to say marketing, hooks, and game design. see them as one. It and and it doesn't mean you change your game completely. It just means think about things like I sound cringe saying it all goes back to feelings for me. Like how do you make how can I say it? Like in order to make somebody care, you have to make them feel. So how do you make someone feel something? Put it in your game then.
Yeah.
So like I bet you've done things with Twisted Tower like to create emotion and there's pillars of it. It can be anger is one, fear, curiosity, uh, love. How can how can your game and the marketing work together? They're not Do you see what I'm saying, Thomas? Like, they're not
Don't see it as an afterthought. Like,

see it at the very beginning like, and I don't mean make a gimmicky marketing game. I'm not saying don't scream is the only way. It it applies to any game. So I that's the best I feel I can really sort of answer what I mean with that uh with what you originally said is
well I teach I teach something and maybe you've heard this but I teach something called the trinity hook and the trinity hook is what's your visual hook what's your what's your mechanical hook and what's your story hook
if you could try and have all three of those it helps a lot because you're diversified if your mechanical hook doesn't actually work let's say don't scream doesn't work at or the scream mechanic at least the visuals are awesome, you know, and it's really unique, right, and funny. Uh, or maybe the visuals don't work, but the mechanics do, and then it has a really interesting like Blair Witch style story, you know? So, if you can have all three of those things and try and land all three, it's a great marketing tool. The the problem is is I I always struggle separating hooks

um from the design like you said because it's like well if this is going to hook me instantly with a trailer shouldn't it also hook me in its design when I play the game
right they're kind of hand in hand
and when I play people's demos when I play indie developer demos on my streams I would say 98% of the time. What they're trying to hook me with doesn't exist in the game. It's It's playing for 10 minutes and I'm like, "Okay, so what am I what is what am I playing? What is this mechanic? What is this story? What's the visual hook? Nothing's nothing's capturing my attention." And whether it's a trailer or your demo, when you're when you're playing an actual demo, that first 30 seconds of both of those need to instantly capture me and I need to know exactly what the gimmick is immediately. Am I wrong?

No. That it's how I feel literally nearly one to one. Like it's that's how I'm like when I play games in general. If something doesn't grab me and I don't understand it, I'm I'm I'm getting out that door personally like cuz and and it, you know, Yeah, it's funny cuz there's no like ultimate right thing I think in creating video. Yeah, there's general rules of thumbs rule of thumb, but in general, I think it's like
it's very loose and you can take No one's reinventing the wheel. We're all just modifying it and that's fine.
Correct. I think with hooks how I like to see it I suppose is and I did write a blog about this somewhere is I've got some notes from it here I can't find the full blog but I'll sort of skim off some things
is that a hook maybe don't see it like as specifically a feature it's more like a a answer or a strategic answer to like two questions and it's kind of what

we're I think saying so it's like why should someone buy my game which is what I like to call the promise And how do you make them feel that as soon as possible the presentation?
Yeah.
So I think having a hook, it isn't treating a mechanics hook as the whole product. The hook is a promise and it only works if the game delivers the fantasy it implies. So hooks work when they serve the experience and they can fall flat when they replace it. I think that makes sense.
It makes complete sense. It makes complete sense. If we look at if we look at Cuffbust and again I love Gavin. I love Gavin and I wish him all the best. When you look at Cuffbust, it had a marketing hook aka a promise which is like it's this wild wacky gummy gummy bears escaping prison, but it didn't fully deliver on that. It didn't feel that way. The the fantasy wasn't really

there. You didn't feel like the fantasy was there. it felt empty and it didn't feel competitive. So, in a way, the hook wasn't correct. It it was offered in a trailer, but it the game design itself didn't fulfill the promise. Same is true with YouTube thumbnails. You have a thumbnail and a title, you better deliver in the video or the video won't do well,
right?
Same thing.
Yeah. No, that definitely there was I think with it's funny that thronefall in my opinion, you know, before I think do you think Jon has sold the game now, but like I think that kind of proves the point of hooks at least to me how I
I agree. Thronefall does have a hook. It's very clearly got it has a hook.
Yeah. And it's like it doesn't it it doesn't advertise because it doesn't advertise a gimmick. It shows a promise which was uh it was like build a tiny kingdom or something. minimalistic tower controls
and a very cute art style. So, the fantasy was the promise and the aesthetic was the delivery. For me, what

caught my eye was the was the minimalistic, the simpleness of it. Like the way that was packaged, that's what hooked me. So, like I think yeah, hook I suppose hook equals promise, proof, packaging. So, the promise says so promise say the fantasy in one line. For example, if you scream you restart using don't scream. Example, the proof is an un one undeniable clip like uh you know the title, the capture art, the first three seconds of the trailer sort of thing. You start sort of from the experience. I just think I call the
crystallized version of that experience, the promise plus how we present it,
how we present it, the hook, not a gimmick. A clear reason to care basically. So I think this is kind of what that's what I mean when I say hook. I don't mean it in a gimmicky way like don't sort of scream and I'm not putting don't scream down. I'm just saying like
there is much more meaning if you shift

the mindset of what a hook a fantasy sort of is. You know
I'm trying to think of any game that doesn't have like didn't really rely on a hook
and and the only ones that to me stand out are like 1990s games because it's like the hook was that it was a video game and it was 3D, you know? Like if there's there's a lot of games that like didn't have Okay, let's think about it. Metroid, Super Metroid, or Mario even. What's Mario's hook?
Mario's hook.
Super Mario like SNES or NES? Like, what's the hook? And I don't think there was one other than that it was a it was a 2D platformer and that was the first of its kind. That's the hook.
Yeah, that that's what I'm trying to think. I was going to say platformer, but that's
Yeah.
Yeah. So the the more games there are, the more important it is to create to come up with some kind of hook that makes your game unique and stand out. And I think it's generated friend slop. So the problem with the hook, the the whole mindset of hooks is that it does

create and not all friends slop is bad, but there's a ton of it. And it's created this onslaught of a lot of what what Chris Sakowski calls like the the sludge at the bottom of the ocean of just games that are just not great and they're trying to rely on some kind of interesting gimmick and and everything's gimmicky. Um, and so you said not having a hook can can be swimming against the current, but from personal experience, caring too much about a hook can also be swimming against the current. And here's what I mean.
Your instinct as an artist and you're a painter, your your instinct as an artist or a painter or your your instinct as a storyteller is might be better than thinking about the hook. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like for me, if for me with Twisted Tower, I was so obsessed with the hook, the mechanical hook, the gimmick.

And I tried so hard to make it work. And once I started having play testers play the game, they were just like, "Hey, I really like the story. I really like the world. That's all I care about." And I'm like, "Oh." So, like my natural predisposition, my natural talent is what really matters for this game. And it doesn't mean that it doesn't have a hook. It just means that I was trying to focus on the mechanical side, the gimmicky side of creating some unique hook when in reality that was hurting me and slowing me down.
Yeah. You know,
I was a really fair point, but that then go it kind of goes back to what I said like again I really want to I don't want anyone thinking that I'm saying make the only way is to make cookie g. That isn't really what I'm meaning. if that comes across. I'm saying that's that's one way you can do it to help sort of swim with the current. But you've got to be good at it as well cuz again, there's so many bad there are so

many bad terrible friends slop games out there. The ones that just copy each other and don't put effort in. I'm talking about like we only really hear about the very successful friend slop ones and there's not really that many when you when you're honest with yourself. Like there's not really that many. Like I
compared to how many are released?
Yeah. compared to how many was released, there's not that many. Like I'm talking about the real good ones, you know? But like it goes back to what I said like when I mentioned about the feeling Twisted Tower gives with certain uh you know with the weapons and the feedback and the sound design like
that is like you could you could sort of say those are mini hooks like reasons to keep people reasons to make people look or think what's this is kind of what I'm getting out of
devil's advocate would say well that's just juice that's not a hook but The truth is is that the the the way I man the way I uh coded and created sound effects for the juice was all directed at its

impetus was a singular hook which is Disney World, Disney World, Disney World, Disney World, Disney World. So confetti, juicy almost like jelly like blood. Um the heads of of the enemies being really big bulbous heads that you could just and [clears throat] pop them with a shotgun, right? Disney. It's all Disney. That was the entire visual hook from the very beginning. And so when I came up with that marketing hook, aka demented Disney World, it informed all of my juice decisions, right? So it did inform the game's design, right? Yeah. And it worked cuz myself, you know, I did a po I covered it a while back and I've seen so many other accounts post it and it was the same thing. And then I use this and that's probably I'd say that's I'd say that's kind of a hook is Bioshock meets Disney World sort of thing. That's what so many people say about your games and it holds a lot of weight and

it's it's true to the fancies of what the game is. When you look at your game, you get those vibes.
Yeah.
So, it's a dangerous thing to say though. It's a dangerous thing to promise Bioshock.
Yeah. I'm not going to lie. [laughter] But uh the the demo I mean people played the demo and they were they they felt like it did a good job and all my beta testers are saying that it for an indie game. Yeah, it does a pretty good job. So
yeah. No, definitely. I think the biggest takeaway I think from this sort of topic here is more like I always say make the the most important thing thing I think when making a video game is you've got to love making it. And if that means you don't want to think about these other things, I think that's okay. I think the biggest thing just enjoy making what you're making because if you don't enjoy making it, how are you going to present that to the world? Like if you don't care, why is anyone else? So like friend slop isn't the only way. Having hookie games isn't the only way. Again, I'm really trying to say that isn't what I'm saying here.

Yeah. And you know, it doesn't always work. Like that's the thing is like it's like, okay, if I my theory was I'll make a carnival Bioshock game. It looks like it looks like Bioshock, but it's like a carnival. My theory was, man, this is gonna get millions of views. And in reality, it just didn't. I mean, it it does it does pretty good. Like like your post did great. The trailers always do like 20 to uh 60,000 views, which is fine. I'm I'm happy. But it's not like gang busters. So, like the problem with manufacturing um the problem with manufacturing hookie viral clips for your game is that for me personally, just cuz I think it's going to be a marketable hook or gimmick in the game doesn't mean that it will be. So, for example, I thought that like rotating rooms and twisting hallways was

like really marketable. I thought that that's gonna be like really cool. And so I spent all this money and time building that into the game. And then every time I posted it was like nobody cared. They cared about confetti explosions out of head shot.
Yeah.
And I'm like, "Okay, that's the gimmick." And so I have to It was research. It was research to figure out what I should put in the game and what I shouldn't.
Aka prototype play test. Prototype play test prototype play test. But what were you going to say? Sorry. No, no, I was going to say that the twisted thing actually was a scroll stopper for me like monthly. Okay.
Yeah. See, it's very interesting.
We'll see, man. We'll see.
I'm not just saying that. That that's what made me stop because it just just interesting. Yeah.
But yeah, again, just but the thing is like if you're making a first person shooter and I see a video and the weapons sound meh, like they are not satisfying, I'm not going to want to stop and listen. Like, so it's just it's things for any game. just think about how does it make someone feel like

from and and I just think if you do that you're already way ahead I don't want to say the word competition but you're already way ahead of those who don't do that because it's amazing how many devs just don't think about how important like the feeling is that something gives you and again it could be anything the the movement the animation
uh just everything like and that's what I mean like you give yourself more of a fighting chance at success if you and it It's ultimately really cold making a good game. [laughter]
I know. Well, you know, it's so funny how juice I mean, what we're call I think what you're talking about is juice. It's is the phrase. I sent um I sent uh video foot. No, I let I let Thomas Mer who's the creator of of um Ory in the Blind Forest and also a game called No Rest for the Wicked, which is blowing up right now. I sent him Twisted Tower to play and I won't say the review he gave it but he said it's not he gave it a lower score and he said implement

these three juice things and he gave me like head shot and jiggle for the enemies and stuff and just the ragd doll stuff and I was like man like he was super critical and it made me it hurt my heart. Well, I spent the weekend implementing his juice and I scrambled and got it in and then I sent him video footage and he like upped the score by like two points or something. He was like, "It's just so much better." He's like, "This is way better." [laughter] And I'm like, "Because of like a head jiggling and he's like, "Yeah, that is what matters. That stuff is what makes this game fun."
And that's what I did with with our other game, Hypercharge Unboxed. That's what I did as well. Like there were moments where we've had massive viral clips that would never happen if it wasn't in the game. And it isn't just creating this in the game just for the marketing. No, it's still a core experience to how it feels when you play. And it was basically the the ragd doll feedback on the action figures were very like there was no real impact and

the way like they flew back and the way sort of like just the whole system it didn't feel satisfying. And I was like to the guys, listen, when I'm an action figure, I'm imag It's like I'm a kid playing it. You know, it's like I'm a kid playing my action figures. And when I'm smacking another action figure, when I was a toy, that other toy is going to go flying. I want [laughter] to feel like an action hero. Another This is where what I'm like. And we tweaked it. And I'm like, "Okay, when I punch, okay, no, it's not quite there yet." And I'm like, "Okay, I'm punching. Oh, wow. Yeah, they can do bat flips now." and like fling and all these opportunities can happen when I'm recording. And then I was like, but the sound like when I punch, like it's just feeling like again, I want to feel like action, man. I want to feel like this is like a Mike Tyson punch. I want to feel like an action hero. We messed around with the sound design until we got it where I felt it was right. And what that allowed when I would do recording sessions for the marketing again, it's so much more

fun to play because it's really rewarding smacking some smacking [laughter] an action. And then there were two moments. One moment went mega viral. It got like 8,000 likes on Twitter. And that was because I was on the desk fighting this action figure. And I didn't plan this. It's just because it was in the game. It allowed the opportunity for it to happen. I smacked this action figure. The animation, everything looked how it I felt it should look to give these feelings. The action figure went flew against the monitor on this desk and it just looked it looked it looked and felt amazing. And in my marks in brain, I'm like, "That's the shot." And it worked. And there was another one with a had a shotgun. This this never happened since I I uh blasted somebody with a shotgun. He did an actual backwards flipped perfectly [laughter] into the coffee mug. But do you see what I mean? If you're not having these discussions with yourself or having somebody think of these things,
like to me, they're not just stuff for marketing. This helps the game play the

game as well. That's why that's why I'm trying. I hope I'm making sense with all
No, it makes complete sense. What What you're saying is, and this is so important. It's I I learned it from Gavin because Gavin was consulted me a little bit on creating game trailers.
You You got to treat your game trailer and your social media content, you got to treat it like you're a director of a film.
And a director of a film, especially if you're, let's say, Stanley Kubri, you take 200 takes of a single thing until it gets until it's perfect, right? And the same is true with a trailer. I don't go like the way I used to do trailers is I used to record the whole game and then I would I would take the footage and make a trailer. What I do now and I don't know if it's perfect but what I do now is I think about specific moments and I go okay this would be really cool or this would be really funny or this would be really interesting and I try and capture that exact moment so that it's perfect for that little 5-second or two second clip. Right. I was watching Shaw Shake Redemption last night and it's an incredible film and I one of the

there was just a single shot and there's there's two there's two scenes in that movie where you go man the director the composer the screenwriter the actors were all lock step in this singular moment and it and it made this five second like magical clip and one of the clips was I don't know why it meant so much to me, but Thomas Newman's music is incredibly moody and atmospheric and mysterious. So, that's playing in the background. So, that's one aspect of it. And then you see the main character uh pull a maggot. He he's in prison and he pulls a maggot out of his rice in in in the prison cafeteria. And you're just supposed to think this is so disgusting. This prison sucks. And then an old man looks at him and he says, "Can I have that delicious juicy maggot?" You're thinking, "This this is this old man is

disgusting. Like, this place sucks." And you hate the prison. The old man takes the maggot and he opens up his pocket and there's a baby bird in his pocket and he feeds it to the baby bird. And my point in that scene and how it's related to this is that there's a setup and a payoff where you go, it's a big twist, but it's it's all within like 5 seconds and you get this rush of emotion and you go, "No, the prison's beautiful because this old man is taking care of this little bird." Right? The point in saying that is that in a 2 to 5second clip on social media, if you can tell a story and you can create some kind of payoff, like for you, the ragd doll, not only does the rag doll fly, but he goes into a coffee cup, right? And so there's this extra bonus payoff that's so valuable, right? And if your mechanics can do that for your game, you win, right?
Yeah. Exact. I like that. That's that's I like that a lot.
So there's there's just a lot of intention, I think, that that indie game developers need to be putting into their

marketing material. You know what I mean?
Yeah. And see that as it's again, it's see it as how can it be part of the game experience.
Yeah.
Yeah. That that's what I would say. How can it be part of the game game experience? Don't don't just make a game and then say, "Okay, how am I going to market it?"
Right? Make the game with it from the very start with the marketing. Marketing isn't this weird scary thing. It's it's basically like I said, it's it's two things. Marketing, yes, marketing isn't magic. It's showing up repeatedly. But also, going back to what I said, and I can't emphasize it enough, marketing isn't about selling something. It's about making somebody feel something.
Y
and do that in your game from the very start. It doesn't have to this weird.
It's not graphs or charts on a database. It's not this. It's feelings. That's all it is. And if you can sit down and have an honest look at your game project now or think about a game you want to make.

Just think about putting them both together. let them work with each other and maybe you'll find actually I can start adding things into this game that are just going to serve the marketing or help help it help the marketing. Yeah.
And I don't think that's a bad or weird thing or it means that isn't saying make hookie gimmicky games. It's not it's it really it's making games that people maybe remember more or care more or in the end it also comes down to this. How do you stop the scroll or the swipe? Like, you know, you talk about seeing trailers and videos.
Yeah.
Having things like this in your game, they allow that material and and and if they're in the game, you less you're less likely to to scroll past a video of another game. Cuz whenever I'm looking at like I say this a lot, I did this test on myself actually. This was last year. I was I was pretty bored one day and I was like I was trying to think about something to write. Uh, I wanted

to write something about marketing. I was like, you know, I think about social media and I was like, I was literally scrolling on my phone because we all do this, don't we? We all swipe, swipe, swipe. But have you honestly, like, if you're honest with yourself, have you ever stopped to think, why did I stop scrolling or why did I stop swiping to stay on this particular video? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you uh stop scrolling or swiping and then flicked up to go back to a video? Yeah. And it goes back to the thing for me and I I had got a notepad where I was I did this for a week and I was writing down why I was stopping on certain videos and it came down to certain pillars of feelings and it was like again anger curiosity fear excitement confus confusion and the point I'm getting at is when I and it applies to any sort of medium any it doesn't have to just be games it could be movies it can be weird viral weird meme clips but in terms of games we'll stick to games. The reason that made me stop it was it was always

like a combination of like certain mechanics uh for example that caused a feeling and that could have been the aesthetic like wow this looks cool. It might have been uh something that was looks really cool like the animation. It could have been like a sword fight or some some game and it it's just it gives this certain like you know like a like you get to a how can I put it? It gives it gives a feeling of like I how can I say I want
I want to play this is what I'm getting at. Yeah.
So
that's what I'm losing my train of thought of why I'm why I'm saying that. Well, can I ask you a question?
I I'm struggling to understand why feeling translates to someone giving you their money.
Is it simply that feeling uh catches

attention and that's what really the big the big thing you need is attention?
Well, it goes back to Yeah. It's like feeling is like why do we buy something in the first place? Because you care enough to buy. So, how do you get somebody to buy something? It goes back to what I said. got to make them care. And that might be like again it can be any any s sort of emotion like Twisted Tower might be giving people nostalgia for Bioshock. Maybe that's part of the reason that stops them from scrolling.
Yeah.
Maybe. Um
Yeah. And and like Hypercharge for example, action figures like I mean that's that's Toy Story, Small Soldiers, S. Not I know not everything's nostalgia based but like I'm just I guess what I was trying to say with that that long monologue I think I'm poorly [laughter] explaining it like when you're scrolling on social media and you like video games or you stop on a video game I did find

there was sort of something in common and it was it made me feel something and I was trying to when I was writing down these notes decipher what is it what is this feeling And a lot of the time for me it was cur like just it was being curious like wow okay I want to see what happens next but because these games have the juice if we want to call it that that's the common thing I'm getting to like these games why I would stop like they have juice
they have a reason for me to stop and care and the games that don't have that you just swipe past but that goes back to the point of like when we talk about adding juice to the game. This helps people. This helps anybody who's seeing your game on social media from stopping from skipping that your video. Like add the juice is kind of what I'm saying.
Well, all of a sudden they feel like they're not scrolling their phone. They feel like they're in their phone. You they feel like they're part of a clip

they just saw and and there's something visceral about that. I also think it's really valuable to create a mystery. um establish some kind of mystery or or itch that's implanted on a person within like 3 seconds of a clip. You know, I I I love um trying to think of a really good example here. I think backrooms is probably the best example for this. You look at back rooms and you immediately think, what's at the end of the hall? And all of a sudden there's this just huge question that has to be answered. So much so that you got to go, you know, go to the movie theater, an actual movie theater to get the answer, which is crazy because back rooms, I mean, it was slammed pack when I went and saw it. And it's just crazy to think people are going to movie theaters again, which is really exciting to me because I love movie theaters. But, you know, to to get up and and and get in your car and go drive to a movie theater to answer a an

itch that was generated by a single visual is, I think, a big part of what made that movie successful, right? Just creating an itch, creating a mystery.
Yeah.
You know,
that's very that's very true.
Okay. So, final question for you here. Final question for you here. What do you think about Okay. Do does does reviews on Steam translate to sales?
That's an interesting question,
I guess. Not not the amount of reviews because obviously it does, but the
Yeah.
the mixed reviews versus very positive versus overwhelmingly positive. Does that actually mean anything?
So, if we I've I've looked into like I've read articles and things about this. I can't remember half of it though, so don't quote me anything like data wise. I don't don't really know too much on this but like in terms of experience one thing I have found that I suppose will affect sales is

I don't know I'm thinking of don't scream together here it's a very good question like
I'm okay with you using anecdotal about your own game and that that's the reason
well with don't scream together we launched with mostly negative reasons
dude that was so crazy
it was horrible. Worst. I think like in terms of a [snorts] career, that was the my worst day like ever. That was awful. I'll never forget that night. It was awful. It was like being on a sinking ship and you've [laughter] got a tiny bucket and you're trying to like get rid of all the water and it
Why did it launch with mostly negative reviews? What happened? And how did you not predict this? Isn't that
Well, this is what's super interesting. Yeah. So like on the outside I get it's like how could you not well and the thing is I think the marketing was probably a bit [laughter] toot my own horn. I think the marketing was a bit too powerful to a degree.

Maybe I don't want to say blame but like a lot of this is public knowledge but we got I say I did all the marketing myself and we got
it was 300,000 wish list in a month. Like it was insane.
Holy crap. And yes, it was built on the back of Don't Scream, but it I think also people think because you've had a really popular game before, they assume that it's just going to be mega popular anyway. It was still very hard to get those wish list. It required like a hell of a lot of strategy from my behalf. But like we don't for people who don't know, don't scream mechanic is a microphone. And I'm sure like if any developer will understand like when your main mechanic is a microphone you have to calibrate in the game.
Oh yeah.
That's going to cause a lot of issues. So the mechanic is like you got a threshold you got to talk like this and if you make any sudden noise that's classed as a scream. It isn't the game isn't if you go ah it's it's it's the funny sort of aspects of the game is

anything is any slight murmur or jud is a scream. That was the whole gimmick. So, we tested the game. We had my wife test it. We had friends. We outsourced a small group of testers to test it.
And we bought a bunch of microphones to different use cases to test. So, we did all these different things, right? And on paper, this looks like we've done a [sighs] hell of a lot of testing. We we there's so many like different again use cases like okay we've got a USB microphone we've got one with the dongle we've got a wireless one we've got the the what do you call it the the auxiliary port microphone thing
the USBC the older ones we're testing all this stuff
and again it seems like we've done a multitude of things and we have within relatively speaking but what we didn't and and we were having so much like honestly some of my best gaming moments were were te were testing that game. The

laughs we had playing together. I've ne it was I'll ne that's one thing I'll always hold on to. The laughs that gave us in the play test. It was like we're on to this amazing thing. I'm doing videos again. Nothing was disingenuous. I did my best to show what this game was. You speak quietly. If you scream, you restart. There's you turn into a monster in one of the game. Like everything was genuine. So I wasn't worried like is this going to be people going to be disappointed expecting something else like everything was going perfect. It was like the dream like we're going to sell [laughter] so many copies 300,000 wish lists like
yes
you know the price point we've learned things and then but what we didn't anticipate and bear in mind guys like we've released
Hypercharge and Box is got very it's got like 90% very positive reviews. We went to we we were the number two top seller on Steam in 2023. We've had We new retro arcade neon our first commercial title that was very positive reviews. So it's

got mostly positive reviews. So we've released we we release good stuff. We want to release good stuff. It's very important to us. So when we launch the game, you can imagine I'm sat there like, oh, you know what it's like when you launch a game and all of a sudden seeing these reviews coming, it's like microphone's not working. Microphone's not working. All I can hear is static noise. So all I can hear is static noise and it's coming in and coming in and I'm just like getting pale. I'm getting pale at this point. I'm like
what the hell? Like and there's only like five or four of us as well working on this game. So in the end what happened was because the pool size of players was that big and we didn't I don't know why we didn't anticipate
this amount of players coming in at once. We had thousands and thousands of players coming in at once. the the the different setups. People have software for the microphones, people have outdated microphones or

audio drivers. There's all this stuff now, this data, this feedback we're getting where we we possibly didn't have the time to test. We should have done it's on us, but so and then there was also like people on different Windows versions. We didn't think of how that can clash with certain uh setups with with software microphones and there were certain microphones headsets which were just buggy on Windows which was also out of our hands which sounded like an excuse but it wasn't like
Yeah.
And and there was there was a big bug with Windows as well which we had to kind of
find a fix around. So there was all this stuff and everything was on fire. [laughter] Honestly, it was it was it was horrendous. I gota admit I felt so bad for you.
I felt I did, man. I saw what happened and I was like I you know my first thought was I would never make a game that was dependent on hardware like that. [laughter] Like I would never do it. I just it's it's a ballsy move, man.

I don't recommend anyone do it. [laughter] Like for don't scream we got I'd say like we got away with it I think because like
I mean for one
it isn't multiplayer. So but I think like
oh
it's single player. This was again this was multiplayer and then what we found out was I think sometimes
I think sometime the thing is Thomas as well do you know how many people begged us for a multiplayer version of don't scream. [laughter] I know
we did it.
But it made us realize
you can have a really good game, a viral game, or sell lots of copies, and it doesn't necessarily mean that good single player game will translate to a good multiplayer game. And
when we think about how viral Don't Scream Together went, I think I had this preconceived or notion, this idea that again, I probably shouldn't have done this, but I just assumed everybody in the world knew about Don't Scream.

Therefore, I assumed everybody's going to understand the mechanic, but that was 2023. People forget easily. They move on, you know, like, and when people went into Don't Scream Together, I feel like, and this isn't I'm not blaming them. It's on really it was a hard pill for me to swallow. I think it was a communication thing on my behalf where I should have I could have written the Steam store page differently. Perhaps I could have done the videos differently for the marketing. But I think people went in there expecting a bit of a lethal company. They went in there expecting a different type of horror game. They went there. When you see voice proximity chat, let's be honest here, you expect this. Ah, there's a monster. Oh, come see me. Shouting. Yeah,
don't scream expects you to do this. So you imagine when these players are going in,
they're screaming, they're restarting, [laughter] they're thinking, they're thinking the game's buggy and broken because of the core mechanic, but it's like
no, that's the core. So there was a mix.

Ultimately, what it did come down to that the reason the bulk of it was at the start was the microphone issues. We needed what we've realized and learned from now is that the way we were testing games was d like d like it was archaic like dinosaurs. We were in the stone age how we were testing our games. So we realized that in the future we have to change how we test our games. We have to change the pool size of testers. We learned a hell of a lot. And I guess the one thing that it's weird though cuz we don't scream together. We still like I think I can say this cuz yeah public I publicly announced the sales but I think recently like we sell we're at like 600,000 copies sold and don't scream together. We sell a hell of a lot of copies even now every day. And I'm like when it goes back to your to your question of do mix do reviews hurt? I don't know.

I I know we have a high refund rate. I know we have a high I don't know what it is on the top of my head, but it's high, but we still sold hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands including that. If we let's say we had didn't have that issue and we had mostly positive reviews, would we have sold way more? I think if we didn't have those issues, I do think this would have been a massive success story. I do think this could have sold mill like easily like over a million. dampened it, but then it's also hard to say because we're selling so much every day of Scream and we're on mixed reviews. I don't know how we are.
Like, so
that's so interesting. So, so the game did great financially. However, what you're saying is it should have done double that.
I think it should have done Yeah.
Yeah. So, reviews do matter. Reviews reviews do translate to revenue. However, just because your game gets mixed reviews doesn't mean it's not going to make a million bucks.

And we did a lot of updates. I want to point this out. We didn't just forget. We did a lot of updates and we've improved. We went from most 38% mostly negative with a lot of reviews to m to to about 52% mixed overall, which it doesn't sound like much.
No, but that's a great recovery story. Seriously, [laughter] there it didn't catch fire and burn to the ground. It it survived. as did I'm looking at uh Toby's game Outbound. Outbound is a great example of surviving an initial bungled launch.
Yeah,
Toby's he's at Square Glade Games. He's at Mostly Positive now. It launched with Mixed. And
granted, here's the thing. Outbound should have sold much more because they had a million wish lists.
A million wish lists. Yeah. So it really did matter that bungled launch. It really did matter, you know, and it was tech it was technical issues I think that Outbound had, but it also was um

maybe mismatch mis mismatched expectations.
I think that that's how I took it as well. Like I think people again went in with this
fantasy and it didn't deliver on the promise the fantasy as as what they had probably hoped. And I read a lot of things about sort of re the replayability as well, but
it just shows you that again, you can have all these wish lists. It's I always say your wish lists are only as good as the game. [laughter]
Oh no, you're making me scared. Um because I we just hit 100,000 wish lists for Twisted Tower, which it's not 300,000, but I'm I'm happy with it. And and by the way, thank you for
for tweeting the game out. And just so everybody's aware, we didn't make a deal. We did not make a deal. where you get a podcast episode and I get a tweet. It just happened that way because I did the announcement trailer uh last week and you you posted it. So, I appreciate that.
So, I do want to say quickly sorry

really quickly with the I want also like if I had a choice I never want to experience that again like with Scream it's awful. Yes, financially it was a success like the return on investment there but the success wasn't the money there per se. It was what that it was a very teachable and character development development moment for us as a team. What that taught us that it saved us as a team that launch funny enough like it saved us from making some very costly I would probably say team destroying mistakes in the future because the the way we were doing things wasn't sustainable but we didn't know it while we were in it if that makes sense. It does.
And that taught us, it really taught a lot about myself and again us as a team. But if I had the choice,
if we could have sold a million copies and most and mostly positive reviews, but not learn, hand on my heart, I would

keep it how it is. I would rather
have gone through all this and learn and it paid dividends in the long run versus like, you know, uh it's not all about Yeah, it's good to make money. We all want to make money. Like, we all want to make a living for our family, but like you also want to be proud about what you make. That's important.
I I think at the end of the day,
if you look back on yourself a year ago and think you're just an absolute idiot, you're winning because dude, like you're so much smarter now. You're going to you're just going to you're just going to make so and and now you know. Don't make a microphone game. number one. [laughter]
We know we've already had talks about Don't Scream Too. [laughter]
Yeah. Or don't don't make a game that Well, I would never make a game that's hardware dependent, but then again, that's what Nintendo does. Nintendo's big thing is is hardware gimmicks.
Um, but you know, I mean, you you did it. You know, you made a game that I I assume it made more than a million dollars gross, which is awesome.

Don't stream. I could talk more about that. Made nearly a million dollar gross in two weeks and that was just Yes, that was that was life-changing for me. Like it changed my life. Don't scream. Really?
Cool, man. Well, thank you so much for hanging out. This was a blast. Um link is below for I guess your Discord server
or your website. Well, I guess we could do both. Um
but yeah, dude, I learned a ton. Thanks for hanging out, man. It was great.
Yeah, no worries, man. It's been awesome. Yeah, cheers. And by the way, if you want to make 2D games or maybe even 3D games like I'm doing and potentially turn them into an actual full-time gig, I have a course called Full-Time GameDev, and it's 50% off with a summer sale. I've gone full-time with just a demo on three separate occasions. And by the way, look here. These are some students who went full-time with the help of what I teach. In this course, you're going to learn just that. How to land publishing deals with just a demo. [music] How to get funded on Kickstarter with just a demo. make a 2D

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