Week 6
Abstract Our learning objectives for the week were:
Post 1: Boxleitner number
Following our project status meeting, I needed to investigate the revenue model further and looked into the Boxleitner number more.
Boxleitner number is an estimate of how many copies a game has sold on Steam using reviews.
Steam sales figures aren't public information – normally, they're known only to Steam, the developer and publisher of the game.
However, some practitioners have been able to get an idea of how compies a particular game has sold by looking at the number of user reviews.
This is called the 'New Boxleitner number', named after Mike Boxleiter, who updated Steam's UI since the original methodology was established.
Simon Carless, a 20-year games industry veteran and an executive vice president of the Game Developers Conference, wrote an article in 2020 (Carless, 2020) on how to get a rough idea of the number of copies a game has sold on Steam based on the number of user reviews.
Using data from 237 games whose developers submitted sales and reviews data to Carless, he came up with a formula and coined the term the 'New Boxleiter number,' which essentially is a range of ratios comparing sales and review counts.
On average, Carless found that games get one review for every 63 sales, with a median of one review per 58 sales. However, some games have seen extremely high review rates, while others in the data set only saw a review once every 200 sales.
The age of the game has an impact on the average, too. Older games – those published before 2017 – tend to see fewer reviews, and in each calendar year since 2017, the average number of sales per review goes down (indicating more frequent reviews).
For games launched in 2020, the 'NB number' is around 41 sales per review.
It's a very rough calculation, and I have been very sceptical about it as it is a guess and shouldn't be the basis for working out how much money your game could make if you released something similar. However, it does provide at least some idea of how many copies a game has sold on Steam without speaking with the developer or publisher.
I also found this calculator too, but again it uses the Boxleiter method.
References
Carless, S. (2020). How that game sold on Steam, using the “NB number”. [online] newsletter.gamediscover.co. Available at: https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/how-that-game-sold-on-steam-using [Accessed 21 Jul. 2021].
steam-revenue-calculator.com. (2021). Steam Revenue Calculator. [online] Available at: https://steam-revenue-calculator.com/ [Accessed 18 Aug. 2021].
Meeting 1: Deck First run through
2021/07/05 I went over the key themes of our presentation with the team and how we should present ourselves.
The key themes of our pitch were:
Not too much story
Don't overestimate numbers
Focus on Gameplay
We're selling a concept, not a full-game
Selling us as well as a game concept
We ran through the deck and gave the team some action points:
The main logo is needed.
Placeholder font
Agenda, Image needed.
Team slide, tall about our experience (notes taken from the confluence)
Young team, with an idea
We need to convey that we are a trustworthy team.
Other pitch or game teams usually have a relationship with the meeting attendees, but we do not, and it's a video.
Next, we go through our game elevator pitch.
Early images and sketches required (we could use concept art)
Environment images required
Level design skecthes
Launch date spoke about
Talk about features next.
What is our USP?
ML/AI
Blueprint capture mechanic
Rebuilding enemies
Lucas was assigned to talk about the ML.
Gameplay to be discussed by Dan
Can we show the ML model in the pitch? (yes)
All games use ML, but it's hard to demo (how do we show this?)
We must demo and sell the ML for the presentation.
Focus on the understandable aspects of the game first (recruitment of enemies)
Left4Dead referenced
How do we show the ML? Copy and sketches required. Show the demo video we tried before. We have to link the concept to an existing idea.
Each person will have to talk about their slides and pieces.
The Gameplay and soundtrack are linked.
Artwork and art style next
I do not think we should go too heavy on the story for the pitch, but more lean into the Gameplay
@Daniel McKinley @Lucas Souza Think the story should be spoken about and link all the pieces together.
Story to be wrapped into the design of the characters
Overlap the story, Gameplay and the art
No going back and forth between speakers.
Paragraph and bullets for each key game feature
Are we going to have much to say about the soundtrack?
We must say that we have commissioned someone to do the work.
Draft song before Thurs and final pitch
We will show multiple Gifs for the Gameplay.
Artwork - @Luke Morrisby to show all rigging processes and how the animation is going to work differently
Slides with both flat and gif images, multiple slides
Drop all images into confluence repro
Demo/trailer only for the final submission
Next Users - @Linda Fitzgerald Make a general intro for our target demographic, personas and what games they will play
Don't talk about other demographics, but focus on our sector numbers.
Show the game UI
Rough number of our target market
Key takeaways for me were
How do gamers make money?
Most blogs and videos say Indies will be lucky to sell 3,000 games.
hobbyist charge either free-1.99/4.99
Our game should be priced at around 12.99
Let's look at the lifecycle of the game and price accordingly.
2-3 years to make a game
Looking at outliers, they make at least 2million
we will only end up with 12,700 profit
don't include market costs or porting costs
We estimate we could sell 15,000 games.
all games in the last 30 days by indies have sold less than 300 games
This month (July) isn't a good sample size to look at
You can't look at companies that have launched multiple games.
Games without publishers seem more successful.
The final module of GDD is about the gaming business.
Trailers make people buy games.
How do we tell the story to make it exciting for investors?
Be vague about the launch date.
Talk more about the timelines and project plan.
Sound not be in the presentation
I then asked the team to Place all content into the confluence page or use the Template I had added to the confluence page.
Full meeting notes can be found here.
Post 2: Project roadmap
As we were pitching to investors, I know from personal experience and best pratices (Smiles, 2021), that any competent investor asks themselves the following questions.
What is it?
What stage are they at?
How much will it cost me to get finished?
How much are they asking for?
Can I make any money out of it?
The best way to provide this information to investors during the presentation was with a project and resourcing plan. After the longer, it takes, something to build usually means a larger investment is required before any profit is gained.
Likewise, the more people I need to hire, the more it is going to cost me. However, not everything is countable, weighable, measurable, or can be translated into money.
However, our job is to show that our team has a great concept and that we can be trusted enough to bring it to launch, and eventually, you'll make some from the investment.
I created the following project plan below:
The next side was to try and article how much we wanted. I hadn't run a game development department before, but my experience in launching products suggested a 250k investment would not be unreasonable.
The investment amount was to fund gameplay expansion to 12-16 hours and implemented monetisation strategies such as product placement and advertising. It also allowed the team to work on this full-time, build a community by telling the story within the game, and build an affinity around our characters.
We would also start playtesting and schedule alpha and beta testing events as game development progresses.
I priced the game at 12.99, estimating sales of 30,000 during the first launch phase bringing investors a 50% return on your investment straight off the bat.
Caveating that the figures are ambitious, and we would know more after playtesting and the alpha and beta launches.
My other remain slide was the concept slide, were I would tell the concept upfront. The script for that is below:
"Asimov is a 2.5D isometric rouge-like game for Steam targeting a release for 2022.
Players are tasked to work their way through various areas to uncover what has happened to the world following a catastrophic global event.
Our game blends skill-based, high-speed gameplay with storytelling, portrayed through the characters and world itself.
Presenting an immersive and intense gameplay experience."
References
Smiles, S. (2021). Home of the best pitch decks. [online] Perfect Pitch Deck. Available at: https://perfectpitchdeck.com/ [Accessed 18 Aug. 2021].
Meeting 2: Deck second run through
2021/07/06 We ran through the deck again and refined the following:
Upfront elevator pitch discussed refined
Level design discussed
3D lighting status
Pasted copy from the confluence page
Removed sound from video and clip
Artwork imported
UI Gifs imported
Show Gameplay off the bat
A graph to show the differences in AI/ML
Discussing ML/AI script
Accessibility script discussed
Breakdown of all the Accessibility features
Discussing playtesting and involvement of disabled gamers
Discussing market fit and roadmap
Full meeting notes can be found here.
Meeting 3: Final run
2021/07/08 We had an open session again to discuss our slides and follow up on our progress. I coached and refined the team slides to the story that flowed well through the deck.
A few team members had some anxiety before the pitch, but I rallied them to stay present confidently.
The full mock deck can be found below.
Post 3: Presentation Feedback
We had major technical problems at the start of the presentation. The platform used by the university was awful, so that I couldn't test it before the session. I had to use an alternative approach and not present full-screen.
However, our final submission will be a video, so we shouldn't run into these issues.
Overall the feedback was positive. They thought it was a cool presentation, a cool game and liked that we showed the game straight away.
I felt extremely pleased that they liked the flow I put together. They immediately got the idea of what it was going to play; however, they wanted more story.
This was a big contrast to what I had researched, as it was the main reason I put so little into the presentation.
A quote was,
"You have a theme that you're following on, and we see this in the characters later in the cyberpunk sort of vein.
So please give me a sense of why I'm interested in the game beyond the sheer mechanics because you mentioned at the end of the road you're hoping to build a community.
The setting is supposed to draw people in. But until the end, it wasn't clear what the setting is.
I know the place, I know that I'm in the city, I know who I'm fighting, but I struggle to understand the context for all the actions."
The next piece of critical feedback was our business plan.
They thought the roadmap generally looked alright, but we are likely to run the risk that whoever understands the business will scrutinise those figures based on what we presented.
I knew that the figures were weak, but I didn't have the experience to know how to put them together for a game pitch.
One of the investors recommended a book I should look into called "The Gamedev business handbook by Michael Futter'.
So I ordered it and planned to read it over the weekend.
The final bit of feedback to me was we need to instil confidence that investors can trust us to deliver a game with the money given to us.
I documented the full feedback here.
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