zukalous

I talk to a lot of indie game developers through my game marketing discord, I consult, I review funding pitch documents, I do lots of Q&As, and one weird thing that I see a lot of indies do is say they are making a “casual” game. I hear the pitch Continue Reading

I recently wrote a blog about what genres sell well on Steam. It centered on some basic research I did where I looked at the total number of games released per genre graphed against the median income of them. This was the result: The findings were that the top sellers Continue Reading

A couple weeks ago I posted an interview with developer Dylan Gedig about the incredible success behind his game Peglin.  But looking backward, the game’s success didn’t always seem like such a sure thing. 2 years before the launch of Peglin, a very high quality game that combined Rogue-lite mechanics Continue Reading

Last week I looked at the incredibly amazing launch of Peglin which earned over 1 million dollars in 1 week. This week I am taking a look at Ravenous Devils which also did very well earning almost $200,000 gross in its first two weeks.  But first the numbers: Launch Date: Continue Reading

Let’s just cut to the chase: In 1 week the small team at Red Nexus Games (2 coders, an artist, and a musician) sold 80204 units of their self-published game Peglin on Steam at $17.99 each. Before Steam’s cut that is $1,049,413. Here are the details for their first week Continue Reading

The moment you say “We are going to make a game that is a <genre> with <art-style> graphics” and commit to developing that game you have made about 90% of your marketing decisions for your game. At that moment in the multiverse of potential outcomes for your game, hundreds of Continue Reading

I followed journalist Stephen Totilo as he explored the GDC expo floor and the MIX event. I recorded him interacting with developers and booths and I have some thoughts…. But first, this leads into my broader topic surrounding my study of how journalists play your game… Introducing my Spring lecture Continue Reading

This was a talk by Megan Fox. Game is SkateBIRD Description: A single-person game and, based on community response, gradually scoped it up to a larger game- all the while laying down deals and picking marketing venues so that we knew we’d launch already profitable. Half SkateBIRD post-mortem, half hopefully Continue Reading

Designer / Developer John Romero walks us through In this retrospective of the classic PC game Wolfenstein 3D CZ Side note Wolfenstein 3D was the very first PC Shareware game that I bought. It is also the first FPS I ever played. One night My dad brought home a generic Continue Reading