188 - Releasing on Steam

Developer diaries about creating Neverending Nightmares.
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matt
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188 - Releasing on Steam

Post by matt »

In this developer diary, I talk about the importance of choosing the right time to release on Steam and making a splash on your launch day.

-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: 188 - Releasing on Steam

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

I've always liked the idea of Friday as a release date. That gives you the weekend to get into a game, I've never understood why Tuesday has become the standard. It seems to follow the lead of music and book releases in that regard. Digging around on the internet, there are different suggestions as to why Tuesdays are the go to release date for new music (Billboard charts start tracking sales starting on Monday, which is a bad release date because people don't buy as much stuff on Mondays, so Tuesday is the best day to get a full week's worth of sales results for the next chart release), but none of them seem like they SHOULD apply to video game releases. Is it just out of habit now or is there a business component to it as well?

But it looks to me like you picked a great release date! Although I'm sure there are some indie releases not covered on here, Wikipedia's list of September releases looks really light, especially for horror. The week you're releasing, aside from Ethan Carter, there's just some console ports of old horror games like Slender and Lone Survivor. The only "big" things I saw in general were the Dark Souls II DLC and a couple big AAA games that aren't even close to horror, like Disney Infinty 2.0 and FIFA 15. I really really doubt that we'll see the next Minecraft come out of nowhere that week, the odds seem very small :)
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matt
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Re: 188 - Releasing on Steam

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I believe it is Tuesday because that's the day the big box retailers restock their items, and it isn't just games. I believe it's Blu-rays, DVDs, etc as well.

One thing I noticed is Kraven Manor is also releasing on the 26th, but as near as I can figure, they are just releasing the free version with Steam achievements and whatnot, so I'm not sure why people would buy it instead of getting it for free, but maybe I'm missing something. Has anyone played Kraven's Manor? I meant to play it, but I never got around to it.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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RightClickSaveAs
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Re: 188 - Releasing on Steam

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

This is the first I've heard of Kraven Manor, I'll have to check it out. I thought I was up to date on most of the horror games out there, but it looks like this one slipped by me.
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matt
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Re: 188 - Releasing on Steam

Post by matt »

You can get the demo here. It sounds like they may not be actually adding content other than a few polish items to the game, but I could be wrong. They apparently all have full time jobs, and this was their student game, so I'm not sure how much time they've devoted to the Steam build, but I really have no idea.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
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