The answer to every "My game didn't succeed on launch. Why?" post.

I'm making this post because I see a lot of 'my game didnt sell well, why?" posts. Im not complaining about those posts, asking and learning is great! It's just gets to the point where the posts and answers get redundant and sometimes ignored because how often theyre posted.

It's highly likely that your game didn't sell better for one, or several, of a few reasons.

  1. You did not market the game well, or at all. If no one knows about your game, they cant buy it, can they? Maybe you did try to market, but you didn't spend enough time doing it. Marketing for an indie game takes a LONG time. Years, sometimes. The sole exception is the one in a million viral game, which you should NEVER count on your game being. Try to be it, yes, but never expect it.
  2. Your game isn't seen as good. I'M NOT SAYING YOUR GAME ISN'T GOOD (for this topic). I'm saying it may not APPEAR as such. Your trailer don't show enough actual interesting gameplay (which is also a part of marketing). The game doesn't hook the player early enough in the game, which sucks but the internet is full of people with attention spans shorter than the hair on my bald spot.
  3. Saturation of your genre. You may have made a sensational game in a genre, let's say... a new battle royale game for example. But if the average gamer already has Fornite, CoD Warzone, PUBG, Realm Royale, Apex Legends, etc, they might not even care to look at another.
    1. 3a - There is NO market for your game. A couch co op with no online functionality and no cross platform functionality about watching paint dry (just an example...) not gonna do well.
  4. Sometimes the truth hurts, and your game may just not be good. *shrug* Nothing anyone can do about that but you making it better.
  5. The worst reason, because there isnt much you can do about it, is bad luck. You can do EVERYTHING RIGHT. You can make a great game, market it correctly, did your research on saturation, everything, and still do poorly simply because.....*gestures vaguely*. It happens to way more people than you think, is every walk of life. It SUCKS, because it tends to make the person feel like they did something incorrectly when they didnt, and can discourage.

Regardless of the reason, never stop trying. If your game doesnt do well, look into why, and fix it. Be it for that game, or your next.

Good luck.