Hunters of the Dead was developed during the spring of 2014. It is a roguelike strategy game that was developed for PC, and was released at September 4 2014. We wanted to try out Steam but we were quite intimidated by the number of unknown factors that exist in such a procedure. We were lucky to get approached by a publisher (Strategy First) which at the moment seemed a good way to enter the world of steam more…smoothly. At the moment we had no marketing/ promotion knowledge and even the procedure of Greenlight was quite a mystery for us.
Even like that we were not prepared for the sudden influx of customers on the page’s forums on the first days of the release. Feedback seemed very contradictory about the difficulty of the game.
After a few days players got more used to the roguelike system we used and comments appeared to be more manageable. Most of the customers were happy with our effort and engagement and that lead to quite some positive reviews. Most of the players that commented on the forums were people who wanted to understand and play the game. The more we explained it to them the more grateful they were. We had an 84% positive review score 3 months later and by that time there were enough videos, comments and updates for the new players to understand what it’s all about.
During January we decided to participate in a bundle. At the moment it seemed like a good way to spread the word a little since up to that point there were only a few reviews and we had no notable marketing. We joined a “Horror” themed bundle from Indiegala. The bundle was the “Indiegala Friday special bundle #9” and it’s “attraction” was “Five Nights at Freddy’s”. Other than this game the other ones were relatively unknown games. So how did it go?
The bundle was quite a mistake for us. The income from the bundle was not something noteworthy, but the 17.000 keys that were spread worldwide are a problem for us to this day. Every illegal key seller now had a bunch of keys from our game which even now sold at a price 5 times lower than ours. Furthermore our positive review score dropped from 84% to 60%. Obviously entering a bundle with a game with such a following is not something you should do. Players that purchased the bundle had absolutely no interest in Hunters of the Dead (most of them purchased it for “Five nights at Freddy’s”). Their feedback was rude and irrational and they had no interest in giving the game a second chance. Besides it had only costed it them a few cents, so they had zero investment in the game. I am sure that not all bundles have this effect but right now bundles seem like a very dangerous area. As you can probably understand sales dropped massively after the bundle thanks to the low rating and the low-price illegal keys.
However thankfully the costs of development were covered, and we can now continue doing what we love. Steam is a great platform to engage with the players and really understand their needs.