In a post on his personal website yesterday, Eldritch creator David Pittman detailed the development of his popular title, and considered the positives and negatives he encountered when publishing through Steam.
In particular he explains that Steam Greenlight, while seen by many in the industry as a golden ticket for game devs, is not always a sure mark of success.
Shortly after launching the beta, Eldritch was greenlit for Steam. It took me by surprise; the Greenlight numbers had been strong, but there were still a significant number of games ranked higher than it when it was selected. I can only guess that the impending release date may have been a factor. I have mixed feelings about Greenlight (and the greater Steam developer experience), but my experience with it was obviously very positive compared to many other developers.
For better or worse, being on Steam is not an automatic windfall anymore. In fact, it looks like being on Steam may be the barest necessity for financial success for many developers. It’s a complicated topic which perhaps warrants a separate article.
On the plus side, Pittman admits, those Steam flash sales are pretty crazy.
I knew it was coming, but I had virtually no expectations for it. It looked like a poor timeslot, and I didn’t realize just how important front page visibility is during a Steam sale. When I woke up that morning, I quickly tweeted about the sale and then logged in to check the overnight numbers. I thought I was looking at the wrong numbers at first; Eldritch had literally doubled its units sold overnight! Even at such a low price, the revenue from the flash sale exceeded the total revenue of the Autumn Sale and the rest of the Holiday Sale combined.
Although Eldritch was a success for Pittman and his company, he’s currently unsure whether to continue to support the title, or start developing new projects. “Features like mod support and Steam achievements continue to be highly requested, but the cost-benefit analysis for those doesn’t look great.”
You can find the whole post here. It’s well worth a read.
