I should add ‘We Know the Devil’, which is a popular paid visual novel game.
(edit: oh, just say no visual novels. I’ll think of something else, then)
Ah, right: Knights of San Francisco by IFComp alum Filip Hráček is a fun app that is based on Twine.
That’s how I would think of it.
The data points are too far apart and too different from each other to make out any kind of trend.
FWIW, I have seen a rather strong ramp in attention (and in sales, somehow) when I started “promoting”* games I made for the retro market.
I.e.: I have 3 games (and a half) on Itch.io. 2 small, Punyinform games and one larger I7 quasi-award-winning game. The former get like 99% of the attention (tbh the latter is 13 years old, the others are semi-new) and while I’ve sold dozens of A1RL0CK and RUIN, especially to old systems users, I have sold 1 (one) Andromeda Awakening.
Also: now the Puny games of mine are going to be sold in a nice retro-style, Infocom-ripoff packaging and I will be able to tell you more about those in a few months.
So: nostalgic beats modern 95-1, it seems. And it gets a LOT more coverage on dedicated sites and magazines.
—-
This this this! I never meant to imply that what you’re planning isn’t valuable, but rather, when you don’t know what you don’t know, don’t necessarily walk in to an interview with a list of 20 questions.
Instead, ask open ended questions, like:
And then, just let the interview go where it takes you. Stay curious, ask follow up questions, and let your subjects share their hearts with you.
Try to absorb each author’s wisdom, rather than their raw data.
EDIT: One of the oddest things about expressions of wisdom is that they are rarely “actionable.” For example, “stay curious” doesn’t tell you what questions to ask, or what to do with the answers, or when you’ve gone too far into analysis paralysis. But, nonetheless, it is wise to stay curious. “Trust yourself” tells you almost nothing about what to do. But, trust yourself. Stay curious. Listen with your heart. It’s worth it for its own sake, not because you’ll gather actionable insights, but because you’ll be glad you did.
Yeah! If I wasn’t already in a WIP, I’d go and write another 8-bit game now just to get more of those nice magazine articles 
-Wade
I also wanted to say, placing the shoe on the foot of someone who might be interviewed re: this theoretical Rosebush article, I did think – well, I think I’ve probably already said most of the commercially stuff I’d have to say about Leadlight Gammas’ commerciality in various posts on intfic over time. Repeating that info wouldn’t excite me personally, but summarising it might help. Actually, I’d probably first search up what I’ve said before in case I forgot stuff, which I’m sure I have, and to track past changes of mind 
But (a) this is only my case, and (b) something new might come up tangentially that would excite me, anyway.
-Wade
I can see Amanda wanting to turn it all into measurable data though…
What advice would you give your past self?
On a scale from 1 to 10
What did you find the most fulfilling about working on your project?
A: 42
B: July 4, 1776
C: Delaware
D: None of the above
What inspired you?
True or False
…I just don’t know if she’s capable of “wingin’ it”. 
I’ll say it again: I’ve never looked at this project that way. I’ve never thought of it as providing “actionable” information that people should take as some sort of bible-- how can it? But if you’re going to do something that requires as much work as making a commercial game, I’d think you’d want to know something about what the very few intrepid souls who have attempted it have encountered, and what their results have been. If everyone’s making less than $100/year, that’s a solid data point for the limited sample set we have, and something you should be aware of going into a project like this. Does that mean you shouldn’t shoot for the stars and that’s all you can expect no matter what you do? Of course not. Will there be any solid data points like that? Maybe. Maybe not. I absolutely think it’s worth asking. We’ll all see how it pans out if I get off my ass and do it.
But I do want to start with some fairly tight questions and then go back with more personalized followups. I don’t really know what to expect from this, so I’m going to adapt as needed.
No might about it, Wade. I’ll be bugging you. The only question is whether you’ll tell me to buzz off because you’re too busy writing the game that’s going to beat all the odds.
See, that’s the kind of insightful feedback that turns a thought experiment into a top-notch project! I’m replacing “What’s your sign?” with this.
I think Amanda’s idea is cool (if I understood it correctly). It won’t turn a reader of those interviews into a business expert or millionaire, but that’s not the goal anyway, right? Would be cool to hear from authors who tried making money.
I fear that pure-text parser games which are not retro won’t make much money, but hey, you can’t have it all.
Ha! Love it!
I hope my sense of humour doesn’t rub people the wrong way here. Your passion for trying to understand the commercial viability of IF is much needed!
I think the main currency of all media industries is popularity, so thinking about games that are popular is maybe more interesting than thinking about money. Many people have converted popularity into money, whereas initially trying or expecting to make money from a niche genre sounds like a dubious business strategy. Not that popularity measures anything meaningful. How many people have played the most popular recent IF games? A few thousand? I think a lot of IF games actively embrace unpopular design choices - small artsy games, old style text adventures, lack of graphics - and that’s both why people in the IF community like them and why they aren’t popular more broadly (and why a single person can make them).
There are many games that have achieved some level of popularity that are basically IF that don’t meet your strict criteria of being commercial text only games without a business or marketing department. A few relatively recent examples are Road Warden, Reigns, Seedship, etc etc etc.
Does Danganronpa count? I’m not sure visual novels are included.
Chiming in to say this type of research is deeply interesting to me. I agree the data set is small - I would actually love to see a few of these factors plotted against each other: budget (incl. time/team size), profit over time, platform(s), features, release year. Even anecdotally we can start to extrapolate trends with more information than the sliver of articles half remembered in the past.
I think it’s also useful to know where communities draw the line for genre (or microgenre, however we define the niche enjoyed by a “small” audience), and this helps set benchmarks for anyone outside the community.
As an aside, I would also be interested in any market research coming from player demographics: what percentage of IF-likes are VNs? What countries and languages are players playing in? How much longevity of IF & adjacent sub-genres benefit from in comparison to the rest of the gaming landscape? How successful are IF games on major platforms vs. minor ones in terms of reach?
All that is to say I think you’ve got a good track and I’m excited to see where it leads.
“1893 A world’s fair mystery” by Peter Nepstad is one of my favs, but by the time I played it was already released to public domain.
I paid for my copy of Hadean Lands, an exceptional game, but I did not finish it, and suspect that there may be some overarching meta puzzle about the magic system which I have not discovered.
I paid for my copy of around the world in 80 days, which I played about seven times before it began to feel repetitive, although I’m sure there is additional content I missed.
As someone mentioned above, I’m going to be releasing a commercial game coming up.
I’ve worked on my storefront:
and I have versions that will work on all major systems (apps for windows and linux, html/local storage for mac, gblorb for us with Fabularium and Frotz for mobile).
I’m going to charge $7.50 for the app versions and $5.00 for the bare gblorb.
I might make a trailer if I have time; I made a ‘game’ trailer earlier and my real trailer would just be a playthrough of that but recorded and maybe some music added.
I plan on advertising on the r/interactivefiction subreddit and maybe choiceofgames and tumblr, and whichever nostalgia game subreddits accept promotion posts.
I don’t plan on advertising to forum-goers here, as a) anyone I know I’d be happy to give a free copy, and b) for forum-goers there’s not much valuable in the commercial version. The only benefits it has compared to the stripped-down version (which I will update) are hyperlinks and images and the convenience of an app, none of which really matter when it comes to what most forum-goers like.
I think there’s a very good chance I got only 1 purchase total (maybe 25% chance?) and a 90% chance I get less than $100 total. This is more of a testrun; I’d like to work up to releasing on Steam and possibly iOS and android (with native apps) but I want to try a smaller market first.
So whatever you’re studying, you can study it ‘live’. Fortunately I have very low expectations; my hope is when I release on Steam I can make about $1000. I have that hope because one parser author on Steam told me he barely made back the cost of his art and trailer and that he spent $1000 on it, and on the gamedev subreddit people who complain about being utter failures often say they only made $1000. So, games with bad advertising or other undesirable factors can make $1000, so why couldn’t I? But itch is the test run, mainly because many people who could give me help or advice said they wouldn’t even bother if I hadn’t tried itch first.
Edit: More specifically, most people who I sought advice from would only give advice for optimizing income from a game, and were unable to give advice for a non-optimized game as described above.
Editedit: By the way, I don’t predict sales will be low because the game is bad; I’m trying the app version right now and it’s actually very fun and convenient with its autosaving. I just don’t know anyone who’s actually made money off of Itch.
To save you viability research re: venues where you can promote, and their rules, or at least give you an overview of the ground, have a look at the lists in my kickstarter pdf. Two years old now but I expect you will find the world mostly the same.
Edit- doc direct link https://intfiction.org/uploads/short-url/olIwUy1eln2uigjkXiocjZ3ow8o.pdf
Hosting post:
I have a little more to say (nothing remarkable, I’m afraid) but will wait til I’m at a keyboard.
-Wade
The blurb looks good in the page. Catchy. But have you considered changing the game name for the commercial release?
Not that the current name is bad, but it would mark it as something distinct from the free version. Also, to me at least, the name conjures up macabre images of dead bodies in lakes or shipwrecks - not an especially pleasant idea to sell.
Instead perhaps, something simple, easy and catchy. Because people don’t dwell a lot in the sea of apps and it’s the very first, and most important, hook. Oh yeah, and something google-able.
What do other people think?
Best of luck!
If you’re subtracting from the pool of possible buyers for the itch version the majority of people we know would like this game (the forum goers, for instance) the pool becomes very small indeed
I have more on my mind than I thought I would. I guess it’s my speculations about why you @mathbrush want to sell it on itch. Possible reasons I derive from your thread include – ‘to make $1000 (eventually)’, which works, you could say Leadlight Gamma has a goal like that, too – and ‘as a dry run for Steam’. If the latter, then my question would be - why do you want to sell this particular game on Steam? The answer could be ‘to make money commercially from IF’, but the rewards for this particular project, already released for free and which is a hardcore parser game, are looking low versus effort required. Even more so if you step up to the effort demanded by maintaining a Steam release.
I know you’re very data-driven. People with the number one goal of trying to make money from Steam or itch or Roblox tend to move entirely into that data world, and it makes things a lot more quantifiable, but their games are more conservative and market-driven. e.g. Is this Roblox game taking off after I threw $700 sponsorship at it? If not, forget it and do the next one. That’s their approach. They also accept entire worlds of limitations of subject matter, gameplay elements and likely monetisation obligations, before they’ve even started.
My instinctive feel about the game you’re trying this with is, it could go okay as an extra or premium edition for people who really like the game, rather than you aiming it at new folks. However it’s already available for free, as are the more valuable things about it. I guess I feel a different game might be a better prospect for your experiments than this one. At least as an actual experiment in making money, and more money than time and money spent.
As a technical experiment in releasing commercially on itch, the costs of any kind are low and you’ve released free things on itch before, so you know all about that process. Having dealt with Steam myself, though, I don’t know if I’d want to go through the pains of releasing a game in NGUHD’s particular situation, and with its qualities, there, without any especial fanfare.
While I’m sharing my past experiences and thoughts re: this release, I don’t actually want to stop you having an experience where you expect to value the experience itself. A Steam experience comes with ongoing monetary, graphic design, multi-platform upkeep and tech pain obligations.
-Wade
Thanks! This was very helpful (and seemed in-line with what I’ve learned).
That’s honestly not a bad idea. It is pretty baked-in in several areas, though, and with a release just three days away I don’t have time to guarantee it will work.
But if I do do another big release (iOS app or Steam) that would be a good time to switch!
I guess that’s part of it; everyone who’s done it talks about how bad it was, like a life-changingly bad experience, and I kind of want to see what it’s like.
That’s a good idea, but I don’t think I ever have it in me to make something like NGUHD again or anything even close. I recently replayed all of my old games and, outside of my commercial choicescript game, this game is bigger than my entire oeuvre put together and does almost everything better. If I can’t sell it to strangers, I’ll never be able to sell one of my games to strangers. Maybe. But I have a lot of life to live so I guess I’ll keep trying!
As for keeping stuff free on the forums, I agree that you’re right. On the other hand, what I see from the forum crowd is that if I make a game commercial 10 people will pay for it and of those ten maybe 1 will comment and review, while if it’s free 100 people will play it and 4-8 will comment and review, and for that specific target audience I’d rather have the few extra reviews rather than $50. If itch has a ‘momentum’ thing where the first few sales kick you into more visibility, then I guess forum sales would be worth it, but I don’t know if that’s a thing.
I think itch ratings are what propel recommendations, combined with tags. Maybe. I don’t think I’ve gotten a lot of ratings there.
I’ve bought several IF games on itch and Steam, and I’m sure I will continue to do so. I don’t mind paying for good content. At all!
