December 7 Update

First, we have another piece of map fanart, this time from Lamsey! While this is not a strictly canon map of Ari-Yhilina, the two of us did work together for a while about how the city should be structured and what all should be included. Naturally the cities of the game are supposed to be larger in "reality" than can be represented in maps the player has to navigate, so I hope people have fun seeing the idea fleshed out a little further. ^-^

Now, for this post I want to talk about how TLS has done since its launch. As I write this, the Steam page is sitting in this position:

Could be worse. I'm surprised the rating has stayed at Overwhelmingly Positive, which seemed improbable for a while. A look at the overall reviews graph is informative:

The right graph is one month, so the largest surge of reviews is off the left-hand side. You can see how the negative reviews were coming in and the average rating was dropping.. and then about a month after launch, we got that new surge of reviews. I didn't ask or anything, so I'd guess that's just people who started the game at launch having played enough to leave their reviews.

That trend has declined as well, but it seems likely that TLS will eventually reach 1000 reviews. This doesn't unlock anything or particularly matter, it would just be kind of nice to reach four digits. ^-^ Hard to predict when this will happen.

So what does this mean, in terms of players finding the game and the business end? Judging by Steam metrics, about 7000 new players started up the game, though I don't know how many actually played a substantial amount. My Steam followers increased by about 400, which is not a meaningless metric since that helps future launches.

Since the game is free, none of this means financial support for me. The number of people who bought the DLC is in the high hundreds, not the thousands, so launch month is more like a blip in the long term trend, not anything that changes my career in a meaningful way.

I want to be grateful for all the people who have lent their support, and for the success I've found, but I think it's a fair assessment to say that TLS failed to get above the tide of Steam games and attract substantial attention. Of course, TLS has never been a viral hit, so it will stick around for a long time to come, and hopefully some percentage of the people who find it will decide to support me.

This might all sound a little gloomy, and yeah, now that the release rush is over, there's a part of me that feels this way. I've put in an enormous amount of work, both during release month and over the past decade, in order to do... okay.

On the other hand, I should be grateful for what I have, and I am! By strange coincidence, another game released from EA at around the same time as TLS, and this is where it's sitting now:

Now, you may not have heard of this, but I've been watching it because Malys is the newest project from David Gaidar, long-time writer at Bioware. He was the lead creator for huge franchises like Dragon Age, arguably one of the most influential writers in RPGs for years. After leaving Bioware (citing increasingly anti-writing attitudes), he launched a new independent studio, which had some early strong successes. Gaidar is on social media a lot, so I don't know what all he's written, but I think he's a good writer and I've always thought he seemed reasonable in his long form articles on RPGs and the industry.

Summerfall Studios isn't Bioware, but even that makes me look like amateur hour: it has like a dozen employees and budgets in the hundreds of thousands USD. They can do marketing things I completely fail at, plus they have Gaidar's following, and they weren't able to overcome the Steam algorithm either.

Considering since launch, that's 50 reviews at 74% positive. For contrast, TLS had 202 reviews over the same period, 95% positive. I feel a bit self-conscious doing a comparison like this, and obviously many people looking at the two would see a game with a budget and style vs an RPG Maker porn game.

But, even if it's a bit of a salve, I do take this as a sign that everything I've tried to do has some value. The industry is tough for everyone and it's remarkable that I've been able to make a career for myself. I did the best I could with TLS, and as I've said, I intend to keep supporting it for everyone playing in the future (whether fans starting yet another run or new players).

Having said that, I think it's also a strong confirmation that my diversification is essential. TLS is ultimately a niche game that wouldn't exist without Patreon, which is vulnerable in many different ways. I have always been vocal about how I don't want to make one project and then disappear, I want to do this forever.

And lest this read too negative to anyone, I want to be clear that I am not in a bad position. Between all my projects, I'm financially stable and excitedly looking toward all the projects I've discussed for the future, it's just a question of what I can tackle next. Thank you all for your support that brought us this far. ^-^