Two perspectives on sales and luck

Jake Birkett, as is his way, posted a tweet that prompted some reflection. Here it is: https://twitter.com/GreyAlien/status/1600913617372811276?s=20&t=SmvkeShC7Ziacz6o2DqHiw He may be responding to this thread by Momiji studios, though if he intended to make the association he would have done so. I am sympathetic to some parts of the thread, particularly the idea that data on …

The Ultimate Guide to Steam Wishlists in 2023

Steam wishlists are a leading indicator of a game's success and a significant area of focus for developers. They are used to forecast a game's sales and to break into the coveted Steam front page. Despite the significant attention they recieve, there are a lot of mysteries as to how wishlists work. The number requried …

Two Perspectives on Fairness in Game Pricing

Game pricing does not make a lot of sense. Most of us should be paying more for games, and at least some of them should get more expensive over time. The fact this doesn't happen may be strange, but the causes are not mysterious. Steam runs frequent sales events, and the practice of heavy discounting …

The Wages of Cheap

Unity's CEO, John Riccitiello has some ideas about what it takes to succeed in games and chose to express them in a really careless way. General sentiment towards Unity was falling at least among some developers due to shifting priorities, and a recent round of layoffs. The latest outrage came not so much from an …

Bringing Your Whole Self to Patch Notes

On March 8th the developer of Domina (bignic) decided to moonlight as a health authority/life coach and suffered backlash as a result. The opinion expressed is stupid and uninteresting, but for reference, the note that sparked the response was: TAKE OFF THE FCKN MASKS - Next time you're at the grocery store, try showing a …

Why do I need to know which Activision Blizzard executives worked in the Trump administration?

Activision Blizzard's executives have been criticized for a series of progressively tone deaf responses to the lawsuit brought by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and the resulting labour action. The company has done nothing to earn any sympathy, and the most charitable reading of the executive response would be 'failed to rise …

Should companies be allowed to buy games?

Drake Star Partners, an investment banking firm, published a report on deals in gaming made in the first three quarters of 2021. The report states that the total dollar value of acquisitions (announced or closed) is already twice that of 2020 in its entirety. The comparison to 2020 is even more striking considering that 2020 …

Store Wars: Imperfect views of imperfect markets

Economics has something of an edge when it comes to respectability among the social sciences, but it is often squandered by talking heads acting like everyone else is an idiot on TV. The benefit of taking an introductory economics class is not prestige or a set of talking points but rather a set of tools …

The maturity trap

Insecurity Tabletop role-playing games have sense of insecurity hiding just beneath the surface. They haven't become the cultural phenomena video games are and certainly don't bring in the same kind of revenue. When they did have a cultural moment, part of it was being the subject of a moral panic. The outside perception of the …

The Networks of Cultist Simulator

Cultist Simulator reveals its world through fragments and its lore is discovered by considering these fragments in relation to each other. The game's Discord server has an active community that discusses the lore of the world (now known as the Secret Histories), and there is plenty of room for interpretation about what is going on. …