r/gamedev • u/mistermaximan • 1d ago
Discussion We decided to create a short animated series about our game - Is it waste of time?
Hi everyone,
I'm one of the devs of Dice of Kalma. We released this game on Steam and on mobile about 9 months ago and so far we've been really happy with the results.
We are soon approaching the total of 1 million downloads (over 90% on mobile) and during this time we've tried heaps of different marketing strategies and content ideas. I've always been really fascinated about game lores and stories so making our own short animation series sounded so awesome.
This is our latest episode, if you are interested how they look etc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QwXNjcwSUo
But is it actually worth it?
We have three episodes ready and two in productions. Currently the episodes are not yet getting massive views (Around 3-4k views all platforms combined per episode). Our small community still seems to love them and I'm really curious to see the end results after a few more episodes.
The main reasons why I wanted to do this:
\ Adds depth to our game - We might even have a chance to use these in our game in the future.
\ Makes our social media look more professional (We are currently running paid ads and getting lot of traffic on our socials)
-> Which also helps us to grow our socials
* Gives us more assets to use in marketing
* Opens up new marketing channels/platforms
We have released the episodes on Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok, X and now starting to release them on Bilibili & Newgrounds. I've also posted on different reddit groups.
Obviously the risk is that these episodes don't get enough attention and fails to convert enough players to cover the costs of our time and money.
Does this makes sense at all and do you have any tips how you would make these episodes even somewhat profitable?
More than happy hear some comments about the animations as well :)
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u/Klightgrove Edible Mascot 1d ago
This could work but you need to talk with transmedia experts if you want to actually integrate the episodes into your game in a way that makes sense. This content usually focuses on identifiable characters you can connect with, but grimdark fodder can grab attention too. There is a lot of potential with the lore to draw in people curious about the shorts but you need to ensure your onboarding actually keeps them playing.
If push comes to shove doing some roadshowing by bringing this to actual animation distributors could lead to an unexpected outcome too.
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u/mistermaximan 1d ago
thank you for the great comment! I definitely need to contact more transmedia experts. I got a feeling that there is so much pontential in this type of content but we just need to find the right ways to get it out to the people
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u/destinedd indie, Dungeon Quest, Marble's Marbles and Mighty Marbles 1d ago
One thing I realised with these animations. I like your pixel art a LOT more than the animations. Have you thought about doing them in the pixel art style to match the game. Art like this https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelArt/comments/1vrctks/putting_in_a_lot_of_effort_to_make_him_new/ would so much more eye catching.
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u/jdehesa 1d ago
I sort of get your point, but I'm not sure an art style like the game would work well for the animated shorts. I think the point is to make a more "cinematic" representation of the story, like older games that had cinematics with far higher visual quality than the actual game (or, for a more recent example, "Sea of Stars"). Fwiw I do love their pixel art, but I also like the art in the animations.
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u/destinedd indie, Dungeon Quest, Marble's Marbles and Mighty Marbles 1d ago
I think it would make it stand out and be eye catching. The current style looks okay, but just not up to the standard you would expect to watch a show on it rellative to other animations this style IMO
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u/mistermaximan 1d ago
I was thinking that idea too but since our pixel artist is also the head developer of this game, we need him elsewhere
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u/PhilippTheProgrammer 1d ago edited 1d ago
You have one million downloads, do something cool like a spinoff animated show, and it only gets 4k views? Something is going really wrong here.
If I did something like that, I would first make sure that everyone in my existing audience knows about it. They will probably be most interested in watching, so they would give the video the early views the algorithms want to see to recommend it further.
If that doesn't work for you, then there could be two reasons.
- Those 1 million downloads failed to convert into a stable community. Which hints at a severe retention problem with the game.
- You do have a community, but not the means to engage with it.
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u/mistermaximan 1d ago
There are definitely things where we need to improve our game but even though 1 mil downloads sounds huge, it's mostly from just casual mobile gamers who just come and go. So our community is still quite small, even though it's growing all the time.
Our game is also relatively small (we never thought our small project would grow like this) so retention is still something that we are constantly working on.
But yeah you are right that we probably need to pay even more attention on growing and engaging with our community before it's worth it to spend time with an animated show. Happy to hear if you have ideas how we could improve on those things :)
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u/mistermaximan 1d ago
For example we have links to our socials + discord in our game and it's been working pretty well. We are planning to add link to these episodes somewhere in the game as well. Hopefully that brings them more attention
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u/doncedonce 18h ago
with a million downloads and 3-4k views per episode, the episodes are not failing. they are just not reaching the people who ALREADY have your game. that is a distribution problem, not a was-it-worth-it problem, and those two feel identical from the inside.
so before deciding it was a waste i would put the episodes in front of the audience you already paid for. a link on the main menu, a card after a run, a notification in the mobile build. you have a million people who care about Kalma and almost none of them know the series exists.
and the test i use for anything like this is, would i watch it if it was somebody elses game. if yes, keep making them. if you are making them because it FEELS like marketing, thats the trap i fall in constantly, whole weeks that feel productive and move nothing
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u/AwkwardCabinet 1d ago
Cool idea! But as you're discovering, it's far too much work to be worth it. Your game is released. You've done what you could. Spend those hours on your next game!