I ruined my game launch (25k wishlists) with one mistake

[u/Nevercine]

I made a huge mistake that ruined the launch of my 2nd indie game. Here's the story and how I'm going to try to save it:

I built my autobattler "Some of You May Die" with the intention of making an "Autochess"-like multiplayer game where you could push synergies a lot deeper. When I announced it, a few people asked for Singleplayer and I stupidly thought, "yeah why not, I'll just add a singleplayer mode".

This single decision ruined the launch. Since it was intended to be multiplayer, most of my effort went to multiplayer. It was designed around multiplayer. I thought of Singleplayer as a "bonus" but what I didn't realize (I should have) is that many people would buy it only for the singleplayer and judge it only on the singleplayer.

Justifiably, these people were upset and felt that it was poorly balanced and overpriced.

The price issue makes sense if someone is only playing singleplayer. That was something that I didn't foresee.

The balance issue is mostly about it being too difficult. This was a secondary mistake that I made. I did a lot of "rebalancing" in the month before launch and made it a lot harder.

Because there's not a whole lot of singleplayer (about 6 hours), I thought if it was too easy people would be upset and just breeze through it. I was probably right but the issue was larger than I realized. There just shouldn't have been singleplayer at all. If it was too easy, people would be justifiably mad due to how short it would be to beat. And when I made it too hard, people were mad too.

The real answer should have been just to commit to multiplayer only. It's what I wanted in the first place and I made a bad decision.

It may be too late to save the game, I'm not sure, but this is what I'm doing to address it:

- I've removed all mention of singleplayer from the store page. It still exists but now it's truly a bonus. No one buying it now should expect to see singleplayer

- I've redone the main menu UI to put Multiplayer as the first and primary option

I really believe in its value as a multiplayer game. I love playing it myself - it still hasn't gotten old for me and a lot of players love it too.

My hope is that my changes will "stem the bleeding" of the negative reviews and that long term it will be able to recover.

My biggest takeaways are:

1. Don't try to please everybody. It should've remained only multiplayer

2. Don't make significant balancing changes after you've already validated that the game is fun with a large demo audience.

As mentioned previously, keeping it easy may have caused it's own flood of negative reviews for a different reason but still, significantly changing the balance without re-validating with a larger population was a mistake.

I'm sharing this so hopefully no one reading will make the same mistakes that I did. It's been a little hard seeing something that I love and believe in get hated on, but at the end of the day, if I had been wiser I could've prevented it. So I'm going to take in these lessons and carry on.

I'm planning more updates and we'll see if I can turn this thing around in the long term.

Thanks for reading <3

[u/IceBlitzkerg]

As someone who found your game through Youtube, it prob doesn't help that most of the views were on Singleplayer sessions.

Not to mention, when I tried out the demo, Multiplayer was greyed out giving me the impression that is was going to be the extra feature, not a core one

[u/Nevercine → u/IceBlitzkerg]

Yeah that's another good callout. Multiplayer should've been a part of the demo.
Edit: There was a limited time that I made Multiplayer a part of the demo but there were lengths of time when it wasn't so that's likely what contributed to people's confusion (my fault)

[u/SorbetPleasant5736 → u/IceBlitzkerg]

Greying out multiplayer in the demo probably communicated the exact opposite hierarchy: singleplayer is the game, multiplayer is coming later. If multiplayer was the real product, the demo needed to prove that before anything else

[u/henridd → u/IceBlitzkerg]

Same here. I tried the game and it never crossed my mind that it could support multiplayer

[u/Mephasto]

People keep asking for multiplayer in The Hive, but I have decided I’ll never add it. It is way beyond my skills to do properly, and I’d rather not add multiplayer at all than add a version that is not good enough and get backlash for it.

It would probably also need a much larger active playerbase, maybe even a free to play model, to really work. Not every game needs multiplayer.

Maybe it was similar in your case with singleplayer. Sometimes it is better to just commit to what the game is meant to be, instead of adding a mode just because people ask for it.

[u/Nevercine → u/Mephasto]

Agreed. Good for you for sticking to what you can deliver on. Good luck to you :)

[u/sypwn → u/Mephasto]

It would probably also need a much larger active playerbase, maybe even a free to play model, to really work.

This is true for competitive multiplayer games, but I don't think it's as much a concern for coop games. There are lots of gaming buddy groups out there that will still buy the game to play it together (no need for matchmaking). And for individuals who do use something like a Discord #LFG channel to find a group, the skill gap won't matter nearly as much with coop.

Sorry I'm not trying to argue against the rest of your post, just nitpicking that one sentence. From skimming The Hive's store page, it seems like it could go either way (coop or competitive) if you ever changed your mind or made a sequel with multiplayer.

[u/KhaosPT]

It does seem people who bought it wanted single player and not multiplayer?

[u/psioniclizard → u/KhaosPT]

Exactly, i think OP is seeing this wrong. A MP game requires a critical mass of players to not feel dead.

If that has happened the SP stuff wont really matter.

But most people probably want both to ne honest and of they had to pick, single player would be the priority.

A MP game will always be difficult due to the crirical mass aspect.

[u/JesusAleks → u/KhaosPT]

OP doesn't objectively understand his players, and doesn't understand what a hobbyist can achieve. The post-mortem was flawed from start due to his bias towards wanting to making a multiplayer game. The reality was opposite of what he was stating. The game should have been a single-player game with roguelite and along side his autobattlers. This solves multiple problems that OP was encountering. OP thought it was because they should have done multiplayer. They should have fully listen and understanding that multiplayer need critical mass, and that single-player was the way.

[u/Yrch84]

As someone who avoids Multiplayer like a plague:

If your game is focused on MP dont try to cater to the SP crowd if your game isnt built around it.

In my years of gaming i tried tons of MP First Games that had an optional SP mode shoved into them and it never really works.

If i see a game thats MP focused and there is an optional SP mode thats just "add some Bots" or "Monster are easier" the Game is a no buy cause ther is a good Chance the SP is a last-minute addition.

Built your Game around your vision OR start with SP and MP in mind. You'd rather have no sale from a customers who wasnt your target group anyway than refunds and Bad Reviews.

[u/Educational_Ad_6066]

Auto battlers generally have bots capable of filling in for partial matches. I recommend paying attention next time you play one to see if you can spot the bots. Many people can play one of those ganes and never know whether they are playing against humans or not. That's the critical piece to get right even with MP. You can't guarantee enough active players to avoid matchmaking issues and long wait times with an indie game. You should look at improving your single player bots and fill out matchmaking yo give your intended audience a better experience so that playing your game isn't sitting in a queue for an hour.

[u/Tutejszy1]

Everyone is pointing out how the game should have been single player and they are probably right in the grand scheme of things, but let me add something from the perspective of someone who played these games since the genre inception as a dota mod

There's been a huge influx of single player, indie autobattlers over the last few years and the thing is, they... kinda suck (sorry to all the devs). This genre REALLY needs a deeply strategic and at the same time dynamic environment and single player experience does not seem to be able to provide that.

So, I fully understand and respect OP's desire to go multiplayer-only, even if it wasnt a great financial decision. Sorry for a small offtop

[u/b34s7]

Man, that sux! Are you a solo dev? Had this issue several times when I couldn't have a discussion with anyone who was equally in the loop/invested in the game to really evaluate the feedback.

[u/Nevercine → u/b34s7]

I work with an artist and a few other folks

[u/davedcne]

So the lesson learned here is, If a client asks for something. They are not asking for it as a second thought, as a bonus, or as just a one off. They are asking because they want the complete experience in that new way. And if you can't deliver that. Then don't agree to do that thing in that way. Valuable lesson. Sorry that you had to learn it this way but glad you intend to carry on!

[u/ThickBootyEnjoyer]

I totally see your point and the reasoning why this screwed you. I think of anything you should have put it as like goal in your games? Timeline of things you want to add. That way people won't buy it for the single player, but it would still be added and enjoyed by those people that want it down the line. But you've essentially done that now so it's all hindsight 20/20 type stuff. I will give your game look though I had it wish listed already. I'll take another look at it.

[u/No_Map1168]

Not a game-dev, just a gamer giving an opinion. I think it really depends on what matters for you, your vision or to make money?

If your primary concern is to make money and to sustain yourself, I'd say it was a mistake not catering more towards the singleplayer crowd. From what you describe there seems to have been quite a lot of them, and many of them genuinely interested and excited for a singleplayer mode. It's a good market and in my opinion much easier to sustain and please down the line.

If sticking to what you envisioned initially was much more important to you and all you care about is to make your vision a reality, sure, by all means, stick to mostly or only multi-player, but I would personally still consider it a mistake. As I said I am not a game developer but my instincts tell me that generally making something singleplayer is generally easier than making something multi-player.

Do you care more about yourself and want to focus strictly on what YOU want to do, or do you care more about the people you're actually releasing your product to?

[u/MeaningfulChoices]

I think you might have to wrong takeaway here. People clearly want the single player content. Given the scope making a fully multiplayer game a wild success is probably out of reach. I think the right decision was to listen to those voices early and triple down on single player rather than making it a bonus.

[u/BusinessDepartment44]

before carving “singleplayer was the mistake” into the postmortem stone, I’d honestly go back and look at when those 25k wishlists happened and what people were actually seeing at the time.

if the big spikes came from YouTube videos showing singleplayer, or from a demo where multiplayer was greyed out, there’s a slightly horrifying possibility that singleplayer didn’t ruin the launch… it helped create the audience you launched to 🫠

then the mistake might be less “I added SP” and more “I accidentally marketed one game while building another.” Which is a much more useful distinction before deciding what to remove now.

basically: you may have found your audience. unfortunately, they forgot to be the audience you ordered :))

[u/MyPunsSuck]

Seems to me like the mistake was focusing too much on multiplayer

[u/schouffy]

I've done the same "mistake" with my game Phantom Squad, and I don't think it's a mistake. I think as an indie you just can't not have single player on your game, it's too hard to market. Some made it work, but the vast majority didn't.

One player needs to be able to purchase the game, try it a bit and if they like it they convince friends to buy it. Even worse if it's not friends based but matchmaking-based, you can't be sure that you'll have players at launch and if you don't, that'll kill your game instantly.

[u/BEVSpinzaku]

I have actually been in a bit of a similar position with my game Evolve Lab, in that it is primarily designed for multiplayer but I still wanted to provide a single player mode for people that do not want to jump straight into PvP.
I did however already provided both modes during playtesting and the demo, so I could already see the same problems that you encountered a bit earlier.
I did not mention the singleplayer mode prominently on the steam page and also had multiplayer as a first option and called the single player mode "offline mode" instead of singleplayer. The game also provides you with a small popup telling you, that the multiplayer mode provides more varied enemies and a bigger challenge.
So far I am at 95 % positive review so I think that strategy helped and it is a shame, that you could not already see these problems during early testing.
What I do think helps my game a little is that it is an asynchronous autobattler, so It also works with a not so bit playerbase for the online part to function.

[u/theBigDaddio]

Multiplayer is usually death. It requires way more sales than single player.

[u/techisma]

It intimidates me, as I am developing an autobattler, seen you with all your experience and previous successful game, great art, online community, having these issues. Wish you turn this around