Mountains of Post-Mortem-ness
January 7, 2014 9:57 PM   Subscribe

"Last April, I began working on a game. In October, I released it. This is the story of Eldritch." David Pitman tells the story of developing and selling the roguelike/FPS Eldritch, described as equal parts Lovecraft and Minecraft. Includes lots of lovely sales figures.
posted by Artw (22 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
Eldritch could be longer and have more things to play with (the number of items and monsters is honestly a bit thin), but it's great fun and I can't wait to see what he does next.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:34 PM on January 7, 2014


Along similar (roguelike/FPS with a voxelated/minecrafty aesthetic) lines, Delver is worth checking out if such games are your jam. I haven't yet tried Eldritch myself, though, so I can't directly compare the two.
posted by kilo hertz at 1:59 AM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


Eldritch selling at 1.99 and making a bucket reminds me of Mastertronic.

Also, does the fact DayZ has been top seller on steam for almost a month* mean Steam isn't selling as much or DayZ is making Minecraft sales look like APB.

*Through a freaking Winter Sale without a discount too!
posted by fullerine at 3:07 AM on January 8, 2014 [2 favorites]


Oh wow, Delver's looking way better than the barely-functional demo I saw a video of awhile back. It looks like it's got less of a stealth focus than Eldritch (I mean, you don't have to sneak around in Eldritch, but you're going to get your ass handed to you if you try and go all commando), and more of a complicated set of roguelike elements (inventory, stats) to Eldritch's more lightweight, kinetic style. And for $8? I might have to jump in on the beta.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:04 AM on January 8, 2014


Delver is pretty fun. It's like a faster, lighter Ultima Underworld.
posted by Doleful Creature at 6:09 AM on January 8, 2014


Does Delver run on phones or is the Android flavor a tablet thing?
posted by The Bellman at 6:58 AM on January 8, 2014


Oh 3D first person perspective, is there any great game category you can't ruin?
posted by enn at 8:37 AM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hi, The Bellman. Delver runs quite well on my Droid.
posted by interstitial at 12:24 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


Those sales numbers are great. Every indie game success story seems to have the same wildly unpredictable revenue story. Some random event makes the game catch fire and suddenly the developer can afford fresh ramen. Good for him!

Here's David Pittman on Mobygames. His main previous credits are AI work on Bioshock 2 and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. (Don't be fooled by the VVVVVV credit.)
posted by Nelson at 2:53 PM on January 8, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's like you're trying to provoke me into gushing about Gone Home again. :D
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:53 PM on January 8, 2014


Thanks, interstitial!
posted by The Bellman at 7:36 AM on January 9, 2014


Why Rampant Sales are Bad for Players, by the Castle Doctrine guy. Not entirely sure I buy him on this.
posted by Artw at 3:18 PM on January 15, 2014


Oh my god, Castle Doctrine dude, Minecraft's price was able to rise and stay where it is because Minecraft sells incredibly well and people keep paying it. Mojang doesn't cut the price because Mojang has no reason to- they're already doing the sale volume of Eldritch or Castle Doctrine every single day.

I get that you want to keep making that full price money forever, but the idea that new things cost more and old things cost less isn't some quirk of video games, it's how everything in the world (other than things with vintage qualities, like certain kinds of audio gear, instruments, and clothing) works.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:45 PM on January 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I have a friend who works in mobile who it resonated with - apparently they had a sale once and have totally been dogged by people wanting it at that price ever since, where the difference is a few dollars, but mobile pricing is weird due to the whole one dollar thing.

I suggested the make their drawing app free and inkstrokes an in-app purchase.

Actually someone is probably already doing that.
posted by Artw at 11:50 PM on January 15, 2014


I'm not familiar with the one dollar thing, and Google's not helping. Got a synopsis?
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:02 AM on January 16, 2014


Basically the default price for all mobile Apps has somehow become 99c, making it difficult to charge more even if your selling the equivalent of something people would charge $50 for on desktop.
posted by Artw at 2:33 AM on January 16, 2014


(Thanks to the wonders of in-app purchasing that default price is now sliding down to 0.)
posted by Artw at 2:34 AM on January 16, 2014


Ugh, yeah. I was so looking forward to Plants Vs. Zombies 2, and it's a horrible F2P mess.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:05 AM on January 16, 2014


There is no point in time at which that game is not pushing a dollar sign into your face.
posted by Artw at 3:11 AM on January 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


Also holy shit but look at the first PvZ and then the second. Look how fucking bad the art is. PVZ looked pretty standard for a PopCap game. PvZ 2 looks like it was rushed out and done in Flash. It's like they deliberately made it look cheap and low-rent. It looks like a goddamned Bloons TD game.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:37 AM on January 16, 2014


Pus the gameplay becomes super grind-heavy for the better selling of shortcuts.
posted by Artw at 4:29 AM on January 16, 2014




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