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How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

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Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#101

Post by gamblor956 »

deckar01 wrote: post #43
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It nearly got me to purchase something on the Epic Store. Nearly.

They hyped up this game for over a year, promoted it on Steam, then sold out to the Epic store at the last minute claiming the decision was for "financial stability due to the uncertain nature of the game's popularity". They had a mailing list on their home page as soon as it went up. They knew exactly how many hundreds of thousands of people were waiting to buy the game.

Mailing lists represent potential buyers, not actual buyers.

There have been articles on HN about mailing list conversion rates. Depends on the product, but the usual # was 1-3%, with outliers being as much as 15%.

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#102

Post by Loughla »

glogla wrote: post #93
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It nearly got me to purchase something on the Epic Store. Nearly.

I don't understand why people have problem with Epic Store. Isn't this just the competition everyone should want? Steam takes 30 % of your money. Epic takes 12 %. They are competing on cost. Why would that be a problem? Why is that part of capitalism where Steam has near-monopoly on Games okay, but not the part where they have to compete with someone? Why would someone have loyalty to one huge corporation over anothe…

I think it's less about the price and more about the fact that their 'winning strategy' seems to be to just throw money at exclusives until they win.

Maybe that's the push-back?

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#103

Post by gamblor956 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #90
EamonnMR wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, the EGS hate feels like an AstroTurf. I just do not get it.

It's a crappy store that seeks to compete with the dominant market player not through being better, but through throwing shit-tons of money at timed exclusives. Which itself isn't really that bad, but it doubled down on being hated when it started snatching up community funded games that were otherwise intended for release on several other platforms.

Epic is a better store for game creators.

It's about on par with or better than what Steam was when it first launched. Steam was an absolute clusterfuck when it first launched, and Valve only got away with it because they tied Half Life 2 to Steam.

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#104

Post by deckar01 »

glogla wrote: post #93
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It nearly got me to purchase something on the Epic Store. Nearly.

I don't understand why people have problem with Epic Store. Isn't this just the competition everyone should want? Steam takes 30 % of your money. Epic takes 12 %. They are competing on cost. Why would that be a problem? Why is that part of capitalism where Steam has near-monopoly on Games okay, but not the part where they have to compete with someone? Why would someone have loyalty to one huge corporation over anothe…

If that were the motivation, the publisher would sell on both platforms and just charge more on Steam due to the markup. That is never what happens. Epic is locking content creators into exclusive contracts, because their business model requires on-boarding tons of users onto their platform and they are willing the throw cash at the problem. Steam does not monopolize games. You can usually download them directly from the publisher and other retailers like Humble Bundle. Epic is uniquely hoarding high-profile releases. Unfortunately they are also providing a sub-par user experience, which is what a lot of the negativity stems from.

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#105

Post by Loughla »

adventured wrote: post #45
Phillips126 wrote: post #38

Looks like a whole new genre of games have recently been invented: - Goat Simulator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvWGLcdI8o8 - Untitled Goose Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LL2AtHo1gk - Pigeon Simulator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb30jQ_Bpmg

- SimAnt (1991): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimAnt

Jesus, if there's one game I'd pay for again on Steam or other format, it's that one.

Well, that and maybe the original Leisure Suit Larry, just to see why I wasn't allowed to open that game at all.

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#106

Post by wlesieutre »

glogla wrote: post #93
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It nearly got me to purchase something on the Epic Store. Nearly.

I don't understand why people have problem with Epic Store. Isn't this just the competition everyone should want? Steam takes 30 % of your money. Epic takes 12 %. They are competing on cost. Why would that be a problem? Why is that part of capitalism where Steam has near-monopoly on Games okay, but not the part where they have to compete with someone? Why would someone have loyalty to one huge corporation over anothe…

What bugs me is locking stuff in to exclusives while having a half-baked store platform. It'd be one thing if their service was near parity with Steam, but they started doing this while it was missing essential features.

Stuff like cloud sync for game saves or being able to buy games as a gift to someone else's account. It's 2019. You shouldn't launch a game platform without syncing saves to the account. Looking at you too, Oculus.

It's catching up and I haven't minded the platform for Borderlands, but I'd have felt better about using it if they'd had a more fully baked system to launch with.

I also don't love having yet another game store/updater/launcher platform, but that ship has sailed.

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#107

Post by on_and_off »

glogla wrote: post #93
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It nearly got me to purchase something on the Epic Store. Nearly.

I don't understand why people have problem with Epic Store. Isn't this just the competition everyone should want? Steam takes 30 % of your money. Epic takes 12 %. They are competing on cost. Why would that be a problem? Why is that part of capitalism where Steam has near-monopoly on Games okay, but not the part where they have to compete with someone? Why would someone have loyalty to one huge corporation over anothe…

Valve and by extension Steam have built a very positive reputation.

IMO they have squandered a lot of it lately but they remain very popular and people are just extremely used to the steam launcher.

I for one am VERY happy that somebody is forcing Steam to stop being complacent and is competing on margins (30% is a LOT of money).

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#108

Post by on_and_off »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #36
paulmd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if this isn't the work of a viral marketing company, they certainly have the possibility of a new line of work ahead of them after this. I can't remember seeing a viral marketing campaign as effective as this in a long time. edit: this comment is apparently oddly controversial for a startup-oriented forum. Perhaps someone could explain why? They have really struck marketing gold in a way most small companies would en…

I've seen a few people on Reddit insist that it must be an astroturf campaign. Because Reddit would never latch onto some random thing and meme obsessively about it for months, otherwise. It's extremely streamer-friendly (i.e. "fun to watch other people play and react to"), which is a big boost to virality, and it got featured by a hugely popular YouTuber (Dunkey) four days after its launch. And it got lucky. It's no…

FWIW I also saw it covered on sites like RPS for what feels like years (and might be, it had a very long dev time).

I ended up buying it on Switch shortly after its release.

I spent a very fun couple of hours on this game and memed a lot about it with my partner.

It is not going to have the profound emotional impact that e.g. Outer Wilds had on me but that goose animation and sound designs are perfect and make for good memes that I will also remember.

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#109

Post by excalibur »

InvisibleCities wrote: post #22

>“Untitled Goose Game is a safe, socially acceptable way to relieve stress,” the Washington Post declared shortly after the game’s release. “It’s the new punching a wall. It’s the new crying at your desk.” Likening crying at your desk to a delightful video game is exactly the kind of analogy that I would expect from one of Jeff Bezos' employees.

> Likening crying at your desk to a delightful video game is exactly the kind of analogy that I would expect from one of Jeff Bezos' employees.

I would expect them to identify more with "crying as you pack boxes as fast as you possibly can for 12 hours."

Re: How Untitled Goose Game became a real video game

#110

Post by wl »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17
paulmd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if this isn't the work of a viral marketing company, they certainly have the possibility of a new line of work ahead of them after this. I can't remember seeing a viral marketing campaign as effective as this in a long time. edit: this comment is apparently oddly controversial for a startup-oriented forum. Perhaps someone could explain why? They have really struck marketing gold in a way most small companies would en…

It nearly got me to purchase something on the Epic Store. Nearly.

The Epic Store won't allow me to create an account because I was a victim of reverse identity theft (https://www.xkcd.com/1279/) years ago. I guess Epic doesn't want me buying this or any other game from them.

Too bad this game is only available there.

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