n++ could be doing better

Discussion about latest version of N; N++ (Available on PC & PS4)

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Postby sidke » 2015.08.19 (07:51)

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... t175815216
This is something that we're really frustrated with -- we just expected that, since (IMO) the game is pretty decent/significant/interesting, we would be reviewed by everyone. But it appears that these days, unless you know someone at the publication, they're not necessarily going to review your game! :/

Unfortunately, this is sort of a by-product of the rush we had at the end -- our plan was to finish the game, then spend a month contacting press. Sadly we were all-hands-on-deck trying to finish the game right up until launch (we cut the launch trailer literally the day before launch) which means we didn't have any time to contact press.

Possibly we were also a bit idealistic, we figured that everyone would be able to see that N++ was something special, a game with a very high level of craftpersonship put into it; we figured that with only 3 people, we would rather put all our energy into making the game exceptional and hope that this would make it stand out and attract attention, but sadly a lot of people seem to be dismissing it as "essentially N+".

(we are sadly competing in a market where some indie devs spend literally half of their budget on marketing; IMO this is a sick and sad degenerate strategy to pursue, but O guess that's just life under post-capitalism)

Anyway, the net result has been that the game isn't selling very well; if we're lucky then lifetime sales on PS4 will let us break even, but this is a stretch (it would require us to sell about 5x as much as we have thus far, not impossible but not easy either).

We would really appreciate it if anyone willing would write to Kotaku/Polygon/Edge/IGN/etc. to ask them to please review this damn game! It's a bit horrifying that we've spent so long making something that we think is quite special, only to have it fall on mostly deaf ears :(

(don't get me wrong -- we're really happy that our fans like it, it has been wonderful watching streams, but we know for a fact that there are literally hundreds of thousands of N+ fans out there, and so far our sales results indicate that almost none of them know that N++ exists!)

Sorry if this reply is a bit negative, it has been a difficult couple of weeks; thank you so much to everyone for caring enough about our game to discuss it like this, it's really awesome :)

p.s - for the record, this is Raigan rather than Mare; I haven't been able to get an approved NeoGAF account so I'm sharing Mare's :)
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Postby shomman » 2015.08.19 (10:58)

Shit.

That really sucks.

Let's get writing, I suppose.
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Postby SpartaX18 » 2015.08.19 (12:01)

I found these reviews:
Edit: over 30 reviews from sites like Metacritic, GameSpot and GamesRadar, so... I think we should stay positive. Others, like IGN should review it soon as well -- N++ made a bigger impact than i thought it will make and i doubt those 'giants' will miss the opportunity to review the game.
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Postby shomman » 2015.08.19 (12:18)

SpartaX18 wrote:I found these reviews:
Edit: over 30 reviews from sites like Metacritic, GameSpot and GamesRadar, so... I think we should stay positive. Others, like IGN should review it soon as well -- N++ made a bigger impact than i thought it will make and i doubt those 'giants' will miss the opportunity to review the game.
Yeah, there is some good news for sure, but what Raigan was emphasising was they missed the launch. Hype around a games launch is really important for sales, and it's been 3 weeks since launch, with no article. Although that period has passed, there is still hope, you're right.
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Postby SpartaX18 » 2015.08.19 (12:49)

shomman wrote:what Raigan was emphasising was they missed the launch. Hype around a games launch is really important for sales, and it's been 3 weeks since launch, with no article.
Of course, i know that. I was just raising the subject of reviews, since i was afraid to talk about the rest without any knowledge :P
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Postby Fnord » 2015.10.20 (23:50)

This really makes me sad.

I will repeat what I said elsewhere - I would pay through the nose for a drm- and steam-free PC version, through a kickstarter or elsewhere. But it sounds like that's unlikely to happen. Which is... sad. Really sad.

I've read a couple of the feedback on reddit regarding this, and it makes it pretty clear that people thought there were a couple of major mistakes - expecting to have a nieche title sequel go viral on a platform different from the prequels for $20 without marketing.

As much as I don't want to, I kinda have to agree. I personally would pay a LOT more than that (I'd buy typical top tier kickstarter packages for this), but I don't want to buy and run a console just for this title - it's not even the financials, it's just that I'm not a console (and maybe even more importantly, gamepad) person.

So, the actual question that I suspect interests many here - what can we actually do to make a PC version happen? Other than pledging, I'm not sure what *I* can do. Ideas?

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Postby EddyMataGallos » 2015.10.21 (19:21)

I would gladly contribute if a kickstarter campaign was created, not sure how much we can do and what kind of financiation they would need for a steam release though.
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Postby raigan » 2015.11.06 (18:32)

hey everyone,
There's a new blog post with a bit more info: http://www.metanetsoftware.com/blog/2015/moving-forward

The main thing is, a PC version *will* happen, it's just a matter of when/how (as we're looking for a replacement programmer who can hopefully deal with the code).

Thanks for your support/patience! :)
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Postby shomman » 2015.11.07 (00:20)

HOOOOOOOOOOOLYYYYYY FUCK YES!
DONT MIND WHEN. JUST MIND THAT.
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