An Open Letter To The Warsim Community (The Future Of Warsim)
Hello Everyone!
I want to start this with a thank you to everyone that has made Warsim what it is. To so many bug reporters and those who've shared their awesome ideas, and to the many people who have followed along the development and motivated me to work on it further. All the support recieved has changed my life for the better and has been the main reason Warsim is where it is today!
I've said this before but when Warsim was in its earliest stages it was never even planned to become a commercial game. I never thought anyone would be interested in it. As I worked on it and shared it online I began getting donations and after a while it opened my eyes to the possibility of Warsim one day ending up on steam.
As you all know that possibility became reality, and for the last two years I've somewhat been able to support myself from Warsim development alongside selling things online and the occasional part-time job, this has allowed me to spend a reasonable amount of time on Warsim.
I'm currently surviving with Warsim but I genuinely believe with a bit of work it could expand beyond its relative obscurity in the gaming community to a more well known Indie title I understand that an CMD Ascii based game is never going to top the charts but I think it could still become better known among RPG players and fans of resimilar games. Over 14000 copies have sold online and our subreddit has over 1000 subscribers so Warsim and it's community aren't completely obscured but I really think it could grow far beyond.
My current plan involves a number of different steps:
* The Trailer [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube] - Warsim's trailer is terrible, it doesn't show any of what the game is about, it just flickers through some screens, I have a plan to rework this trailer with the help of a small team and will hopefully get it finished soon. I think this is important as the trailer in its current state doesn't scream professional legit indie game, it screams crappy indie game that isn't worth your time. The trailer was made when it first went on steam during early access in 2017 and it absolutely doesn't reflect the game as it is today.
* Improve the Quality of Warsim's store pages - I plan to further critique the store pages and try to update them where relevant because I feel it needs to look the best it can.
* Price increase - After the next few big overhauls I will consider increase the price of Warsim from $4.99 to $7.99 or somewhere there abouts, I am not entirely comfortable with the idea as I don't want to appear some scummy moneygrubbing dev but I really feel the game is worth more, having it at a higher price assuming sales mained a similar level would allow me to work on Warsim more so it's something I'm considering.
* Overhauls and a push to Full Release - For the longest time my approach to Warsim development has been just clearing through ideas of mine and other people, and adding stuff that I want to see in game, generally I've not been working on clearing the unfinished parts of the game and bringing us to full release which I feel I should. The goal going forward will be to complete all unfinished parts of Warsim, to add the major planned elements of the game and get it to the point where it can stand firmly as a complete and well rounded game... don't worry though I would most certainly continue developing and updating it for a long time post EA.
I also have some other ideas to expand Warsim's reach that I will try to pursue:
* Android Port - This has been requested by a fair number of people, I will need to work on evolving the Warsim code to be less windows only but if I can try to get the game emulated to the point it could be played on an Android Tablet I think it could really help create a new and fun experience on the platform and would also hopefully add an additional stream of financial support for the games development.
* Mac and Linux Port - This has been something heavily requested for a long time, although its been possible to run it through Wine it would be nice to be able to get Warsim some official Mac and Linux builds.
* A Limited Release of Real Copies - This has been something I've toyed with for quite some time, I may look at doing this once the game is out of early access but I'd love to properly release a limited run Warsim special edition boxed version, It would come with a steam copy, a disked version of the game, and a bunch of limited edition Warsim goodies at a reasonable price
Here are some concept copies:
* Patreon - I'm currently against this as I don't see what I could possibly offer but the thought has crossed my mind, I thought at one point of doing something similar to Toady of Dwarf fortress and sending Warsim concept notes and little sketches as a thank you for donations.
Unlike a lot of bigger studios, there's no PR firm or marketing department, just me
Hello!
My experience marketing video games has come mainly from trial and error but the gist of my experience is that the more people know about it, the more people are likely to play it. I have thus sent 100s of emails to youtubers, streamers, gaming media, blogs and so on with relative success. I have also tried my hand at writing interesting articles about the development of the game and some of its features.
A mix of steam sales, articles, and youtube coverage have been responsible for the bigger jumps in sales and new players but again this is just from my limited attempts at marketing. I've generally avoided massive youtubers as they are very hard to actually get through to, though large youtuber coverage virtually guarentees a giant jump in new players.
So, to the chase and the main point of this, just as I am open to suggestions about the game itself I am absolutely open to any suggestions about increasing Warsim's range online, please PM or comment if you have any ideas or if:
* You have any ideas at all for getting the game more visible
* You know of any youtubers/streamers who would be interested in Warsim
* You know of any websites/forums that would be good to post Warsim on
* You are a youtuber/streamer/blogger who would like to cover the game
* You have any criticisms of the store page and can think of better ways to word the descriptions of the game
* You can think of any aspects of Warsim and it's community areas that could be improved (aside from the trailer because I already know its terrible)
* You have any ideas at all that could help, I am open and I want to hear them
So that's pretty much it, While I working on the Combat update I wanted to address and figure out my plans for moving Warsim forward and here we are, and genuinely there are no stupid ideas, I've spoken to 100s of people in the Warsim community over the years, through reddit and steam comments, pms, twitter threads, discord, emails and so on and have already had so much helpful feedback that has already meant the world to me.
Thank you all for reading this, This will be posted on all of the major Warsim community areas: The Steam page, the Subreddit, the Discord server, our Audiogames.net thread and on Itch.io
All the best
Huw Millward
I want to start this with a thank you to everyone that has made Warsim what it is. To so many bug reporters and those who've shared their awesome ideas, and to the many people who have followed along the development and motivated me to work on it further. All the support recieved has changed my life for the better and has been the main reason Warsim is where it is today!
I've said this before but when Warsim was in its earliest stages it was never even planned to become a commercial game. I never thought anyone would be interested in it. As I worked on it and shared it online I began getting donations and after a while it opened my eyes to the possibility of Warsim one day ending up on steam.
As you all know that possibility became reality, and for the last two years I've somewhat been able to support myself from Warsim development alongside selling things online and the occasional part-time job, this has allowed me to spend a reasonable amount of time on Warsim.
I'm currently surviving with Warsim but I genuinely believe with a bit of work it could expand beyond its relative obscurity in the gaming community to a more well known Indie title I understand that an CMD Ascii based game is never going to top the charts but I think it could still become better known among RPG players and fans of resimilar games. Over 14000 copies have sold online and our subreddit has over 1000 subscribers so Warsim and it's community aren't completely obscured but I really think it could grow far beyond.
WHAT ARE MY PLANS
My current plan involves a number of different steps:
* The Trailer [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube] - Warsim's trailer is terrible, it doesn't show any of what the game is about, it just flickers through some screens, I have a plan to rework this trailer with the help of a small team and will hopefully get it finished soon. I think this is important as the trailer in its current state doesn't scream professional legit indie game, it screams crappy indie game that isn't worth your time. The trailer was made when it first went on steam during early access in 2017 and it absolutely doesn't reflect the game as it is today.
* Improve the Quality of Warsim's store pages - I plan to further critique the store pages and try to update them where relevant because I feel it needs to look the best it can.
* Price increase - After the next few big overhauls I will consider increase the price of Warsim from $4.99 to $7.99 or somewhere there abouts, I am not entirely comfortable with the idea as I don't want to appear some scummy moneygrubbing dev but I really feel the game is worth more, having it at a higher price assuming sales mained a similar level would allow me to work on Warsim more so it's something I'm considering.
* Overhauls and a push to Full Release - For the longest time my approach to Warsim development has been just clearing through ideas of mine and other people, and adding stuff that I want to see in game, generally I've not been working on clearing the unfinished parts of the game and bringing us to full release which I feel I should. The goal going forward will be to complete all unfinished parts of Warsim, to add the major planned elements of the game and get it to the point where it can stand firmly as a complete and well rounded game... don't worry though I would most certainly continue developing and updating it for a long time post EA.
I also have some other ideas to expand Warsim's reach that I will try to pursue:
* Android Port - This has been requested by a fair number of people, I will need to work on evolving the Warsim code to be less windows only but if I can try to get the game emulated to the point it could be played on an Android Tablet I think it could really help create a new and fun experience on the platform and would also hopefully add an additional stream of financial support for the games development.
* Mac and Linux Port - This has been something heavily requested for a long time, although its been possible to run it through Wine it would be nice to be able to get Warsim some official Mac and Linux builds.
* A Limited Release of Real Copies - This has been something I've toyed with for quite some time, I may look at doing this once the game is out of early access but I'd love to properly release a limited run Warsim special edition boxed version, It would come with a steam copy, a disked version of the game, and a bunch of limited edition Warsim goodies at a reasonable price
Here are some concept copies:
* Patreon - I'm currently against this as I don't see what I could possibly offer but the thought has crossed my mind, I thought at one point of doing something similar to Toady of Dwarf fortress and sending Warsim concept notes and little sketches as a thank you for donations.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
Unlike a lot of bigger studios, there's no PR firm or marketing department, just me
Hello!
My experience marketing video games has come mainly from trial and error but the gist of my experience is that the more people know about it, the more people are likely to play it. I have thus sent 100s of emails to youtubers, streamers, gaming media, blogs and so on with relative success. I have also tried my hand at writing interesting articles about the development of the game and some of its features.
A mix of steam sales, articles, and youtube coverage have been responsible for the bigger jumps in sales and new players but again this is just from my limited attempts at marketing. I've generally avoided massive youtubers as they are very hard to actually get through to, though large youtuber coverage virtually guarentees a giant jump in new players.
So, to the chase and the main point of this, just as I am open to suggestions about the game itself I am absolutely open to any suggestions about increasing Warsim's range online, please PM or comment if you have any ideas or if:
* You have any ideas at all for getting the game more visible
* You know of any youtubers/streamers who would be interested in Warsim
* You know of any websites/forums that would be good to post Warsim on
* You are a youtuber/streamer/blogger who would like to cover the game
* You have any criticisms of the store page and can think of better ways to word the descriptions of the game
* You can think of any aspects of Warsim and it's community areas that could be improved (aside from the trailer because I already know its terrible)
* You have any ideas at all that could help, I am open and I want to hear them
So that's pretty much it, While I working on the Combat update I wanted to address and figure out my plans for moving Warsim forward and here we are, and genuinely there are no stupid ideas, I've spoken to 100s of people in the Warsim community over the years, through reddit and steam comments, pms, twitter threads, discord, emails and so on and have already had so much helpful feedback that has already meant the world to me.
Thank you all for reading this, This will be posted on all of the major Warsim community areas: The Steam page, the Subreddit, the Discord server, our Audiogames.net thread and on Itch.io
All the best
Huw Millward
