This Indie Dev's Game Launch Hack Won BIG TIME

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In this video I discuss the success story of Chillquarium, an indie game that launched on the same day as Starfield and found great fortune as a result of their unorthodox marketing stratefy.

#indiedev #gamedev

[benreber]

Whoa, cool to see my game featured here! Fun fact about Chillquarium -- it was originally also called Fish Game as of this January. I was advised to change the name for SEO reasons, and it took FOREVER to think of another good name for a fish game that wasn't already taken. I thought it was funny that Smarter Every Day released a game with that name just a month after mine, and it seems to be doing just fine. Maybe I was overthinking it!

[PharmacyBrain]

Ironically, by covering this guy's unique launch strategy thoroughly in videos and articles, we're ensuring it will never work again.

[kaingagame]

Note that this only works if the audience is different!
I launched my village-builder game Kainga on the same day as Dwarf Fortress, and it got buried amongst the noise. I believe that the people playing Dwarf fortress were the people that would have been interested in my game.

Many even came back later and said they didn't know it'd launched already!

[fuseboxjackson]

2 years on a project and kinda just taking a HUGE risk like that is pretty crazy and Ben really deserves this success

[hotworlds]

It's the barbenheimer effect. They might even appeal to the same audience in their own way, but they provide different experiences and it's at a reasonable cost to buy both. Probably wouldn't work with if it was another FPS space game priced at $30, and might have even had a harder time releasing next to dave the diver etc.

Other factor might be that people were pretty disappointed by starfield lol

[darkmattergamesofficial]

This essentially happened with my game, but the other way around. It launched right before Sniper Elite, and was #1 New and Trending for a few days, then Sniper took the lead! But my game was right under it for another two weeks.

[calvinms]

Thanks John for making the video despite your busy schedule

[ExpensivePizza]

There's a very simple lesson here... not everyone plays the same games.

[JOEQNICHOLSON]

you're one of the good ones lost relic, your attitude, intelligence, and nobility are a pleasure to witness. all the best

[serhiid]

I think, the best launching and selling strategy - is to sell a GOOD GAME.
It is not so important, HOW you will sell - it is important WHAT you sell.
Good game will start to sell itself sooner or later - that's what i think.

There's lots of video on Youtube like "Gamedev is dead, It's impossible to feed yourself by making a games" - and as a proof they do something like "here - we made a simple game about pink triangle, who rotates, moves and eats small circles - and we set a price of 3 dollars and we did sell two copies in three month".
That's just not right. Their game is CRAP. It's miracle, that someone did buy single copy at all!
And this pixel aquarium game looks nice and cute. So - of course, people will buy it.
I just haven't seen good Games on a steam, which does not sell.
I've seen lot of bad games, which do sell.
So i think, being game developer can pe proftable. And those, who says it cannot, just unable to make a good game.
That's what i think.

[daveh]

It's good to see you in a positive mood again. :) its been a year.

[PeteyPedro]

Dude! Now I’m terrified my game releases Dec 8, 2023. I think I looked at all the major releases so hopefully my little game will at least be wishlist a couple of times. Took me five years to make it. This is very scary indeed.

[belowthestoneofficial]

This sort of thing gives a lot of hope for indie devs.

[monkeys]

Hey! That's our game World of Anterra at 6:40! We are very committed to our marketing but currently we're laser focused on our development right now. We don't even have a steam page up yet and people keep tell us that it's a bad thing, but I'm not so sure. Wishlist numbers are very important, but so is velocity and I want to make sure we're supporting our steam numbers with a holistic marketing strategy... as for your question, it's a definitely a complex one! I think it's a VERY smart strategy for a game like Chill-Quarium. But for a game like ours, it can get a little more tricky. I would have definitely considered launching alongside Starfield, because it scratches a different itch imo. However, launching a game that has been called, "Skyrim with pixel", along side Skyrim 6, is probably not a great idea... that being said, launching a month or two ahead of time could be great because of all the anticipation... at the end of the day, we're making our own (huge) game, and will only launch it when it's ready. I think we should revisit this question closer to our our launch date. Thanks for another great video.

[VSalgc]

very cool. i hade the maximum opposite. 100 wishlists no demo no big marketing, no idea. i begged 6(not asked) month to get 10 Reviews. 😮
Today i sit on
12 Reviews
165 Wishlist
first payday from steam. so 100$
-my solo indie game
a land Goo's crazy❤

[polygnomial]

Thank you for bringing this into attention. Improvisation is the key takeaway. New strategies will keep on coming, no one strategy works on everything, but it is important to do diligent homework, then trust yourself on taking a calculated chance.

[bonehelm]

I actually don't think Starfield has anything to do with this. Chillquarium was just a very appealing game to begin with to many, hence the 5K wishlists. It'd be different if it had like 200 wishlists, then I'd be diving a bit deeper. The same day Chillquarium released, 31 other games also released. On same day Starfield released, 51 other games released (yes they actually released on different days, so people saying they both launched same day are just wrong). Both those numbers are within normal day-to-day steam launches.
If you look at the entire week sept 4 - sept 11, 236 games released. Which is slightly lower than average, but well within normal operating behavior. The New & Trending tab only shows games that pass a certain threshold of popularity. It was mostly luck that very few games the following week reached that threshold, therefore Chillquarium stayed on the new & trending list longer than usual.

[KostasNostos]

Walking a path that none walks usually pays off! Very Nice Video by the way

[Jeea]

Wow! Great idea and well done! He obviously thought strategically - since there were no other "competitors" his game would obviously make the list right after Starfield! Kudos to your brains, Ben!
Of course, it won't always work!

[arcticroar]

That's great for Ben. I wonder if now every indie dev will try to launch with a triple A title and replicate this? Of course if everyone does it, that would flood the market with indies on that day and do the reverse of what happened here.