How He Sold Over 960,000 Copies Of His Games w/ @JonasTyroller

Description

I chat with Jonas Tyroller ( @JonasTyroller ) about how he sold over 960,000 copies of his game. ► Play Thronefall: https://store.steampowered.com/app/223915…

12:04: Thomas: I notice this design process depends on taste, the ability to discern what is good.
- Jonas: I describe taste as measurement
13:07: Common mistake: making only one prototype
- Devs make a prototype, show it to a friend, and then they make that game.
- This is pointless, because you don’t have anything to compare your prototype to.
- 13:58: You need objective measurement, not just relative measurements

14:20: Q: What is the point of Prototyping?
- “It is easier to choose the best idea than it is to guess the best idea.”

17:38: Start with the abstract, prove the abstract, and then you refine it
19:06: Q: Would you consider Early Access to be the part of the process to refine, or should it already be refined?
- 20:04: Early Access is essentially already your Main Launch.
  - You only get one launch.
  - If early access doesn’t go well, then your second launch isn’t gonna go well either.
  - 20:58: Thronefall strategy: The game was already refined but it had only 3 levels. Very little content. And added much more content over the next 18 months.
    - The second release was not as successful as the first one.
    - 21:32: We look at early access as a scaling device.
- 22:57: In Early Access you can get away with a small game, but you cannot get away with a bad game.
  - You can scale it up after.
23:44: Q: What kind of games are good for early access?
- Games that you can imagine working on for a long time.
- 23:57: “Early Access communicates to the player that we’re still actively working on this game.”
- 24:15: Early Access only really works with replayable games.
24:39: Early Access is not Prototyping.
24:51: How much do you listen to your audience as you get feedback from Early Access?
- 25:10: A: “We should have listened to players more when we made Thronefall”.

28:10: Q: Who should listen to and who should we not listen to?
- 29:22: A: The first people we should listen to are other successful game developers.
  - Players don’t always know what they like.
- 30:14: A: Second, listen to the players.
  - The tricky thing about listening to players is that you need to read between the lines.
  - ⭐: 30:40: Listen to the problems that players have rather than the solutions that players have.
Q: 39:26: How do you know if you should just push through bad feedback or if the game is so bad that you should “give up” and try something else (or a different prototype)?