📈 Gamemakers: Newsletter still in soft launch - changes starting now
📈 Gamemakers: Newsletter still in soft launch - changes starting now
Change alert! We are still experimenting to make Gamemakers dramatically better, apparently the PM on this product isn't doing a good enough job, lol.
In this newsletter:
Top Revenue - Dungeon & Fighter: Origin remains the #1 revenue game globally.
Top Downloads - Tarisland, the #1 downloaded game in China last week, will launch globally later this year. You should keep your eye out for this game.
Top Steam Revenue - PUBG jumped up to #1 revenue, likely due to a new Survivor Pass and new content collaborations.
Highlight - I explain why many changes are coming to this newsletter.
Hello Gamemakers,
This week, we are changing things for the Gamemakers newsletter.
Some changes upcoming and starting now:
New content schedule:
Monday: Insights featuring interviews. This will come back later, not just yet. TBD.
Wednesday: This segment will be streamlined, include more depth for our highlight section, and get additional help. Welcome Shilpa Gaur!
Friday: A streamlined and focused news segment.
Podcasts:
This will come later, but I hear you guys asking for the newsletter to come in audio format. We’ll do that in a month or two.
The first set of format changes will start in this newsletter right now! We’ll skip a game or feature highlight for this week (instead discussing game dev content) but will bring that back to be more insightful/useful/provocative starting next week.
Anyway, stay tuned!
Top 10 Revenue
#1 Worldwide: It looks like Dungeon & Fighter: Origin has strong staying power (so far) as the world's dominant #1 revenue game.
#4 China: 三国：谋定天下: (aka Three Kingdoms: Strategy World) is a mobile 4X game or, as the Chinese call it, an “SLG” (simulation game).
#10 China: CrossFire: Legends showed a big boost last week. Initially released in 2018, let’s just say under “interesting” circumstances by Tencent, the game shows global potential for the IP IMHO. Smilegate should consider a global Crossfire title, although it should try to be more different from existing TDM/BRs like Call of Duty Mobile.
Top 10 Downloads
#10 Worldwide: Craft World - Master Block 3D is a sandbox-building game similar to Minecraft.
#5 US: TickTock Challenge is a series of puzzles and mini-games inspired by viral Internet challenges.
#1 China: Tarisland is a fantasy MMORPG. You should check it. It’s scheduled for global release later this year.
#2 China: Lost Light suddenly dramatically increased revenue and downloads out of nowhere last week. Why?
#3 China: 三国：谋定天下 is also the #4 top revenue in China; see more info below.
Top 10 Steam Revenue
#1: PUBG spiked, likely due to a new Survivor Pass released with exclusive rewards and challenges, special collaboration skins introduced, e.g., PUBG x NewJeans, and new gameplay updates/improvements/ranked mode enhancements.
#5: Kingdom Hearts finally gets off of Epic Store exclusive and is part of a major title bundle.
#10: Rising 43 ranks, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance is a re-release from Sega/Atlus of Shin Megami Tensei V with expanded content and improvements.
One of the reasons I quit a popular game dev podcast I created and shifted focus to a newsletter was to think about creating more meaning through impact or reach.
Relevance = Impact/Value x Reach
Even 100K listens/views per month or week is nothing compared to the kind of reach many content creators have today. Or even my brother-in-law, who regularly has 100K+ views per YouTube video and millions of views on some of them.
Many game dev content creators have seen limited reach, especially on platforms like YouTube.
This newsletter, with 14K+ subscribers, is doing ok. However, I still think we can get to the next level. Creating content that draws 50K+ or even 100K+ subscribers should be theoretically possible.
Some game dev content folks believe that the global universe of game developers is small, so a few thousand of the right execs/PMs/marketers, etc., basically cover the market.
Maybe.
Change is coming: The rise of entertainment and game creators
But I believe in a world where entertainment content will be much more valuable in the future, and the pool of game creators will dramatically expand. Potentially, both areas will grow 10X+!
Why? Stay tuned for this Friday’s newsletter… but it's AI-related (obviously?).
This context is a long way to tell you we’re undergoing another set of optimizations and changes for this newsletter. The main problem is that our content is not good enough for the reach we seek, so we’ll tinker to try and get it right.
Until we get to 50K+ subscribers, this newsletter is in soft launch. 👍
The new content meta
In the early 2000s, the game dev content meta was blog posts. People, including me at the time, became somewhat popular through blog posts focusing on new (at the time) game design and monetization principles.
From there, the content meta shifted to deconstruction posts, and blog sites like Deconstructor of Fun became prominent by fully engaging with deconstruction. A strong vendor partnership was also helpful.
In the past 5 years, the content meta shifted again, this time to podcasts. I don’t know many people reading deconstruction anymore, and instead, they prefer consuming game dev content from podcasts. I can brag a bit and say I pioneered this space. Those whom I made popular: “You’re welcome.” Lol.
I believe we’re going to shift again.
This time, it may be multi-channel, including a mix of newsletters, blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos. I’m not sure, maybe it will shift to YouTube, but I believe change is coming.
Having said that, change is coming now, at least to this newsletter, and I would love to hear what you all think. Feel free to DM me and let me know what would make this newsletter worth sharing or indispensable.
Stay tuned; there should be some interesting changes coming…
🦄 FEATURED JOB 🦄
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Horizon Blockchain Games - Product Marketing Manager - Sequence
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