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On March 7, EA shadow dropped a host of classic PC games on Steam, including pretty much the entire Command & Conquer series. That's good news - unless you're one of the indie devs who released a game the very same day and suddenly had to compete with decades worth of nostalgia amid the notorious whims of the Steam algorithm.
One of the affected titles was Potions: A Curious Tale, a cozy adventure and crafting game about a witch and her potions. "My indie game I worked on for 10 years was immediately bumped off of New and Trending by EA spam releasing 11 titles at once," developer Renee Gittens said on Twitter. "All of the built-up marketing and momentum squashed in an instant."
It's notoriously difficult for a game to stand out on Steam, but one of the ways for an indie to get noticed is through its placement on the platform's New and Trending tab. That front page section highlights new releases that have achieved some degree of popularity, effectively filtering out those games you might ungenerously refer to as 'Steam trash' - you know, the hentai puzzle games and the like.
Absolutely brutal - tiny team, 10 years of work between all the detours and forced time trying to get some income together, but never gave up on it, never walked away from it - kept grinding away and then this is launch day. Gamedev, y'all. https://t.co/AUL2F3S8goMarch 9, 2024
Getting shoved out of that tab dramatically decreases your game's visibility in the crucial early days after launch, and Gittens noted that she would "have avoided this date like the plague" if EA's releases were announced ahead of time. "The game took ten years of dev because I had to work full-time jobs during development," she said, adding later, "This is my dream game and I didn't cut any corners."
Gittens said that "one of my goals for this game was to help young girls to recognize their own strengths and empower them to follow their dreams. The mechanics and story of Potions, and sharing my own journey, was intended to do that. It's why I decided to release on the eve of International Women's Day, and why it feels extra bitter to have happened on that day. I don't think I deserve special treatment for being a woman, I just had a wonderful, joyful day turned sour due to forces outside of my control. I'm sorry if my strong emotions came off as self-righteous or anything other than what I was feeling: blindsided and devastated."
Potions was not the only indie game to have been handed a very bad launch day by EA's shadow drop. Throwback action-platformer Berserk Boy - a game I've played and quite enjoyed for its efforts to improve on the likes of Mega Man and Sonic with "Metroidvania elements" - also launched on March 7 after five years in development, and also got kicked off that front page amid the EA onslaught.
"The first week hasn't really been the smoothest of launches," according to the game's Twitter account. "Berserk Boy was knocked off the New and Trending with EA's game dump." A few other choice quotes include "yeaaaaaah this hurt [crying emoji]" and "maybe I'm just cursed."
"I don't think EA is out to get me," Gittens acknowledged. "This was just horrible timing/luck." For those of you who play indie games rather than make them, just take this opportunity to remember how much of a role timing and luck play in a given title's success.
Pay it forward and put these upcoming indie games on your wishlist.
