Post-Brexit management game Not Tonight has been a pretty solid success for PanicBarn and No More Robots, but the upcoming Nintendo Switch release has the publisher “incredibly frustrated” with the data provided by the Nintendo eShop when compared to Steam.
If you’re unfamiliar with this game, Not Tonight is billed as a “post-Brexit” management game in a future where Brexit talks have collapsed and a far-right government has taken power. Europeans have been exiled from the country and you’re trying to eke out a living as a club bouncer, enforcing various rules about who does and does not get into a venue in a gameplay style reminiscent of Papers, Please.
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Now, a Nintendo Switch release is coming up for the game, and one of the publishers has spoken out about how hard it is to predict the game’s success on the Nintendo eShop as highlighted by ResetEra.
The game might come out this Friday and sell amazingly! Or it might come out and sell nothing.
So when people say that Valve are greedy for taking 30%, I always think… really? Have you seen the tools they provide? Have you seen the traffic they guarantee to your store page?
— Mike Rose (@RaveofRavendale) January 27, 2020
“When we released Not Tonight on Steam, I *knew* it was going to sell really well,” publisher Mike Rose began in a Twitter thread. “I knew this because Steam provides a multitude of amazing backend statistics — traffic stats, wishlist stats, impressions, source stats[, etc.] So when the game came out on Steam and made $350k at launch, we were all ecstatic, but also not entirely surprised.”
“But now Not Tonight is coming to Nintendo Switch this Friday, and in comparison, I just have zero clue whether it’s going to sell or not[,]” he continued. “This is because on Switch, you’re provided with none of the statistics that Steam has. I don’t know if people are looking at our store page[.] I don’t know if people are wishlisting the game[.] I know nothing[…] and to a person who sells video games, that is incredibly frustrating.”
Mr. Rose goes on to explain that he’s done everything he usually would to sell a game like put out a trailer and send out review codes. He also took a moment to comment on Valve’s 30% revenue cut for sales on Steam, and he seems to believe that the analytics and other tools they provide make it a worthwhile cost.
“The game might come out this Friday and sell amazingly!” he said. “Or it might come out and sell nothing. So when people say that Valve [is] greedy for taking 30%, I always think… really? Have you seen the tools they provide? Have you seen the traffic they guarantee to your store page?”
Data is certainly important to sales, and it seems that Mr. Rose believes Valve provides a superior service in that respect. If you’d like to grab Not Tonight, you might be able to buy it on sale on Steam in the last remaining minutes of the Lunar New Year sale. Otherwise, you can look forward to the Nintendo Switch edition arriving on Friday.
