After the end of Aground, I had a ton of ideas and the potential to make anything. It was a time of excitement, when Fancy Fish Game's future seemed bright, and so I decided to make two games at the same time - you can read about that here: https://david.fancyfishgames.com/2022/09/two-games-at-same-time-crazy-or-genius.html
After entering Early Access, it became clear that Stardander would never be a commercial success. And while we still plan to finish Stardander (in fact, Chapter 5 is coming out soon), it took a back seat to Aground Zero which seemed much more promising.
The Early Access launch of Aground Zero was actually very strong in terms of sales and interest. While there were some who didn't like that the game was 3D, overall the reception was positive and what people wanted most was more. So, I expanded my original idea for the game (the initial design document ended after building the com station, without interstellar travel or the magic path), and tried to live up to those expectations.
My hope was that the work would be appreciated, and that the full launch would be bigger than the Early Access launch, which was my experience with Aground (and this is when Steam gives you your launch visibility round, so that's why the full launch is usually big). But, as time went on, interest in Aground Zero waned. Despite plenty of updates - adding more features than I expected to like online multiplayer, multiple endings, spaceships, dragon riding, new planets and quests etc, I could tell something was wrong.
Long story short, the full launch was abysmal - worse than Aground Zero's Early Access launch. I'll be lucky to break even on expenses, let alone have anything left over to pay myself for the four years of work I put into Aground Zero. In short, I made two games, hoping for both to succeed but expecting at least one to do well, and both games flopped.
The reviews since we left Early Access are also poor. Players feel like the game is too short, and doesn't have enough content - with most of them even admitting the game was fun for the first few hours. This really hurts - I worked hard and made a game that has hours of fun, but the reviews are mostly negative because they were expecting a lot more. To fulfill the expectations of these reviewers, I would probably have to spend another four years and end up further in the red - in short, it's not feasible. I never expected Aground Zero to be a huge game, but an interesting spinoff in 3D. But that wasn't the expectation players had, and they ultimately felt let down by the game, not appreciating it for what it was.
Honestly, I feel like a 10 hour game for $20 is very reasonable, but players simply don't agree - and they have reason not to. There are games out there that have more content for less money, and that's just the way the industry is. There's definitely been a shift lately, and it's become much harder to find success now compared to when Aground launched in 2020. Partially this is due to a temporary surge of players during the pandemic, which made sales of games around 2020 stronger but also caused a lot of new game developers and games to pop up hoping to ride that wave. Now that the surge is over, there is more games than demand for them, and many studios are going under. There could also be changes to the Steam algorithm which no longer favor smaller indie games - this is just speculation, but they've changed the algorithm many times during Aground's lifetime, often with noticeable spikes and lulls of sales.
So what does this mean for Fancy Fish Games? Having both games flop is a huge blow to the company and very depressing personally, but we are in a fortunate circumstance where the success of Aground (original) can keep us afloat a little longer. I've already started our next game - which you can see hinted in our year in review post: https://david.fancyfishgames.com/2024/11/year-in-review-2024.html , and I plan to continue working on it - taking what I've learned from Aground Zero and adding more content in a simpler pixel art style. I'll have to be more cautious, perhaps doing another Kickstarter before charging ahead with the new game, but I do think it's a great idea. But if this new game struggles as well and the industry keeps getting harder, I might have to consider carefully my plans after this next game.
