Creating a video game is easier today than ever before thanks in part to easy, free to use game engines like Unity, but unfortunately, selling a video game is as hard as it ever was, maybe harder. The explosion in independent game development has led to what some have called the “indiepocalypse,” where the market has become so crowded that even good games are struggling to break even.

Discovery is one of the greatest challenges facing indie devs, but while most game makers assume that initial launch on Steam is their only chance at getting attention, BlueLine Game Studios founder Sean Colombo says there are plenty of other opportunities to get your game seen on Steam. According to Colombo, BlueLine was able to sell more copies of Hive in its second year than in its first thanks primarily to sales spikes caused by increased visibility on Steam.

“As a small two-person team, we were able to sell more units of Hive in it’s second year after launch than we did in the first – despite living through the ‘Indiepocalypse,’ ” Colombo said in a recent blog post (via Gamasutra). “This experience flies right in the face of the conventional wisdom of the game sales cycle being mainly one giant launch spike followed by a death-taper-to-zero afterwards.”

“Our single biggest learning was that the only marketing endeavor which drove significant sales spikes was Steam visibility.” Colombo said.

According to Colombo, there are several events that can lead to sales spikes on steam, including “Early Access Launch, Full Launch, DLC Launches, Mac/Linux Launches, Seasonal Sales (Summer & Holiday), and manually created 1-2 week Discounts.”

Colombo explained that after learning the factors behind these spikes, BlueLine realized that there are a number of ways it could manufacture them itself.

“It’s important to note that if we’d just given up on Hive after launch, our data would have looked like everyone else’s showing that launch was important and the harsh realities of the Indiepocalypse crushed us after that,” Colombo said. “If we’d stopped investing in Hive after it’s launch month, we’d have missed out on about 70% of the sales we’ve made so-far.”

According to Colombo, one of the best ways BlueLine found to increase sales involved discounting their game at the same time that they released major updates for it.

“Making a good game is absolutely mandatory for success but despite what you read, it is never enough on its own,” he concluded. “By running your own experiments, tracking metrics, and learning from the experiences of other developers (eg: reading what I’ve written above!) you can survive despite the challenges of the day.”

“It’s always the Indiepocalypse. The Indiepocalypse never changes.”

You can read Colombo’s full blog post on BlueLine’s website.

Hive screenshot courtesy of BlueLine Games via Steam Store
Sales charts courtesy of BlueLine Games