For the past year, I’ve been working on my game “Charge!”, which is a competitive sword fighting game. We’ve done many releases periodically, and it seems our most recent release has a lot of potential with many revenue purchases, greatly increased ratings, and a larger community. However, the game is struggling to break even. We earn around 10k-20k Robux per day, but spend 40k-60k most days of the week on ads/sponsors to maintain around 60-300 players. Decreasing our amount spent on ads/sponsors does not help.
What do you think needs to be improved to be able to break even? Are ads/sponsors viable anymore, or should I look into getting players through different methods?
I never critique usually but i felt like this might help you… and i want others to correct me if im wrong: You could definitely benefit from a game icon upgrade.
I say this not because your current one isnt good, but that for a game with 1M+ visits and a daily spend of 60k robux, a professional eye catching game icon is almost expected. It will definitely help increase your CTR… how is your CTR by the way?
PS: i mean this post to be in the most respectful and positive tone.
I played through this game for about 10 minutes.Now my advice probably isn’t the best so try to take it as lightly as possible.
I think a large reason is because there isn’t an incentive for people to come back to this game.If your combat had some sort of mechanic that rewarded high chance of winning a fight,but very difficult to pull off or execute the technique then some people might want to stick around and continue to hone their skills. This would probably be a last ditch effort in case you can’t get more players.
One other solution I could think of is offering some sort of Ranked Matches,something where everything is taken more seriously and you could reward people who win these matches with greater rewards. (Currency,Level ups,etc)
A final fix you could try is adding something to make people join as a community.Not mainly a discord server,but something in-game.I can’t really think of anything good for this category except for Clans or Groups.Something that encourages people to join or better off,make their own group.Once a part of said group they could earn points for that group by winning matches or other stuff.You could even add a leaderboard for these groups or give unique items to those who climb higher in the ranks. This is by far the most creative but tough to pull off idea.
I took a look at the game, and here’s my first impressions-
Visuals: 3/5. It’s a bit too much. The lighting and post processing made it feel really generic, as well as clashing with the ‘cartoon’ style promised on the thumbnail art.
Mechanics: 3/5. I tried getting into a fight, and immediately got stunned and killed far faster than I could do to other people. Without death-feedback, I pretty much just assumed that these people were higher level and would always win. This may not be true, but that’s what new players think.
Tutorial: 2/5. Fails to explain any sort of things to watch out for.
Overall, the game feels awful as a first impression. People are using these moves that I have no clue about, and they just feel like superior versions of my moves. To keep player count up, a core part of is retaining players over time.
Gamepasses are not enticing, what is VIP and why should I buy it?
The store button isn’t standing out, players might play this game entirely without even checking what’s to offer in the store.
You have an option to buy coins, yet when I try to buy a weapon without enough coins, I’m not prompted to purchase coins with R$
There’s a lot of progression in your game, integrating SocialService to prompt users to invite their friends for benefits could work in your favor.
Basically, upon dying, you’re given a chart showing recent damage taken, who it came from, and from what abilities. As an example, upon dying you’d see:
Killed by [Playername]
32 Damage- Katana- Basic Attack
20 Damage- Katana- Flurry
Assisted by [Playername2]
15 Damage- Sword- Boomerang Attack
This allows players to easily realize what abilities and attacks are actually threatening. In addition, marking damage as being ‘Blocked’ will also give players feedback about how effective their blocking is, which will encourage them to stick around and get more skilled at it.
Charge! Sword Fighting Arena