My game has failed again, what do I do?

[1_mahz (Mahz)]

Over the past 5 months, I have been working on a game called “Arena Battles” with about 30k spent on it’s development and advertising. From the opinion of me and others is in good quality on most aspects.
Some people join and they really enjoy it.

So I have no idea whats wrong and why the roblox algorithm unfavours me, I have watched alot and read alot about getting a game to grow nothing seems to work. Even the " get small youtubers to play your game" seems to be a myth.

After throwing some money into ads, players started to increase, but ads seem to be soo useless for Day 1 Retention. Even when people join from they mostly just seem to be wearing bacon hair avatars- as if ads is a scam. Heres what my analytics looks like

Heres what abit of the gameplay looks like: robloxapp-20240109-1845175 [streamable link]

And an edit i made on the core gameplay, which was an ultimate flop on tiktok: unnamed [streamable link]

And game link: Arena Battles ⚔️ - Roblox

Honestly this has been such a waste of time, I just feel like the work from roblox to promote small games is bad.

I really don’t know where else to go and i’ve lost all motivation

[dfgfdgfdsyhdgfyh (デヴァフォーラムはひどいよ)]

Players with their joins off have randomized icons in the player-list when looking outside of a game which may lead you to believe they are bacon hairs.

Most people have ad-blockers and that number is constantly growing everyday which would basically be most of the reason ads you purchased aren’t working, and even then later down the line site ads will be revoked.

You’re edit is… might I say Not Good… Cap-Cut is a free Editing App that Tik-Tokers use to edit their videos, If you were looking to do better you should try the app, or use it on you’re browser.

The thumbnail of the game right out of seeing it for the first time, it looks Cheap. The faces are poorly edited onto the render. This may drive people away due to the lack of quality in the first presentation.

The UI is unfavorable, as its built like a simulator yet its not mentioned that the game is meant to be that way, and the game-play is basically just a simulator of fighting, not similar to a game like Mortem Metallum where its constant combat, the animations feel not that well done and the game-play even if a simulator is bland and doesn’t feel intense or anything in the slightest, just bland combat.

The game’s systems just feel gamble-y and are roulette based which does end up enticing people to get good items, but since the game-play is just bland and off it doesn’t seem worth getting a better item or trying it for the first time, ps99 has the look and feel of what its meant to be while maintaining enough quality to bring users into it with better quality, better things to get that are shiny big and make the player want more and to get more, as most of the playerbase of that game is children, and you should expect children to be into the style of the game you currently have.

And please, for the love of god, dont steal emotes like many popular games do. The emotes you’re using were leaked to the toolbox, so I know you’re game is possibly free-modeled in a sense, these emotes were created by Falosaur.

Even then not every game is going to be a hit, you need to think hard about what people like these days and what you could make for people to play that doesn’t already exist, as there is many sword games which may be your problem too.