The failure of advertising the game, what went wrong?

Help and Feedback Game Design Support
#1

Hi everyone! :v:

For 2 whole years, I have been making a big game with a story single and co-op campaign, two multiplayer modes, and levels for premium players. I also had a thematic post on the forum where I described the game in more detail and it was well appreciated.

Then I started advertising by spending 3.5K Robux and began to develop social networks.

Here are the ad stats:
500R - 0.34% CTR (110 clicks / 32,152 Impressions)
2000R - 0.38% CTR (861 clicks / 225,722 Impressions)

Sponsored (2 days, 500 daily):
1000R - 0.008% CTR (146 clicks / 1,863,156 Impressions)

The return on all this is just terrible - 1600 visits and the income from the game is even worse.

What went wrong?
I have a few options:

  • Too little ad spend
    (I think they are good enough to get at least a couple of thousand visits, but not 1600 in 3 months)

  • The game is very difficult
    (I have already simplified it as much as possible - added a bunch of tips on the levels, and made an easy mode where you can start any level) or there is too much content in it (which I also don’t believe much in)

  • I advertise the game in the wrong ways
    (After the failures in the last 2 points, it’s hard to believe in this one, but it seems to me that if I try to promote the game on YouTube, it will be much more successful for this type of game)

Here are my thoughts on this, but I would like to hear your opinion on what to do in the current situation.

2 Likes
The game is not becoming popular. Or not? What's happening?
#2

I showed this to a friend of mine who is running into simillar issues with the advertising system

Sponsor (5 Days)
17,280R - 0.197% CTR (5,073 Clicks / 2,573,684 Impressions )

How does 17K R$ fail to get less impressions than @Mixmaxed’s 1000R$ sponsor that got 1,863,156 impressions

#3

It depends on which device the sponsor was placed on. If the sponsor is PC, you get lower impressions than if it was on mobile.

#4

I’ve yet to actually play the game (I will as soon as I can), but as far as I can see it’s not the type of game that can properly succeed on Roblox. A somewhat challenging story mode takes a certain luck and proper polish to pull off (Piggy). A multiplayer mode requires at least people to play with (whether it be battle or minigames), the same goes for coop (easier to get a friend to play a nice new game you found with though).
What do you want people to do once they join the game? If you expect them to play the story before multiplayer, and the tune out, multiplayer does not add anything. Maybe people should be rewarded for playing the story in the other modes. By making the game too wide, you may end up not attracting the players you want for any of the modes.
So what’s your target group?

That combines with the advertisements. The success of course really depends on the advertisement itself, but also on who you target. This game seems to be in principle for computer/console players (they play longer), but then a multiplayer/minigame mode is more interesting to mobile/tablet players.

All in all the game seems to be really ambitious, and I’m interested to play it and I’ll see if I can focus my feedback a bit better by then.

2 Likes
#5

I think my basic analysis in the previous comment was fairly spot on. It’s ambitious, and the game has something for most players, but does not attract any group because of that. But now to my thoughts while playing the first level.

When I joined the game, the music was pretty loud, and I had to click the level GUI (final one before joining a level) twice. That sort of thing can put people off quickly. Not being able to quickly advance dialog in a cutscene (only entirely skip), combined with the fairly poor English (you need to make it pretty smooth if you want people to read), gives a bad vibe at the start. I would give the option to manually advance any dialog in the game by one ‘sentence’.

The radio/flashlight is not great to use, as it points down when walking, and you have to stand still to get it shining horizontally. I also started sprinting around here (tried the shift button), but I’m not sure whether that worked, as I could not disable it. After I fell down, I slowed down dramatically, so I assume sprinting’s just uncontrollable. And I don’t think many people like that. They want interactivity as much as possible. I do get the design however, so it’s fine either way. I also kept the same running animation while being slow, which looked a bit weird.

The worldbuilding so far is pretty good, the facility looks nice and there’s some interesting tidbits on what’s going on there. Progressing the facility feels satisfying enough, as I first got confused and lost, but then I found out that you could just follow the arrows. Makes sense. I did notice doors closing if you were too slow entering them. Maybe make them stay open based on how close someone is, instead of opening them once when they’re nearby and then closing them. I stopped after the level 2 cutscene -again, good, I like cutscenes and these dialogs, but the language is a bit sloppy.

Again, I like the concept of the game, and parts of it are well executed. The most important thing is the story. I’m not familiar with any Roblox lore (I assume that’s what you’re going for), but it seems nice (I’m not the target audience however). The execution can be improved upon.

As no one was playing I did not dive into the multiplayer.

(I would also create a gamepass for access to the premium levels.)

1 Like
#6

Thanks for the feedback!

I don’t really have much to add to the first review. The reward system exists in all modes except “Premium levels” and you can spend money on multiplayer modes.

As for the second review, it is already more interesting. Most of the really bad things I’ve fixed (Loud music in the menu, UI, radio, closing doors in the lab on the first level), but there are some things that, in my opinion, do not fit into the game.

For example sprint. I did not implement it, since all levels are made in such a way that there are slow sections and there are fast ones, and the game independently regulates the maximum speed of the player in certain sections. Although the levels themselves have interesting gameplay (This is especially revealed towards the middle of the game), they are quite linear and you can’t really explore them, so the sprint is not really needed.

As for the cutscenes, I’ll still think about whether to leave it like that or make the player skip dialogues on their own.

English is bad mainly at the first levels since they were made 2 years ago, but errors and inaccuracies will be corrected.

In any case, I’m glad you liked the game. It may really be because of such small details that the impression of the game is spoiled, but it is not difficult to fix them.

1 Like
#7

It just comes down to polish and target audience. I’m personally not really the target audience for the game (I barely play Roblox games anyway). I don’t think you can ‘fix’ the target audience in any way, but then it just comes down to polish.
The small details always spoil a game. In my Tycoon, problems with the jeep (which you can’t get until after some time), were extremely noticeable in feedback and some KPIs went up after just fixing it. I thought it was quite a small thing, but the players thought differently.
I think it would be great if you could find some testers to provide you (targeted) feedback and get them to play some multiplayer together, that way you can definitely polish the game a bit more.

Going through all dialog, and improving it, would be great! You don’t want stark differences in the game due to age; the release version is expected to be of the same quality around the board.

1 Like