So, I’ve been promoting Return of Dr. Destructo for more than a week now, and the initial surge of interest is already beginning to fade. Time to gather some statistics!

Downloads:

Downloads is the most important part of statistics for me, because it shows how much people played my game. Let’s look at breakdowns by platform and by site:

By platform:

Windows:	95
Linux (32+64 bit):	64
MacOS X:	10

So, a total of 169 downloads. Not too bad for a relatively undistinguished free game, but nothing to write home about, either.

By source:

Direct downloads from site:	88
IndieDB:	70
GameJolt:	11

Direct downloads came from many sources where I posted links, but in terms of single best site to get players, IndieDB seems to be the best so far. Most of IndieDB downloads came on the first few days, and tapered off quickly after that, but there was a surge of about 30 downloads after the news of game release got posted in IndieDB Facebook group.

Traffic sources:

I posted the game’s information to a number of indie-oriented sites to get players and feedback. Comments were scarce, but let’s see how many visitors each source provided:

Page views:

Reddit.com	26
Old-games.ru	22
FreeGameDev.net	15
IndieDB+ModDB.com	11
LiveJournal.com	9
GameDev.ru	4
Facebook.com	4
RetroRemakes.com	2
Makega.me	2

In terms of driving traffic to game’s site, all sources pretty much sucked. This is understandable, since I posted downloads links at all these places, and few people go to other page if they have an option to download the game right away.

The first sub-Reddit I used, PlayMyGame, was pretty much useless both in terms of pageviews and downloads. However, when someone reposted the game to OpenSourceGames, things got much better, and I got some visits and Linux-related downloads. My old haunting ground, old-games.ru forums, where I returned after a long time to post about Return of Dr. Destructo, surprisingly, provided a lot of traffic, both in page views and hits.

Page hits:

GameDev.ru	708
Old-games.ru	440
RetroRemakes.com	287
Reddit.com	26
FreeGameDev.net	15
IndieDB+ModDB.com	11
LiveJournal.com	9
Makega.me	5
Facebook.com	4

I also added game’s page to StumbleUpon, but that didn’t seem to have any effect.

Comments:

Player’s feedback is one of those things a developer both craves and fears. Still, it’s better to have ANY kind of feedback, than a total silence. No comments were posted at this blog, however, I got some in other places. The best and the most useful came from RetroRemakes and FreeGameDev forums. IndieDB was pretty useless in that respect, despite more than 1000 views of the game and a lot of downloads. All in all, I hoped for more, but still, this was better than no comments at all, so I guess I can’t complain.

The good news is, most comments were positive. Everyone liked the game’s graphics, and there were no complaints about anything, but some minor issues.

Conclusion:

So, how do I feel after all this? Hard to say. I spent three years making this game, but it didn’t garner much interest, really. Then again, I knew I wasn’t making an international hit. It’s just another little game and the great vast ocean of little indie games. I will keep promoting it, but mostly my time is now spent on preparing mobile versions. We’ll see how it goes then 🙂