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1

General / Re: Steam Achivment Statistics

« on: May 18, 2009, 12:31:17 am »

Then maybe there should be more hints that hint to the fact that those things are hints in the first place. Because it's obvious that a lot of people did not see them.

I don't think more hints in the early game would detract much for the people that finished it.  I also think Bit Blot are missing out of a fair amount of sales due to word of mouth by players how didn't get past home waters telling their friends.

Personally I think statistics like this should be a wakeup call for the devs that they probably need ease people into the game a bit slower and not leave them on their own so early. If not for aquaria but for their next game. Hardcore games might draw a crowd of hard core gamers but those are a small minority and if you want to make a living as a game dev you need to cater to a slightly larger crowd.
I'm not saying they should dumb down the whole game, just help people a long a bit, just enough to get them hooked.

I can tell you this, successful game companies spend A LOT of time on usability studies, checking where do people get stuck and why.

2

General / Steam Achivment Statistics

« on: May 17, 2009, 04:51:46 am »

Steam added global achievement statistics for all game a few days ago.
I find the Aquaria statistics to be a little disconcerting.
http://steamcommunity.com/stats/Aquaria/achievements/

Not even half (48.1%) of all players managed to reach Open Waters.
Half of those (24.8%) got to Li.
And two thirds of those (15.8%) finished the game.

Now the number that finished the game I don't find too surprising. It's a bit lower than most other games I have looked at, 54% for portal, 48% for Plants vs Zombies, 30% for World of Goo and 29% for Defence Grid. But the game is longer and more difficult than those.

But the fact that not even half managed to get as for as Open Waters I think is a real problem. I know I initially had some problems on where to go (but for me it was mostly where to go after reaching Open Waters) and a friend that I recommended the game to never got past home waters because he found it too frustrating that there where no hints on where to go.

While this is a game of exploration I think there could be a bit more hints in the early game on what to do and where to go. How these hints should be presented I do not know but I think at least something to get more people far enough into the game to get them hooked.