Simon Carless's Blog
Simon Carless [LinkedIn] has been working in and around the video game industry for over two decades. He’s passionate about games, art, people, and bringing amazing creative endeavors to light via discoverability and curation.
He’s most known for his role helping to shape the Game Developers Conference and the Independent Games Festival for the past 15 years. He was also the co-founder & advisor for the Independent Games Summit at GDC and the person behind 2019’s GDC Game Discoverability Summit.
Simon runs the popular Game Discoverability Weekly newsletter, a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s, and how your games could sell better.
He’s also an investor and partner in indie game publisher No More Robots, which has published notable independent & PC console games including Yes, Your Grace, Hypnospace Outlaw, Descenders & Not Tonight.
Expert Blogs
Sure, the Steam algorithm is important to those releasing PC games, but is it really sinister and all-encompassing? Let's get into that.
What's up with F2P battle royale breakout Spellbreak, what this 'PlayStation Plus Collection' thing for PS5 is, and lots more besides - a discovery/platform round-up.
Microsoft thinks differentiating new platforms on better-looking and playing experiences is getting trickier. So now we have Xbox Game Pass & All Access. Is it going to work?
The amazing ‘out of the blue’ success of multiplayer party game Among Us on Steam is, uh, amazing. But what happened? I delve into it with the help of one of its co-creators.
Let's look at a new concept that’s trying to harness the most potent force in the game discoverability universe - the streamer/influencer.
Unfortunately for everyone hoping that royalty percentages for third-party game studios will improve, I'm not sure it's going to happen soon. Theories - and plenty of other game discovery news - within.
Simon Carless's Comments
Comment In:
[Blog - 08/17/2020 - 05:05]
Thanks, I missed/failed to fully ...
Thanks, I missed/failed to fully understand this because all the companies I deal with are in the U.S. or the U.K. and have updated the story to reflect this - and will mention in my next newsletter. Appreciate it.
Comment In:
[Blog - 07/19/2020 - 10:04]
Yep, I 'm planning to ...
Yep, I 'm planning to look at this at some point too But can be done without surveying people. It definitely helps for pre-release games.
Comment In:
[Blog - 06/18/2020 - 10:36]
Comment In:
[Blog - 06/01/2020 - 04:35]
It 's definitely an extreme ...
It 's definitely an extreme approximation. But it evens out the problem that the eShop ranks by units, and units are not a good approximation of revenue as much as 50x difference between the costs of some of these games , so that 's really helpful.
Comment In:
[Blog - 02/26/2020 - 06:41]
BTW I don 't know ...
BTW I don 't know that 10 is THAT high for Steam Early Access games, some games just get refunded at very different levels. Also, China as a country seems to refund at greater levels than the rest of the world. I 've seen Early Access games that approach 20 ...
Comment In:
[Blog - 11/01/2019 - 06:20]
