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.
Simon is the founder of GameDiscoverCo and runs the popular GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter, a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s, and how your games could sell better.
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 is 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
When you’re understanding the potential success of your game before release - what’s the one Steam stat that more people should be paying attention to, but aren’t?
What happens when you organize a themed sale on Steam, and what are the ramifications for increased profile of your games as a result? Real-world data within...
Apple has announced the App Store Small Business Program, a major and permanent change to the flat 30% platform cut for apps and games on iOS (and I presume the Mac) App Stores. What does it mean for Apple & other game platforms?
What's a fair percentage for no-advance publisher deals? Which games are easily prototypable to a level that publishers will fund them? This - and a number of other notable game discovery stories within...
Data deep dive: game devs, if you have X,000 dollars at the end of Week 1 on Steam, how much do you have after Month 1, or Year 1? Survey results within...
Now that the PlayStation 5 is out in the wild, we all get a chance to check out the brand new PS5 Store for discoverability, navigability, and various other factors. What's it like?
Simon Carless's Comments
Comment In:
[Blog - 11/22/2020 - 11:00]
That 's true Although it ...
That 's true Although it 's 25 in a weird abstract way, because the coin rebate might or might not be spent on your games I bet for cheap/90 off games, a LOT of the spending is 'free money ' via coins. Relatedly: I don 't think we 've even ...
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 ...
