Witchfire seems to be a success for Polish studio The Astronauts, with the first results of the game’s early access launch on Steam recently compiled. The team also explained why developers value critic and user reviews.
As The Astronauts noted in a Steam blog post last week, Witchfire has received over 3,600 user reviews since EA’s release on the platform on September 23rd. 92% of them are positive. The studio hasn’t disclosed sales figures, but creative director Adrian Chimielas said: “We have made enough sales to not only secure the studio’s future, but also to invest further into the game and make the Witchfire dream come true.” I sold it.” ” On October 8, The Astronauts announced that Witchfire has generated over 1 million wishlists across Steam and the Epic Games Store when it first releases in September 2023. Since then, another 100,000 users have added the game to their wishlists. It’s unclear how the revenue will be divided between platforms, but analytics services like VG Insights and Gamalytic estimate that Witchfire has generated more than $3 million in revenue from Steam alone. According to SteamDB, the game has reached 5,042 concurrent players since its release on the Valve Store. Overall, The Astronauts said its early access launch on Steam “went better than we could have dreamed.”
In his post, Chmielarz also touched on the studio’s partnership with Epic Games, saying it will be beneficial for all parties. The deal allowed The Astronauts to maintain its independence and continue development without selling off part of the studio, while giving Steam players a more polished and improved version of the game.
“I wholeheartedly encourage any indie studios that are able to go down this path to do so,” Chmielarz said. “I’m glad we did. We just copied what Supergiant did with Hades, and it seems to have worked.”
So far, Witchfire has received generally positive reviews, but it’s still painful for the team to read some “unfair” reviews and see the game’s rating drop. Chmielarz noted that these scores are important to developers from both a sales and funding standpoint.
Whether we like it or not, Metacritic and OpenCritic are important. A simple example: I need an investment for a future project. When you explain to potential investors that your game sold well even though it had a so-so score on Metacritic, they start to question your ability to deliver high quality, and they start to question your ability to deliver great sales. You might think it’s electric. -The bottle ones may be difficult to replicate. But if you say you had great sales and a great Metacritic score, they’ll turn their attention to something tastier and more valuable.
Astronauts Creative Director
According to Astronauts’ creative director, Steam User Score is even more important. Poor ratings not only scare away potential buyers, but they can also affect how the platform’s algorithms interact with your product.
And the Steam algorithm worked extremely well for the team. “As an example, when our first two-week 10% off promotion ended, we expected sales to slow down until the next big update, news, or sale. But… no. Of course, compared to now, the daily Sales are still great.”
The Astronauts is an independent studio based in Warsaw, Poland. Adrian Chmielarz, Michał Kosieradzki and Andrzej Poznański co-founded the company in 2012 after leaving People Can Fly, which they also founded in 2002.
Before creating Witchfire, The Astronauts released the narrative horror adventure game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. It received positive reviews, won multiple awards, and sold over one million copies worldwide.
