How did an indie developer sell over 600,000 copies of their first game in one month?



Despite being the studio's first game, the indie game '

Tiny Glade ' has sold approximately 616,000 copies in less than a month, and user reviews have maintained an 'overwhelmingly positive' reputation. Game sales consultant Simon Carless interweaves interviews with the developer and explores 'why it has sold so well.'

How Tiny Glade 'built' its way to >600k sold in a month!
https://newsletter.gamediscover.co/p/how-tiny-glade-built-its-way-to-600k

Tiny Glade is a sandbox castle building game where you design buildings however you like without any objectives or rewards. On Steam, it has been tagged as 'comfortable,' 'medieval,' and 'cute,' and has been selling well since its official release on September 24, 2024.

According to information shared by the developer, one month after release, the game has sold 616,528 units and has 34,496 daily active users.



What's surprising is that it has over 1.93 million entries on Steam's wishlist. Taking this into consideration, Carless pointed out that the reason for Tiny Glade's success was that 'every video or demo that this game has released, from the early tweets that went viral to the trailer at the game's promotional event '

Future Games Show 2023 ' and beyond, has been appealing to the public, saying, 'It's a lot of fun to create things in a game, come play!''

In fact, even before the release, the developers were actively sharing footage of users playing the demo version, and at the time of release, a large number of players, streamers, and influencers recommended the game, so the 'promotion' effect appears to have been enormous.




The breakdown of Tiny Glade buyers by country was 32% from the United States, 9% from Germany, 7% from France, 7% from the UK, 7% from China, 4% from Canada, 4% from Russia, 3% from Australia, 2% from the Netherlands, and 2% from Japan.

Data from GameDiscoverCo , the company Carless runs, shows that people who play Tiny Glade are also more likely to own construction and management sims like Planet Zoo , relaxing games like Unpacking , and medieval city-building games like Manor Lords .



When asked in an interview why they created a 'game with no failure experiences,' the developers replied, 'We wanted to create a calm space where you can escape, a childhood feeling. Sometimes you want a high-tension game, and other times you just want to take it easy and let your imagination take the bait.' They also said they were particular about 'getting more with less effort,' 'not giving wrong answers,' and 'making the world react to what the user creates with vines, birds, sheep, etc.'

In fact, Tiny Glade allows you to change the shape of roofs and extend walls simply by clicking and pulling objects, so the 'get more with less' design is a major part of the game.

'It's obvious that incredibly well-made games sell, but this game is pretty unique in that it has no goal, and the fact that it's sold so well is interesting,' Carless said.



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in Game, Posted by log1p_kr