Advice Appreciated: Number of downloads?

[jeb_]

Hello

I've been around these forums for about a year. I am one of the main developers at Oxeye Game Studio, and we have so far just released a turn-based strategy game called The Strategist. Sales have so far been mediocre, but compared to the number of downloads we have a reasonable conversion rate (around 0.8%).

Now there is this... uhm... issue, which puzzles me. Our game is listed at Download.com in the Modern Turn-based Strategy category and we have had about 270 downloads so far. The strange thing is, there is another game in the same list that has had around 770 downloads in the same time (it was released one day earlier). In other words more than twice as many downloads.

That game is "Mars Soldiers", and I tried to figure out why the number of downloads is so different. These are the differences, what do you think has had the most impact?

1. "Mars Soldiers" is probably a more attractive name than "The Strategist" (though I find it catchy ;) ). People are perhaps searching for "Mars" or "Soldier" or something like that.

2. Mars Soldiers is listed as "Free to try", while The Strategist is "Free to try - $14.95 to buy".

3. Mars Soldiers has only one screenshot, which doesn't really show anything. The Strategist's first screenshot is the front page, and there are two other screenshots from the game (too small to see any details, though).

4. Mars Soldiers is 20 MB, The Strategist is 10 MB.

5. Some other reason? Maybe they have had more exposure in news or in blogs. I had never heard about it before, though.

What do you think? Let's say that it's a matter of life or death for me to have more downloads than "Mars Soldiers", what should I do? :)

Links to the games on download.com:
http://www.download.com/The-Strategist/3000-8027_4-10534396.html?tag=lst-0-1
http://www.download.com/Mars-Soldiers-7/3000-8027_4-10533978.html?tag=lst-0-2

[spellcaster]

I think it's the description. "The Strategist" says mainly "fun strategy for windows" while the other game gives some basic gameplay information.

Also, if I had to to decide between a game named like a newspaper and a game named like an action movie ("The strategist" vs "Mars Soldiers") I'd choose the action game title.

[Sharpfish]

You forgot to list that your game has "requires DX9" while the other game doesn't say that (perhaps the other game does require it but saying it will obviously halt a LOT of indiegamers in their tracks because they don't have or don't want to upgrade). If it had dx7(or even 8) as a requirement It would be less offputting for those without up to date stuff. And i'm thinking your game didn't really need DX9 judging from the shots.

I think your screenshots look much better than the mars game so I don't think it's that.

[jeb_]

Ah, thanks for the comments. Thankfully our next game will have a much more spectacular title!

The reason the game requires dx9 is that we don't want to invest too much time into making a good technology base for DirectDraw games if we aren't going to make just 2D games in the future. Maybe we should've used all functionality of dx9 (3D landscapes with pixel shaders or whatever) to motivate the requirement, but it feels a little too late now :)

[Teq]

Ok, we've not yet released an indie title, so you can skip this post if you wish, but this is what I see from download.com:

Neither game particularly turns me on (description wise), but a little more enthisis on the story and how the game plays would perhaps sway me into downloading it, also, your first screenshot should show gameplay, if you take an interesting chunk of the game screen and have the logo in the corner because currently it doesn't really tell me anything about the game (also my mindset tells me that the game cannot be very interesting if you have to put the title screen in, I know this might not be the case, just how I tick :p) - interestingly though your game does look considerably better visually than the Mars one :)

(excuse my spelling, its early morning :) )