
One year ago Gremlins, Inc. appeared on Steam for the first time – under the Early Access program. It's been quite a journey, and we feel so very privileged to have such a warmhearted community that currently is almost 50,000 players strong! Thank you!!
Below, we share some insights from the last 12 months:
EARLY ACCESS & FULL RELEASE

Gremlins, Inc. released in Early Access on October 22, 2015 and spent a total of
5 months in Early Access, before moving to Full Release on March 11, 2016. Was it enough? We think so!
Here's what we added to the game during the Early Access period – and a lot of this was shaped by direct feedback from the community:
- Ranking Ladder & Leagues
- Tournament Ladder (for official in-game tournaments)
- Automated matchmaking (with multiple options)
- Single-Player Mode (with multiple preset challenges)
- A proper interactive tutorial
- A proper Gremlinopedia covering the whole game
- Auto-Save feature for single-player sessions
- Reconnect feature for multiplayer sessions
- Player Stats, Player Profiles, Player Reputation
- Emoticons as in-game communication tool
- Predefined messages as in-game communication tool
- Animated Chaos Cards
- A major update to the Jail Mechanics/UI
- Tons and tons of UI improvements
- Ambient sound tracks for all in-game locations
- First original music tracks
- 5 additional localisation languages (bringing the total to 11)
- Steam Achievements
- Steam Trading Cards
The chart below shows the frequency of our updates during the Early Access period:

That's 15 game updates in 5 months, more than two updates per month! While we're happy that we were able to keep the tempo, we must say that at times, it's been quite a challenge, and everyone on the team missed a bit of sleep in those months.
However, old habits die hard =), and so we happily kept improving the game after the full release almost in the same fashion. To be honest, with the great sales that the game started to show, it would have been a crime not to! Here's the list of what we added to the game
after its full release on March 11, 2016:
- Major feature: Character Abilities
- Major feature: Team Mode (in multiplayer and in single-player)
- Option to run private sessions
- Option to play with anonymous masks
- Major feature: item drops tradable via Steam Marketplace
- Inventory & Collection sections of player profiles
- Dedicated Asia-region server in Singapore (thanks to G-Core)
- High-score ladder for single-player sessions
- Option to customize profile with different skins, character portraits, lobby icons
- Expanded session and game (character) stats
- Tons and tons of UI improvements, including emoticon hotkeys
- Color-blind mode
- Extended Gremlinopedia (with search option)
- Tips & Tricks in-game section
- 1 more localisation language (Polish, bringing the total to 12)
- More original music tracks, more sound effects
- 11 new cards (including this week's 2)
- 8 new Misfortunes
- 4 new single-player challenges
- 3 cosmetic DLCs released
- Digital Artbook released
- Original Soundtrack released
The chart below shows the frequency of game updates following the Full Release:

That's 13 big updates during 7 months, and almost two updates per month, bringing the total number of updates to 28 in 12 months:
USER REVIEWS
By the end of our Early Access period, the sales of the game were roughly at 7,000 copies and 91% of our user reviews have been positive:

Following the Full Release, the sales grew to nearly 50,000 copies as of October 2016, and as a much wider audience accessed the game, the distribution of the reviews has changed a little bit:

Just recently, Steam has updated its user review policy/statistics, but we didn't really notice it because the number of user reviews from people who did not buy their copy but have received a key (via some promotion or media) has been fairly small for Gremlins, Inc.: only 27 reviews out of 932 –
SALES NUMBERS
We spent 41% of the last year in Early Access, which generated 16% of sales (by units) for the game –

In terms of revenue, the difference is even bigger (we changed the base price from $9.99 to $14.99 after transitioning into Full Release):

Overall, we spent nearly 1/2 of last year in Early Access, earning roughly 1/10 of the overall revenue there. Which actually reinforces the truth that dev teams should see Early Access primarily as a way to engage with the community, and not as a means to get additional funding.
Another thing is the actual average price paid for each copy sold: since the game is cheaper in regions like Russia, Ukraine and China – while these regions represent a lot of copies sold, overall – we expected the overall average price of the game to be substantially lower than the US list price; in fact, it's been quite high, which means that most players have purchased Gremlins, Inc. at the full price, and not during the sale (the highest we had so far, has been 30% off).

And now is a good time to talk about DLCs: we have 3 cosmetic DLCs (
Uninvited Guests,
Automated Competitors and
Astral Gamblers) as well as
Digital Artbook and
Original Soundtrack by A. Fruit. Here's how the sales look, in units:

The same sales, but now sorted by revenue:
THE REGIONS
Finally, let's talk about the countries where players buy the game from. The first thing that never ceases to surprise us, is this figure:
121
That's the number of countries from which customers purchased Gremlins, Inc. and the list includes such countries as Suriname, Nepal and Maldives. As well as Mayotte, Palestine, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guernsey.
If we look at the sales during the Early Access period, when we had only 7 localisation languages available, this would be the split in terms of units sold:

Come Full Release (and all 12 localisations), and the picture has changed:

Finally, if we measure by revenue – and include all 12 months, even though in the first 5 only 7 out of 12 languages were available, we arrive at this split:

As you can see, Eastern Europe and Western Europe are almost balanced, with USA taking a further 1/4th of the pie, and Asia (Japan + China) responsible for yet another 1/5th of all revenue.
STEAM FORUMS
This anniversary post would be incomplete without placing the credit firmly where it belongs: with the community that helped shape this game throughout the last year, 24/7. At the moment, there are nearly 1,500 threads on
Steam forums of Gremlins, Inc. with the top thread featuring almost 1,000 messages alone – and many others showing counts over 100. If you've made it here and would like to discuss the anniversary data further, why not join us on these forums? You're welcome to share your feedback
in this forum thread! All the very best, and we'll do another data post once the game reaches 100,000 copies sold! ːsteampunkːːcheatdiceːːvotesːːscoreːːcardsː
[ 2016-10-25 22:59:57 CET ] [ Original post ]