Two steps to launching a successful computer game

This post is also available in: Danish

By Søren Lundgaard, CEO and Co-founder, Ghost Ship Games

On paper, Deep Rock Galactic shouldn’t be a successful computer game.

We launched the first version in 2018, the game peaked at just over 4,000 concurrent players, a limp start by most standards. Six years later, we still put the game on a hefty discount as often as we can. We’ve spent thousands of hours working to add lots of new content, but never charged players extra for any of it. The game’s got no loot boxes or advertising.

It might look like we’re leaving money on the table here.

But things are going well. We’ve sold over 9 million copies worldwide, and the game has over a million monthly active users. It’s got over 300,000 reviews on Steam, 97 percent of which are positive.

So how’d we do it?

Well, the first thing was listening to our users. We launched Deep Rock Galactic in Early Access, meaning it was still a work in progress, and we made the final touches following the feedback from our players. That Early Access model is pretty common now, but it was a bigger risk back then.

The other big one was focusing on creating community. Deep Rock Galactic is designed from the very foundations to be a social game, one shared with friends (or strangers) and shaped to encourage positive interactions. We hardly pay for any marketing, because we get so many word of mouth recommendations.

So, those two steps are sort of the same idea: Look out for people, and they’ll look out for you. Start with your good idea, then listen to what means most to your users. Pretty simple stuff, but easy to lose track of.

Now we’re at a place where we can pay about 20,000 DKK to tell you this. I think it’s worth it.

“Rock and Stone” – Søren Lundgaard (CEO/co-founder, Ghost Ship Games)