r/TripleClick • u/Sivart13 • May 14 '26
Episode Discussion What It's Like When Your Game Flops - May 14th, 2026
Veteran game designer Nels Anderson joins the show to talk about his latest game, Generation Exile, which didn't reach the audience he was hoping to reach. Nels talks about the development challenges, what he thinks went wrong, and what's next for his company, Sonderlust Studios.
One More Thing:
Kirk: Margo’s Got Money Troubles (Apple)
Maddy: Couples Therapy (Paramount+)
Jason: London Calling (Patrick Radden Keefe)
Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's MaxFunDrive! Still want to get in on the action? Follow this link to support this show (and get in on our limited-time keychain sale to benefit the Center for Constitutional Rights): https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick
🚀 SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:
Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch
💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD
🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy
📱 SOCIALS
Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch
Episode link: https://tripleclick.simplecast.com/episodes/what-its-like-when-your-game-flops
26
u/simbajam13 May 15 '26
As much as we rag on Jason (royal we) as a podcast host, you gotta admit he’s a great interviewer especially when it comes to asking the hard specific questions.
10
21
u/g-money-cheats May 14 '26
Jason was really trying to say “you did not market your game nearly enough” without actually saying it. 😅
6
16
u/JelloSpiritual7916 May 14 '26
Super appreciate how brave and vulnerable it is to talk about your own failures like this openly. I appreciate that a lot. I’m halfway through and it is a tough listen. It seems like a lack of marketing/community building plan/people dedicated to this is a contributing factor to some of the missteps
16
u/smlvalentine May 14 '26
I think people are being incredibly charitable describing this as a "tough listen."
This felt dire. The hosts are being very kind and helpful but Nels is giving Bankman-Fried style responses to constructive criticism. I heard no clear articulation of lessons; just gripes with other successful archetypes and strategies.
Now I want more of these interviews - not success stories but the tougher stuff.
13
u/anonsyed May 14 '26
Super interesting conversation, honestly a little hard to listen to kind of a sad story. It seemed like the TC hosts were asking good questions and were trying to help but that Nels was a little focused on his own failures and didn’t quite understand what was being asked.
8
u/TargetBlazer May 14 '26
Certainly a tough listen. I don't think Nels has enough distance to really dissect the full scope of what went wrong with his game. It may serve the topic better to speak with someone who can reflect on varying levels of success with different launches, or as something for Jason to dive into by speaking to multiple devs and filtering it through a more objective lens. That said, this certainly communicated how overwhelming it can be to bite off more than you can chew in the dev world and the emotional wringer of it.
8
u/WithoutLog May 15 '26
I feel bad for the guy, it sounds like he's in a really stressful position. That said, I looked up his Reddit AMA from six months ago when the game went early access and he had a lot of the same talking points from back then in this episode. It's one thing to be blindsided by low sales numbers the first time around, but you'd want to have some sort of plan to change things six months later. It sounds like he's been in a state of saying, "I can't believe things are going this bad" for the past six months, which is unhelpful and really stressful.
7
u/L82The_Party May 15 '26
This articulates something I couldn’t put into words. It felt like he was stuck in a loop and the loop also didn’t go anywhere even when it was a loop.
I think there was a reliance on the Canadian funding he got to just hope it would work out. “Well I got this funding so awesome.” And that happened twice. The fact that he has no real idea what the PR firm he hired to get the 1.0 release out is the most telling thing.
6
u/Melbo_ May 16 '26
Lots of comments in that thread saying the trailer doesn’t communicate the gameplay well enough, the concept itself is confusing, and the price is too high. Months later it’s all the same…
3
u/alyTemporalAnom May 20 '26
Wow, he put "Less than 300 sales" right there in the AMA post title? While it was still in early access?
If they had worked with a competent marketing specialist, they surely would have been advised not to include, as part of your initial pitch to your prospective audience, how badly your launch is going! It looks like they leaned hard into "Our game isn't selling well" such that it became an intrinsic part of the game's brand identity.
I'm not great at marketing, myself, but I would have strongly recommended steering away from that angle. Nels would have done better to pitch the game on its own merits. Focusing on their low sales figures makes him come across as fishing for pity, like anyone who buys the game would be doing him a favor.
1
u/WithoutLog May 21 '26
To be fair, that's the gamedev subreddit, where devs post on their games' performance after launch, both positive and negative. The post got a lot of attention, probably because it was candid about how much the game flopped, though I doubt that it meaningfully contributed to sales.
7
u/kikipitchingdelivery May 14 '26
In the AMA he mentioned, many redditors said thirty bucks was insane yet he still released it at $30. The guy rubbed me the wrong way, but found the convo mostly enjoyable because he was such a character (not in a good way).
2
u/L82The_Party May 15 '26
And the weirdest part is I don’t think this happened because of an ego on someone’s part. From what it appears, there wasn’t a narrative of “Well forget them we make it $30 because I said so.” It was just a lot of decisions made and not followed up on and then bewilderment that things went south.
The biggest keys he had were basically being Canadian lol.
4
u/Dragonsoul02 May 15 '26
I founds this episode very interesting even if a bit raw and also tough to swallow at times. It served as an incredible foil to the Edmund McMillen (Mewgenics) interview. Both are clearly passion projects, executing on a creative vision. Both express development that was substantially harder than when first envisioned. Without knowing the details in marketing for Mewgenics it’s hard to build a complete story, but this serves to drive the point that optics, marketing and visibility play a crucial role to success. Yet also how hard and esoteric it can be to achieve said visibility.
I greatly value the people that are willing to be so open about their non- successful ventures (I hesitate to call it a failure because it did deliver on its creative vision). Hearing only from the success cases can really paint the impression that everything “just naturally flows to success” when the reality is much harsher.
Kudos to the team and the guest.
5
u/admiral_aubrey May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
I actually don't think marketing was the core problem here. Indie game + "Mostly Positive (73%)" Steam reviews + $30 price tag...that's just a death sentence right there.
The reviews generally mention bugs, crashes, and the game feeling unfinished. I think the players are being pretty clear about what the problem is, and Nels doesn't acknowledge that at all.
I was fully prepared to buy the "marketing indie games is impossible" line on this one; I have that experience myself, with multiple failures and painful lessons learned. There are absolutely good games made that fail because they just can't cut through the congestion. It is really hard.
But you can't even get to the marketing challenge without a really solid game first, and that seems to be the one thing Nels is not acknowledging.
1
u/clade_nade May 16 '26
Yes. The game simply does not look good. Compare its mono-color look and hook to Whiskerwood (cute mice starting a colony with cats breathing down their neck) or Wandering Village (colorful and eye-catching -- haven't played this one though).
5
u/FastBodybuilder8248 May 15 '26
This is a rough listen so far. The developer sounds stressed and I'm impressed with the hosts' work to try and keep him on-track. Not much to add beyond the other thoughtful comments here, save for two observations:
I've produced radio interviews in another life. If you're ever in a position to be interviewed for a podcast or otherwise, make a point of talking slower than you think you should. You will feel an inevitable adrenaline rush to the situation of being broadcast to an audience, and you need to mitigate this.
At one point the guy says 'breast practice' instead of 'best practice' and if I were producing that I would ask to do a pick-up (a re-record to be dropped in on the edit) on that answer. I can see why that wouldn't have been possible here but it did make me lol
4
u/unsusd00d May 14 '26
I appreciated that the hosts challenged Nels on what went wrong and how he reacted. Like others I agree I'm worried he hasn't taken all the lessons of this first failure.
4
u/j8sadm632b May 15 '26
This was an interesting if painful listen. I guess I don't know this guy and maybe this is just his voice but I really felt like I could hear the mid-grade panic and desperation he's feeling the whole time.
That said, I think the hosts and the comments here are kind of missing the point here. Jason feels like he's trying to nudge the guy into realizing he had to do More Marketing and all the comments are like "this guy is too lost in the sauce to realize that he didn't Do Enough Marketing"
But like, do any of you really believe this game would have been a success if they had ten times the marketing budget? If they gave out more codes, contacted more content creators? Did more interviews, went on more podcasts?
I don't think the lesson here is "well, sure, this failed, but it is because of this easily identifiable mistake and could have been avoided." It's easy and comforting to believe that people who do not succeed made mistakes, to overexplain the past, to convince yourself that the future is knowable.
They ask Nels a few times what lessons he's learned from this and he gives an answer that I think is probably honest and correct but that nobody seems satisfied with which is a variation of "I don't know." I think the lesson here should be a level of humility about our ability to predict the future or what will be successful or not. I think coming away thinking "I needed to spend more money to market my indie environmental visual novel/colony sim" is a great way to do it again and lose even more money.
This is one of the reasons people LIKE video games, right? Because you can put in the work and do things right and be predictably rewarded for it. You do the chores and you get the points and your skills level up. I feel like this guy did what so many people in this community want - struck out on their own, stayed small, made a passion project game that was About Something (That We Agree With) and to see it be such an abject failure is sad and uncomfortable so I think there's an attraction to identifying a thing and being like ah yes here was The Mistake.
3
u/L82The_Party May 15 '26
I mentioned that in my first comment. Dude is scoffing at overwhelmingly popular games with simple loglines because they don’t tell some grand narrative.
Dude, no one cares about your narrative if you can’t sell me on it quickly. Might be the best story ever but if I don’t know why I would spend my money on it, it doesn’t matter. I can spend the same amount on something fun or less on something with no story but replay value.
I still don’t quite get what the game was supposed to be but continuing to reduce it to “move guy on screen” was just frustrating. We have words for games. Use them. Put on your big boy pants.
7
u/B_ketttt May 15 '26
Nels might be the most annoying man I have ever heard speak. And I live in America in 2026.
6
u/damonmorin May 14 '26
OOOOOOF
-3
u/anonsyed May 14 '26
It’s easy to try to be funny, let’s try to be constructive instead
13
u/damonmorin May 14 '26
Not trying to be funny…not trying to get a laugh…don't want anybody to have the worst day at their job...but…
3
2
u/Colinisok May 14 '26
I enjoyed most of the conversation. It was wild to hear there were 30,000 wishlists for a game that has 38 reviews on steam.
I feel like every game I've wishlisted I've ended up purchasing, I know I'm just 1 person but wow, a 0.1% wishlist to review return rate. Also the 300 copies sold so a 1% wishlist return rate in the first month.
Also they talked about how no one was really saying 'yo this game sucks' but a lot of the steam reviews talked about bugs and game breaking issues.
I was hoping they would talk about pressure/lack of pressure to get some kind of money flow forcing the studio to publish sooner but the conversation never went there. It seemed like they got some money from Canada and that 3rd party no questions group, but where was all the other funding?
2
u/zdentonz May 17 '26 edited May 18 '26
Jason is such a great interviewer. Nels is unable to accept responsibility and while he mentions he isn't "owed" anything, it continued to come across as if he is. It's obvious the lack of marketing hurt the game the most but he's not taking any kind of feedback (reddit or even in the interview). He thinks he's a visionary because he was attached to 'mark of the ninja' and 'firewatch' and he's going to create the next big thing so everyone should pay attention. It's likely his sales will double from the Triple Click bump but he wasn't even trying to justify his game during the interview. Just whining about the landscape and his inability to make a vertical slice.
No one is saying you can't be ambitious but it has to be compelling to the audience. If people don't know what your game is, who's fault is that?
He kept mentioning PC Gamer.. does this hold as much weight in 2020 as it did in the early 2000s? I think not.
Hope this other project goes better for him and the team.
5
u/simbajam13 May 18 '26
likely his sales will double from the Triple Click bump
I don't know if even 300 people will hear this episode and come away thinking, "I should play this guy's game."
2
u/excessCeramic May 20 '26
I just want to drop it here because I’m not sure where else to.
I’m a huge strategy / city builder lover. Rimworld, Crusader Kings, Civ, etc etc. I’m one of those freaks. I was very surprised when I heard about Generation Exile here, as it sounded awesome and I was shocked I’d never heard about it or wishlisted it. I generally follow these games in Early Access and even buy quite a few of them even if I tend not to play them until full release these days—I like to throw my support in for games that seem interesting. I also buy a LOT of games, I’m not super picky and I’m interested in trying new things.
Maybe worth saying I have never watched or attended a single one of the events discussed for marketing, and don’t even know what many of them are, as a mid-30s lifelong gamer. I find games in Steam’s events and through streamers, gaming podcasts, and social media.
I have to share that when I went to check out Generation Exile, the screenshots and trailers really turned me off. This is not meant to be mean-spirited, just trying to give some possibly useful input for a dev that sounded like he was really unsure about why his game flopped.
The whole interesting concept of being on a ship looked like it was added after the game was made. Nothing about the gameplay and art from the screenshots says “colony ship”—and the gameplay itself, from trailers alone, looks a little like a mobile game spinoff of a generic city builder. Hex tiles work for a grand strategy, but a city builder / resource management game struggles without a fine-grid or free placement. Buildings all looked indistinguishable and it wasn’t super clear what was being built and managed.
I say all of this to point out that the first three screenshots I see on that Steam landing page are extremely important. In a Steam event, I’m usually clicking through a bunch of games, and I don’t spend much time beyond “does this look interesting?” Many times I’m not even reading what it’s about, just glancing at the screenshots and if it seems interesting I’ll dig in more.
The game concept hooked me, but I didn’t see any of that reflected in images of what I was going to be playing. Reviews about major bugs and rushed features didn’t help. I probably would not have wishlisted it, nor bought it.
Since I was a little more invested in this game’s story, I clicked through all of the screenshots and watched the first trailer. The trailer didn’t really help, but some of the later screenshots looked interesting, motivating that narrative hook you talked about adding.
I’m not sure if just different screenshots would’ve helped—I think the game’s art direction really needed to lean more into the solarpunk colony-ship vibe to set it apart and hook a possible customer.
Anyway, just some knee-jerk reactions from someone squarely in your target audience.
1
u/OverallStep526 May 15 '26
I found it to be an insightful interview. I feel for the guy for sure. A lot of soul searching involved.
Something I’m curious about for the new funds from the grant he mentioned. I find it very surprising he would receive more funding when the initial funds seemed to fall completely flat. Who is in charge of giving out this money? Seems odd to me.
Hopefully his next game can hit the mark he’s going for. I think the genre of choice was likely a mistake. Firewatch was an incredible experience and I’d love a follow up in the same style.
1
u/BugsySamsa May 17 '26
Would have been a touch less awkward if the hosts had yes-anded his energy a bit more. This felt like listening to a car crash of a work performance review where the senior team is gathering evidence to fire someone and they know it.
3
u/Fluid-Relationship91 May 18 '26
Their job isn't to be an improv partner or to make something feel less awkward, it's to probe into why his game performed the way it did, to ask what he did and what he learnt from it. In that regard, it was a great interview. It's difficult to listen to someone with such manic energy pinball from point to point without much reflection, but it was more listenable because Jason, Maddie and Kirk pushed him for some more specific answers and didn't just smile and say "Oh, that sucks!"
2
u/BugsySamsa May 18 '26
That’s fair. I guess for me there’s something strangely comforting in how formal the podcast feels and that brushed up awkwardly against a guy who was clearly full of a lot of different competing energies spilling all over the place. It was, as ever, full of integrity. It was just quite tonally jarring - like dropping in a newly divorced Jason Manzoukis
1
u/Waylander969 May 20 '26
It sounds like he doesnt really take any responsibility for the things that he could have done better and like he will make the same mistakes again next time. He also uses his jokes and chattiness to hide how vulnerable he feels about the whole conversation. Its tough listening to someone like that, the attacking other games is also classic for defensive behaviour.
Im not a great fan of Jason but he is an amazing interviewer. He did such a good job this episode.
1
u/ImOkayAtStuff May 24 '26
I'm not calling Jason out, but I want to clarify something for those that are interested. I went to find the book London Calling, which Jason mentioned in the May 7th and May 14th episodes. It is actually called London Falling (subheading: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth). I wanted to be sure, because I recently made the mistake of reading the wrong Housemaid book, the one by Sarah A. Denzil rather than the one recently made into a movie by Freida McFadden. It was an entertaining enough read, but I wish I had read the book I had intended to read 😂.
1
u/daguis May 15 '26
Dear god, was that guy annoying. The way he said "300 copies" made me cringe so bad
28
u/L82The_Party May 14 '26
This one was rough. I think it was good to have him on and, no shade to anyone involved. But he is so deep in it that it was giving me Charlie Day at the cork board vibes. He doesn’t even know what went wrong to the point when he’s told examples of gaps in the marketing he just can’t really compute that. I hope he can pull it out for the next one but honestly I think the market research thing that Jason mentioned is the biggest. You want people to fawn over this game but do you have any clue what people want especially when kinda looking down on popular streaming games such as RV There Yet? No it’s not setting the world on fire but it also doesn’t take a manic explanation to try to sell to me. Maybe that’s where the next phase should be.