Game Maker: Starting by Healing the Players Chapter 10: Who Could Say No to a Cute Girl Puzzle Game?

"Phew, that was unexpected!"

Inside the small apartnt, Lucas looked at the sales numbers on the backend of the official platform and was a little surprised.

The growth in numbers was far beyond what he had expected.

On the first day, he sold 162 copies. Not a high number, but not bad either.

But on the second day, sales shot up to around 610 copies—nearly four tis more.

The main reason? His marketing strategy.

With only a 2000 dollar budget, normal ads weren't really an option.

Not just because of the lack of money, but also because the ga had a... special kind of content.

So Lucas Hart decided to target an overseas forum that many gentlen frequent.

After all, what he really needed was exposure.

And his thod? The classic elite shill post strategy.

He never planned on doing wide-scale spam campaigns.

They're usually not very effective, and can even backfire.

Instead, Lucas went with a more focused plan—buying old, reputable accounts and using them to post review-style threads.

After posting, he had so backup accounts on other platforms help push the threads up with replies.

Of course, the most important part of this plan was still the quality of the ga.

Without a solid product, this kind of promotion wouldn't work at all—might even be worse than mass spamming.

The real key was turning curious players into loyal fans, who would then recomnd the ga to their friends and fellow gentlen.

As soone who used to be a professional ga planner in his past life—and also a loyal, honest gar—Lucas Hart knew one thing very well:

What are players really interested in?

It's a pretty simple idea: most players love doing the opposite of what's expected.

In a normal ga, they love sneaking in naughty stuff.

In a naughty ga, they enjoy doing normal things.

That kind of contrast is exactly what hooks them.

Just like that popular joke online: "n have two main hobbies—dragging good girls into the dark, and convincing bad girls to be good."

Gars are the sa.

There are always players who love pulling off weird and creative stuff in gas.

Of course, that alone isn't enough to make a ga succeed. In the end, it still cos down to quality.

But if that contrast can catch players' attention and pull them in, then it's already doing its job.

And judging by Mirror's sales, this marketing plan is definitely working.

Lucas didn't pick Mirror on a whim—it was a well-thought-out choice.

He had already researched how similar gas were doing on the market, whether modern players still liked the sa kind of content as in his past life, and whether the platforms and promotion thods were realistic.

He planned for everything.

With all that, the success of Mirror was already well within Lucas's control.

The only thing he didn't expect was just how passionate the gentlen were.

Selling 610 copies on the second day—Lucas believed that was just the beginning.

As ti went on and more players started spreading the word, Mirror's sales would only keep rising.

"Yeah… at this rate, I can pay off the debt on the paynt app by next week."

"Good thing the overseas platform pays out in real ti—once the refund period ends, the money gets sent straight to my account."

"But just like in my past life, the cut that third-party platforms take is really hard to swallow."

Thinking of that, Lucas Hart smacked his lips.

The official ga platform takes a 30% cut, mostly to cover platform maintenance, engine updates, and developnt of new tech.

As for the other third-party platforms, they're way worse.

Especially on mobile platforms, where the cut usually starts at 50%.

So even go as far as a 70/30 split — and of course, that's 70 for the platform, 30 for the developer.

That's pretty much the sa as the big companies and app stores from his past life.

But to be fair, there are so benefits — like the huge user base on those third-party platforms. Also, official platforms don't promote much, and their recomndation systems aren't that smart.

So even though those platforms take a big cut, studios and companies can still make money.

It's just that all the at gets eaten by the platforms, and the devs are left drinking soup.

But for Lucas right now, he just looked into those platforms a little — they didn't seem very useful.

It's not that he thought they were too greedy and didn't want to use them.

In fact, if he really used them, it would definitely help bring in money faster at the start.

The main problem was that Mirror was a bit of a special case. Even if it got on those platforms, it wouldn't get any real promotion spots.

.........

From the afternoon into the evening, Lucas kept an eye on the ga's sales numbers.

This ti period was the peak for new sales.

Every hour, he refreshed the backend and watched the numbers go up.

From around 100 new copies sold per hour earlier, the number climbed to over 200 during this peak ti.

Clearly, word about Mirror was slowly spreading through all kinds of "gentlen's" circles.

Every bit of sales growth ca from these friendly "gentlen" supporting the ga.

And once player reviews were unlocked, the rating for Mirror was finally revealed.

9.7 — a score that could only be called explosive.

But Lucas Hart wasn't overly excited.

The main reason was simple: as an 18 ga, players tend to be much more forgiving and accepting.

Compared to regular gas, this score didn't an all that much.

Just like how so forums are full of fighting and negativity, the forums where these "gentlen" hang out are totally different.

There, the comnts are super friendly — either thanking the original poster, or sharing viewing tips and praising certain "teachers."

The only thing Mirror's rating really proved was that, in the eyes of the players, this was a ga worth buying and recomnding.

After all, who could say no to a fun, cute-girl match-three ga?

(End of this chapter)