Prismata Devs Talk Steam Early Access Strategy

Crowdfunding and Steam Greenlight have developed a somewhat symbiotic relationship. Indie developers often leverage both, hoping to build a fan base. This is likely why so many campaigns launch on both platforms simultaneously. Once they’ve been approved for Steam, it’s tempting for devs to launch early. Sometimes, long before the project is ready for consumers. This is a costly mistake which Lunarch Studios hopes to avoid with their strategy title, Prismata.

Prismata has been greenlit on Steam since March 2015. This followed a successful Kickstarter campaign where it met its CA$ 140,000 funding goal. Backers have already been enjoying a robust Alpha build of Prismata for some time. Access to a Steam beta version arrived at the end of 2016 with hints that early access was just on the horizon.

In a recent video update, Lunarch Co-Founder, Elyot Grant outlined the team’s strategy to start early access off right. The biggest hurdle is optimizing Prismata for Steam’s discovery system.

Getting The Right Sort Of Attention

Grant explained that in order for the game to generate enough buzz on release it would need to generate a high level of interest within Steam’s ecosystem. This allows Prismata to show up in more areas of the site for new users to discover.

One of the most direct influences on this interest is driven by a game’s review/feedback score. “We really wanna have that super-high positive rating on Steam so that our game will be featured as much as possible on the platform,” Grant explained.

To accomplish this, Lunarch is working hard to make the new-user experience as polished and stress free as possible for players. The initial release will offer the first two chapters of Prismata’s campaign. This serves as a guided tour of the game’s mechanics and gives players a solid foothold in the world.

Lunarch is also streamlining the way users navigate and report bugs. They hope this will keep minor errors from leading to negative feedback. As we’ve written before, early access is a direct reflection of the final product and not a secondary funding source. Good to see Prismata doing it right.