devtrackers.gg
Hello, dear devs,
first off, congratulations on a finished game! I've said it before, but it doesn't hurt saying again that it's an awesome game and you're an awesome team. :)
On the occasion of Factorio being finally "released" by any reasonable definition, if I may, I wanted to suggest a slight update to the "About the Game" text on the factorio.com main page, in the last paragraph. Right now, it says:
Factorio has been in development since the spring of 2012. So far over 2,000,000 people have bought the game.
Two points: First, the phrase "has been in development" implies that it still is. Of course, it's true from the point of view that you haven't abandoned the game and will presumably be supporting and developing it further. But depending on how it's read, it might give some people the impression that the game is still not officially out, or that you consider it unfinished.
Since that is no longer true, I'd suggest rephrasing it a bit. I don't want to presume to tell you what you should replace it with exactly. It's just, when I visited the page just now, it kinda jumped out at me that the one thing you mention about the game's development / release status is that you've worked on it for 8 years. I mean, it's not bad info, but maybe not the most important thing a first-time visitor should read?
If I didn't know Factorio, it might give me the impression that you don't have anything better to say about the state of the game (which definitely isn't true), or that it's stuck in "development hell" (not an uncommon fate for independent games, fortunately never the case with Factorio), or that you can't stick to a schedule (a specter which you have successfully banished by finally releasing! :) ), or that a game so "old" has to be technologically outdated (again not true, since AFAIK you updated all the major "legacy" parts of the code), or something along those lines.
So, whatever you pick to spend that one sentence's worth of page space on, I think there might be information you could put there that would show the game in a better light. I mean, the "About" text is quite short and is the only "official description" of the game the website has. I'm not sure how many people read it (some people don't read much of anything and prefer pictures and videos, I guess :) ), but because it's the only text-based "advertising" you have for the game (that I know of), it probably automatically gets the status of a high-exposure space where "every word counts".
Don't get me wrong, I love how honest you are in everything you publish for player consumption, and that you avoid the kind of empty marketing fluff and corporate BS that gaming is full of these days. I'm just saying, there's a lot of perfectly true good things to be said about Factorio from which you could choose the contents of this blurb.
That's it on this point. I hope I haven't offended you with the unsolicited advice. :) In any event, it's just my opinion; I certainly can't claim to be any kind of marketing expert. (But I am a professional translator, so I do pay attention to words and meanings, for whatever that's worth.)
Second, the most recent FFF mentions you passed 2.5 million sales, so if you want the bragging rights (for one of the top 50 best-selling PC games ever!),1 you might want to consider updating the number. Your Wikipedia (en) page already has it! (Not from me. :) )
That's all I have for now. Again, great job and I'm looking forward to whatever comes next in Factorio!
1. This is from the "List of best-selling PC games" on the English Wikipedia. Factorio is currently about no. 47 on there. This list excludes cross-platform sales for games that have them. As many games do, but Factorio does not, including these sales would probably result in Factorio moving to a lower position. Still, it's damn impressive when you see the neighbors. For example, just now I've been replaying [non-Reforged] Warcraft 3. I thought, "Well, this is a classic of the genre, pretty much the pinnacle of evolution for the whole Dune 2 lineage of RTS." Then I saw Factorio just 2 positions below that. Way to go, guys! :p
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