Itch, meanwhile, doesn’t generate
as many sales, but Sokpop games are
more likely to be featured on its front
page, while the audience is more
open to the collective’s style.
“I think people on Steam were
like, ‘It was cool, but I finished in half
an hour, so why did I pay $3?’,” says
Naus. “Nobody complains about that
on Itch. The audiences are different,
but Steam was a logical next step for
us. Steam just has more traffic, and I
think there are still people interested
in these kinds of games.”
Beyond Steam, the collective’s
considering releasing a game on
consoles, and even working with
publishers, though probably not for
the small games. “We want to have
that separate and be our own thing
where we have the freedom to do
what we want,” says Koning.
The Patreon and its wildly diverse
mountain of experiments seems to be
what the collective is proudest of, and
hopefully the tiny surprises will
continue for many more years.
‘Games are too long;’ is a common
refrain, so being able to browse a
massive list of games where most of
them can be enjoyed in the time it
takes to download a Call of Duty
update is a real treat. “It’s also a really
steady source of income,” says Naus.
“So unless everyone makes a big hit,
we kinda have to keep doing it!”MEETTHE DEVS
TheSokpopCollective
RUBENNAUS
Lastgame:
Labyrinth
Spendhalfanhour
climbingupa pink
castleinthe
clouds,hunting
downcrystalsand
admiringthe
floatycloth
physics.TOM VAN DEN
BOOGAART
Last game:
Blue Drifter
Earn enough cash
to get off a wet,
gloomy world by
hunting down
crooks and
collecting
bounties.ARANKONING
Lastgame:
GobletCave
Traveldeepinside
a networkofcaves
tofindthegoblet,
usingbombs,
ropesanda
suspiciously
convenientshop
toreachyourgoal.TIJMEN TIO
Last game:
Uniseas
Squabble over the
New World with
your pirate fleet,
fight other
captains, and
conquer some
islands for
yourself.then it will be evaluated again. “But the chances are we’ll
keep doing it,” says Tio. That’s not to say the collective
isn’t making other changes. In January, it released around
50 games on Steam in a single day.
FULL STEAM
“We had this huge backlog of games that we’d made over
the last two years. I think we started looking into it last
year,” recalls Koning. “We thought
maybe we should bring these games
to Steam because there’s a bigger
audience there, and we figured it was
something cool we could do for our
patrons, so they could have Steam
keys for our games.
“But then the process took a long
time because we were trying to catch
up with putting these games on
Steam while still making new ones. It
took quite a lot of work to make sure
it was properly caught up.”
“We’re still missing one game,”
Tio adds. “Actually, two, because by
that time I’ll have another one.”
Despite groaning at the realisation
that they’ve got more catching up to
do, the four of them are pleased with
the Steam launch. In a week,
Sokpop’s gross revenue was half of
what it’s made on Itch since it
started. But they’re very different
platforms with different benefits.
Steam has the numbers, of course,
but there’s also a lot more
competition, as well as the dreaded
algorithm to contend with. Most
developers are in the same boat, but
releasing 50 games at once also put
Sokpop at a disadvantage.
The problem was that there was
no build-up or opportunity to get on
people’s wish lists, and with so many
games dropping at once, none of
them got a big enough launch spike
to take a coveted spot on the ‘New
and Trending’ list.
ABOVE: There’s
nothing more tragic
than a pooped out
party penguin.
TOP LEFT:
Sok-Stories lets you
create your own
games from doodles
and upload them.FEATURE