An Innovative New Vision For Indie Game Devs

For even more insights join the Dev Dream Newsletter: http://bit.ly/4rzrgoHInterviewing Cory Darby about Game Dev, working with Aarimous, and a new vision for how game devs make money.🚀 Corey Darby (Thornity) FULL INTERVIEW: Min-Maxing Indie Game Dev Success, Steam Algo Secrets, Sales Velocity, Wishlist Engineering, Click & Conquer $100k+, A Game About Feeding a Black Hole, No Publisher Model, Rev Share, Pricing Strategy & MORE! 🎮💰In this raw Dev Dream Podcast episode, Corey Darby (aka Thornity) — professional min-maxer, data-driven gamedev analyst, marketer & co-creator of Click & Conquer (40k+ copies, $100k revenue on ~400 hours) — breaks down how to engineer luck on Steam. We dive deep into the 3-7 day sales velocity window, discovery queue clawback, concurrent players, low refunds, playtime engineering, aggressive 40% launch discounts (max 2 weeks), literal titles vs creative, capsule importance (hire artists ~$500), trailer rules (YouTube-style editing: 3-5 sec cuts, trim aggressively), UI polish or hide it, tag engineering for audience matching, refund audits, demo metrics (80% retention @10 min/1 hr), Next Fest wishlist explosions, and why he despises the traditional publisher model.Corey shares his work with Aramos on A Game About Feeding a Black Hole (20k+ wishlists in weeks, 99% Popular Up & Coming lock, predicted 5-10k first-week copies, 20-30k possible in 72 hrs if it hits Popular Recently Released). We cover the 300-hour experiment that became Click & Conquer, normal/challenge/idler modes for high-ROI playtime, variable stats from day 1, festival timing warnings, lifetime playtime pitfalls (add your own analytics!), and building a sustainable indie business via rev-share partnerships instead of derisk-then-fund publishers.0:00 Intro1:23 Corey's Role 1:50 Professional Min-Maxer 2:32 Click and Conquer 3:08 300-Hour Experiment 3:45 Sales Results 4:11 Project Choices 4:49 Post-Mortem Data 5:21 Indie Lens 5:52 Sales Velocity 6:03 3-7 Days 6:40 Viral Outliers 7:02 Engineering Luck 7:21 Black Hole 8:07 YouTube Scraper 9:36 Day Metrics 9:47 Sales Visits 10:05 Discovery Queue 11:26 Steam Algo 12:03 Luck Quote 12:35 Discovery Inputs 13:00 Store Page 14:17 Top Funnel 15:22 50k Easy 16:17 Playtime Engineering 17:30 Short Value 18:23 Genre Marketing 19:05 Sustainable Business 20:30 Foundation First 21:36 Genre Research 21:53 Playtime Refunds 22:05 Launch Timing 22:37 10:09 AM 23:26 Publisher Timing 24:10 Refund Rates 25:06 Concurrent Players 26:13 Longer Tradeoff 27:02 ROI Modes 29:06 Normal Challenge 30:58 Low-Hanging Fruit 31:28 Variable Stats 32:34 Base Hours 33:02 Two-Hour Base 34:05 Store Clarity 34:39 Capsule Importance 36:07 Hire Artist 37:45 Title Capsule 38:05 Literal Titles 39:44 Name Radar 40:47 Capsule Intent 41:16 Sales Page 42:32 Quick Clarity 44:08 Trailer Strategy 45:36 No Waste 46:02 YouTube Rules 47:19 Trim Aggressively 48:50 UI Opinion 51:21 UI Check 53:56 Tagging System 56:27 Tag Preview 56:47 Initial Audience 57:07 Pricing Refunds 58:43 Playtime Drop 1:00:25 Demo Metrics 1:01:28 Lifetime Issue 1:03:00 Festival Warning 1:04:35 Launch Discount 1:06:02 Algo Signals 1:07:53 Mediocre Thousand 1:09:58 Black Hole 1:10:11 Prediction Video 1:11:58 5-10k Week 1:12:15 20-30k Chance 1:13:28 Wishlist Speed 1:14:35 NextFest Day 1:15:07 Exponential Mindset 1:17:02 Corey Dream 1:18:03 Biggest Building 1:21:15 Different Model 1:22:01 Publisher Hate 1:24:47 Rev Share 1:25:31 Podcast End#gamedev #indiegamedev #steam #indiegame #clickandconquer #gameaboutfeedingablackhole #thornity #coreydarby #steamalgo #salesvelocity #wishlist #nextfest #indiemarketing #steamlaunch #pricingstrategy #refunds #playtime #discoveryqueue #capsuleart #gametrailer #tagstrategy #revshare #nopublisher #indiebusiness #incrementalgame #idlegame #minmax #gamedevpodcast