Discoverability is a tech buzzword that indicates how likely someone is to find your product. It's important on Steam, where indie developers are constantly under pressure to get their product's name in front of players' eyes. The stakes involved, and the fact that Valve has largely automated the process, has led to some pretty weird outcomes, as one indie developer learned this past week.
Prismata, an Early Access deck-building RTS by rookie developer Lunarch Studios, hurtled to the top five of Steam's concurrent player charts recently, taking the developer completely by surprise.
Here's what happened. In the last month, Lunarch Studios has done what a lot of indie developers do to attract interest to their game: gave out free keys. The team also ran a free weekend, letting anyone who played their game keep it forever.
If you're not a robot, then feel free to check out our list of the best free games available on Steam.
Prismata is an interesting little game, but one that's hard to classify - it's a card game with hints of Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, but it also has a lot of RTS in it. Like a lot of small games, it also has its own dedicated community of players, but it's very much an in-development and niche title. The developer intends to offer it as free-to-play, but buying into Early Access normally costs $24.99.