On March 17, Retro Rewind — Video Store Simulator was released on Steam, where players need to manage a video rental store from the early 1990s. It showed excellent sales, and in this regard, analyst Simon Carless from GameDiscoverCo tried to identify the reasons behind the game's popularity.
Retro Rewind
- First, it's worth noting that Retro Rewind was developed by the Canadian indie studio Blood Pact Studios. It has only two employees, one of whom previously worked at Beenox and participated in the creation of several Call of Duty parts.
- Five days after its release, Blood Pact Studios announced that the game had sold over 100,000 copies. According to Carless, by today Retro Rewind has sold nearly 200,000 times, making it one of the most successful new releases in March on Steam — Retro Rewind fell just short of entering the top 10.
- According to the analyst, Retro Rewind's good results were largely due to the successful use of ideas from the hit game Supermarket Simulator. Meanwhile, Blood Pact Studios infused the game with its own style and endeavored to adhere to historical conventions.
- Interestingly, although Retro Rewind borrowed the formula from Supermarket Simulator, 63% of its audience had never played that game. However, many had already tried Schedule I (69%), House Flipper (50%), and American Truck Simulator (45%).
- The 1990s setting, which evoked nostalgia in part of the audience, also played an important role. Nevertheless, Carless notes, Retro Rewind attracted quite a few young gamers. Most game owners are only 3-4 years older than the average Steam user.
- Retro Rewind has its own unique "twist" that sets it apart from other similar games. The developers paid significant attention to details and hand-drew parody covers for movie tapes.
- Another factor in Retro Rewind's success was a quality demo version, which helped Blood Pact Studios gather initial gamer feedback and determine the game's development direction. The demo became an important marketing tool for the project — after its release, the number of Retro Rewind wishlists increased from 10 to 300 per day.
- Additionally, the developers themselves reached out to streamers and YouTubers to have them play the simulator's demo version, which helped spread the word about Retro Rewind.
- However, there were some issues. As Carless pointed out, the current average playtime for Retro Rewind is eight and a half hours, with the median playtime around four hours. This is relatively short. It is likely that gamers aren't staying longer due to a lack of content, but Blood Pact Studios has promised to address this issue.
“Once again we see developers applying AAA game development skills to create smaller projects. They use game engines (in this case, Unreal Engine) as a foundation and ensure high replayability with much lower costs. These are the kinds of games that disrupt the traditional gaming business. Why? Because they are inexpensive, darn good, and very well-made,” concluded Carless.