The Witchfire developer explains why Metacritic and Steam reviews matter and how the deal with Epic Games helped the studio remain independent

Witchfire appears to be a success for Polish studio The Astronauts, which recently summarized the first results of the game's Early Access launch on Steam. The team also explained why the developers care about critic and user reviews.

• As The Astronauts pointed out in a blog post on Steam last week, Witchfire has received over 3,600 user reviews since its EA launch on the platform on September 23rd. 92% of them are positive.
• The studio did not disclose sales figures, but did disclose its creative director Adrian Chmielarz noticed this “Not only have we sold enough copies to secure the future of the studio, but also to invest more in the game and make our Witchfire dreams come true.”
• On October 8, The Astronauts announced that Witchfire had generated over 1 million wishlists on Steam and the Epic Games Store upon its initial release in September 2023. Since then, another 100,000 users have added the game to their wishlists.
• It's unclear how revenue is split across platforms, but analytics services like VG Insights and Gamalytic estimate that Witchfire grossed over $3 million on Steam alone.
• According to SteamDB, the game also peaked at 5,042 concurrent players following its release on the Valve store.
• Overall, The Astronauts said the Early Access launch on Steam “went better than we could have dreamed.”

In his post, Chmielarz also discussed the studio's partnership with Epic Games, saying it was mutually beneficial. The deal allowed The Astronauts to remain independent and continue development without selling any part of the studio, while Steam players received a more polished and improved version of the game.

“I would really recommend any indie studio that can go this route to go this route.” Chmielarz said. “I'm glad we did that. We just copied what Supergiant did with Hades and it seems to have worked well.”

Although Witchfire has been generally well received so far, it's still painful for the team to read some of the “unfair” reviews and see the game's rating drop. Chmielarz noted that these results are important for developers in terms of both revenue and funding.

Whether we like it or not, Metacritic and OpenCritic are important. A simple example: you need an investment for a future project. Explaining to the potential investor that your game sold well, even if the Metacritic score was mediocre, will make them doubt your ability to deliver high quality and may even see your great sales as a lightning strike -one-bottle thing that you may not be able to reproduce. But if you say you had great sales and a fantastic Metacritic rating, they'll now look at something much tastier and more valuable.

Adrian Chmielarz

Creative Director at The Astronauts

According to Astronauts' creative director, Steam user value is even more important. A lower rating can not only deter potential buyers, but it can also impact how the platform's algorithm interacts with your product.

And the Steam algorithm worked really well for the team: “For example, when the first two-week 10% off promotion ended, we expected sales to cool off until the next big update, news, or event next sale came. But no. Daily sales are still great, of course compared to where we are.”

The Astronauts is an independent studio based in Warsaw, Poland. Adrian Chmielarz, Michał Kosieradzki and Andrzej Poznański founded the company in 2012 after leaving People Can Fly, which they also founded in 2002.

Before The Astronauts made Witchfire, they released the narrative horror adventure game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. It received positive reviews, won several awards and sold over 1 million copies worldwide.