That’s also possible.
One thing that would appear a bit unexpected to me is if the developers will release the game without participating to a Steam showcase, which is a event that celebrates upcoming games.
These showcases are usually very beneficial to the visibility of a game, because they expose it to people who are not already aware of its existence.
The previous showcase was in June and the next one will be on October 3rd:
But do they really need it, though?
I mean… This is Monkey Island we’re talking about, not just a small indie game. Devolver is the publisher, Lucasarts/Disney own the IP… Do they really need a Steam showcase at this point?
This is a honest question, by the way. I’m not trying to make a point. I really don’t know if that makes sense or not. I just feel like these showcases exist mostly to help new/unknown devs.
Well, generally speaking in marketing you don’t do only what is strictly necessary, nor you do only the bare minimum.
If the goal is to make money, the real questions are 1) if marketing a product through a specific channel helps you to make more money and 2) if you can afford investing in that channel.
Beside the general approach I would say that, yes, more than one signal tells me that participating in a showcase might help this specific game to reach people who aren’t aware that the game exists.
This would motivate some of these people to wishlist RtMI before its release date and wishlisting a game before it is released really helps when the game comes out.
Some of the signals I’m referring to are personal interpretations of recent behaviors by the developers, others rely on more solid things: the numbers that I’m observing on Steam.
Of course I can’t say if a Steam showcase is one of those marketing activities that would make more sense than others, it all depends on their marketing strategy. Maybe they have chosen better channels to promote the product.
Nonetheless, I think that some people are overestimating how wished this game actually is.
For example, all the following upcoming adventure games (in the extended meaning of the expression) are currently more wishlisted and more followed on steam than RtMI:
It’s difficult to understand how “acceptable” the situation is for the developers, but for sure I’m not observing “stellar” or “groundbreaking” numbers.
It makes sense, but like you said, maybe their marketing strategy is not focused on Steam.
Ron seems to focus mostly on the Switch, since it was on this console that Thimbleweed Park sold the most copies.
The trailer was first showed during the Nintendo Direct, and I don’t think we have any numbers concerning the wishlisting on the eShop.
Therefore I’m not sure Steam is what matter the most for them.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Well, Switch will be an important source of income, but I’m afraid that the “mostly” isn’t compatible with the very fragmented scenario of sources of revenue that it’s necessary to build to make the project more profitable. I’ll show you why.
Here are TWP sales by store, at December 2018:
[Source]
The first thing that you can see is that if you focus mostly on any single source of revenue, you are practically rejecting money. While some sources are bigger than others and some sources are small enough to be temporarily put aside, no single source is big enough to motivate a publisher to ignore the others.
The second thing that you can see is that, while Nintendo was the biggest source of revenue, the Steam slice of the pie was too big to “not focusing on it”.
The third (and I think most telling) information that can be extracted from the chart is that the two larges sources of revenue for TWP, Nintendo and Steam, correspond with the only two stores where RtMI will be initially released. This is a confirmation that both sources are important to make the project profitable.
Fourth, considering that the publisher will focus initially on only two stores, in my opinion that implies that they should market the game in those marketplaces more, not less! The reason is that they have to compensate the fact that the game will not be intentionally sold to people who use only other stores (e.g. GOG). But this point is only a personal speculation.
And that’s why I would find it a bit peculiar if they would ignore a common promotional event in one of the only two marketplaces they have decided to focus on.
But of course, there are also some signals that support the hypothesis that they will not focus on Steam as seriously as they will focus on Nintendo.
For example, the sad condition of the forums is, in my opinion, telling. And the fact that, on Steam, Terrible Toybox has not published even one news to tell Thimbleweed Park users that a new Monkey Island game is in the works is, to me, incomprehensible and not even explainable by “not focusing on Steam much”.
Understood. That was really interesting. Thank you!
I mean, I just hope for the best at this point – that it arrives fast and sells well.
Sounds like my reason for buying the Nintendo DS: just to play Ace Attorney. Which I then promptly did NOT play for some years afterward. 
Ups. Reading this made me realize that gog.com is not listed in returntomonkeyisland.com. But that can’t be a complete list! (Only Switch & Steam??)
I assumed they would release it on gog.com, I never thought otherwise. So, it’s not going to be released there??
Hm, that would put me in front of a minor conundrum. Devolver has a ton of games they release on GOG though.
On the other hand, The Cave was not released on gog.com either. I seriously wonder why?
To me this signals a desire from Ron to forget that TWP ever existed… as if he somehow regrets doing it. This is consistent with his departure from this forum.
I may be wrong, but It’s has always been my understanding that at launch the game will be available on Steam (PC, Mac, possibly Linux) and on the Nintendo store, with other platforms and stores to come later.
When Devolver Digital decides to release an upcoming game on GOG, they create a page for it. Here are their only upcoming games on GOG, which don’t include RtMI:
[Source]
It’s possible that RtMI will not launch so soon and that they have to create the GOG page yet.
In a recent The Point & Click Adventurers Podcast Episode 4 - A chat with Cygnus Entertainment it was confirmed that Roberta Williams’ Colossal Cave 3d is on track for October release. If you were the publisher of RtMI, wouldn’t you want to release it at a different time?
Judging from YouTube views, it doesn’t look like Colossal Cave is getting much attention…
Oh wow, so soon…
I don’t know about Devolver Digital, but personally I don’t connect the two games much and I don’t consider Colossal Cave 3D a direct competitor of RtMI more than I would consider any other adventure game.
I’m not sure of how many people would still connect the two productions as if we were in Lucas and Sierra times.
Also, the YouTube views of Colossal Cave 3D videos are incredibly small when compared to RtMI views and they don’t suggest the same level of attention and popularity. I don’t observe anything that could motivate Devolver Digital to pay attention to the other game.
I hope so. I’d have to buy a Switch if that wasn’t the case. It’s the second best excuse to buy it (after “it’s for the kids”).
I have a switch, but only my kids play on it. (Those buttons and sticks are too small and too fiddly to my liking)
So I have now wish listed RtMI both on Steam and on Nintendo shop, but will only buy it once on release day on GOG. So far for extracting any statistics from those wish lists?
Get a Switch Pro controller, or whatever they call it.
