Contraband Police quickly became a viral hit on Steam and a must-check simulator. For PlayWay President Krzysztof Kostowski, the success of the title was not a surprise, but a certainty. For Wprost.pl, he talks about the premiere and collaboration with Crazy Rocks.
“I don’t usually play simulators, but I’ll check out Contraband Police,” thought tens of thousands of players from all over the world at the same time. So the inconspicuous Polish game became the 5th bestseller of the week on Steam, the largest digital gaming platform in the world.
This opinion is also repeated in many reviews, including the author of Wprost.pl. Journalists note, in particular, that the interesting theme of the production – the work of a border guard in a fictional communist country – strongly distinguishes the title from the numerous activity simulators that have been multiplying like mushrooms after rain in recent years.
Since its premiere on March 8, the game, published by PlayWay and created by the Warsaw studio Crazy Rocks, has been in demand not only in Poland, but also in Europe and even in the USA. We ask its president Krzysztof Kostowski about the success of the project, the behind the scenes of working with developers and the strategy of PlayWay, a company known for its simulators.
Krzysztof Sobepan, Wprost.pl: Since its release on March 8, Contraband Police has attracted a lot of interest from the players. Did you expect such success?
Krzysztof Kostowski, PlayWay: We are pleased with each premiere of a game from the PlayWay portfolio – often this is the culmination of many years of painstaking work. However, the success of Contraband Police did not come as a surprise to us. We expected this before.
This is the influence of how the market works and what strategy the PlayWay group adheres to. Even before the debut of the game on the Steam platform, so-called wish lists are created. This “wishlist” is the number of people who watch the production, receive notifications, etc. about the premiere, news in the game, or price promotions for the title.
While the wish list does not mean one-on-one sales, it is one of the key indicators of player interest. Some subscribers will buy the game at the premiere, others will decide to buy it at one of the promotions, maybe even in a year or two.
In the case of the Smuggling Police, the wishlist was around 300,000, one of the highest levels in our portfolio. This fact has already told us that a large number of players will be happy to check out the game. As a company, we have been able to adapt accordingly. For example – the allocation of appropriate funds to promote the game on the Internet.
How else has PlayWay helped the anti-smuggling police stand out from the crowd?
The PlayWay Group is an association of game developers working towards a common goal. This allows us to collaborate on subsequent premieres. In the case of Contraband Police, our other games advertised new products, which allowed us to expand our circle of interest quite significantly in the period of about ten days before the launch on March 8th.
Source: Wprost
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