Permadeath studio worked on the Planet Centauri project for over 10 years, but the start was not very successful. With 138 thousand wishlists, only 581 were sold in the first week after the release of the full version at the end of last year.
It turns out that it's not Planet Centauri that has something wrong, but there was a failure in the operation of Steam algorithms. For some reason, the system did not send a release notification to users who added the game to their wishlist.
Valve acknowledged the error and apologized to the developers only recently. A Permadeath representative told Polygon that the team had been experiencing "strong" disappointment for months, the game's authors were "asking themselves questions" and felt a "loss of confidence."
As compensation, Valve offered the developers to place their game in the Daily Deal, which could increase its visibility on Steam.
After studying the feedback from colleagues in the industry, who noted an increase in sales after entering the Daily Deal section, the authors of Planet Centauri decided to accept the offer.
However, the developer believes that "perhaps Steam could offer something more substantial. Perhaps the "Daily Deal" is indeed an excellent gift, despite the limited 24-hour validity period. However, we cannot say for sure, we will see and hope for the best. But, in any case, the reality is what it is, and we will not change it, so it is better to come to terms with everything, exhale and move on."
Permadeath is currently working on a new project, the studio has "financial obligations to complete this project" and "this will help release future patches for Planet Centauri."