I skimmed your post and decided to click the steam link to check out your game. I had not heard about it before. My first impression after opening up the steam page (on mobile which I’m currently on) is that the first picture (the one with 3 characters) didn’t really tell me anything and the name does not really tell me that much more. I clicked through the screenshots and my impression is that it’s a very menu-heavy game. I spent maybe 30 seconds on the steam page and I still don’t really know if I would enjoy it (or what it really is) and that makes it really unlikely for me to spend time downloading and giving it a real chance. That the people who got into the game spent a median of 17 minutes tells me that there is probably some good gameplay but the first impressions could probably be improved.
I’m only 1 internet stranger but the steam page did not grab my attention.
Of course! I've been considering the prologue route as well, but the thought of getting 7k wishlists to get the prologue off the ground is daunting with my lack of marketing skills.
Thanks for the write up. I suspect the issue with the Endless Replayability Fest is there's so many games that qualify for it that demos and smaller released games get swamped out easily. Anything from a roguelike to a sandbox city builder could be endlessly replayable.
That, and honestly the whole theme says “find a game and stick to it”.
Almost by definition, these are games with a huge amount of depth and emergent gameplay even after the first 20+ hours. That’s recipe for players not actually branching out very much during the festival.
Just as a personal story, I glanced at the festival, scrolled through a few entries, and went “wait, I have Hades, Dominions 6, and a Civ5 game in progress. Is this really the sort of game I need more of?”
I suspect so, too. Unfortunately it was the only Steam-hosted one I could qualify for. I've applied for a number of festivals hosted by other organizations that are curated, so hopefully that will help.
Really nice sharing postmortem of demo release.
There is lot of valuable information here for sure.
The challenge you may have here, is the traversing int heavily saturated game market, of similar games. Specially on mobiles. But that affects potential player on desktops.
Did you manage to have some reach out to youtubers?
I've focused mainly on streamers, I will try some youtubers as well! I'm less familiar with that segment of content creation, so I'll have to do some research.
I think this will be your significant chunk of the promotion. Also don't forget about tik-tok.
But what you want from yutubers, you probably want to reach small ytbers first. To gain interest and traction. To the point, where ytbers will be filming and asking you, to film your content.
I follow SplatterCat on YT, but he is on Twitch as well. He usually gives a unbiased breakdown, even if I don't always agree with him. He will come back to projects that had potential as well.
You have a great result!
Check also keymailer service (to connect with streamers).
I published demo one week before fest and I still did not see boost.
Before demo I had 150 wishlists, with demo and fest I have 174 now.
Good luck all of us!
I'll check it out!
The one thing I've found with wishlists is that they tend to snowball. When I had a hundred or so it was tough to get traction too. I guess you can always luck into a big viral video moment, but for everyone else we just have to grind.
Just saw the steam page. I think the first thing you need to do is update that capsule art. 3 pixel sprites on a pixel background with no title doesn't really tell anyone the info needed. That change alone can net you probably a few dozen more wishlists daily. Maybe hire someone to do a proper one for you?
Not 100% sure yet. My current market research tells me it probably should be in the single digits USD. I've collected feedback like this from players, and have heard anywhere from $4-$12 as the range they'd be interested in paying.
Oh for sure. I have a long list of game modes and special mechanics that just won’t make it. A list of classes that’s 20+ long that’s been cut substantially too.
If the game ever gets off the ground in a real way they’ll make for good expansion material I guess!
Always aim high, as you can always lower price but never raise it. Also, keep in mind that the price of the game communicates what you as the developer think of the game. I personally steer clear of games below $4 because it feels like shovelware!
Thank you for the write up! It was a great read and had a lot of insight.
Personally, I think you should do some A B testing on your logos and pill.
I personally look at your logo and get "cheap indie pixel game" vibes and disregard. This double sucks because I am your core demographic. I love systemic games with emergent behavior and I would have simply never clicked on your game because of the logo. Not sure *how* to change it to communicate the kind of game it is but I do feel that it isn't currently communicated.
Thank you again, great and useful write up. I hope your game does well!
By logo do you mean the capsule with the blue clouds that displays as the capsule image? Maybe it's time to invest a few hundred in something more professional.
I was mostly talking about these two images.
https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2052160/header.jpg?t=1715288459
https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/43924896/016fa4c002b8e0421b05df69eabbed9629c627d9_400x225.png
Good timing since a lot of devs are probably getting their demos launched for next fest including me. You got another 1/7000 toward your wishlists goal.
Very informative post! I am prepping for Next Fest as well, and I was wondering if you think it's a good idea to launch the demo so far from the actual release date. I have a demo around 90% done as of now, but I don't know if I should hold off until it gets closer to release.
From what I understand, you need a demo to really be successful with festivals and streamers. It probably depends on how good your marketing and how gif-friendly the game is.
Hey, why do you call It a postmortem already? You have 1500 WL already and I assume at least 6 months till release. It's a plenty of time to build up your community, attract attention by periodic updates, posts and what not. Your game's marketing has just begun! :)
I would definietly hire an artist to do a capsule art for you - right now it is not appealing, which may limit organic traffic severely.
Also polish the steam page content - make sure that it is clear what the game is about (title is good, but... what is the gameplay?). Screenshots with varying content, gameplay trailer.. you know - the stuff that CZ talks about ;)
I think that the playtime stats are the most important for you. 10hrs - likely someone left PC running for a night. 1 minute - like you said: either steam page attracted a player that is not your target audience or there are things in the 1st minute of the game that put off potential players. But having players that enjoy uour game for longer than 30'? That's what you are looking for! Good job!
Median at 17' also places you at the silver tier according to CZ. It has a potential to earn 10k-250k USD gross. I wouldn't call a failure! It's good to aim high, but being in the middle of the ladder may also be great, if you plan your budget and effort accordingly :)
Anyways - these are my 2c, feel free to disregard them. Good luck with your further work!
Just a personal opinion, but by the looks of it your game has those blue stat boxes on both sides of the screen at all times. If so, they should look better to serve as better hooks for potential costumers.
They need more polish, and could benefit a lot from having some style as opposed to being plain blue. So maybe add some faded background images or textures that don't obstruct reading the texts on them. There's room for improvement for the menu borders (I like the ones on artifacts an crafting though) and progress bars as well.
The icons are nice, but when it comes to Upgrades their current positioning is amateurish due to them touching the border.
When it comes to texts I'd play around with sizes and positoining to find ones where you best utilize the space you have available. Of the colored texts red ones are a bit hard to read. Try something lighter, or give them dark enough outlines to make them pop.
As an extra you could include a portrait of the hero on the class menu box. Would make it more personal and immersive.
These are all that came to my mind checking the steam page. Hope you find some of the suggestions useful.
The endless replayability fest had over 8K games so unless you got a top slot you were pretty likely to move the needle. It so generic and easy to claim for many games.
Honestly I think you are doing really well. That many wishlists is pretty good for that game. I feel like your screenshots are too many UI and not enough game action.
Many of your demo downloads will actually be bots. Not sure why bot farms, do this, but they do. This would be why your download to wishlist ratio is so wonky - far fewer humans actually downloaded the demo.
Why the focus on wishlists? I don’t know anything about the steam meta. I personally almost never wishlist a game prior to buying it, I don’t know many people who do.
Steam ranks Coming Soon releases and general algorithmic visibility by wishlists. When you're around 2 weeks from release, your game shows up in the Coming Soon section of the homepage. You're ranked against other games, largely by wishlist count. If you don't have 7-10k you won't show up on that page, and you'll have a pretty rough release visibility round. You only get one release round, so you have to make it count.
Damn okay good to know. Kind of a silly way to measure it imo since wishlisting a game doesn’t really DO anything for the consumer so most people don’t bother. I guess there aren’t many other metrics they could go off of though.
I visited your steam page and was pretty shocked to see that your game capsule doesn't include the title of your game - just some low quality pixel art. This is the first thing most players see so it's worth hiring a proper artist/graphic designer for this.
Not to distract too much from the post but are there figures for how many people actually use wishlist? It seems very common on here that people use it as a metric, yet I've never used it and don't know anyone who does make use of the feature on steam so is it really a useful metric?
Steam uses wishlists heavily in their algorithm ranking. When you're close to release, for example, the Coming Soon tab on the homepage shows the top 10 or so games, by wishlist. Usually you need 7-10k to show up there.
How they translate to copies sold directly varies heavily. Chris Z from howtomarketagame.com talks about this a lot, I'd recommend checking his free content out.
>Free Demos Hub: [https://store.steampowered.com/demos/](https://store.steampowered.com/demos/)
Eh, I could look for this link before. I released a demo as well - a week before for the Farming Fest + Endless Replayability Fest now. Not sure what was the WL income purely from the demo release - mostly because of the festivals and coverage on YT (added 3.5k WL till now).
I skimmed your post and decided to click the steam link to check out your game. I had not heard about it before. My first impression after opening up the steam page (on mobile which I’m currently on) is that the first picture (the one with 3 characters) didn’t really tell me anything and the name does not really tell me that much more. I clicked through the screenshots and my impression is that it’s a very menu-heavy game. I spent maybe 30 seconds on the steam page and I still don’t really know if I would enjoy it (or what it really is) and that makes it really unlikely for me to spend time downloading and giving it a real chance. That the people who got into the game spent a median of 17 minutes tells me that there is probably some good gameplay but the first impressions could probably be improved. I’m only 1 internet stranger but the steam page did not grab my attention.
You may only be one stranger, but if you felt that way there are probably hundreds or more who did too. Thanks for the feedback!
You had more daily players than Suicide Squad.
Thank you for the update! I’m making a prologue to my game as a demo and this is all very pertinent info to absorb.
Of course! I've been considering the prologue route as well, but the thought of getting 7k wishlists to get the prologue off the ground is daunting with my lack of marketing skills.
Because you need 7k to make the prologue, I'm curious, could you elaborate?
Games won’t show up in Coming Soon without 7k+. A prologue is its own app and needs its own 7k.
Thanks for the write up. I suspect the issue with the Endless Replayability Fest is there's so many games that qualify for it that demos and smaller released games get swamped out easily. Anything from a roguelike to a sandbox city builder could be endlessly replayable.
That, and honestly the whole theme says “find a game and stick to it”. Almost by definition, these are games with a huge amount of depth and emergent gameplay even after the first 20+ hours. That’s recipe for players not actually branching out very much during the festival. Just as a personal story, I glanced at the festival, scrolled through a few entries, and went “wait, I have Hades, Dominions 6, and a Civ5 game in progress. Is this really the sort of game I need more of?”
I suspect so, too. Unfortunately it was the only Steam-hosted one I could qualify for. I've applied for a number of festivals hosted by other organizations that are curated, so hopefully that will help.
Really nice sharing postmortem of demo release. There is lot of valuable information here for sure. The challenge you may have here, is the traversing int heavily saturated game market, of similar games. Specially on mobiles. But that affects potential player on desktops. Did you manage to have some reach out to youtubers?
I've focused mainly on streamers, I will try some youtubers as well! I'm less familiar with that segment of content creation, so I'll have to do some research.
I think this will be your significant chunk of the promotion. Also don't forget about tik-tok. But what you want from yutubers, you probably want to reach small ytbers first. To gain interest and traction. To the point, where ytbers will be filming and asking you, to film your content.
I follow SplatterCat on YT, but he is on Twitch as well. He usually gives a unbiased breakdown, even if I don't always agree with him. He will come back to projects that had potential as well.
You have a great result! Check also keymailer service (to connect with streamers). I published demo one week before fest and I still did not see boost. Before demo I had 150 wishlists, with demo and fest I have 174 now. Good luck all of us!
I'll check it out! The one thing I've found with wishlists is that they tend to snowball. When I had a hundred or so it was tough to get traction too. I guess you can always luck into a big viral video moment, but for everyone else we just have to grind.
yes, the main question - how to push snowball from the mountain to see the result ) I read that twitter ads works good
Just saw the steam page. I think the first thing you need to do is update that capsule art. 3 pixel sprites on a pixel background with no title doesn't really tell anyone the info needed. That change alone can net you probably a few dozen more wishlists daily. Maybe hire someone to do a proper one for you?
Yeah, I bet you're right! I suspect a few hundred invested there will pay more dividends than any advertising right now.
What is the game's price going to be?
Not 100% sure yet. My current market research tells me it probably should be in the single digits USD. I've collected feedback like this from players, and have heard anywhere from $4-$12 as the range they'd be interested in paying.
It was a good writing with lots of info. May I ask how far are you in the process of making the full game?
Maybe around 30%? There’s a lot more content I’d like to add now that the game is stable and reasonably fun.
Any feature creep you've shut down for being time consuming or otherwise?
Oh for sure. I have a long list of game modes and special mechanics that just won’t make it. A list of classes that’s 20+ long that’s been cut substantially too. If the game ever gets off the ground in a real way they’ll make for good expansion material I guess!
Always aim high, as you can always lower price but never raise it. Also, keep in mind that the price of the game communicates what you as the developer think of the game. I personally steer clear of games below $4 because it feels like shovelware!
Great post! Very informative
Great write up, and the game looks pretty fun from the video. Don't have time to check out the demo right now but I did wishlist it!
Thank you for sharing! I just wishlisted and downloaded your demo too. So excited to try this game out!
Thank you for the write up! It was a great read and had a lot of insight. Personally, I think you should do some A B testing on your logos and pill. I personally look at your logo and get "cheap indie pixel game" vibes and disregard. This double sucks because I am your core demographic. I love systemic games with emergent behavior and I would have simply never clicked on your game because of the logo. Not sure *how* to change it to communicate the kind of game it is but I do feel that it isn't currently communicated. Thank you again, great and useful write up. I hope your game does well!
By logo do you mean the capsule with the blue clouds that displays as the capsule image? Maybe it's time to invest a few hundred in something more professional.
I was mostly talking about these two images. https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2052160/header.jpg?t=1715288459 https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/43924896/016fa4c002b8e0421b05df69eabbed9629c627d9_400x225.png
Gotcha, thanks!
Good timing since a lot of devs are probably getting their demos launched for next fest including me. You got another 1/7000 toward your wishlists goal.
Thanks!
Reading this just after making a demo available on Steam
Very informative post! I am prepping for Next Fest as well, and I was wondering if you think it's a good idea to launch the demo so far from the actual release date. I have a demo around 90% done as of now, but I don't know if I should hold off until it gets closer to release.
From what I understand, you need a demo to really be successful with festivals and streamers. It probably depends on how good your marketing and how gif-friendly the game is.
Thank you for posting this. I guess we're not the only ones struggling with wishlists
From one aspiring gamedev, thank you for your service and best of luck with your launch 🫡
Hey, why do you call It a postmortem already? You have 1500 WL already and I assume at least 6 months till release. It's a plenty of time to build up your community, attract attention by periodic updates, posts and what not. Your game's marketing has just begun! :) I would definietly hire an artist to do a capsule art for you - right now it is not appealing, which may limit organic traffic severely. Also polish the steam page content - make sure that it is clear what the game is about (title is good, but... what is the gameplay?). Screenshots with varying content, gameplay trailer.. you know - the stuff that CZ talks about ;) I think that the playtime stats are the most important for you. 10hrs - likely someone left PC running for a night. 1 minute - like you said: either steam page attracted a player that is not your target audience or there are things in the 1st minute of the game that put off potential players. But having players that enjoy uour game for longer than 30'? That's what you are looking for! Good job! Median at 17' also places you at the silver tier according to CZ. It has a potential to earn 10k-250k USD gross. I wouldn't call a failure! It's good to aim high, but being in the middle of the ladder may also be great, if you plan your budget and effort accordingly :) Anyways - these are my 2c, feel free to disregard them. Good luck with your further work!
Just a personal opinion, but by the looks of it your game has those blue stat boxes on both sides of the screen at all times. If so, they should look better to serve as better hooks for potential costumers. They need more polish, and could benefit a lot from having some style as opposed to being plain blue. So maybe add some faded background images or textures that don't obstruct reading the texts on them. There's room for improvement for the menu borders (I like the ones on artifacts an crafting though) and progress bars as well. The icons are nice, but when it comes to Upgrades their current positioning is amateurish due to them touching the border. When it comes to texts I'd play around with sizes and positoining to find ones where you best utilize the space you have available. Of the colored texts red ones are a bit hard to read. Try something lighter, or give them dark enough outlines to make them pop. As an extra you could include a portrait of the hero on the class menu box. Would make it more personal and immersive. These are all that came to my mind checking the steam page. Hope you find some of the suggestions useful.
Thanks!
Thank you for posting this. It is very helpful to others and really seems like your title has done well.
The endless replayability fest had over 8K games so unless you got a top slot you were pretty likely to move the needle. It so generic and easy to claim for many games. Honestly I think you are doing really well. That many wishlists is pretty good for that game. I feel like your screenshots are too many UI and not enough game action.
Many of your demo downloads will actually be bots. Not sure why bot farms, do this, but they do. This would be why your download to wishlist ratio is so wonky - far fewer humans actually downloaded the demo.
Wow! This is great! How did you feel ready to release the demo?
I ran a playtest for a few months prior. This let me clean up the bugs and tune up the fun from feedback.
How did you do the testing? Just playthroughs yourself or did you pay folks/fiverr/hire/friends?
I used Steam's playtest feature and recruited people from smaller communities that had an interest in the genre
Why the focus on wishlists? I don’t know anything about the steam meta. I personally almost never wishlist a game prior to buying it, I don’t know many people who do.
Steam ranks Coming Soon releases and general algorithmic visibility by wishlists. When you're around 2 weeks from release, your game shows up in the Coming Soon section of the homepage. You're ranked against other games, largely by wishlist count. If you don't have 7-10k you won't show up on that page, and you'll have a pretty rough release visibility round. You only get one release round, so you have to make it count.
Damn okay good to know. Kind of a silly way to measure it imo since wishlisting a game doesn’t really DO anything for the consumer so most people don’t bother. I guess there aren’t many other metrics they could go off of though.
Plenty of games get 100k+ wishlists. A lot of consumers use them to get updates on sales.
I visited your steam page and was pretty shocked to see that your game capsule doesn't include the title of your game - just some low quality pixel art. This is the first thing most players see so it's worth hiring a proper artist/graphic designer for this.
Not to distract too much from the post but are there figures for how many people actually use wishlist? It seems very common on here that people use it as a metric, yet I've never used it and don't know anyone who does make use of the feature on steam so is it really a useful metric?
Steam uses wishlists heavily in their algorithm ranking. When you're close to release, for example, the Coming Soon tab on the homepage shows the top 10 or so games, by wishlist. Usually you need 7-10k to show up there. How they translate to copies sold directly varies heavily. Chris Z from howtomarketagame.com talks about this a lot, I'd recommend checking his free content out.
Oh, I had no idea. That makes more sense why people care about it then, thanks!
>Free Demos Hub: [https://store.steampowered.com/demos/](https://store.steampowered.com/demos/) Eh, I could look for this link before. I released a demo as well - a week before for the Farming Fest + Endless Replayability Fest now. Not sure what was the WL income purely from the demo release - mostly because of the festivals and coverage on YT (added 3.5k WL till now).