Clik here to view.
The EA Success of Nova Drift
On August 12, Jeffrey “Chimeric” Nielson launched the 1.0 version of the top down SHMUP roguelite Nova Drift. Over 10 years of development with 5 years in EA, the game has sold nearly 400,000 copies...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Success after a slow EA launch, the Terminus story
Terminus: Zombie Survivors recently emerged from Early Access (EA) to 1.0. Look at this review chart for the game. When Terminus had its original EA launch in April of 2021, it didn’t look like it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Launching during a big Store event
How would you like over 3,000,000 impressions on your game every day for 2 weeks? The developers of Eden Crafters managed to get this for the launch of their prologue using “One Weird Trick (TM)”:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
You don’t need to be an extrovert to be good at marketing
I hear this all the time from indie developers “I love the game making part of being a game developer, but absolutely suck at the marketing part because I have crippling social anxiety.” Somewhere...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Jonas Tyroller’s Games reveal about the Steam Algorithm
Which matters more: The game or the marketing? Popular gamedev YouTube personality Jonas Tyroller recently released a video where he argued that the most important factor in your game’s success is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Did too many games release in Q3 of 2024
At the start of 2024 I decided that every Quarter I would check in to see what games are doing well, how many games are releasing, and what it says about finding success on Steam. I also take a moment...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How was the October 2024 Steam Next Fest
An entirely new Steam Next Fest This year Valve fundamentally changed how developers manage their demos and how they are given visibility within the algorithm (I wrote about these changes here): Valve...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How do you promote a game before Steam Next Fest?
The Steam algorithm is tied to promotion: the more external traffic you bring to Steam, the more confident the algorithm is that you have an interesting game and will promote it. Last week I recapped...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How We Harvest Shadows earned 220,000 wishlists in 3 months
Here is the wishlist graph for We Harvest Shadows where solo developer David Wehle managed to earn over 220,000 wishlists using a trailer, a demo, and some clever marketing: How did he do it? Make a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Minami Lane: 6 months of development, $750K revenue
Read Time:11 Minute, 29 Second This is a story of two developers who spent about 6 months making a Wholesome management game and it went on to earn $750,000 (pre cut gross) It is an amazing story with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What are Crafty Buildy Strategy Simulation Games?
The Steam Winter sale is going on right now and you might have some Christmas money to spend so I built a huge list for you of the types of games that do well on Steam. I want to inspire you or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
7 things I learned about Steam in 2024
Really, what is my job? I am not a clairvoyant who can predicts what Steam will do or have some special intuition that gives you wishlists. All I do is I go to the hundreds of devs who are willing to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What the hell happened in 2024?
With the start of 2025 it’s good to look back at the previous year to see what the Steam marketplace looked like. What were people buying? What games were connecting with players? What do fans want...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Steam Vs People Algorithms
Often I will collect data from hundreds of game devs and I can see a very clear cause and effect relationship between an action a game developer takes, the Steam algorithm (*) responding, and then...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Do wishlists get old?
It takes a long time to make a game. It takes a long time to gather enough wishlists to get visibility at the launch of your game. However, many developers fear that if they talk about their game, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are game names getting longer: How to quit your job and write a title for...
The other day on the official Game Discover Co (worth the price of pro subscription) Discord Server, Simon Carless pointed out that Tiny Build has started layering genre keywords into their game...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How likely are you to overcome a failed launch? That low? So you’re telling...
Congrats, you launched your game…but it didn’t sell very well. Maybe you got 50-something reviews in the first month. Reviews are positive but you didn’t make back enough to really justify...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What is the post launch Discovery Queue
Benchmarks This post is part of my series on marketing benchmarks that will help you understand how your game is doing and what is normal. To learn more, check out the full benchmark series by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Every Daily Deal of 2024
Last year I worked with Ichiro Lambe to write a script that scrapes the front page of Steam to record every Game that appears in the Special Offers section on Steam. Ichiro, by the way, is working...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Steam Next Fest Feb 2025
The first Steam Next Fest of 2025 is now over. This is the second year that Valve changed the format quite a bit and it is interesting to look at how this change might affect your strategy should you...
View Article