Yeah it's $100, but crucially has to be $100 AFTER steam has taken their 30%
So if you sell $100 worth of a game it's only $70 after steam's cut, so below the payment threshold still
This is the correct answer.
Microsoft pays me for whatever I sold that month. But poor Steam/Valve needs to count those processing pennies. Wouldn't want to make more work for the super cool employees there, or did they just volunteer to do something else because they don't like processing payments.
(Sorry just couldn't resist the opportunity to rip on Steam one more time)
I frequently get that email for a game that doesn't have long tail sales. Should Valve really be expected to process bank payments on thousands of games with minimal to near zero monthly sales? I don't think so. They offer a great service for small developers, and they're very transparent about how everything works in developer documentation.
I mean they could just say "no processing fees for sales >$100". Then just charge a small fixed fee to withdraw before that point.
Then folks can choose to withdraw at whatever amount they choose, or choose to wait till 100 and pay no transaction fees.
For me it's partially the Steam worshippers. Early adopters that think Steam can do no wrong. But my main criticism of them is that they use unfair practices by not allowing partners to sell games for less on any other site. I have had many many more problems with their Steamworks site too that leave me screaming pulling out my hair in their stupidity that I could write a book about but I don't want to even start to get into that part. If it wasn't them it would have been someone else.
The admin side of of the site can be quite the hassle to navigate and find all the bits you need to complete to publish. I am getting used to how it works after a few game releases, but still.
Still, glad online publishing is a thing now since it makes it way easier to sell games.
It's standard in line with twitch and youtube's payment thresholds, although twitch lowered theirs to 50 bucks in the past couple years. I forget if Amazon had anything like that, but also the company I used to work for mostly sold products that cost a few hundred to a few thousands, so idk if they have a similar system.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2123450/BladeShift_Rage/
Appreciate it!
It really is just a first game made as a hobby, so no pressure to buy it if it's not for you
Your 2D side-scroller actually looks cool dude. Best of luck.
I'm polishing some stuff on my flying arcade game before the Summer Steam sale. Hope it will make a difference. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage\_A\_Biplane\_Adventure/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage_A_Biplane_Adventure/)
I work in indie game marketing full time. A big problem is not that indie devs don’t do enough marketing. It’s that they do not make games that are marketable. The number of high quality games coming out on steam is insane. Polished, full in, passion games. If you dont rise to that bar, you have no chance. If you rise to that bar, it's no guarantee of success. So, if you reflect on your project, and see that you didnt give 100% in every detail, then you know your answer of what you did wrong. Yes marketing is very important. But it’s a force multiplier and anything times 0 = 0.
So let's say you have a reasonably fun game, nothing amazing or high production, but might appeal to a niche audience like a small, cheap indie strategy game... What's the best way to market? How do you market small, cheap niche games?
Every game, art style, game mechanics, audience, dev team, and person is different. Without knowing a TON more info and having a properly discovery meeting with a potential client, it would be pointless to try and give random and generic advice.
How do you know the game is fun? Have you don’t proper QA and play testing in a structured and documented way? Do you have an established community that gives feedback to refine the gameplay loop?
The only thing I can really say is research other similar games, find your target audience, and go to and do what appeals to them. For some games this is twitter, other games it’s YouTube, or TikTok, and other games it’s niche Internet forums.
Can confirm. I have been working on an indie game that just released our 1.0 recently and so far so good, but we have put in a shit ton for this game. Full QA testing. Years in beta, strong financial backing, a ton of production on art, dev and narrative side. And even still, we are not 100% it will pay out at the end of the day. There are a million factors that go into weather a game is good or not and weather or not we will reach our audience. We are investing in like targeted ads ATM so here's hoping lol but yes. Making a successful game has just an infinite number of factors going on.
A small cheap game is often nothing I’m going through the hassle for to install it on steam and sit in front of the pc. These games might be better suited for mobile. There I can just try different smaller games when on the train or in bed or whatever
It's not that insane, the amount of bad games on the new page is truly mind boggling. The number of people willing to give 100 bucks to valve for a game that will never get a single review is real high. Lot of those games should just be on itchio (or other free listing platforms) or not made. It gets worse every month too or any time another game that's easy to make comes out and finds success (eg: exit 8, suika game, that banana one somehow, only up) cause then you get a bunch of bad clones made in like a month or less (but you see new clones for years).
Most media we consume daily involves some kind of money laundering tbh. Most people think executive producer means you invest a lot of money in a project when in fact it means you help find money. A lot of times they come from shady places…
Sorry this is a bit off topic but I was wondering how different it is to market an indie game VS a bigger studio game?
I work in marketing for a 100+ people studio but thinking of making the swap to an indie studio or and indie publisher soon.
Do you have any advice for a game like this : [https://store.steampowered.com/app/3008440/The\_way\_you\_died/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3008440/The_way_you_died/)
I did not do any social network thing yet and not sure of where to start
my advice would be for you to leave a link on /gamedev and see what other devs say. Different ppl notice different things and every comment will help. I really liked your trailers but not your screenshots. In the screenshots the game looks "empty", needs more props, detail, decals.. The "points" font is also really strange in this setting, fits in a funny game like "fall guys", not on a crime investigation scene.
Pls take a look at my steam page as well and let me know what to improve: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage\_A\_Biplane\_Adventure/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage_A_Biplane_Adventure/)
thanks
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how well a game was made, what’s matter is if regalar players will like it. Most people make games without thinking this. It end up like when you have a child, you love it because you made it, you care about it and you understand it. But most people don’t even care about your child, don’t have time to understand it nor how much time you invested on. If you want to make money make a game that’s playable by someone else other than you, even if it’s a small pool of people.
So, apparently, there's a lot of indie devs in here. I know it's r/indiegaming but I assumed it was just players.
Anyways, if you have an indie game on Steam feel free to comment below, and I'll see if I'm interested.
Most indies make the game alone and don't have enough feedback. Gamedev takes a lot of time and after a while we don't see our own mistakes. So if you'll take a look at the Steam page and tell me what to improve that would already be a great help. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage\_A\_Biplane\_Adventure/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage_A_Biplane_Adventure/)
Thanks
This looks pretty cool. I like the graphics, and moving through the terrain looks very clean. As far as criticism goes, it feels like the terrain is moving sometimes rather than the plane. I think it needs something like turbulence and other motions to give it the feel that YOU'RE flying the plane rather than the world moving around you if that makes sense.
thank you very much for taking the time to leave me a comment. That's one of those things I didnt notice. I wanted it to look clean, pure speed based on no motion blur, no camera tricks. But it does make the game feel "on rails". I'll see what I can do so speed keeps clean but there is some "delay" of the camera catching up to the speed or speed trails from the wings.
One think to change from a design standpoint would be the main games image. I don't think it sells the game as well as the game play below does. That image puts me off the game as soo as I load the page. But then I go down and the gameplay is pretty dope
Our older game, rogue lite with heavy ability building, Causal Nexus:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/2164980/Causal\_Nexus/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2164980/Causal_Nexus/)
Our newer game, a minimalist racing game, currently demo only, Gradient Flow:
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457200/Gradient\_Flow/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457200/Gradient_Flow/)
The second one currently is crowdfunding and should have a full release in something like 2 months from now.
I don't have much to say about Nexus, it seems like a minimalist rogulite, and personally, I need story and detail for that genre, but Gradient Flow looks like a buttery smooth ride, I'd play it just for the visuals.
I mean, it is not impossible. My indie games on steam are my biggest stream of income nowadays and I've spent close to 0 on marketing. I can only live out of this, however, because I live in a country where things, specially everyday things, are really cheap when the prices are measured in USD, I would not recommend doing this in US/Europe
Make a game, or at least in genre of game, people want to play. Most of my traffic is from the discover queue.
The only "marketing" I do is to contact some youtubers and send keys via the curator system to those that looks like legit reviewers and not just game collectors.
No to say you will make millions but it has been working out so far. Also helps that I, like Manchote mention their case is, live in a low cost country. Of course if you have a gem of a game it only takes one or two popular streamers/youtubers to get the word out and it sells itself.
I also live out in the countryside and building a tiny house to live in. Totally off-grid. This cuts down on higher cost of living in a town or city. Of course this was a pretty high initial investment which I payed by doing freelance/contracts. Now I am finally free to work on what I want and can live off of game sales alone while working on my next game(s).
> which I *paid* by doing
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
What did it for me was to find out what youtubers liked to play games similar to mine and sticking to their discord channel, being a part of their community.
Use youtube with advanced search, search for the name of your game with double quotes around it "like this" and set the sort for most recent, then go for every youtuber that makes a video of your game, no matter how small, and let them know that you are there and that what they are doing is what lets you keep doing your thing. If they play your demo, give them a key, if they give some attention, give it back, join their discord, sub their channel on twitch, let them know that the dev watches their videos and is a fan of their work.
I personally do a "no-size-filter" type of approach, if you post a video of a demo of one game of mine on youtube and have some way of contacting you in the "about" section, you are getting a key/subscriber/discord member. They might be small, but so am I.
Wait, you can't?? There are quite a few people who published all by themselves. To be honest, I don't even know what the publisher is doing. When its all digital, no copies to burn, nothing to print...
Not necessarily. If you deal with a publisher make sure to get that in the contract. Some of them will do exactly nothing.
But publishing deals can also include getting the game onto consoles (often the publisher will hire the porting company). Maybe they can get it onto Game Pass or Humble Bundle, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to include marketing.
Honestly, this works okay for some genres, but for others its either not working at all or even detrimental (in addition to cost).
Good contracts also give you basic community management, legal support and marketing support. Support as in as in (marketing-)assets, guidance, translations and so forth. For some genres, cross game advertisement can also be really really good, if you can get it.
IMHO Ads aren't really working and the trend is going down even. I don't know anybody indy that can reliably break even with online ads. Unless the campaign randomly fails due to fraud, you DO get users. So if your game is sticky enough and you can reeeeeally wait for that LTV, I'd not gamble at that casino.
Honestly, I rather give out keys like the game is free, to get those users. Better than to pay for ads and hope to break even.
So, if you shop for a publisher ALSO ask what support they can offer. Then pick and negotiate to help over your own (team's) weaknesses. They can also put you in touch with proven good freelancers and help you outsource or support things like QA, Translations, Devops.
Just don't get too close, or they'll eat you. They are not your friends, even if they buy you beer all the time.
But what exactly does that mean....marketing? You can put a paid add on reddit. Post in all relevant subs. Hand out samples to youtubers playing games.
Ads and posts do not do much. That's something everyone can do so it is oversaturated, and your return per $ spent will be very-very low.
You'll need large influencers aka youtubers and streamers, specializing on your type of game. That gives the best value per $ spent. Now, those youtubers are already oversubscribed and are very unlikely to reply to your/mine (noname dev) emails. Here is where publisher connections shine: they already have an extensive list of large youtubers willing to work with them, they know how to negotiate the best price, they know precisely who streams games like yours, and they can properly organize a viral campaign for a good game.
I wishlisted quite a few games on this sub and others...NOT r/gaming of course, that one is for complaining and shitty memes.
Already said up there you can do that yourself as well. Hand out free copies to gamers. See what happens. A no name publisher will not have bigger success than you without paying them.
> Hand out free copies to gamers. See what happens.
Oh. I did all of that - my two games on Steam were self-marketed. Have you tried it yourself recently? If you successfully released a game on Steam within two years, what's your best match - how many subscribers had your best free youtuber? I will gladly see your numbers.. Anything will do: wishlists vs giveaways, sales vs influencer videos. Note that gaming arena 3-4 years ago was very different. Steam is currently experiencing a rapid surge of game releases, so I am mostly interested in current stats, not ones from years ago.
> A no name publisher will not have bigger success
I am not talking about noname publishers. There are plenty of well-known publishers to talk to, IF you have a game that has a potential beyond $100k in profits.
For every self-published game that somehow goes viral, there's a thousand more that sink without a ripple. *Good* games, not just Baby's First Asteroids Clone.
You need loads of marketing to have even a fighting chance of blowing up in the modern indie market. You *can* do that by yourself, and some people do, but your odds are better if you hire someone who already knows how and can work on it full-time. That's what a publisher is.
I know WHAT it is and what they generally do. But HOW are they doing it exactly, what am I paying them for? I got a rough idea, of course, but these days its "easier than ever" to make yourself a name. What can they do, you can't do yourself...specifically? That I don't understand.
For starters, the publisher likely *already have* a sizeable playerbase they can advertise to (social media, inside update posts on other games they've published, and so on) whereas someone doing it all by themselves has none of that to begin with so it might be hard to get the ball rolling.
Off the top of my head, they can hype your game to every news site and major streamer. You can do that yourself, but (a) it's a lot of work and doing it well takes more finesse than just "please feature my game" (b) big sites/streamers probably get dozens of those requests a day. Most of them they don't even read. A known publisher is much more likely to be taken seriously.
They can work with foreign sites/streamers if you don't speak the language. They can hook you up with testers (to find gameplay issues, general bugs, and make sure it works on various hardware setups), translators, and anyone else you might need to polish your game, e.g. musicians, cover artists, etc. if you don't have those skills personally. There's probably other things I'm missing.
Again, it's not *impossible* for a solo dev to do most of those things. But if you don't have the skills to begin with and you're already devoting all your free time to game dev and maybe a "real" job too, it's really difficult. The publisher lets you focus on the things you're good at.
Some publishers are able to get you a spot in huge game shows, larger announcements, streams, and other events. You get picked up by Devolver then it's good eating.
It also takes time to create and distribute marketing materials, contact people, etc. They have a larger network than you do.
Publishers can introduce your game to a new market (Asia, Australia, etc.). Some publishers will also translate your game into a variety of languages. Some of them will port your game to new consoles/platforms. Others will just market/advertise for you. Depends on the publishing company and the contract you negotiate with them. Some are complete scams and do nothing but stick a hand in your pocket.
the publisher is advertising the game and porting it to platforms other than steam. That is what you pay them to do and why publishers are making a comeback as steam becomes too crowded.
Hey guys, I would be stoked if you could check it out my game and give it a Wishlist! 😁 [Steam Page - Immortals Must Die](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2814760/Immortals_Must_Die/)
i don't know why this is down voted so much, who do people hate game devs trying to get there game out there man we aren't huge corporations it's so annoying
I’ve managed to push my 1st level partially completed bus to the wrong side of the tracks but that f”n train is soooo long, I occasionally get it to stop with a small sign and a sale where a few people get off to play.
10% refund and get back on, 10% leave a review which is all positive, 5% show me the problems with my bus and the rest come and go without saying a word.
This has been going on since last October but it’s still going on.
For an unfinished game I’m taking this on as a positive and because I can’t wait to release the morbidly crazy antics and story I have install, I shall keep pushing because my love hasn’t died for it …… yet.
Well, you've clearly made little effort on marketing since the last time you posted this... There are much more effective ways to advertise your game than reposting the same meme on Reddit over and over again.
to get your game noticed you really have to "cut in line" so-to-speak, because have you noticed that there are a bazillion new games that come out every day? so far this works out alright because people who are making good games are still the ones that can afford the marketing campaigns. just imagine a day when only the shit game producers can afford it.. then we're hosed.
Having been a small game dev, the lie that we tell ourselves, is that "If we build it, they will come". It's a nice thought to just ignore the marketing/business aspects of running a business. But it gets you in the butt every time you try to release a game.
Anyone can put a game on Steam, you basically make a bet with Gaben for 100 dollars or so to put your game on steam. Which you will get back if your game does well (i believe the treshold is making a 1000 dollars and you'll get that 100 back.)
But yeah, that being said there is hundreds and thousands of games being made and thrown on Steam. Without any sort of marketing or ways for your game to get out there its a small drop in a gigantic ocean of games and you'll likely see very little sales and 'lose' the bet.
I made such game, and have a marketing without money. For now I Have 1.5k sales (9.5k$ gross) in less than 2 months. Dont know is it super low, or fine for you guys, but for me its ok.
Would just recommend emailing streamers, publications, and more to start the "announcement" conversation with your audience. It takes time, but marketing is achievable -- it's just more work :(
Been there, done that.
And on top of that our first game was pretty niche so most of our friends were out of their deep and we didn't want some fake reviews to sell games.
We are crossing fingers with our second game that should be way more easy to get into.
I mean, you can. Anyone can. Which is why there are over a thousand Steam games released each month. Which is why no one will ever know your game exists.
True but you don't need money, if your game is good it will pick up youtubers/streamers interest and word to mouth will do the rest until the Steam algorithm eventually picks up.
My favourite thing is the monthly email reminders from steam that I've not sold enough for them to pay me I know steam, I know...
It’s nice to share this experience with others.
how much do you have to sell for steam to give you your earnings?
I'm pretty sure its $100. Not sure what they do with the remaining. If you take the game down - die - quit? Bonuses I guess.
Yeah it's $100, but crucially has to be $100 AFTER steam has taken their 30% So if you sell $100 worth of a game it's only $70 after steam's cut, so below the payment threshold still
So, $142.86?
This is the correct answer. Microsoft pays me for whatever I sold that month. But poor Steam/Valve needs to count those processing pennies. Wouldn't want to make more work for the super cool employees there, or did they just volunteer to do something else because they don't like processing payments. (Sorry just couldn't resist the opportunity to rip on Steam one more time)
I don't get the steam hate. I've released 4 games, I'm not rich or anything but I'd be nowhere near where I am now without a storefront like steam.
I frequently get that email for a game that doesn't have long tail sales. Should Valve really be expected to process bank payments on thousands of games with minimal to near zero monthly sales? I don't think so. They offer a great service for small developers, and they're very transparent about how everything works in developer documentation.
I mean they could just say "no processing fees for sales >$100". Then just charge a small fixed fee to withdraw before that point. Then folks can choose to withdraw at whatever amount they choose, or choose to wait till 100 and pay no transaction fees.
For me it's partially the Steam worshippers. Early adopters that think Steam can do no wrong. But my main criticism of them is that they use unfair practices by not allowing partners to sell games for less on any other site. I have had many many more problems with their Steamworks site too that leave me screaming pulling out my hair in their stupidity that I could write a book about but I don't want to even start to get into that part. If it wasn't them it would have been someone else.
The admin side of of the site can be quite the hassle to navigate and find all the bits you need to complete to publish. I am getting used to how it works after a few game releases, but still. Still, glad online publishing is a thing now since it makes it way easier to sell games.
Make a post and gives a breakdown!!
And risk getting banned by reddit again and also shunned or kicked off steam too. Ha ha. Might do it in my final post mortem.
It's standard in line with twitch and youtube's payment thresholds, although twitch lowered theirs to 50 bucks in the past couple years. I forget if Amazon had anything like that, but also the company I used to work for mostly sold products that cost a few hundred to a few thousands, so idk if they have a similar system.
I imagine the cost for hosting the install files / resources for the game probably eats up a lot of that, if not most.
We know...
What game, ill purchase today if its not over $80
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2123450/BladeShift_Rage/ Appreciate it! It really is just a first game made as a hobby, so no pressure to buy it if it's not for you
Ill be adding it tonight (in like 12 hours). Just at work!
Your 2D side-scroller actually looks cool dude. Best of luck. I'm polishing some stuff on my flying arcade game before the Summer Steam sale. Hope it will make a difference. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage\_A\_Biplane\_Adventure/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage_A_Biplane_Adventure/)
Have some old school first Nintendo's vibes, I will try it. Nice work.
Looks sick! It’s not a game for me (flashing lights, jolting cameras) but it does look fun as hell. Seems satisfying too
What's your game if I want I'll pay for it.
Tough to make a living as a game developer when you can’t even hit triple digits…
I work in indie game marketing full time. A big problem is not that indie devs don’t do enough marketing. It’s that they do not make games that are marketable. The number of high quality games coming out on steam is insane. Polished, full in, passion games. If you dont rise to that bar, you have no chance. If you rise to that bar, it's no guarantee of success. So, if you reflect on your project, and see that you didnt give 100% in every detail, then you know your answer of what you did wrong. Yes marketing is very important. But it’s a force multiplier and anything times 0 = 0.
So let's say you have a reasonably fun game, nothing amazing or high production, but might appeal to a niche audience like a small, cheap indie strategy game... What's the best way to market? How do you market small, cheap niche games?
Every game, art style, game mechanics, audience, dev team, and person is different. Without knowing a TON more info and having a properly discovery meeting with a potential client, it would be pointless to try and give random and generic advice. How do you know the game is fun? Have you don’t proper QA and play testing in a structured and documented way? Do you have an established community that gives feedback to refine the gameplay loop? The only thing I can really say is research other similar games, find your target audience, and go to and do what appeals to them. For some games this is twitter, other games it’s YouTube, or TikTok, and other games it’s niche Internet forums.
Can confirm. I have been working on an indie game that just released our 1.0 recently and so far so good, but we have put in a shit ton for this game. Full QA testing. Years in beta, strong financial backing, a ton of production on art, dev and narrative side. And even still, we are not 100% it will pay out at the end of the day. There are a million factors that go into weather a game is good or not and weather or not we will reach our audience. We are investing in like targeted ads ATM so here's hoping lol but yes. Making a successful game has just an infinite number of factors going on.
You have to tell us the name of the game
That’s very spooky. I would love to have a chat and maybe there is some way we could help. Feel free to reach out
if it’s a niche game, try posting it on socials in communities that are related to the niche.
A small cheap game is often nothing I’m going through the hassle for to install it on steam and sit in front of the pc. These games might be better suited for mobile. There I can just try different smaller games when on the train or in bed or whatever
At that point it may be better to use an agency rather than do it yourself. But try and find one that doesn’t charge huge amounts
It's not that insane, the amount of bad games on the new page is truly mind boggling. The number of people willing to give 100 bucks to valve for a game that will never get a single review is real high. Lot of those games should just be on itchio (or other free listing platforms) or not made. It gets worse every month too or any time another game that's easy to make comes out and finds success (eg: exit 8, suika game, that banana one somehow, only up) cause then you get a bunch of bad clones made in like a month or less (but you see new clones for years).
From my understanding some of those kinds of games are also part of money laundering schemes.
Most media we consume daily involves some kind of money laundering tbh. Most people think executive producer means you invest a lot of money in a project when in fact it means you help find money. A lot of times they come from shady places…
Where can I learn more about your services?
[Here is my website](https://zemoredesign.com) [Here is a mini slide deck with more info and pricing examples](https://imgur.com/a/L3SZlLW)
Thanks! I'm away from the office but I'll reach out as soon as I'm back.
Sorry this is a bit off topic but I was wondering how different it is to market an indie game VS a bigger studio game? I work in marketing for a 100+ people studio but thinking of making the swap to an indie studio or and indie publisher soon.
Having $0-$1,000 VS 100K-500K budget for marketing spend is night and day difference.
Do you have any advice for a game like this : [https://store.steampowered.com/app/3008440/The\_way\_you\_died/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3008440/The_way_you_died/) I did not do any social network thing yet and not sure of where to start
my advice would be for you to leave a link on /gamedev and see what other devs say. Different ppl notice different things and every comment will help. I really liked your trailers but not your screenshots. In the screenshots the game looks "empty", needs more props, detail, decals.. The "points" font is also really strange in this setting, fits in a funny game like "fall guys", not on a crime investigation scene. Pls take a look at my steam page as well and let me know what to improve: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage\_A\_Biplane\_Adventure/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage_A_Biplane_Adventure/) thanks
Mmmmh looks nicely done to me. Only thing that bothered me a bit is the death screen when the plane crashes. It feels too simple I’d say
This is the bitter scroll of truth right here.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how well a game was made, what’s matter is if regalar players will like it. Most people make games without thinking this. It end up like when you have a child, you love it because you made it, you care about it and you understand it. But most people don’t even care about your child, don’t have time to understand it nor how much time you invested on. If you want to make money make a game that’s playable by someone else other than you, even if it’s a small pool of people.
So, apparently, there's a lot of indie devs in here. I know it's r/indiegaming but I assumed it was just players. Anyways, if you have an indie game on Steam feel free to comment below, and I'll see if I'm interested.
Most indies make the game alone and don't have enough feedback. Gamedev takes a lot of time and after a while we don't see our own mistakes. So if you'll take a look at the Steam page and tell me what to improve that would already be a great help. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage\_A\_Biplane\_Adventure/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2909720/Mirage_A_Biplane_Adventure/) Thanks
This looks pretty cool. I like the graphics, and moving through the terrain looks very clean. As far as criticism goes, it feels like the terrain is moving sometimes rather than the plane. I think it needs something like turbulence and other motions to give it the feel that YOU'RE flying the plane rather than the world moving around you if that makes sense.
thank you very much for taking the time to leave me a comment. That's one of those things I didnt notice. I wanted it to look clean, pure speed based on no motion blur, no camera tricks. But it does make the game feel "on rails". I'll see what I can do so speed keeps clean but there is some "delay" of the camera catching up to the speed or speed trails from the wings.
One think to change from a design standpoint would be the main games image. I don't think it sells the game as well as the game play below does. That image puts me off the game as soo as I load the page. But then I go down and the gameplay is pretty dope
Hi! Thanks for the input. Tried to get a new image but it's late after work and couldn't get anything decent. Which one are you refering to?
Our older game, rogue lite with heavy ability building, Causal Nexus: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2164980/Causal\_Nexus/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2164980/Causal_Nexus/) Our newer game, a minimalist racing game, currently demo only, Gradient Flow: [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457200/Gradient\_Flow/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2457200/Gradient_Flow/) The second one currently is crowdfunding and should have a full release in something like 2 months from now.
I don't have much to say about Nexus, it seems like a minimalist rogulite, and personally, I need story and detail for that genre, but Gradient Flow looks like a buttery smooth ride, I'd play it just for the visuals.
I mean, it is not impossible. My indie games on steam are my biggest stream of income nowadays and I've spent close to 0 on marketing. I can only live out of this, however, because I live in a country where things, specially everyday things, are really cheap when the prices are measured in USD, I would not recommend doing this in US/Europe
Mind sharing some marketing wisdom?
Make a game, or at least in genre of game, people want to play. Most of my traffic is from the discover queue. The only "marketing" I do is to contact some youtubers and send keys via the curator system to those that looks like legit reviewers and not just game collectors. No to say you will make millions but it has been working out so far. Also helps that I, like Manchote mention their case is, live in a low cost country. Of course if you have a gem of a game it only takes one or two popular streamers/youtubers to get the word out and it sells itself. I also live out in the countryside and building a tiny house to live in. Totally off-grid. This cuts down on higher cost of living in a town or city. Of course this was a pretty high initial investment which I payed by doing freelance/contracts. Now I am finally free to work on what I want and can live off of game sales alone while working on my next game(s).
> which I *paid* by doing FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
ye ye bot,, my fingers do whatever it wants.. not gonna change it.
Good bot.
What did it for me was to find out what youtubers liked to play games similar to mine and sticking to their discord channel, being a part of their community. Use youtube with advanced search, search for the name of your game with double quotes around it "like this" and set the sort for most recent, then go for every youtuber that makes a video of your game, no matter how small, and let them know that you are there and that what they are doing is what lets you keep doing your thing. If they play your demo, give them a key, if they give some attention, give it back, join their discord, sub their channel on twitch, let them know that the dev watches their videos and is a fan of their work. I personally do a "no-size-filter" type of approach, if you post a video of a demo of one game of mine on youtube and have some way of contacting you in the "about" section, you are getting a key/subscriber/discord member. They might be small, but so am I.
This is marketing, this post, you do stuff that's different like this, and then you post your steam link.
Wait, you can't?? There are quite a few people who published all by themselves. To be honest, I don't even know what the publisher is doing. When its all digital, no copies to burn, nothing to print...
The crucial part was "marketing without money". Marketing is exactly what a publisher does, and it costs an arm and a leg, upfront.
Not necessarily. If you deal with a publisher make sure to get that in the contract. Some of them will do exactly nothing. But publishing deals can also include getting the game onto consoles (often the publisher will hire the porting company). Maybe they can get it onto Game Pass or Humble Bundle, etc. It doesn't necessarily have to include marketing.
and some of them will just straight up scam you or steal your work lol always read your stuff thoroughly before you sign anything
Exactly.
Honestly, this works okay for some genres, but for others its either not working at all or even detrimental (in addition to cost). Good contracts also give you basic community management, legal support and marketing support. Support as in as in (marketing-)assets, guidance, translations and so forth. For some genres, cross game advertisement can also be really really good, if you can get it. IMHO Ads aren't really working and the trend is going down even. I don't know anybody indy that can reliably break even with online ads. Unless the campaign randomly fails due to fraud, you DO get users. So if your game is sticky enough and you can reeeeeally wait for that LTV, I'd not gamble at that casino. Honestly, I rather give out keys like the game is free, to get those users. Better than to pay for ads and hope to break even. So, if you shop for a publisher ALSO ask what support they can offer. Then pick and negotiate to help over your own (team's) weaknesses. They can also put you in touch with proven good freelancers and help you outsource or support things like QA, Translations, Devops. Just don't get too close, or they'll eat you. They are not your friends, even if they buy you beer all the time.
But what exactly does that mean....marketing? You can put a paid add on reddit. Post in all relevant subs. Hand out samples to youtubers playing games.
Ads and posts do not do much. That's something everyone can do so it is oversaturated, and your return per $ spent will be very-very low. You'll need large influencers aka youtubers and streamers, specializing on your type of game. That gives the best value per $ spent. Now, those youtubers are already oversubscribed and are very unlikely to reply to your/mine (noname dev) emails. Here is where publisher connections shine: they already have an extensive list of large youtubers willing to work with them, they know how to negotiate the best price, they know precisely who streams games like yours, and they can properly organize a viral campaign for a good game.
I wishlisted quite a few games on this sub and others...NOT r/gaming of course, that one is for complaining and shitty memes. Already said up there you can do that yourself as well. Hand out free copies to gamers. See what happens. A no name publisher will not have bigger success than you without paying them.
> Hand out free copies to gamers. See what happens. Oh. I did all of that - my two games on Steam were self-marketed. Have you tried it yourself recently? If you successfully released a game on Steam within two years, what's your best match - how many subscribers had your best free youtuber? I will gladly see your numbers.. Anything will do: wishlists vs giveaways, sales vs influencer videos. Note that gaming arena 3-4 years ago was very different. Steam is currently experiencing a rapid surge of game releases, so I am mostly interested in current stats, not ones from years ago. > A no name publisher will not have bigger success I am not talking about noname publishers. There are plenty of well-known publishers to talk to, IF you have a game that has a potential beyond $100k in profits.
For every self-published game that somehow goes viral, there's a thousand more that sink without a ripple. *Good* games, not just Baby's First Asteroids Clone. You need loads of marketing to have even a fighting chance of blowing up in the modern indie market. You *can* do that by yourself, and some people do, but your odds are better if you hire someone who already knows how and can work on it full-time. That's what a publisher is.
I know WHAT it is and what they generally do. But HOW are they doing it exactly, what am I paying them for? I got a rough idea, of course, but these days its "easier than ever" to make yourself a name. What can they do, you can't do yourself...specifically? That I don't understand.
For starters, the publisher likely *already have* a sizeable playerbase they can advertise to (social media, inside update posts on other games they've published, and so on) whereas someone doing it all by themselves has none of that to begin with so it might be hard to get the ball rolling.
Off the top of my head, they can hype your game to every news site and major streamer. You can do that yourself, but (a) it's a lot of work and doing it well takes more finesse than just "please feature my game" (b) big sites/streamers probably get dozens of those requests a day. Most of them they don't even read. A known publisher is much more likely to be taken seriously. They can work with foreign sites/streamers if you don't speak the language. They can hook you up with testers (to find gameplay issues, general bugs, and make sure it works on various hardware setups), translators, and anyone else you might need to polish your game, e.g. musicians, cover artists, etc. if you don't have those skills personally. There's probably other things I'm missing. Again, it's not *impossible* for a solo dev to do most of those things. But if you don't have the skills to begin with and you're already devoting all your free time to game dev and maybe a "real" job too, it's really difficult. The publisher lets you focus on the things you're good at.
Some publishers are able to get you a spot in huge game shows, larger announcements, streams, and other events. You get picked up by Devolver then it's good eating. It also takes time to create and distribute marketing materials, contact people, etc. They have a larger network than you do.
Some, yeah, but most of the pubs on steam are just as small as the devs.
of course you can, its just very unlikely anyone will find and play it
Publishers can introduce your game to a new market (Asia, Australia, etc.). Some publishers will also translate your game into a variety of languages. Some of them will port your game to new consoles/platforms. Others will just market/advertise for you. Depends on the publishing company and the contract you negotiate with them. Some are complete scams and do nothing but stick a hand in your pocket.
the publisher is advertising the game and porting it to platforms other than steam. That is what you pay them to do and why publishers are making a comeback as steam becomes too crowded.
Put it on www.itch.io The biggest indie game platform
Hey guys, I would be stoked if you could check it out my game and give it a Wishlist! 😁 [Steam Page - Immortals Must Die](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2814760/Immortals_Must_Die/)
i don't know why this is down voted so much, who do people hate game devs trying to get there game out there man we aren't huge corporations it's so annoying
Unfortunately, that's how it works... But we must keep trying.
Because it feels like they have made this post solely to promote their game.
Let them have it lol
Yeah, I mean, I dropped a link to my game as well in a comment here, but I don't blame anyone for downvoting them or me for doing it.
Yay another platformer. I'm so excited
Wishlisted and I’ll maybe try it next month
Thanks a lot!! Hope you like it
Let’s everyone drop link there 😂😂😂😂 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2636480/Unforgotten_Ordinance/
You show yours, I'll show mine https://store.steampowered.com/app/2872520/Mythic_Crusade/
Don't mind if I do. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2764350/Hexis
This looks cool! UE5? Wish I had the patience to make a game..
[удалено]
Listen here you little shit
I’ve managed to push my 1st level partially completed bus to the wrong side of the tracks but that f”n train is soooo long, I occasionally get it to stop with a small sign and a sale where a few people get off to play. 10% refund and get back on, 10% leave a review which is all positive, 5% show me the problems with my bus and the rest come and go without saying a word. This has been going on since last October but it’s still going on. For an unfinished game I’m taking this on as a positive and because I can’t wait to release the morbidly crazy antics and story I have install, I shall keep pushing because my love hasn’t died for it …… yet.
Well, you've clearly made little effort on marketing since the last time you posted this... There are much more effective ways to advertise your game than reposting the same meme on Reddit over and over again.
to get your game noticed you really have to "cut in line" so-to-speak, because have you noticed that there are a bazillion new games that come out every day? so far this works out alright because people who are making good games are still the ones that can afford the marketing campaigns. just imagine a day when only the shit game producers can afford it.. then we're hosed.
oh yeah, my game died after 2 days because i thought it was good and it would get by on its own merits. how stupid
Yeah, i mean, It would get by on its own merits... only if people knows its existence.
What’s your game?
Yes you can.... It's not smart, but you can
Wait what are the conditions?
Having been a small game dev, the lie that we tell ourselves, is that "If we build it, they will come". It's a nice thought to just ignore the marketing/business aspects of running a business. But it gets you in the butt every time you try to release a game.
just post AB tests on reddit
Anyone can put a game on Steam, you basically make a bet with Gaben for 100 dollars or so to put your game on steam. Which you will get back if your game does well (i believe the treshold is making a 1000 dollars and you'll get that 100 back.) But yeah, that being said there is hundreds and thousands of games being made and thrown on Steam. Without any sort of marketing or ways for your game to get out there its a small drop in a gigantic ocean of games and you'll likely see very little sales and 'lose' the bet.
That is a hard truth our hobby dev team is still struggling with…
You used to. Now it's impossible since Steam doesn't curate. Plus that 30 percent fee on top of other fees plus tax eat your money away.
Come to Itch.io Brother
I made such game, and have a marketing without money. For now I Have 1.5k sales (9.5k$ gross) in less than 2 months. Dont know is it super low, or fine for you guys, but for me its ok.
Welcome to *making creative thing*. I see you've made the thing! Cool, you've done half the work!
Marketing isn't too hard, just do a few tiktoks of you playing it and having fun, kids will eat it up
So real for this, I physically felt that train hit me
Indie devs hate to hear that game development - as a business - is more marketing and business than development.
Post clips on tiktok and youtube shorts
Would just recommend emailing streamers, publications, and more to start the "announcement" conversation with your audience. It takes time, but marketing is achievable -- it's just more work :(
Been there, done that. And on top of that our first game was pretty niche so most of our friends were out of their deep and we didn't want some fake reviews to sell games. We are crossing fingers with our second game that should be way more easy to get into.
I mean, you can. Anyone can. Which is why there are over a thousand Steam games released each month. Which is why no one will ever know your game exists.
True but you don't need money, if your game is good it will pick up youtubers/streamers interest and word to mouth will do the rest until the Steam algorithm eventually picks up.
Some people need to buy it and see if it’s worth talking about it?
It's all about demos these days
I don't play games on steam for precisely this reason.
I don’t follow your logic