people see a game with less than 10 reviews and assume it failed because it's badoftentimes, they are incorrectthe game failed because the developer severely overestimated the organic exposure their game would receive purely from existing on steamvalve has kept the requirement of external initial promotion as a subtle secret for indies, letting people shadow drop games in hopes that enough people will play it for it to blow up, but this never happensyou must generate at least $10,000 of gross revenue within a 14 day period, at any point during your games existence on steam, for valve to consider it a "real" game and begin promoting itwe see many games flop because the developer assumed they would enjoy fair discoverability, drop their game, receive low reviews, and then cement their game as a failure due to potential buyers assuming it's bad because of its low review countvery brutal cyclethe meta promo strat is to spam promotional content on youtube shorts, farm enough wishlists to estimate that 10k in 14 day revenue period, and then hope your game is actually good enough to continue gaining momentum on steam once it experiences real algorithmic promotion
so promote the game yourself and put down the begging bowl.you may be shocked to discover you can get a temporary job to pay for this promotion
So you want Valve to just promote random video games that nobody cares about
or you know... sell it yourself so you dont have to pay $100 and also keep all the money
>>730720542>the developer assumed
I'll buy your game, anon.
>>730720884>gives up this easilyfound the problem
>>730720542If you can't make 100$ monthly you need to get another source of income.
>>730720781How are you supposed to promote it without paying tens of thousands of dollars to some jew marketing agency?
>>730720939>projection
>>7307209604chan is pretty cheap, just look at the ad at the bottom on this thread. 0.05$ for 1000 views
>>730720960Spam /v/
>>730720960make a YT vid and post it on a relevent places
>>730720960>get a bank loan to pay for promotion>game succeeds>pay back bank loan from profitswas that so fucking complicated?
>>730721087Banks are able to get away with their shit because of subhumanites like (You), btw.
>>730721087>game fails because it's thishttps://store.steampowered.com/app/3786570/Mission_on_the_planet/>you now owe jews one million dollars and your firstborn child
>>730721156Why do you keep posting your game in every thread?
>>730720542fewer
>>730720542>due to costs associated with both sending and receiving fundsWhat costs?
>>730721191
>>730720542>omg steam valve is da best ever>literal jew tax everywhere
>>730721292Banks want their cut. If someone is selling a game for 5$, international banking might take a cut of 1$ to steam, and another 1$ from steam to dev.So you sell the game for 5$, steam takes a 30% cut. Which means you made 4.5$. If steam were to collect that money they have to pay a 1$ transaction fee, and then pay another 1$ transaction fee to transfer it to the devs.So either they are 0.5$ in the red, or you are making 2.5$ on a 5$ sale because they cashed out small sums.Basically they don't want hundreds of small transactions because that just gives money to the bank for no reason, and both steam and the dev are losing significant money by doing so.
>>730721616>So you sell the game for 5$, steam takes a 30% cut. Which means you made 4.5$.your math is off
>>730721156I'm sorry anon but your game looks like dogshit
>>730720542>the developer assumed they would enjoy fair discoverabilityWhat is fair? Hundreds of slop titles release every week and no one wants to look at any of them.
>>730720542You could sell your game on another site or launcher. Having your game on as many sites and launchers as possible is what any non-retarded dev/publisher should be doing anyway for maximum sales and exposure. You also shouldn't rely solely on the launcher for exposure. Especially when you can essentially advertise for free on social media these days unlike the pre-internet-boom days. Ironically it's never been easier to make and sell a game yourself.
>>730722417>Especially when you can essentially advertise for free on social media these daysTypical out-of-touc 4chan subhuman talking about things he has no idea about.
>>730722457Not him but why wouldn't that work?
>>730720542Steam is a marketplace that everyone has access to. The fact that you can sell games doesn't mean you don't need to market them, just do it like indie devs did in past and build audience, and send copies to whole bunch of different people hoping somebody will cover it.
>>730722521New accounts are quite literally throttled by those platforms, and it's impossible to get out of the new account shadowban earlier. And that is assuming you don't tip off their hidden AI moderation which will shadowban you indefinitely without notice.An already old account may not have to deal with that shit but you're still beholden to the whims of the algorithm randomly deciding to push your content further up.
>>730720542>and assume it failed because it's badWhich is always correct
>>730720884>o-optimized for the algorithm!Found the retard.
>>730724354>>730724475Samefag
>>730721120What shit? Lending money at interest to people who want to invest in their businesses? That's literally their job.
>>730720542And you don't even take the opportunity to shill your game in this thread? How retarded are you?
>>730720542Or maybe the game just sucked.
>>730721087Why don't you do it then
>>730720781>>730720850>>730721156>>730721292>>730722195>>730722417>>730724876You probably think "indie game" means Ultrakill and Mouthwashing. You don't support actual indie games.
>>730724761>opportunity to shill your game in this threadFor what? So subhumanites like you can scream "BUY AN AD!" 5000 times?
>>730725065>you dont support bad gamesi guess i dont
>>730725168>So subhumanites like you can scream "BUY AN AD!" 5000 times and bump the threadyes you dumb fucking retard, why do you think people continue to do it??? i bet you think bad publicity is a bad thing too
>youtube shortsunc you gotta post that shit on tiktok now. You gotta send free demos to every streamer in existence. You gotta make "organic" threads here and on reddit. You gotta pay influences on twitter and instagram.
>>730725065Yeah guess not bro, sorry. They should try making a good game next time.
People do not intuitively understand that Valve cannot promote all 1000+ games released every month? Are they stupid?
>>730721029ThisBuy cheap ads everywhere, email tons of streamers (even fairly small ones), etc. Cast a wide fishing net and you'll probably get a good haul
>>730721156This game not only looks like absolute shit but the title of the game is hilariously bad too
>>730725315Yeah, people need to look at how wildly successful Andrew's Game was after the dev made a totally normal thread about Crystal Project less than an hour after it was released. At first people made fun of him for being so obvious. Then someone actually played it and realized "wait, bros, this is actually really good," and now it has thousands of positive reviews and its own dedicated sour grapes schizo on /v/. The system works.
>>730725348>>730725208>a good game is one that sold a million copiesJust admit you're a subhuman consolenigger who doesn't belong on pc.
>>730725672lol
>>730725672>it's only indie game if it's a bad gameWell you said it, not me.
>>730726183This is (You).
>>730727436>It's popular so it's bad argument
>>730727542Not what I said, subhumanized steamie.
>>730720542>NOOO STEAM *MUST* PROMOTE MY ASSET FLIP, I SPENT TWO WEEKENDS ON IT!!!
>>730727617>>730727542Steamie samefag
>>730727436>good games need luckNot the case. Good games get always never zero recognition. It's much more likely for a shitty game to rise on top by happenstance.
>>730727692>everyone calling me a retard is the same personMeds.
>>730720960Megabonk did gangbusters solely from the solo-dev making youtube shorts promoting his game. He also got alot of user-input by opening allowing and actively listening to feedback.>hey make a skeleton character who skateboards!>2k likes>he actually makes a highly mobile skeleton character on a skateboard>its the most popular character in the game by farThe customer is always right in matters of taste.
>>730720960>4chan is free>reddit is free>many small-medium streamers will play your game for free.
>>730725065I don't care how much you complain, I'm not buying your Balatro clone.
>>730727707Brown subhuman. Can't even speak English like a human being.
>>730720542>people see a game with less than 10 reviews and assume it failed show me a good game on steam with 10 reviews
>>730728010https://store.steampowered.com/app/2886740/Twilight_Epoch/
>>730727765megabonk is about the most tasteless game you can ever think ofyou're advocating for making maximum slopat which point why even make a game. you can just do a gacha instead
>>730728356Steamies don't have taste Anon. That's why they only buy games that are absolute top sellers.To be fair Valve did intentionally condition them to be this way, but still.
>>730728217>ugly femaleLmao everytime. Only a subhuman westoid with zero artistic sense would publish female characters that look like ogres and consider it good enough
>>73072054299% of indie games are shit. Pic related is the minimum level of quality it needs to have to even be worth checking out.
>>730728217>FPS RPGI'm so sick of the RPGification of every genre.
>>730728797>if it's not like my japshit tranny slop I'm not checking it out!Okay Raswami
>>730728356I keep confusing it with Megabash, the kaiju fighting game that went from full OCs to Godzilla, Ultraman and Gamera licensed DLC. Just wish the DLC included stages and music.
>make a game for $1>99 people buy my game>Earn nothing.
>>730728217you need to get early feedback from people other than your 5 discord friends
>>730720960>make a GOOD game>make a youtube video showing the good game>make a post online somewhere>"we made this">send a free copy to some twitch asshole and youtube reviewers >"wow this game is good">people buy it>steam promotes you>cost: $0The trick is making a good game and not another generic side scroller or rpgmaker. Manorlords basically got 0 promotion anywhere and its doing great because making a good game is pretty much all you need to do.
>>730730257You can't be this retarded
>>730730397Bro you're on 4chan.Yes he CAN be THIS retarded.
>>730728217Oh hey i remember getting this at release and then refunding itThe game was hard as fuck with weird ball-busting mechanics Also the mc being british was annoying during the cutscenes (simple white text on black background is terrible)sorry :(
Has anyone played a Steam game that's more than a year old with less than 10 reviews that was actually good?
>>730728929my guy, the 90s and early 2000s were full of fps rpg hybrids
>>730731686It's kind of hard to find them good or bad but yeshttps://store.steampowered.com/app/981450/GeminiArms/
>>730721616this is so wildly incorrect on so many levels it's vaguely amusing
>>730732275Should've put in a cute girl like their other games and it would've easily cracked 10.
>>730720542>organic exposure their game would receive purely from existing on steamAnyone with a brain knows this isn't a thing. Something has to already be making waves to her noticed purely for existing. Marketing doesn't just do itself.
>>730728217>that screechy, ear-raping musicI would immediately leave if I accidentally stumbled upon it
>>730725168>he's so coddled, he'd rather be poor than deal random unnamed nobodies being mean to him with zero lasting consequences??? Bitch you dumb
>>730720542
>>730720542One thing that I think kills most indie games is how so many of them rely on early access. You basically use your debut hype moment on an incomplete product. Yeah there's plenty of retards that lap it up like a dog, but you will never achieve the same kind of hype as a properly released game.
>>730727594You said it repeatedly, retard.
>>730720960make a good enough demo/game that you can subtly shill it in steam sale threads
>>730720542If rpgmslop like Black Souls can make it in one day, it speaks volumes about the quality of those indie "games".
>>730721156>https://store.steampowered.com/app/3786570/Mission_on_the_planet/when is Gummings 2 dropping?
>>730728929At least that's an accurate description, compared to "immersive sim."
>>730732275>$15 USDAin't nobody gonna buy that shit. Even at half price, that's too much.
>>730720542>valve has kept the requirement of external initial promotion as a subtle secret for indiesfor some reason indie devs think they should get a ton of sales just for existing on steam or whatever, the world doesn't work like thatmarketing is important and there needs to be a strategy beyond 'our pixel art metroidvania is coming out next week' and just posting that on twitter
>>730731686Anons have made many of those
>company only has $100 bills in their cash registerHOLY BASED
>>730731686yes, my own game (Skeletons on steam)
>>730732579definitely true but he had yet to hire an artist>>730733739I agree, got it in a bundle
>>730733809the system works I see
>>730730257anon, all of that requires work and effort
>>730733271/v/tards will literally go out of their way to review bomb your indie game (and refund it so you don't actually get any money) and shit up the community hub of your game
>>730727765>solely from the solo-dev making youtube shorts promoting his gameNo, it did gangbusters because YOUTUBE CHOSE TO PROMOTE his shorts via the algo. He had no fucking control over this. Get over the idea that youtube is some kind of a meritocracy and algo can analyze if the video is good or not. He made an ok game and got lucky with the algo, other people made an ok game and got unlucky, that's the only difference
>>730729782>buy 2 copies yourself>make $97
>>730734675From what I observed, only if you're being annoying.
>>730720542>the game failed because the developer severely overestimated the organic exposure their game would receive purely from existing on steamNo one is retarded enough to think that when there are like, 7000 $1 slop games released on steam every year
>>730733510>if crappy game can be popular... all games must be popularAre you retarded? Whether a game gets heavily marketed or not has nothing to do with how crappy it is. Heavily market any pile of shit and people will play it
>>730734992>He had no fucking control over this. yes he did, its not magic, he had a worthy product, and knew how to promote it. You're too stupid to have valid opinions anon, just stick to lurking and smoking weed or whatever it is 80iq retards do.
damn looks like all those overblown figures for marketing other forms of media werent so unjustified after all
>>730735416/agdg/ is too blocks down
>>730729782>>730735038Valve gets 30% so you'd have to make around $150.
I've seen indies do youtube/tiktok promotions of their games for 2+ years during developement with dev logs, doing the whole discord shit to keep your cattle engaged and it seems to work pretty well.Look at this dude https://www.youtube.com/@Blargis3d/videosand the estimated sales of his game is around 200k USD gross
>>730735098>Are you retarded?Where do you think we are?
>>730720542>we see many games flop because the developer assumed they would enjoy fair discoverability, Over 50 games are submitted to steam every day. Even if all of them were featured on the storefront for equal amounts of users and time (which would be stupid), there would be almost no exposure.
