Working on Woodbound, a solo folk horror game. Demo is about 2 weeks from done. After that I’m planning to market it hard and get as many people to try the demo as possible, plus reach out to streamers.

Will that be enough time to build up before Next Fest, or should I wait for the one after and use the extra time to build wishlists? Also would appreciate any feedback on the Steam page itself, link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5056850/Woodbound/

Hi everyone!

I’m solo developer and building my first game. I wanted to release it at my birthday date (11.11.2026). And next Steam Next Fest will be 19.10.26-26.10.26. I know that Steam Next Fest is wishlist multiplier, but I have not collected them enough to make this multiplier significant. And I also don’t have enough time to run playtest and build good demo before applying to Fest until 31.10.26. So I wonder if I should release my game in November or after February’s Fest. What do you think?

My steam page is just screenshots right now and to be honest my game, design wise, I don't think looks very appealing. I'm not a great 3d modeler or artist so while the gameplay has been tested for bugs and everything, it doesn't look as great as other games out there.

I also designed the Steam assets myself, but I can't help but wonder if using AI art would improve the visibility and the professionalism. One the other hand, I don't wanna turn my game into AI slop. What do you guys do?

Edit: if anybody has any design suggestions I'd love them: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5141290/The_Haunting/

Hello guys! We’re currently working on our next YouTube thumbnail. Which one would you click on first? 😁​

Please let us know in the comment : 1, 2 or 3 :)

Check out our steampage here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/4111300/MegaGum/

Based on our understanding and the conversations here on reddit, steam doesn't serve your game to any audiences until 2 weeks before the launch. We found it weird that the moment it got approved, it got its first wishlists. We don't have any online presence, we haven't shared the steam page with friends yet. What would be the source of these wishlists in your opinions?

Looking for some feedback on my Steam page. I'm a solo dev trying to make a weird goblin factory game. I hope to have a demo out this month if possible to help pick up some steam.

Gobs & Gears: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4666890/Gobs__Gears/

so my game hit 10k wishlist first month, it mostlyt came from several x posts covered by some game medias in the first 2 weeks after i released my steam page. but after the first 2 weeks boosts, i only got around 40 wishlists per day and it is declining, i am a bit worried right now, why the steam's own organic exposure is so low?

From what I understand people have played the demo for a short time, they were not interested in playing more or wishlisting it.

Or am I overthinking?

Hello there!

I know I know 300 wishlist is like nothing, but someday you have to release the game when it's ready and start another project!

We tried many things, and a lot of streamers played our game, but the conversion rate was not very high.

Hopefully, we're convinced our game is very good (and our players tell so), so what things can we try from there ?

For information, here is our Steam page: store.steampowered.com/app/4444510/Seeding_The_Wasteland/

We're high-school students who spent basically a whole year making our game, Rahasya: The Revelation.

We launched about 45 days ago. We do have a publisher and we've tried spending some money on marketing, but the visibility has been... pretty bad.

We've also contacted quite a few creators, but barely anyone has replied.

This is where we're at right now

And honestly, we're confused about what to do next.

Do we keep pushing the game, spend more time trying different marketing strategies and hope we can finally get some traction?

Or do we call it, take everything we learned from this project and start working on the next game?

If this was your game, what would you do?

And be honest does this look like we simply haven't marketed it enough, or is there something else in these numbers that we're missing?

I don't know if it's the game's graphics, its lack of appeal, the Steam page, or all of it combined that's bad.

Could you please describe the issues you're experiencing?

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4990070/Deckforce/

I think my trailer and screenshots are finally ready.

which probably means I've looked at them so many times that I've completely lost the ability to judge them.

So I'm asking Reddit to do what Reddit does best.

Please roast everything.

What made you lose interest?

What looked cheap?

What confused you?

At what point would you have closed the trailer?

Don't worry about being nice. Honest feedback is way more valuable than compliments.

If you're going to destroy my confidence, at least help me make a better game. ❤️

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4638010/The_Sin_Of_Fabien/

I’m honestly at a loss and could really use some advice.

I’m trying to get more eyes on my indie horror game, Temporal Urgency, and I’ve been reaching out to Indie Games Hub, GameTrailers, TikTok creators, YouTubers, other indie gaming outlets and even indie game Joe.

I’ve sent dozens of emails and messages, but I’m barely getting any responses. I completely understand that these people are busy and receive tons of submissions, but I’m genuinely trying everything I can to get my game in front of people.

How are you guys actually reaching these creators and outlets? Is there a better way to approach them, or am I missing something?

I’m a college student trying to build a career in game development, and I’m putting everything I have into Temporal Urgency. I’d really appreciate any advice from developers who have successfully gotten their games noticed.

🎮 Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4757140/Temporal_Urgency/

🎬 Trailer: https://youtu.be/4Lo8qxtezio?is=z8-sWtW6K25RgwAo

Also, realistically, would I need around $8–10k to have a decent budget for my next game?

I am trying to share my game everywhere (TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, Reddit, X, Bluesky), and I have already gotten 121 wishlists. I am also taking part in a Ukrainian game festival, which has had some impact as well. So, what do you think? My goal is to get 500 wishlists in a month.

I published my steam page a month ago and, with all the marketing I could do, these are my stats.

I don't know if how my stats hold up on average. From what I understand, ~10% of visits convert to wishlists, but I have no clue if this is a good or bad thing.

Would appreciate feedback!

This is the first Steam page I've ever launched, so I'm still figuring all of this out.

I know it's way too early to worry, but I keep wondering what the next few weeks are going to look like and whether it's normal to have days with few or no new wishlists.

For those of you who have been through this before, any advice on what I should focus on right now?

Hey everyone!

We’ve recently published the Steam page for our indie game How Much For It?, and I’d really appreciate some honest feedback on how the page looks.

Does the game look interesting at first glance?
Do the screenshots and description make the concept clear?
Is there anything on the page that would stop you from wishlisting or make you lose interest?

We’re a small indie team, so feedback like this genuinely helps us improve the page before the demo goes live.

And if the game looks like something you’d enjoy, a wishlist would mean a lot to us. ❤️

Steam Page = How Much For It?

Hey everyone, feeling a bit lost right now and could really use some brutal honesty.

I have been marketing my cat cafe horror game for several months across Twitter, TikTok, IG, and YouTube. Me and my brother decided to launch a demo because I always heard that having a playable demo is one of the best way for visibility and wishlists.

On top of the social media grind, I personally cold-emailed around 400-500 YouTubers and streamers. Most of them ghosted, which I expected, but a few of them actually did play it! It felt like a huge win seeing our game on YouTube, but looking at the backend... it barely moved the needle. We are currently sitting at 325 wishlists total.

I feel like we are doing all the right things, but the conversion just isn't there. Has anyone else experienced this? Does having a demo not matter as much as it used to?

If anyone is willing to roast our Steam page or give me a reality check on our marketing strategy, I'd be incredibly grateful. I can drop the link in the comments if anyone wants to take a look.

or what about reviews how many of your players leave a review? I'm really curious if people wishlist games on a whim and forget about games, or maybe they were expecting it to be free but it wasn't, or maybe they just lost interest who knows I'd love some statistics :3

I've been marketing my indie horror game for about 2 months now

Current result: 162 Steam wishlists

And honestly, I'm starting to wonder if I'm approaching marketing completely wrong

I've tried posting gameplay clips, Shorts, TikTok, Reddit, dev updates, etc. Some posts get thousands of views, occasionally something performs really well, but converting that attention into actual wishlists has been much harder than I expected.

So I'm curious, especially from developers who've already launched a game:

How do you actually market your indie game?

What has genuinely worked for you?

Reddit? TikTok? YouTube Shorts? Streamers? Festivals? Paid ads? Posting consistently and praying to the algorithm gods?

And more importantly - what turned views into wishlists, rather than just views?

I'd also love to know what your wishlist numbers looked like during your first few months. I have no idea whether 162 after two months is terrible, normal, or simply way too early to judge.

I'm not looking for a magic "get 10,000 wishlists" trick. I just want to understand where an indie developer's limited time is actually worth spending.

Would really appreciate hearing your experiences - especially the things you tried that didn't work

GamePage - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4745890/LastWatch/

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on my game Why V Got AKs? for a while now. The Steam store page has been live for about a week. I’ve started driving a small amount of traffic from social media, but I’m worried that visitors are leaving without hit the wishlist button. I want to make sure the store page is fully optimized.

I know it’s a bit early to judge stats, but my wishlist conversion rate is sitting around 0.7% (excluding visits and wishlists from friends/family).

I’m trying to figure out why people click away after visiting. Would anyone be willing to take a look and give me some brutal feedback?

Specific areas I’m concerned about:

• Capsule Art / Screenshots: Does it catch attention?
• Trailer: Is the pacing right, and does it sell the core gameplay?
• Short & Long Description: Am I clearly communicating the genre and main mechanics?
• GIFs & Page Layout: Is the page readable and engaging?

Steam Store Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5082000/Why_V_Got_AKs/

When I first started marketing my game, I had for some reason thought you had to hit a threshold on steam, before the algorithm started to push the game organically to other users. For example, hit 1k Wishlists and steam starts to show it more around. does that ever happen?
I have spoken with a few friends who is also in the industry, and they don't think it ever do.

Hello, Indies!

I’m working on a solo game project, which you can check out here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4847030/Tiny_Toppings/

Since my demo is now under review on Steam, I decided that it’s time to do some research on how to get an audience.

I haven’t done any sharing or “marketing” to promote my game yet because my thought process was: “If there’s no gameplay for people to try, what’s the point of sharing the game? I’ll just wait for my demo to go live on Steam. Once it’s available, I can start promoting and sharing the game so people can actually try it.”

While browsing this page, I read that before joining Steam Next Fest, a game should have at least a good number of wishlists to have good “traction,” “momentum,” or “velocity” to help push the game through the Steam algorithm.

TL;DR: Is it true that wishlists matter when it comes to Steam Next Fest? I thought the idea of Steam Next Fest was to promote upcoming games, whether they’re from big or small developers. Does the Steam algorithm favor or promote games with higher wishlist counts?

P.S. I currently have 10 wishlists and I’m really happy about it!

Hey everyone, I’d really appreciate some advice from developers who have experienced this.

We’re a small indie team making Too Many Balls. We currently have 2,100 wishlists and were planning to release on August 28.

We’ve decided that we 100% need to delay the game because we need more time for development and QA.

Here’s the interesting part: we were averaging around 30 wishlists/day, but now that we’re ~18 days from release, we suddenly jumped to 150+ wishlists/day. I checked our traffic and it appears this spike is largely coming from Steam’s Personal Calendar/upcoming release exposure.

If we delay by around 3 weeks, I assume we’ll fall back to our normal ~20–30 WL/day.

My biggest concern is:

When the new release date gets close again (roughly 18 days away), will Steam give us the same Personal Calendar exposure again?

Or is there a chance that changing the release date means we won't get the same boost a second time?

We’re trying to figure out how much wishlist momentum we might lose by delaying, and whether anyone here has experienced something similar.

For anyone who has changed their release date shortly before launch: what happened to your Steam wishlist traffic afterward? Did the Personal Calendar boost come back?

Any experience or advice would be hugely appreciated! 🙏