Attention #gamedev and #indiedevhour lets talk about game genres and sales potential on Steam. Look at this chart. This is what genres the Steam player desires (oooh desire😍💦) Thread about this ...... 🔽🔽🔽 (1/10) 
That graph came from devs sending me the num wishlists they got during the Steam Summer Festival. I crossreferenced that to genres. This thread is not how we should market-test every idea and all ditch our dreams to make the same genre. I just want you to know the odds:(2/10)
Knowing the odds will give you some sanity. It will tell you if you are in a risky category so you can tailor your expectations/development. It can tell you if it is wise to invest more in a game or cut features and see how it performs before spending another 6 mo on it.(3/10)
Back to the data: I used @eastshade 's data to calculate the 30%-50%-70% percentile earnings for every game in genres popular with indies. (see this gamasutra.com/blogs/DannyWei…)
That graph of earnings vs genre looks like this: (4/10)
That graph of earnings vs genre looks like this: (4/10)
I also used @eastshade 's data to count the number of games tagged with each genre. That graph looks like this. When I did that I realized this graph and the previous are almost mirrors of each other.(5/10)
When I graph the median sales estimate against the total number of games released on Steam you get this chart. (6/10)
That chart is an almost econ 101 text book version of the supply / demand curve. Look I found this one online and I swear the curve color match was a coincidence. (7/10)
Now I am not saying don't make platformers (I make them!) I am just saying that you should be aware of the scale. It's a joke that all indies are platformers. It stopped me cold when I saw how many more there were than any other genre and how low the median sales were(8/10)
If you want to help clarify this data, I am running another survey of the Steam Autumn Festival to see wishlists and genre. If you had a game in the festival, please fill out this survey: forms.gle/YPt75Ag5Mn75sn…
You can also read the full writeup of the data here: howtomarketagame.com/2020/10/19/ste…
This blew up a lot bigger than I was expecting. Thanks for the great suggestions on ways to slice this data in different ways. I will be working on some new charts. I write blogs like this one EVERY WEEK. Get them in your inbox by joining my mailing list mailchi.mp/chriszukowski/…
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