Thread by @AdventureMtn

Do you ever fancy ditching your long-in-development game and just rapidly release lots of smaller games on Steam? It is called a "rapid release" strategy and it won't work. here is why ... 1/16 🧵🧵🧵🧵👇👇👇

This official chart from Steam encapsulates the current algorithm. It compares the earnings of games released in 2018 vs 2019. The top two thirds of the scale earned MORE money and the bottom third of games made LESS money.

Basically this chart showed that the algorithm exerts downward pressure on games that are small and not expected to make much money. Basically Steam is working against games that aim to make in the low thousands of dollars. Marketing your game is like rowing up river.

Now Valve will say "there is no 1 algorithm." Which is true. It is a constellation of widgets and each one has their own algorithm. But together those widgets divide the store into the top tier and lower tier. Let me give you some examples of how the widget algorithms do this

WIDGET #1 Popular Upcoming: This is a widget on the FRONT PAGE of Steam that will display your game ~1 week before your launch date IF you have at least 5K-10K wishlsits. Once on there you earn 300-1000 wishlists A DAY! It is practically free money.

But only games with lots of wishlists get on that chart. If your game's "coming soon" page has been up for less than 1 month, there isn't enough time to build up the requisite 5K wishlists. So you miss out on this free visibility which could propel you to the next earning tier.

WIDGET #2: >10 reviews = more sales. Before 10 reviews you don't get a "positive" or this little 👍 icon. Many shoppers subconsciously ignore your game because of this. It takes ~300 sales to get your first 10 reviews. Rapidly released games take longer to hit 10 reviews

WIDGET #3: Trading cards and showcase achievements. Steam gamers love them and showcasing them on their profile. BUT both of these features are locked until you reach a pretty high sales threshold. If you don't have trading cards, a % of shoppers will ignore you

WIDGET #4: Steam widgets like recommendations and reviews always show off hours played. That is because players REALLY like long games. They just do - that isn't Steam tricking people. PC gamers = deep players. Rapid release games just don't have that much content so hours ⬇️

WIDGET #5: Price. Rapid release games usually cost $1-$5. The Steam algorithm doesn't actually care about wishlists or units sold. It only cares about REVENUE. So to impress Steam, your $5 game must sell 4x the number of copies as a $20 game. That is hard.

WIDGET #6: Daily Deals and popups. Steam actually is curated. Most indies don't realize it. To get the REAL visibility you can open a support ticket with Steam and ask them for a "Daily Deal" or a "popup." Which gives you unbelievable levels of exposure (and $$)

But only big games earn enough to get approved for Daily Deals. Why would $5 games get a spot that could be occupied by a $20 game that could earn 4X the revenue for steam. If you found a $5 bill next to a $20 which one would you pick up? (both is not an option)

When your game can get Daily Deals you are in the real Steam. It is actually where companies make money. But if you are just a rapid release title, you won't make enough to get into "Real Steam"

WIDGET #7: More like this. The little widget at the bottom of every game page recommends other games similar to yours. That widget REALLY increases visibility. But Steam tweaked the algo to weight games that earn more money to be recommended more heavily. Lower sales=lower viz

Summary: I know it sounds pessimistic. I am just trying to set expectations so you can strategize correctly. I still think it is possible to make money from small games from small teams. BUT you have to do it according to Steam's rules.

You just have to play the game that Steam has setup. That means, you need at LEAST 6 months of marketing time to build up wishlists. You need to add enough content and value to price your game higher so that your revenue number is more.

You need to do regular updates and patches and support so that people have a reason to invest in your game.

Those are the rules that Steam has set up with their algorithm. You don't have to follow them, but Steam also doesn't have to give you visibility. It is like you are trying to play basketball while the referees are enforcing football. Nobody is going to pass to you.

If you liked that, I recently launched this site where I collected a bunch of GOOD marketing examples that do support the Steam algorithm. I also critique steam pages. It is paid but here is a $10 off coupon code: progamemarketing.com/p/ideas

To get that $10 off deal enter TWITTER10 at checkout.

Alright this 🧵brought up good Stuff. @muddasheep shared this chart for their game. The moment they hit 10 reviews their visibility went way up because Steam started showing them in the Discovery Queue. Early reviews tell steam your game is worth sharing store.steampowered.com/app/1483470/Ca…