Live Q&A for Inside2024

um so here's what's the deal it's summertime a lot of conferences lot of um inside like um uh the what do they call it steam nextfest we got summer sale we've got E3 type of conferences related like online things lot of promotion opportunities we had like two event notifications like yesterday saying like sign up for these events a lot of events coming in so I want to check in with the community make sure you're ready for the summer and then part of that is just got back from GDC and I always do this um conference recap which is the inside conference I picked the best speakers that I saw at GDC and I say hey why don't I just do a little micro conference I'll interview you about what you talked about some of the things then you just get this nice conference you don't have to travel to GDC you can stay inside it's all virtual and I'm launching that today if you look over on the offers tab there's a little button to click and and and buy it there um it starts on Monday so that's part of what I'm kicking off and I'm also doing

question and answer so if you've got questions about steam nextfest that pop it in the questions the Q&A tab okay um if you put them in there before that spiderweb broke and I lost my internet pop it in there pop them in the Q&A tab I lost them so if you asked them ask it again I don't mind if it's a duplicate so just post it in the Q&A tab like whatever your questions about anything marketing conferences like steam nextfest these E3 conferences ask away um just pop them in there and we'll go through it and I'll start answering some so uh let me just recap GDC I did it I gave two talks at GDC and one of them just went up on Tik Tok and even the Tik Tok clip is getting more views than a video about balers Gate 3 kissing that's a Hot Topic everybody wants to know about that my Tik tok's getting higher than that people want this information and it's about um it was the steam Secrets Tik Tok thing that was my talk like all these steam secrets that people

don't really talk about but they're very valuable like they get you hundreds of thousands of dollars now there's a lot of cave you have to have a a game that's reached real Steam and we'll talk about that but those same talks same content I'm giving in this inside conference so we'll cover in there so I'm seeing questions pop in that's great keep popping those questions in um now part of this um inside conference that's the old one so this is the old one when I got Co and couldn't go to San Francisco the new one looks like this um uh it's also saying like if you didn't get to go to San Francisco X on the Golden Gate Bridge um you can go virtually to this thing so the inside conference this one here's the speakers uh uh that we're going to have and it starts all over the next um three weeks so I space them out they're all virtual so what you do is you you sign up for the thing and then what you have to do is you have to go through and um sign up for every webinar for each one of these sessions and they were sprinkled because people are busy so I just I don't like it like a huge talk it blows my brain

it's basically one to two talks mostly one talk per day over the next two to three weeks and uh basically it's a it's a live um call we've got Jenny um who is an influencer contact you know she she directs influencer relations she's going to teach you how to like contact streams like how do you literally write the email people always talk about like how do I email them we're going to talk about it I'm going to ask her about it we got uh Thomas uh Thomas is from future friends found our future friends the publisher they just published larah Kingdom he's got a thing like how much do you spend on marketing I get that question all the time people like well how much do I spend on marketing every time he's he breaks it down we're gonna go step by step how much do you have to spend on marketing um Leni I always say p puzzle games are a hard very very very very very hard to Market well she figured it out figure out how to Market a a puzzle game did very well with down bun burough it's a really cute game we're going to talk about like okay yes it's hard marketing a puzzle game but

how do you do it and then we have um thas let me scroll down so you can see his name Tomas um he just did a bullwark falcon Chronicles uh city-builder is game did very well he used a demo throughout he even launched with the demo still live I want to ask him like how do you build a demo you know what are the secrets to it how do you Market your game using a demo which is really the hot thing and then there's me I'm giving those two talks that are behind pay wall at GDC well I'm giving them at this and I'm also going to do a steam page critique so if you've got a steam page um and you want me to take a look at it um when you get this conference there'll be a form you submit your steam page and I'll look through them now I don't do everybody who submits because sometimes it's the same problems over and over again and I don't like to repeat myself so I'll look and if there's a common theme among a lot of them I'll just say oh these commonly had this so there's no guarantee that if you get into the conference and you page it'll be done because maybe your page is

perfect then I'm like it's perfect there's that's not good content so I only pick out certain ones uh but I'll try and get as many as I can and then finally we got the folks from Hood horse they got kind of got broken between the two lines but snow and Tim from hooded horse they're an awesome publisher they have never had an unsuccessful game published under hooded horse it's amazing um so I asked them like how how how are we how do you get published by hooded horse or Publishers in general they have a very unique way of doing it they don't have pitch decks they don't do it they're just like your game's cool come on in and then you do amazing so that's uh the those folks so that's the conference and again here's a secret thing if you buy it right during this hour this hour I this is the lowest discount it's going to be I knocked $15 off for this hour at the end of this this coupon goes away okay this $15 coupon and and if you buy this hour I am going to tack on the old conference so this old conference I just go through everybody who bought it with this

coupon um and all you do is you click the offers tab and then you'll see that coupon if you buy it now after this meeting's over I just go through and I add this conference for free this was last year's conference but you have to buy it this hour so you get 15 bucks off and you get this second last year's conference for free all I have to do but if you already bought it if you already bought this conference I'm just not going to add it because you already have it but anyway so if you're at all curious about this Festival this inside conference it starts on Monday now is the time to buy it again at the end of this call I'm killing this coupon so you don't get the $115 off the price is going to go up a little bit all right let me get into some Q&A you all are here thank you so much for the q&as okay so what's the ideal time to enter steam next Fest you want to do the last one before you launch and here's the reason why steam nextfest always kind of ranks games it's not explicit it's not like the most wishlisted the the wish the game's in wish list order that's not the case but for some reason they kind of the algorithm kind of promotes the games that already have a ton of wish lists so

you want to go in as hot as possible to steam next usest with as many wish lists as you can and also at the end you've you've kind of like figured out your marketing you you know which influencers like your game you like all this stuff and you want to do it at the end because what you want to do is and this goes probably going to get a question about this before nextfest I would say like the couple weeks before you do steam nextfest you want to do a big marketing beat you want to get streamers to play your game way before like two to three weeks before steam nextfest because you want to be rolling in hot with lots of wish list generated and it's easier to do that if you've already built contacts with streamers maybe somebody streamed your demo and earlier and they liked it come back to them say hey I had a new content I put your avatar in the game you're one of them NPCs or whatever I don't know what and then then they play they're like oh cool I'll play it couple weeks before steam nextfest that gives you more wish list in the short bit before nextfest and then you roll into it it's very hard to do that if it's

your first thing like oh we just launched our steam page we're going to opt in a next vest I also don't recommend you launch your demo during nextfest in other words like nobody's seen it you want your demo to be well like a good baseball mid if you're not an American you always have to work your baseball mid in you always have to oil it and park a car on it you want that like your demo like yeah we tried it we've tested it we've done another F bunch of festivals we have streamers play it we know all the Kinks because a lot of times um there's weird things about your demo like oh uh if you push down when you push the start button it crashes the game you don't want people discovering that on your next Fest the next Fest is your grand finale before you launch your game so do the last nextfest don't launch your demo with nextfest launch your demo much earlier get the Kinks out and then go from there all right next question um how do you generate initial visibility for your game this is a great question um I'll be talking about that kind of in the one of my talks that is in this inside conference I've got one that's called the new meta on Steam here's what it is

this is the basic One initial impression is you got to make a good trailer announcing your game and it's got to be really catchy action first no logos no slow roll where you just slowly pan across an environment or like text emerges from the mist and it says in a world of fantasy where are the seven keys of am you don't do that you just go straight into gameplay gameplay gameplay big explosions big sword fights whatever it is exciting and you title this trailer announce trailer for some reason when you put the word announce trailer it gets more views because it's you're announcing your game so you announce your game with that you reach out to streamers ahead of time ticktockers reach out to IGN see if they'd like your trailer before you launch it and say hey we're gonna launch a trailer on this date would you like to get that special um access yes maybe the other thing that you can do is before you're going to launch your uh announce your game um look at these festivals how tomarket a game.com festivals we always do these festivals apply for some festivals now

you got to kind of do the backwards algebra to figure out when you're going to launch and when the festival is happening say we're going to announce our game would you like to have the exclusive announce during this Festival festivals love if you've got an early announce if you're announcing something at their Festival because it gives them an extra boost of visibility so the combination of the announced trailer which you've reached out to Tik tokers uh YouTubers possibly streamers and IGN's trailer Department you get that coverage Plus the exclusive reveal in the festival if you can get those to time that's not always there your game has to be awesome to get into those that is the best way to launch a game that's the best way to announce don't just put it out there and do like one half-ass tweet like a week later and be like oh yeah we launched our game don't just put it out there you have to have the trailer has to be awesome okay um what Benjamin what have I been playing lately well bun Barrow been playing a little research that's fun um I've also I play a lot of Plants versus Zombies with my kid because he likes it every every

stripe Garden Warfare 2 Garden Warfare 3 uh I tried to install the Plants versus Zombies 3 but I don't have a region lock I don't know how to do that I try to get a VPN to do it but it's too hard big big big uh PL fors zombies house okay so if you're just joining us thank you so much for uh being on the air um this is uh just the summer checkin to see how you all are doing because we got a lot of festivals coming up in the summer months until August when all of Europe goes on vacation for some reason and then the festivals stop in August but we're entering into that season so you got to be ready I mean I know it seems early but a lot of these festivals and stuff start organizing now so I always recommend how tomarket agame.com festivals to see the upcoming festivals and they are a lot open right now apply apply apply hope that you get in because it's a big busy season coming up so now is the time to think about it if you you're like we're going to do this next Fest get that demo out now I'd say get that demo out now if you can or at least run a beta if you're not ready to full

launch it start testing the beta you do not want to debut your trailer or your um your demo during nextfest I know that sounds weird but remember nextfest always let you in okay they always let you in but other festivals don't you have to have something special to bring to the festival so when you're applying for these festivals some of the things are like hey what can you bring to us our Festival you could say we're debuting our our our new demo nobody's played this demo you would be the debut and then those Festival organizers like like that's pretty cool we're going to let this person in because they're debuting something that's awesome that's awesome so they will let you in sometimes that's another like carrot that you can dangle in from and say let us in let us in and they're like yes new demo release that's what I always recommend don't debut your demo during nextfest because that's the Big Show that's a grand finale if you're debuting your demo and we're going to talk about this in my talk you you you want to you want to warm this up before so that because sometimes there's bugs or you're like

God that tutorial everybody hates a tutorial that's not good right you want to work those bugs out before but anyway so um yeah part of the reason I'm also doing this is today I'm launching the course you can buy tickets this is the early uh access for the inside conference which I run every year after GDC pick the best speakers from GDC bring them into my own little conference we go straight to the details it's me interviewing them and I just interview him and say hey what's going on why why how do I Market my game how do I get streamers to play my game what do I how do I literally write out the email to contact a streamer so they can play my game okay that's what you got to do um so we're coming in with these experts I interview these experts here's the experts um to book it $15 off if you buy this hour um look at the offers tab that's where you you sign up for it okay let me get to some more questions here um how to prepare for specific theme steam Fest I think what they're talking about is so steam if you go into Steamworks you can opt into some

festivals those are they're like mini steam next fests the good thing is you can be you a game could be on sale or not and it's very similar to steam nextfest you want to generate a little bit burst of traffic right before the festival starts okay and um what you can do is like I said streamers maybe reach out to some Tik tokers maybe try and Reddit because sometimes it's different for every Festival we never know what they look like until they happen they usually have a trend widget a widget that says trending games or most played demos something like that they always have something like that so if you come in hot just before the festival you you you increase the visibility you're going to be higher up on that festival and that's that's an important thing the other thing is I would check my tags make sure that your tags are very relevant don't lie about your tags don't a lot of people ask what's the most popular tags that's not the thing make them the most relevant because a lot of those fests they break down subcategories within there so if it's like a ser survival Festival they

might have farming survival or Zombie Survival and so you want to make sure your tags are there because they're kind of an autogenerated based off of your subtags and stuff so just make sure everything's accurate the other thing I would do is if your game's for sale might be time to do a Content update again you get that generated up boost of traffic leading into the festival so if you drop a big update get streamers to play that's great and then your title for your capsule looks different like maybe put you know like update or something on your capsule that looks different when people are scanning that that steam Festival page so all those things are really great ways to do that now um I'm going to flip over to a bunch of people had uh Q&A to submitted early they couldn't be here today and yes this is being recorded everything I do is recorded um so I want to answer some of the questions of people who submitted early so these are questions from people that submitted early um okay um why is the games industry struggling and why

teaching marketing is more profitable than selling indie games that's that's directed right at me okay so why is the industry struggling Here's my thought is its interest rates um the industry uh you know it's it's a lot of credit that that the industry runs on and so there's a lot of investors uh I I knew like about five years ago when I first started doing this stuff um Hollywood was just dumping money on video games because they're like we got so much money we don't even know what to do with all this money let's uh let's buy video games let's put money in video games and so a lot of Studios like Publishers Studios were just getting money from Hollywood from the movie makers like hey we think we need to diversify our portfolio buy some stuff they're just getting free money and so a lot of Studios were upgrading they were like all right we'll just hire up we're gonna make more games we're we're getting all this money what are we gonna do with it so that's what they were doing and so there was this bubble because cheap credit cash was cheap it was Zero interest rates basically they could do all this stuff so they upgraded the thing so I think the industry is actually like it's it's

at the same growth trajectory it always was but then all of a sudden all this cash from free money came in and so the studios hired up and now that's over I mean the interest rates are high because of inflation so they're lowering the the you know the interest rates are going up so people aren't just throwing money at us anymore and so um that was an artificial inflated thing and it's just deflating that a little bit so I know it looks like the whole industry is crashing but I think it's just returning to what it should be outside that bubble I think that's I think it's basically what happened um and so that's what it is and why is it more profitable to make to do this um it's because I'm better at this than I am making games I kind of realize I'm not actually good at making games like I just you have to realize your strengths and my strength is I just don't I don't have it I don't have that magic you know I say it's the magic I don't know how to make games like I know how to make them like put them together but I don't know how to make a game like a game that is made you know that's like the magic I just don't have the touch I

don't have it but the magic thing is I do have the touch of looking at charts and I do have the touch of explain to people what that chart means um so I just love it I found my secret power was I can I love spreadsheets and I love to just like deep dive look at data just study things and then knit together a narrative that makes sense for people so I always say follow your superpower and even if you like games which I love I love games um it doesn't have to be making games that's the whole thing is you don't have to make games that's not that the Pinnacle a lot of people like if I'm not making games then I'm not the Ultimate Gamer no you can just if you find a way to to do what you love it doesn't necessarily have to be making the game like literally putting the pixels just and that's that's a thing that you only get when you turn 40 or maybe 30 somewhere when you've kind of matured you're like a fine wine once You' matured you're like wait a minute let's do what I'm really good at and that's just an important life lesson kids all

right so um I am designing a 3D int well actually I didn't understand this question I am sorry I didn't understand this question it was I think it was kind of a capsule question um how do you it was like I'll just I'll just read it I I'll do it because you subit the question I'm designing a 3D intricate private box for gamers to enter the game Space without playing at all it's like Metro station for capsule for steam do you think it's a good idea I don't actually know what this question is I am sorry I shouldn't I should have just skipped this question I'm sorry I don't understand that question it sounds very high level and very interesting I just don't know what it is okay for developers hedging their bets by making multiple games specifically what are the latest Steam tips strategies that we should know right now uh here's what I would do and again this is kind of covered in the secrets thing if you're making small quick release games I would time it around on Steam nextfest make sure that you have a demo ready for steam nextfest reach out to streamers that's like half the battle if you could do stream here here's actually the I would do okay

let's pretend you're making a game in 3 months which is crazy but let's say six months six months is how long you should make it three months to make it six months to Market it you should do a minimum of six months okay so month one do a big announcement trailer try and get it into IGN get ticktockers to play it post it on Reddit see if that works if it doesn't work your next bet is get a demo out as soon as you can get that demo out get it to streamers to play after they've played it a lot then do the last next Fest do any festivals that are on how Market game.com festal apply for all those festivals hope you get into some then time it do Steam nextfest and then shortly after steam nextfest launch your game that's how you launch a game in six months oh after three months development there's no rule here's the other thing even if you make a quick game let's say you take three months one month two months there's no rule that says as soon as you push commit to your repository to get or something you finish the game it's gold you push get you immediately have to release the game there's no rule in the universe that that has to happen so even if you finish

the game in one month I would still do six months of marketing so it's like all done it's gold just sit on it and Market Market Market Market your heart out until six months and then launch it steam did analysis six months is like the minimum best time to do it unless it goes Super viral look up this game called don't scream they went super viral in two weeks they got 100,000 wish list because indie game Joe is kind of a Twitter genius he went viral two weeks 100,000 wish lists it's a horror game which kids always make a horror game he launched it shortly after that and and it did good so that's the only time I'd say do it quick is if it's getting hot and you get a 100,000 and it's ready to go just go for it what else are you waiting for just get it all right let's go back to the questions that are asked live great questions everyone um all right any idea why steam loves strategy games but not RTS here's my theory okay so um I've done enough genre research and just watching games for some reason RTS just isn't just

doesn't do it I don't know I love RTS Starcraft 2 is one of my favorite games it's probably my most played game and the most rage inducing um okay I like rtss but if you note I like just a few rtss I like Starcraft 2 and I could I can sometimes I still have dreams of doing the Teran build order for Starcraft 2 I still have dreams I'm like oh my God I'm not making Supply Depot BS BS BS um I still have dreams of that thing here's the thing about RTS is they're very similar to fighting games in that you have to specialize in an RTS um RTS fans um specialize they're like this is my RTS I'm going to learn the build order for Taran I'm G to go there they don't T they're not omnivorous okay the other thing is and it's kind of Taken um I think a big portion of the RTS audience has been taken over by doas the League of Legends style you know Lords management games okay they've been

captured there so a big portion of the audience has been carved out by those games and those games are Hobbies now that is your life so those games you are competing with those games and like I said people only specialize in one RTS that's just the nature of it it's also very hard uh RTS are very hard I just didn't very much to making games I just don't have the touch for RTS I played with a guy who's Grandmaster he was a friend of mine and I was having them help me I couldn't do it he was like don't forget your Supply Depot Supply Depot you got to expand you got to EXP and I was like I just don't have it after that I'd played for hundreds of hours and he he coached me through I was like I don't have it um a lot of people just can't do rtss at the premium level and so they specialize they can't do it at the premium level and that's it and that's the audience so the audience is taken by that the other genres like a strategy genre are much more chill a lot of them are turn-based so people can chill streamers can stop the stream chat it Up chat with the audience get back to to doing their strategy whereas an RTS you have to lock in so a lot of the streamers are locked in unless you're a strategy player like um you know like

day9 or something who who can play the RTS games and talk and then they do it so it's it's hard to stream the audience is very solo they they they lock into a single RTS so they're not as amuous they don't try as many strategy games and that's what it is I think that's I think that's why rtss don't work that's just my theory um but that's why rtss just don't do that okay um you shouldn't release in the steam nextfest I heard how long before and after would it be okay I get this question all the time and I don't know and here's the reason is well okay steam nextfest takes over the page so you lose out on the steam uh the new and trending popular upcoming or they do have it but it's way way Deep Way deep down so you lose that visibility from that widget now a lot of people are like well I'm gonna be smart and I get this question all the time like I am gonna launch a week after steam nextfest immediately after is that isn't that smart I don't think it is because I've been asked that question so many times here's the thing when you launch it's not how big the game you're

launching against is it is how many games you are launching next to and if everybody's asking me I'm going to launch right after steam nextest when I have all this momentum I don't know why they're wagging the finger at me but they sometimes do uh then then it's like if everybody's asking that that means everybody's thinking that that means a lot of games are going to launch right at that time which is not good because popular upcoming and new and trending have 12 10 spots 10 game spots and if there's 10 games launching on the same day that's bad because you're crowded out of popular upcoming and new and trending not good that's a big Miss invisibility that you could get that's why I'm thinking look at steamdb will list all the games that are coming out that's a better thing to do it doesn't matter if it's after steam next F or not just look at how many games are releasing every week I haven't done the analysis that's what I'm waiting on I should do it look to see right around after nextfest are there like 12 games in the queue that are like hot they've got at least 7,000 wish lists and they're going to you know possibly launch okay which leads to the next

question which was submitted by a Vier who couldn't come today they asked what's the deal with 7,000 this is a basic question but everybody needs to know it okay why do I always say you need 7,000 wish list before you launch okay um so steam doesn't give a lot of so let me back up a little bit here the whole reason you're on Steam is because steam amplifies visibility and when you sell well they give you more visibility and most of the big things and this is what I talk about in my uh inside conference I'm going to talk about is most of the secrets that you can unlock only happen after you've already proven to steam that you make a lot of money like $100,000 within a month or something like hot that's when steam's like okay we're gonna give you all the keys to the kingdom you can do all this cool stuff before that steam doesn't give you much there isn't much visibility boost they give you before you reach that $100,000 300,000 limit okay which I call real

steam before real steam there's not a lot that they give you it's on your own buddy you are on your own to bring your own visibility except there's a couple widgets that they help you a little bit little bit it's not it's not going to make a break I mean it's not going to like make you a millionaire but it helps it's the tiniest little morsel that they give us poor Indies and that is popular upcoming widget new and trending widget Discovery queue and more like this which is this section at the bottom those are like the little tiny carrots they give us little baby Gamers and uh the way you get into popular upcoming it's like a ladder okay the very first rung that they baby give you is called Popular upcoming that's the first one and to get on there by launch you have to have around 7,000 I always do this because yes there's it's based off velocity and it's not just a pure number there's some other algorithm stuff in there but pretty much every game that gets 7,5 ,000 wish lists ends up in popular

upcoming for some period of time okay and that's the first step of the ladder now there are Gams like Jake brette of great alien Gams who launched Regency soliter 2 actually didn't have enough wish list for popular upcoming but they were able to get into new and trending which is one rung up see you get into popular upcoming that gives you a lot of visibility and sales which boost you into new and trending which is the next rung see it's like step one step two and you're like starting to climb that visibility ladder Jake Brett's been around for like 15 years or more and so he could bypass the popular up coming and he just stepped on the next rung up which is new and trending that's very hard you have to be in there or your game has to be super hot so that's why I always say 7,000 that's the first rung now you could still fall off the ladder after that first rung and never get back up but you got to get at least hit for the first rung so that's why I say you got to get that 7,000 it's very after that if you don't hit that 7,000 it gets increasingly harder to climb the visibility ladders of steam and eventually get into real steam where you start selling it's a ladder and they

give you little tiny steps in the beginning so you got to get on that ladder all right um let's see just making sure that all these that I'm still connected that the spiders are still weaving their silk okay um so just reminder staying inside conference um it's my conference every year um that I do after GDC where I pick the best talks and I say hey can you just tell my audience they can't go to San Francisco X on the San Francisco they can't they can't afford all that they can't do it so for a much cheaper price I get the best details of the best talks and I just give them straight to your brain um instead of having to buy a hotel room in San Francisco and all that uh so it's a much cheaper conference and if you buy it this hour we have 25 minutes left I have to end right at the top of the hour because I got to take the kid to school um uh at the top of the hour or in the half an hour I should say at the end of this hour I'm killing this coupon so you get 15 bucks off now

if you buy it now and if you buy it this hour I'm going to also give you a free copy of last year so you can while you're like anticipating like all weekend you're gonna be like God I can't wait for this conference well you can watch last year's because all the video recordings So when you buy this conference you get all the recordings because yes everything I do is recorded um so even if you can't make them because I'm on their schedules on these experts schedules uh I know some like hooded horse is going to do it at 8:30 my time that's almost bedtime for me okay so I'm going to be rolling in at a much lower energy level but I'm still going to be bringing it I know that's going to be like 2:30 I did the math is like 2:30 in England yikes I don't expect you all to attend that but the recording will be posted very shortly after so you can watch the recording so all the all the talks will be recorded and you have access to them but in the meantime you get access if you B buy this Tower you get free access to this thing this thing is now down to 30 bucks you get a free if you buy it this hour so you can watch the old last year's conferences and that sort of thing let me go back to more question questions

um um it's like before going to conferences like moving from zero to I don't understand the question uh sorry Niles I don't understand the question about it's like before going to conferences like moving from zero to first 2K wishes um please state that in a question I don't know I'm sorry neish okay Kyle Frost can you explain how and why the steam page broadcasts are effective if nobody seems to watch them this is a very funny thing yes everybody I close them all the time and when I did my steam study people closed them too that's the thing now here's the thing this is a thing that I always see on the Discord or anytime I post any advice like on Twitter or something people always go well I wouldn't do that it's like yeah but you are a game designer weirdo like you are the most creative technically Advanced probably Rich probably I mean not rich but you know top tier countries financially you you're probably very well educated you were a very thin crust of the egg

you were the outer shell of the egg there are a lot of people that are very different from you so I don't like the um I'm not not saying unck but just anytime um or Kyle Kyle um anytime somebody's like well I don't do that all my friends don't well all your friends are just like you because people are always like their friends uh I don't do that um well it's not about you it's other people are different but I I have notic even after doing a study a lot of people just close that window here's why here's why the broadcast thing and why you should do it for steam nextest always do it for steam nextest always broadcast from two days earlier start 48 Hours get Robo streamer so that you don't have to host it on your local computer with your spiderweb internet um don't do that get Robo host which is a remote Cloud thing totally endorse that guy um you just pay like it's like $5 he really should raise his prices but that's neither here nor there you pay like five bucks and you get a host like a video for the whole nextfest start it

two days early and just let it run all the way through Steam nextfest and have a broadcast on your steam page now the reason is not for the individual person and this is the brain change that a lot of people have to do in the meta and this is what I talk about in this conference I actually talk about the Brain Change you have to make you are not marketing to one person you are marketing to steam to Market to people and that video Even though everybody clicks the X and closes the video you are doing that for the algorithm because when you opt into broadcasts they but on Steam nextfest you get to opt into two featured streams and what they do is they have a widget on the front page of steam that lists all the games that are broadcasting right now who have opted into one of those two slots have used their two slots and then you get right on the front page and it's not the video that does it it's that the steam put your video on the top that's that's it it's not the video that does it it's the fact that the algorithm puts you on the top you see it's nothing about the video it's not about one person it's about the collective algorithm that's the Brain Change we all need to make so uh the

other thing is if you are really coming in hot thousands and thousands thousands of wish lists there's a widget on Steam front page that says popular streams and you want to get that again you get yourself featured in there when you're in that thing so that's why Kyle I it's not one person yes I always hate I always close it myself it's about the algorithm in the whole um are there steam festivals that are as valuable as nextfest for discoverability yeah here's the thing next Fest isn't actually the best Festival um there are other ones uh that are even better and they themed ones and go to how tomarket agame.com festivals it's our spreadsheet com compiled by the community and if you find a festival that's not on the sheet please message me in the Discord or go mods event- mods okay tell us please tag we don't read everything can't read every message you you folks are posting in there so be sure to tag at mods um we compile that thing some

festivals if it's a smaller thing see the steam nextfest always has like a thousand games in it literally a thousand plus some of these smaller festivals like I don't know triple ey Festival that just happened they're not that many it's like a dozen two dozen games those can provide many more wish lists than steam nextfest it's just the thing that's magic About Steam nextfest is you know you're going to get into it you are definitely know the DAT it's going to happen because there's three per year you get to pick the date it's just seam nextfest is a bullet that you know you can fire whereas all the other festivals are a a lucky crapshoot you don't know if you're going to get because you apply the other festivals evaluate you are you good we also don't know if that Festival is going to get front page steam featuring the only reason we talk about steam nextfest so much is because it is a thing you know you have control over you get to pick the date that it happens when you do it you are guaranteed a spot the thing that's not guaranteed is where your placement is how much velocity you have

going into the next Fest what you know what widgets you're going to have that's a that's a question we don't know what that is but the reason we always talk about cmx Fest is it's something you can control all the other festivals you can't control it's it's pure luck and dreams whether you get into it so that's why we talk about it okay are steam capsules with new update elements a good practice well um steam said no more of that because people are put so much on there and they released a blog post and said no more putting text in there that's anything other than new update um and uh but now people are still doing them still see them they'll be like nextfest build or something they basically said unless it's something like new content or version 2.0 that you can't put anything else there but people completely ignore that and I haven't heard anybody getting in trouble for that so they're like they didn't enforce their own thing on that so I think it helps who knows it's it's hard to tell but hey it's pretty easy use what's called artwork override in

Steamworks you can specify hey I want this different capsule to show up for the next whatever period of time and it auto flips you back I think you should do it I I mean officially steam says do not do it don't do it but you probably can there's no no they're not going to yell at you if you do something weird all right I'm gonna switch over to some people who couldn't show up thank you so much for showing up we got about 20 minutes so pop your questions in there um okay for developer let's see use okay got that one are Tactic Games like XCOM a good genre for Indie developers to make okay this is tricky and we're always learning stuff so here's my theory I have seen a couple XCOM style games do down tactical not do well they underperformed they got a lot of wish list but they underperformed and I my theory my work in theory I haven't done it I want to work on a blog post about this my here's my working Theory I feel like XCOM style

tactical strategy games which I love I played the original XCOM I played the the second generation XCOM I love those games they're kind of like dark souls in the fact that the audience is very very demanding they love the games they like to see them they wishlist them or you know are excited about him like that guy iron pineapple like if iron pineapple plays a Dark Souls like that game gets tons of wish lists and I think the same thing is with nextcom you can show a screenshot with a grid and like action points and all that stuff people will wishlist it but if the game is not 100% on point good strategy good AI good UI perfect the fans hate it so hard and they don't buy it the same thing with dark souls if the combat isn't precise to the level of Dark Souls if it is if it if the animations are kind of just a little off or it's a little laggy

whatever it is about combat if it's not up to 100% dark souls standards they hate it and so I think that XCOM is an XCOM like game is good marketing wi like it's it's a genre that's in demand but it is very hard you have to have a lot of content the strategy and the AI has to be top tier and everything has to be hitting at 100% And if it's not hitting 100% it fails so it's very risk reward in XCOM for a firsttime team I do not recommend it just based on you don't even understand how hard it is because you're first new blood so don't start with an XCOM game if it's your first game I've even seen veteran Studios making XCOM game and it didn't do well because of that high bar of quality that you have to meet so I don't really do that for first time in these how do I get invited to these non-public steam themed events how tomarket agame.com

festivals they're put together by the community in other words like Community sees this and we're starting to get enough of a reputation that I'm getting contacted by organizers and say can you put this on your list yes I love that if you are an organizer of a festival please message me or put it in the events Channel upcoming events chat and do- events let us know if we think your Festival is legit and you're not just scamming people we will put on the list um there are some events I think I can never remember I think it's either wholesome snack or wholesome direct one of those two there is no thing there's no open application for these it's kind of just being a cool kid which I don't like I don't like how you just be a cool kid but basically what you do is I think one of those wholesome games snack or direct I can't remember which one they just look at Twitter it's some always Twitter it's now nowadays Tik Tok too and if you're a cool kid and they think your game's cool they're just like you want to be in a super cool kids

festival and they just like message you on the down low and say do you want to be in there and you always say yes that's one of those where it's like there's no application form you just got to be a cool kid I don't like that I don't like that thing but it is a really good Festival so be a cool kid share your art share on that's one of the reasons why you share on social media Tik Tok Twitter not because it gives you a direct result it just gets you known by the cool kids that's that's unfortunately the way it works so um okay is it worth the effort to cold email streamers especially the bigger ones don't they usually find games on their own they do not and that is why speaking of cool kids Jenny who is influencer Outreach at Kepler interactive will teach us how to reach out to influencers how to email it's always backwards Jenny is this is a good one we're going to literally get the emails that she writes to streamers to get coverage we're going

to do it that this is the question that she's going to answer how do I get streamers to cover my game how do I email them I'm gonna tell you well she's gonna tell you I'm gonna ask it and she's gonna tell you so definitely inside conference again you have 20 minutes to book it no you do not you have like what like 12 minutes to book it 12 minutes after this the price goes up by another five bucks and you don't get the Free Conference I'm I'm you have to buy this hour otherwise you don't get the good stuff so definitely come on it's going to be fun it's going to be so fun it's like GDC but you don't have to like you know be in San Francisco all right steam next Fest ends June 17th in sumers sale starts June 27th is it dangerous to launch June 18th right after my game c somebody asked a question they wanna they want to do it I don't based on the number of people who ask me this makes me think that everybody's thinking the same thing and it's just going to crowd everybody else out I I just look at steamdb see how

many games are launching at that week I have a feeling it's going to be a very busy week and you don't want to be in a busy week I would I think the better strategy is launch during a triaa game and we're GNA talk about that in my talk about why you should actually launch during a triaa game if you want to know the answer a little bit early just search my blog for uh chil quarium okay I think it's better to launch during a period where there's not much traffic when there aren't many games launching which is usually during a AA launch we'll get into that and I'll give you the argument for that but that's my better thought um also I think Indie spent a little too long thinking about when they should launch and not enough about what genres to pick but that's just another Bugaboo that I got all right so okay the steam nextfest docs pages are a little confusing me do you really have to sign up like four months in advance or am I misunderstand the timeline look at the June nextfest it says registration deadlines is in February but February's already passed yep uh Steam nextfest the applications are way early way early

so um for all of you I don't know if the specific uh person Ian I don't know your situation Ian but this is why I always say do the last nextfest before you launch now I know four months some Indies don't know four months in advance if they're going to launch you first you can always opt out so if you know maybe we're going to launch opt into the next one it's a little late now so after June next Fest they're going to immediately have the applications for October just opt into it if you think if you maybe think this just going to happen opt in you can always drop out within like two weeks before the next Fest starts you can always drop out okay there's no penalty they don't hate you if you drop out they don't so opt in to the one that you think maybe is going to happen two you might Ian go to support there's a support tab in Steamworks find it just submit a support ticket and say hey four months is way too early I didn't know can I get into the summer nextfest I'm ready to go everything's good and you

better be ready because if you make them do this and then you're like nah I'm not going to do I decide not to June well what the hell that wasn't very nice so make sure you definitely try and open a support tickets sometimes they can let you in but for the most part for folks that aren't in if you think you might be in the nextfest just apply you can always drop out there's no penalty for dropping out um as long as it's like a month in advance okay for new horror games demo release is it better to join the October next Fest or Halloween Fest Can I submit to both you can there's um the only thing is there's only one next Fest that's the only role only one next Fest but the all the other ones you you can do either one so I think both are good um assuming that that's the next Fest that you want to do okay horror promo question in all caps uh do horror video games have to follow a different marketing path or do we have the same like demos Centra here's the one thing that horror has that the other ones don't you can do whatever you want um but with horror um

the magic thing about horror games is their trailers and their media the like social media Tik Tok can go viral like nothing else that's why I think every Indie developer should make at least one horror game even if you don't like horror make a legit horror game not like oh it's a deck builder horror game it's a it's an XCOM mixed with horror mixed with a dating Sim no just make a freaking horror game where a monster chases you just make a legit horror game okay the cool thing about legit horror games like straight up horror games is you can just go viral with like a trailer or just like a gift of a monster usually it's a girl who's entirely white wearing a white dress just screaming at you you can go viral with that which is amazing like look at don't scream they had a girl in a white dress she walks backwards on her hands screams at you that went viral got 100,000 wish list okay so you can go viral with a so with a horror game so what I say is go really hard the first that you're announcing your horror game Tik Tok YouTube all

that stuff have a girl in a white dress scream at you and just say this is a horror game you can go viral with that if you do that you probably don't need a demo because it's so hot now you might do a quick demo for next test but horror games are one of the few genres that can get away with just being social media YouTube t Tik Tok viral and then launching into a successful thing again look at don't scream they did this very similar no demo no nothing but if you try your hardest that first month you try and go viral and you do not go viral then you have to do the demo because that's your next best shot and actually that's what I'm going to talk about in my talk is how to use the new meta of steam which is a lot about this I'll be talking about that on I think the new meta is Monday the very first talk on Monday at 12:30 Pacific time I'm going to be talking about the new meta and how to do this stuff so that's what my talk is so be sure to book it you have eight minutes left no seven minutes seven minutes left to book that okay we

took place in two the next Fest two years ago and when the game was at its first stage now our game looks totally different is there a chance to join nextfest there is not there is not I'm sorry I'm so sorry you only do one nextfest and they're very mean about it that's why I say do the last nextfest before you launch for this very reason sometimes your game changes the looks change that sort of thing that's just the way it goes so you cannot I am sorry um there's nothing you can do I have a 3D game in the works and both a action adventure and platforming element should I advertise one more than the other I don't know that you have to find out by testing it so one month say this is an action adventure game and then the next month say this is a platformer see which one gets you more attaction which one people respond to which one people like better but here's the thing those genres actually aren't that different action adventurers platformer um the the question comes more when it's like oh this is a um dating Sim combined with a

card combat game then then it's like oh is it this but action adventure platform are very similar actually uh so I I think you just say action adventure platformer I don't think it's that I don't think it's that different um but anyway um you just never know that's why again I say do nextfest at the end because you've dialed in your marketing you found out what actually response to the audience what you can do stuff like run ads and not for the purpose of like oh do my ads convert just see which ad gets the best conversion say this is an action adventure game and then do a different ad that says this is a platformer see which one gets more clicks whichever one it is that's probably the one you should advertise as I don't know you've got to test it all these games we never know we just test it and see which one gets the best reaction reach out to streamers say this is an action adventure game reach out to more streamers this is a platformer which one gets more traction with plat with streamers that's what you got to figure out we never know these things games are magic they just we never know um I have a 3D game in the works with both oh that's one same one thank

you Daniel for your question uh do you think steam has changed something regarding their visibility I it's just that I've been noticing games releasing recently with tens of thousands of wish list from Big Publishers like devolver example pepper grinder and Children Of The Sun not having as many views in the first week um I think this is actually like so the case is so folks playing at home um pepper grinder is a 2d platformer grinder uh where it's like you got a grinding thing launched by devolver didn't get it didn't do very well then another one was this other game called what was it called um Children Of The Sun not doing as well here's the thing there's nothing wrong with the visity um look at both of those games pepper grinder is a platformer pixel art platformer pepper grinder is a puzzle game masing is a shooter but it's actually a puzzle game those are nothing has changed those genres are not great for steam they're just not they're not the steam genre like I feel for those developers I liked both those games they looked really cool but the steam audience does not like like here's my general this is my hot take which I'm

kind of coming if you are controlling the main character like if I push up on the stick and the player goes forward that is risky it is very risky to make a game where you control the main character the games that steam likes you are actually controlling The Meta you are like like a city Builder you you're controlling a cursor a cursor that goes around and says place a building here place a building here or a strategy gamer it's like move the units to here and your cursor if you are an indie game it is best the the in general the best success comes when you control a cursor not the main character it's it's like there both of those games are controlling the main character and for a long time those games have not done as well where you control the main character it's just for some reason Indies never take that message and it's now that we look at these games much harder um we start to realize this and social sharing that stuff it's just we notice it more but for the longest time this has been the case and this is what I've been telling stop making those Platformers because they just don't do as well as games

where you control the cursor where you're like upgrading stuff crafting things building things those are the types of games that steam likes steam likes games where you're a cursor so okay we got two minutes left after this I'm killing the coupon so this basically the last warning conference starts Monday at 12:30 Pacific time when I'm going to speak about the new meta on Steam um and we're going to go from there so um be sure to lock in there thing because you're going to miss out if you don't um key mailer is it good feature I don't know uh we'll ask Jenny let's ask Jenny we'll ask Jenny about keymailer um do the videos stay on demand if we can't catch it live yes everything is recorded it is always recorded I didn't wear my shirt today but here it is my whole life is recorded yes this will be recorded I almost wore it but I was like I don't want to change my shirt but yes everything I ever do is recorded and is going live including this video this video is going to go live on my YouTube channel shortly after today because it takes a while to render these

things so everything I do everything I do is recorded and it will go on live so these all these will be recorded even if you can't catch them live they will get Lo recorded and when you buy this you have access to the old recordings even last year last year you can still access it and if you buy this hour in the next one minute you can have access to it so lock in that buy button push that buy button right now otherwise you're going to miss it because um I mean you can still get the conference after this I'm going to send an email after this thing that says go buy it but the price is going to go up and you're not going to get the free last year's conference okay thank you so much for all these questions I'm sorry could to get through all these well these so many questions um buy a coffee DLC we're actually going to talk about it um in one of my other talks buy a coffee DLC and when it worked and when it didn't um so that's it um all right thank you so much thanks for showing up um let me see if I can get one more question in P mailer again don't know anything different about marketing a VR title yes they don't work on Steam steam does not buy VR titles unfortunately my last year's conference I interviewed a consultant for VR games

cassia Kuran basically which you got to do VR games it's all on meta you got to get on the meta store you got to work with them they curate the store that's what you got to do so that's the 30 minute Mark I gotta run great talking to you thank you so much for showing up I hope to see you at the conference have a great Friday have fun good luck everybody