Live Q&A With Chris Zukowski about Steam Next Fest

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Chris Husky coming in live. This might be too loud. Sorry. Switching microphones. Can you hear me? You I know you can't see me. Uh let me know if you can see me.

I will uh be starting in just a minute. It's not quite time. I just got to I got to send a Discord alert to everybody who's on Discord. Just give me one second. All right. Uh I'm going to pull up some stuff here to help guide the conversation. Um but what I'd like you to do is introduce yourself in the chat. Say where you're coming from. You know,

you don't have to say your address. Just just the state. you know, just the country, maybe state if you're in the US. Um, and then we'll just uh go from there. And oh, also your game, you can link to your game. Spam it away.

All right, here we go. Let's do this. I'm turning on uh here. I'm I'm gonna I'm going to do a face reveal, as the kids say on YouTube. Face reveal. Coming in. Here comes the face reveal. Revealing the face. Face reveal. Oh, right there. Look at that. You can see my window. Magic the magic pictures. All right, so uh we are starting thank you for coming. Um I'm here to talk about Steam NextFest. Uh I just got to grab something over here. All right. Uh thanks for showing up. I really appreciate you uh being here um in this wonderful place called YouTube. I'm here to answer your questions. So

what we're going to do, here's how it's going to go. In the chat, please. There's no way to mark a Q&A. Ju, there's no Q&A tab. So, just in the biggest, boldest thing, say question and ask your question and I'll answer it about Steam Nextfest. Okay. Now, I've got some stats back here about Steam Nextfest. I might be referencing. I just pulled them all up because people always ask the same questions and I've got the answers for you. I have answers. Um, and so what's going to happen and um what's going to happen is I'm going to be uh referencing these and I know these are the questions. So here's the questions that I know I'm going to get and it's okay. Everybody's got these questions. So I'm just going to answer these questions right off the bat. Um some variation of well I might not be quite ready for NextFest in February. I might not it might not be there. Drop out. Just drop out. You can always do the next one. You want to go into Steam NextFest strong with an existing demo. You want

to launch your demo way before NextFest. This is a big mistake that I keep seeing people make is they they they launch your demo like a week before NextFest and it's got bugs. It doesn't work and nobody knows about it. See, you don't get wish list until you launch a demo. That's where wish lists come from. And so, you've got to launch your demo way before. So, this is almost a Steam NextFest Q&A for the June Nextfest, which is Yeah, that's the next one. Um, yes, the June Nextfest is the next one. So, what you want to do is this is kind of I'm telling the folks for the June Nextfest. It doesn't matter when you launch your demo. Like people are like, should I launch it after or during or when or this or D? It doesn't matter. Sometime between now and June, launch your demo because you want to get content creators to play your demo and they'll they'll ratchet up your wish list and you want to be going to Toronto. You might have one of those hot games that every content creator plays back to back to back to back and you're going to go into June next with so many wish lists. Okay, now that's for them. Okay, so if you're going to ask that variation of a question like, "My demo

might not be ready. We're coming in hot. We're we're beta testing. We're almost done. We're almost done with the demo. It's going to be ready by February NextFest." Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You just relax. Go into the back end and and pull yourself out of Steam NextFest February and get stuff ready for June. And it doesn't matter the day the the best day to launch your demo is right away. There's no like should I do it? There's a there's a there's a spring festival sale blah blah blah just whatever. It doesn't matter. Okay, those don't matter. Okay, we're going to answer that question. Um the next question I always get is should I do anything during NextFest? Once next I'm in February, had a good demo and everything. Everything's ready. I'm in NextFest. It's February. What do I do? Nothing. Just enjoy the ride. There's nothing you can do during uh Steam NextFest that's going to change the outcome. Your outcome is decided the second you picked your genre and your thing. Everything else is set. Sorry, there's no free will. You don't get to control your destiny. Cake is baked. So,

you got to just ride the storm. Um I mean, if there's obviously if there's a major bug or something wrong with your demo, fix it. But it's not like uh fixing your demo. It didn't do anything. I I don't know which tab it is. There was a game that Devolver, big Devolver, put out, uh, called Shotgun Cop Man, I think is what it was. And they had this idea, this one Nextfest, they're like, "We're going to launch a new level every day of Nexfest." And the game is a platformer. And it it didn't do terribly. It did it did bad by deolver standards because Devolver is like, uh, it didn't do great. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're Devolver or if you've got um like content launching every single day of Nexfest. doesn't matter. What matters is making a good game. So the most important thing for all of you I'd recommend is making a good game. And if it's a platformer, I'm sorry. Even Devolver can't help a platformer. [laughter] So uh so that's my general advice. Um so pop in your questions again. You have to write big bold question and then what your question is

and I'll answer it live on air. Okay. Okay. And the reason I have to do that is I just have to scroll through and I just have to find it as best I can. I don't know why you can hear me. As soon as I said that, I'm frozen. I don't know why I'm frozen. Um I'm just frozen, but I think you could still I think you could still hear me. I don't know why I'm frozen. All of a sudden, I think uh something's weird. I am just paused in this limbo state. I could still talk. I'm still here. I can still answer questions. So, even though I am I'm frozen catatonic, like I said, this is going to be recorded just like I said. So, you I don't know if the recording will be po paused. Maybe we'll just go to a blank screen or something. But anyway, I'm I can still answer questions. I'll be here answering questions even though I'm frozen in this weird limbo state. YouTube sucks, everybody. All right, so let's get to

the questions here. All right, we're gonna go to the questions. Thank you so much. All right, I'm just scrolling through to get to the questions. Um, let's see. Okay, question. Should I focus on localization for my demo before Steam NextFest has a limited budget? You should at very minimum record your uh change your Steam page to be uh localized. Localize your Steam page and get that localized. That's very important. Okay. Um and uh that's the very bare minimum to do it. You should try to do your main demo also localized. And if you if you can only afford one, maybe like Chinese or Japanese because those are big markets and they don't like English. Well, it's not that they don't. They just don't speak as much as the Europeans who are are more flexible

in that way. Next question. Is there any benefit to paid ads during the next fest? And if so, at what level? Ads don't work if your game doesn't work. So, if you are having struggling, if you're struggling, you're like, "God, Chris, I only get 10 wish lists a day. Nothing's working. Maybe I'll just buy ads." That is like flushing money down the toilet. It's just not going to work. Ads don't fix problems. They just make them more expensive. And guess what? every other studio is thinking the same thing as you because every single Q&A I've done people like should I do ads which means people are going to do ads which makes the budget you guys are all bidding against each other because ads are a bidding platform and so guess who's bidding you up deolver I'm sure Deolver is buying a lot of ads right now you are buying ads okay now this chart that I you see behind me in my frozen catatonic state um that is the number of wish list going in equals the number of wish you're going to get out of NextFest. So, if you're going with low wish lists, I'm sorry. It's no

matter what you do, you're going to get low wish list. It's just it just kind of is. And that's a log scale, by the way, if you didn't notice. Uh the wish list, number of wish lists you're going to earn. And so, you cannot compete with those people. They're coming in with so many wish lists. The Steam algorithm is going to favor them so freaking hard that there's nothing you can do. Okay? And so, um that's all you can do. And my my advice for you is just right out the storm. Don't buy ads. Save that money for your next game. If you're getting low wish list and nothing's working and you're like, "God, maybe I'll buy ads and that'll make it work." It doesn't work. The only thing that works is a new game. I'm sorry. It just kind of is. Like, every game has a spirit. And if the game's just not clicking with people, no amount of ads is going to do it. So, save the money. Save the money for next game or run ads some other day that's not NextFest because you are just competing with the big boys. Every big boy is fighting with you. Okay, I you know this is a kind of a question that everybody there's a kind of collective activism problem or collective something something problem. Everybody has the

same idea. Everybody's like I should run ads this week and then everybody's like I should release right after an excess because I have momentum. Everybody's got the same ideas and you all do the same things and so you all compete against each other. Like you're all buying ads from each other. you're out bidding each other for ads. And when you and I I can't pull up the chart because I'm in a catatonic state here, frozen on the internet. Uh there's another chart. Just look up on my blog something called um how many wish lists to la or um uh should I launch? Just search my blog for should I launch after next. Every single indie thinks I'm going to launch after next. And there are so many games that release right after next that you crowd each other out of the new and trending popular upcoming. See, you guys are all competing against each other. So, whatever your gut instinct to do is, do the opposite because every other indies gut instinct is telling it to do that thing. Okay, next one. Great conjunction. Three games shipped. Way to go. Began dev on incremental. Uh, grand conjunction. Fun demo, but Steam page not public. No translations. Pro capsule

trailer approaching. Go. No go for Steam next. Don't go. I mean, I I don't know because here's the thing. I I don't like these questions because I don't know the full story and it would have to be like a deep dive where I go in for 30 minutes and we look at your page and where you are and what your goals are and all this stuff. If you are just trying to learn and get games out there and you don't care about money and you don't mind not making anything, go into NextFest, learn your lessons and ship. Part of the reason I said grand conjunction games is because you are just trying to learn how to make games. You are just making games and it doesn't matter about money. You don't care. You just need to learn the Steam platform. So part of me tells me it sounds like it's one of your first games. I mean you said three, but just learn the lessons of Steam next. You're going to make mistakes this time. Do it. Make those mistakes. But it didn't cost you much because you're doing quick games. So that's the kind of I don't

know where you are. I'm just describing in general. And so you pick along the way. Now, if you did one of these Grand Conjunction games and you put your demo out and it is hot, like every content creator is playing it now, you should be strategic and you should stop. And by everybody's playing it, like I mean like you got a thousand wish lists a day because so many content creators are playing. That's the level. If that's the level, then it's like, oh, hold back. Slow down. Soak in the wish list. Just let them pour in. because it's not going to it's not going to change like you just soak up those more and more wish lists and then you do another you do a different next fest because nextfest rewards having a lot of wish list right like I said that chart that's behind my frozen catatonic head if you look at that the people who come in with more wish lists so if you magically released a great conjunction game and it is going crazy thousands of wish lists I would hold off until you get like 100 thousand and then do the next test where you have 100 thousand but if you're coming in slow. You put the demo out. You reached

out to some content creators. Nobody loves your great conjunction game, which is by the way for everybody else, games that released really fast just so you can learn the process in these genres you can make small. If you're doing that and it's 10 wish lists a day, ship it because um you don't have the momentum. If you're like, "Oh, well, I'm going to wait till June till I really get next." You're going to go at 10 wish lists a day from now until June, which is, you know, you're going to get like a thousand wish lists from that or something. It's not going to be much. So, just ship it if it's slow going, okay? Because you got to you got to learn the process of just making good games. All right. I'm still frozen. I'm still live. I'm still I can still hear myself and everything. I'm sorry. I YouTube sucks. Some reason it just said no video for Chris. I think somebody at YouTube is like, "Oh god, that guy Chris who says YouTube sucks is there." Okay. Now, part of the thing that I'm doing, and I would wish I could show you this, is I am running a Steam um Nextfest course sale thing. So, if you go I would

I would be showing this if I wasn't frozen in a catatonic state. I would do um go to how tomarketagame.com/courses the the wish list invisibility masterass and my game marketing ideas are both on super deep discount. Um and that's just for this sale and at the end of the week next Tuesday I pull it down. The sale is done. So now's a great time to pick it up. And here's the thing. I got a 30-day no questions asked money back guarantee. So, if you hate it, if you're like, "This is crap, Chris." You can just say, "Chris, I want a refund." You don't even have to tell me why, and I will give it to you because I what what I don't want your money if you don't want me. So, um, like, now's the time to do it. Just try it and if worse comes to worse, you can just refund it. Okay, that's it. Okay, so let's continue on with the questions. I'm still going on. Okay. Um, if you want to ask a question, even though I'm frozen in a catatonic state, uh, just put in the in the text box big bold question that says question. Like,

it's got to be big and bold because that stands out. Or maybe even put an emoji or something like one of those fire alert, you know, like a siren. Put one of those in. It'll help me see it because I'm just scrolling through the chat. Okay? Even though I'm in a catatonic state. And I will answer your question. Okay. Um, is it okay to launch our demo on Steam even if it's at least a year away? No. Don't. Okay. What you want to do is the last NextFest before you launch. So, if you're like, "We're going to be we're a year away from release. Should we do this next fest?" Pull out. Get out. You want to do the last NextFest before you launch because look at this picture. I'm glad this is the picture where it was taken. Look over my shoulder in my catatonic state. You see back there that splatter chart? It just I don't know why. It just so that from the data, the more wish lists you have coming into NextFest, the more wish list you're going to get out of NextFest. And the longer you wait to get into NextFest means you're going to get more wish lists. So, please wait, wait, wait. I

don't know why people are so excited to do NextFest. They Okay, I think this is the reason. They think it's going to kick things off. They're like, "We're getting no wish list. Nothing's happening. Everything's bad. Next is going to change it." It's like that uh going to Europe when your marriage is in the rocks. You're like, "If we just go to Europe, our marriage is going to turn around. We're going to have a better marriage because we go to Europe together." No, it's not. I mean, Europe's great. I love going to Europe, but it's not going to fix anything. Okay? Next fest won't fix anything. It just amplifies the things that are already happening. So, if you look over my shoulder in my catatonic state, that's why I say wait. Wait until the last NextFest because you need to collect wish lists from now until your game's ready and your game will be better and the demo will be better and you'll have more feedback. There's no surprises, folks. Do not surprise your audience. Don't say, "Well, we want to just surprise them. We don't want to show a demo early and all this blah blah blah blah blah blah. We want to surprise them at NextFest to get momentum." There's no such thing as momentum really. [clears throat] So, what you want to do is like release a demo now, but don't enter next. And then roll up

all the visibility from now until the June Nextfest or whenever your last NextFest before you launch is. And then you'll go in with as many wish lists as you can because the more wish list you get. The more wish list you have going in NextFest, the more wish list you get during NextFest. And this data comes from um my site. Just search benchmarks Steam NextFest in that search box that's right above my catatonic frozen head. Okay, I am frozen because YouTube sucks. I told you guys every time I I went on another podcast on Discord. I told you Discord sucked. Guess what? All this techn issues over at the Discord side. It just sucks, folks. I don't know why people like YouTube so much. Okay, YouTube probably heard all this stuff. Okay, so they were like, "Oh, freeze Chris's stream." Okay. Um, yes. Um, I think there the other question I kept getting I got all these have the same ideas. [laughter] So, a lot of people ask, can I launch my demo even though I'm not in Steam NextFest

during NextFest? Will that be f? I think this came from Bellatro. People have been watching the Batro GDC talk. I think that's kind of making the rounds on YouTube. Um the you can but you kind of think of it ethically like like because what Batro did for those who didn't watch this GDC talk Batro when they launched their demo during NextFest uh their publisher just went around to all the content creators and said, "Hey, we got some demos for NextFest." And they include the Bellatro one in and people play the Batro demo even though Batro wasn't in the NextFest. And you're like, "Oh, that's funny. They they jumped the line. But then you think like who' they jump in the line in front of? I don't blame Batro. I'm just saying ethically, think about it yourself. You may be stealing some thunder from some indies who really need this visibility because they really are legitimately indexfest. So you could do it. You It's just between you and your god. Uh whether that's an ethical choice if you want to jump the line in front of somebody. I'm still in a catatonic state. Just to give you the update. Um but I can talk to you all and

answer your questions. So please pop your questions in. Bold question. I do have to stop at the top of the hour which is in 45 minutes. 44 minutes now. Uh even though I am frozen in the catatonic state. This will be recorded. It is being recorded but it will be um that way. Um let's see. Uh big bold question. What if I have a short dev cycle planned to go into Steam NextFest with an early demo then release it a few months after so as to not delay releasing it for NextFest? I mean you could do whatever you want. I'm not your dad. I mean, if and here's the thing is not every game has to be a hit and and this is a good good question like if you're just trying to learn how to release a small game and this is what I think every dev should do in the or early phases. I also think devs who are like oh I'm like five years into my dream game and I'm kind of burned out. Yeah, you should be burned out. Pause your game. Do your last commit to get just kind of put that project to a side a little bit. Work on a small quick like

one month game. Work for one month. Upload it to Steam NextFest or do the next Steam NextFest. Upload it. Find out how bad it sucks. And it's not that bad actually to ship a game. Put it in Nextfest. You're not going to get a lot of wish lists. You didn't do a long demo. It's not the perfect thing. It's not the perfect strategy. You went into NextFest with like 50 wish lists and you earned a hundred wish lists in Steam NextFest and you're like, "Well, that sucked." Yeah, you got to suck a few times before you get good. And so you ship it and you learn and then maybe you make another small game and then you learn and you ship them and it's not the optimal strategy. It's okay to not do the perfect strategy sometimes. Even though behind my catatonic head, you see how it says like you can see those games that went in with 50 wish lists or 100 wish lists and their dot is just hovering above the line. That's the uh x axis. You can see the dot doesn't even leave the line. That's okay. Sometimes you just got to ship a quick small game to find out, oh yeah, I guess I really do need next wish list before I go into

next. And that's okay. So if you want to, if you know going in, you're like, this is just a quick little game I threw together. You can do it. I'm not going to yell at you. I don't care. You can do whatever you want. Just do it. Um, let's see here. I know I'm still frozen in catatonic time. I'm uh so I have so much energy. YouTube's like, that's too much. We got to pause this guy. He keeps saying bad things about YouTube. And you know what? I should say bad things about YouTube. Do not Okay, so one other thing about YouTube. I turned on this membership thing because they said they'd give me a free hat if I turn on memberships. And I was like, that sounds kind of stupid. So I set it to the lowest absolute. Uh I'm going to do this thing where I'm going to drop 10 if I do if I drop 10 membership videos in um in before March, they're going to give me like another hat or something stupid. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to record 10 like 10-minute videos and I'm just going to spam my YouTube channel to to get YouTube to send me a stupid hat. Okay? Do not subscribe to

it. If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, unsubscribe because you're going to get 10 alerts that says Chris has uploaded a membership video. 10 up. It's going to be annoying. You're going to hate it. So, you're going to unsubscribe, which is good. I want you to unsubscribe. Okay? You're going to get those 10 video alerts. I would even cancel my membership if you really want to. Um I it's I set it as low as I can because here's the deal. I'm just doing it to get the stupid hat. All the videos and then I'm going to cancel my membership program. All the videos that I recorded for the membership thing, yes, they're going to be recorded in my catatonic state. I'm uploading them to game marketing ideas which is on sale now right on my website. The reason I do this is I get to control who's in my membership site. When it's on my site, how tomarketaggame.comcourses game marketing ideas, I get to control that place. I get to keep everything, all the money. When I upload membership videos to YouTube, they take 30%. That sucks. Don't let a company take 30%. Now, some of you are about to type, uh,

what about Valve? I know. We'll get to that. So, that is where the membership site's going to go is on game marketing ideas. all these review guesser secret videos that I upload that are only available for members. That's where they're going to go. I'm going to put all the videos that are on the membership site that you already paid for. If you already have a membership, message me and say I'm a membership and list your YouTube ID. I'll give you a special deal. So, don't subscribe though. Don't subscribe. Don't subscribe to my membership $1 tier. Do not subscribe to that. I thank you. If you did message me, I'm going to give you a special discount on the game marketing ideas because you believed in me and you got me this stupid YouTube hat. YouTube sucks, folks. Don't subscribe to these big platforms like Patreon, YouTube. Don't sign up and hope to get money from them. They suck, [snorts] okay? They take your money and they make you think that you're the golden child. They give you hats and stuff. They're taking 30% of your money. Now, let me get to the Steam thing. I wish you could sell a video game direct from your site and then didn't have to pay Valve 30%. I really wish you could. You just can't. I

don't know why, but people do not want to buy video games from a random site. Okay, so you can sell videos. Here's the thing, folks. If you got a YouTube channel and you're like, "Oh, man. I'm not making any money." Just sell a video direct from your site. People will buy it. They will because it's for some reason you can you can buy videos on sites and people are okay with it. But people will not buy video games from some random website. Okay? And that's a tragedy. That means we have to rely on Steam to sell our video games. And that's why it's okay for 30% to give to Valve. I wish that wasn't the case. I wish I could write how to market your game on your own website, but I can't. Nobody's going to buy a website game, okay? That's just the nature of it. But if you make tutorial videos or something, sell them on your own site that you own and you get to keep 100%. Don't make YouTube videos because YouTube gives you no money. That's my rant for YouTube and why it's over. And don't subscribe to my membership $1 tier. Do not. Okay, now back to your questions. Uh, I am making a simulation game. Very replayable, very streamable, no traction. Am I lying to myself that

it actually sucks? It might. [laughter] Here's the thing, folks. If you uploaded the demo, look at your median play time. That's going to give you that's going to tell you the answers. Even if you're like, "My friends all said it's good." Yeah, that's what friends do. That's that means you have good friends. Look at the YouTube stats. If you reached out to hundreds of content creators and nobody played it, that means it's something is wrong with it. And and not in a bad way. You're just learning that there's something wrong with the game. I don't know what it is. I'm not a game designer. Talk to game designers and say, "What's wrong with my game?" and they'll list you out hundreds of things that's wrong with your game and that's part of the learning process. You learn what is wrong with your game and it's it's glorious. And then your next game is going to be better and your next game is going to be better and your next game is going to be better. It's just a process and it's it's the median play time tells you all that is the that is the true measure of the universe. Median play time on your demo, not your average. A lot of people will look at the averages like, "Yeah, but the average is really high." And it's like, yeah, some dude just left it on his computer and went to go get lunch and he

left it on for like three hours and then he had to go to the bathroom and left it on for another hour and then his mom called and he talked to her for an hour and that's why the average is high. But median play time is where you see the face of God. All right, the next one. Kids games on Steam. Good niche. No, absolutely not. Do not make educational games. Do not make kid games. Do not in general I don't even think you should make wholesome looking games unless you are making a management game where you are a cute cat running a cute cat cafe bakery. Okay. Unless you're making a game about managing a cute bakery, you should not have wholesome graphics because I see so many indies, they're like, "Oh, it's a uh wholesome looking, you know, casual graphic style 4X game." And it's like, and you're battling against cats in Forex. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Anybody who wants to buy a Forex hardcore strategy game wants you to be looking like General Patton. Your

your your avatar should be General Patton versus Raml and it should look gritty and there should be like an old rusty World War II tank on the cover. Okay, that's what those players want. Most Steam players want a gritty ass, gritty, gross looking game with like guts hanging out. Steam does not like cute games. And I think one of the big problems I always see on Steam and people like, "Why isn't my game getting traction?" And you pull it up and it's like the most pastel graphics with the cutest little faces. That is death on Steam. Unless you're making a cute cafe game or like a visual novel, but even visual novels, you don't want to be too cute. They're just dead. Please don't make cute graphic educational games for Steam. It's just dead. Steam is a gritty, mature population. And if I was not stuck in a catatonic state where I can't move, what I would do is I would show you the history of PC game magazines. I'm I'm I'm I'm doing YouTube videos where I look at old PC games. I've got a stack of how many do I have now? One, two,

three, four, five more PC games that I'm going to be going over in future YouTube channels when I'm not stuck in a catatonic state. And we're going to go through and look at them. And they are gritty ass, gritty games. even back in the 90s. And you need to make some gritty ass games. I'm sorry. I I wish that weren't the case, but you got to get as gritty as you can. Get gritty. Okay, everybody. If you don't know, buy a texture pack called like dirt and smear it all over your game. Make a shader that just makes everything grittier and your sales will go up. I'm almost positive. And if you're making a horror game, get a blood shader and put blood on everything. Your sales will go up. That's just the way Steam is. Don't make education games, folks. I'm sorry. I know it's like, but I showed my kid and he loved my game. Yeah, that's your kid. He's going to like everything you do. You're a parent. That's awesome. Way to be a parent. Everybody should have kids. Go have kids for the love of God. Our our species are dying. Please have kids. All right. Question. Chris, yesterday you told a Reddit that paying for exposure isn't really worth it. Does

your answer change if the game is mostly multiplayer? Multiplayer. Very hard to get going. Yeah. If I My advice is if your game's multiplayer, don't make it multiplayer. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Don't make multiplayer games, folks. I'm so sorry. I don't want to crush your dreams. Look up right now in my catatonic straight. If I weren't in a catatonic state, I'd go up to the search box and search Battle Bit. Okay, that game is insane. It took them five years of slowly building an audience before they had enough momentum to actually launch. Multiplayer games at indie level is impossible. It really is. And if you search uh I can't remember which blog it was. Um, one of them was a I looked at a game all the multiplayer games that launched that had a good launch and nine out of 10 of them had failed by the one-year mark because the servers emptied or they got taken over by people who had hacked the game and were bots and they were aim botting and

all this stuff and it was all full of hackers and everybody's like, I like this game but it's so full of hackers I can't play it. That is what happens with multiplayer games. Please, folks, don't make a multiplayer game for Steam. I know, I know you love it and everybody loves multiplayer games. They do well. It's just at indie scale, you cannot make it happen. You just cannot. Now, if you're making a co-op game where it's not open lobbies where randomly matched with people, that's okay. Co-op games are great because all you need is like three friends and they're like, "Yeah, we're going to play together Friday night." And they all show up and they all match and they all go against each other. And if one guy is hacking the game and using aimbotting and like his friends are going to say, "Knock it off, buddy." Otherwise, you're not our friend anymore. And he's like, "Oh, I'm sorry." See, it's self-regulating. And so, you don't have to worry about hacking aimbots and all that kind of stuff. Multiplayer games are dead. If you really, really, really want to make a multiplayer game, make a mod for one of the other most popular multiplayer games. That's the best way. I know it's free, but you don't have to pay for server costs, and you've got a player

base built right in. So, I'm I'm sorry. I know that's not the answer you were seeking. It doesn't matter. You were you were you were throwing money down the furnace even faster if you're making a multiplayer game and spending money on ads. I am sorry. I just I'm here to answer the questions in my catatonic state. All right. Um speaking of which, um the recap, I you know how I mentioned, hey, I looked back at the games that were multiplayer and stuff. Um in my catatonic state, I'd pull up how tomarketaggame.comcourses. I'm selling um game marketing ideas. I have a discount. It's 75% off. Every year I do a live broadcast for people who subscribe to that and I do a recap of the previous year and I'm doing it's going to be next week. I'm going to be doing a recap of the games of 2025. Okay. And the games of 2025 I'm going to go through like all the ones that succeeded and I know survivorship bias and I'm going to show like what worked and what didn't. But to counter survivorship bias, I'm going to show you how many multiplayer games launched in 2025 and how many of them are still

running and it is very low. Okay. Okay. I'll show you all that stuff, but I do a it's like an hourong plus a Q&A afterwards. Um, and it's not going to be on YouTube. It's only for those people that bought the ideas course. And if you bought it years ago, I've been running ideas course for like five years, I think. Just about five years. Even if you bought it five years ago, you still have access to the thing. You don't have to keep rebying it every year. It's it's these all these courses are lifetime. So if you buy any one of my courses, it is lifetime sales. So like in other words, like if I update it, it's they're all on I'm going to update the ideas course to 2.0. I've already got an artist working on some stuff. John's working on some cool art for it. You buy it for life, you get all updates for the rest of time. Okay? So even if you're like, "Well, Chris, I I is it going to update?" Yep, it will update. And if you bought it, it will you'll get the updates. You don't have to reby it. That's sleazy. Question. Co-op rage game right now will

be a good idea, Chris. Yeah, they're still hot. Still good. They're I call them friend slop. Um you might want to make it a little not rage rage, maybe like soft rage because I think friends the the my general thought is co-op games where friends hang out, they kind of have to be a little easy so friends can talk. There's something you do in the background while friends talk. I think peak is pretty hard. Like peak is challenging. I've never I've gotten to the third peak. I haven't gotten past the third peak, but they're easy enough and low attention enough that friends can chitchat while they play. That's the main thing. So, it depends on I I can't tell you because all you said was rage plus co-op. That could be so many things. I think the most important thing is I think it can be tricky, but friends have to be able to chitchat and not pay 100% attention to your game. You have to be good enough to say no. Okay. How many wish lists prior to a demo next fest release would you justify localizing the game if I can get expensive on text in

it? I don't know, dude. I don't have a formula for that. I don't know. I don't know. There's nothing there. You just got to take a chance. You just take a chance. If you think it's got it, like if you're getting I don't know. I I just I can't put a number. It just I don't I literally don't know. You've got to take the chance. So, you've got to find out. Look at this chart over my catatonic shoulder. You see that thing? If you're kind of on the other side of the red box and you're getting thousands of wish lists and you're in the tens of thousands of wish lists and content creators are playing your game, that's a good sign. If it's a struggle to get any wish list, if every day you're getting 10 wish lists and you reach out to 100 content creators and nobody plays your game and nobody cares and nothing's going on, I don't think you should localize. It's just not going to work. Like, the game just isn't there. And it's not like all of a sudden you add localization and every the clouds part and the sun comes out. That's my basic thing. Are you in the red box over my catatonic shoulder or are you in the other side of the box? That's kind of my general thought of like and yes, 2,000

wish lists. Maybe it took you 10 years to get to 2,000 wish lists. That is not good. It's got to be like 2,000 wish lists and you released like two weeks ago. Really, it's like look at my benchmarks page. Look at all the benchmarks. If you're always bronze tier or silver tier, I hate to tell you, it's probably not going to work. Okay, it it like your game is just there's something. And that's okay. That's not bad. Just ship the game, make another one, ship a game, another one. So look at my how tomarketagame.combenchmarks and just go through the benchmarks things and just read each benchmark article and say am I gold, silver, bronze, diamond tier, whatever it is. If it's consistently bronze or silver that you're running into probably a sign your game just doesn't have it, whatever that it is and you should kind of package it up and ship it. Okay, next question. Um from zero care. Oh, that's not nice. You should have 100% care, not zero care. Um, festival seems to be one of the main

wish list sources. However, for smaller scope games, two to four months, they don't seem viable at all. What can we do to justify small games like Idol to game wish list? That is not in that is not correct. Small games all the time get into um festivals. It's just the game. So, here's like look at my last blog post. I think it's the one that's over my catatonic shoulder here. Um, Desktop Defender, that was a quick game. It did very well in Steam NextFest. They get into other festivals. Um, if you look at Butterscotch Shenanigans, their podcast, watch their podcast. Just search Coffee with Butterscotch Shenanigans. They started a new YouTube podcast feed. Watch that. Watch their last like five videos. And they made this game in months. Just a couple months. And they're getting into all these festivals. There is nothing about the length that it takes you to make a game. This as devs, you need to get past this thought process that if I only spend one month, that means it's not as good as a game that I spend four years on. That is

not true. It's the game. It's not how much effort you put into it. And that I do not agree with what you just said where it says like, well, I I only spent two months, so I'm not getting into festivals. You will if the game is exciting to people. I'm just going to tell you it's it is. And so there are some games that don't get into festivals, but content creators like them. There are some games that are better at festivals, some games are better at content creators, but you got to try both. And um if content creators don't want to play it and you're not getting into festivals, ship the game, make another one. It's guys, it it really is like some games just have the magic and some games just no matter what, even though it sounds like a good idea, you put it out there and you're like, is this a good idea? and people like, "Nah, I don't know. It's not that great." It's a hard truth, but it just happens. And I'm sorry that's not the right answer you want. But that's why you just got to ship fast until you find one where for some reason, some stupid reason, people see it and they're like, "That is awesome. I want to play that. I

want to stream it. I want to enter you into my festival." It just happens. All right. Next question is from somebody from the um Raj Sadv. I think you are a premium member. I appreciate your membership, but please um I'm going to end it and I appreciate it. Message me and I'll get you a special discount on the game marketing ideas because you are a backer. Nobody else don't subscribe to my membership. Do not because I'm closing it down, okay? Over my catatonic shoulder. Yes, I know I'm frozen. Something stupid with YouTube happened. When this is over, I'm going to start this whole week like or next week. I'm going to upload one video a day that's 10 minutes long to my membership thing because if I get 10 membership videos, stupid hat gets sent to me. Unsubscribe from all that stuff. Like just that's why I don't want you to subscribe to my YouTube channel is because I'm just doing weird stuff to get YouTube to give me free stuff and it's annoying to you all. I don't I don't want that. I don't

want you to be annoyed. So just join my mailing list how tomarketaggame.comfree. That's what I want you to join. YouTube sucks. I don't know why people keep subscribing to me even time I say stop doing it because YouTube freaking sucks. Don't people please don't start YouTube channels. They suck. They don't do anything. I don't know why people like YouTube so much. Anyway, Raj, thank you for backing me. Get ready to cancel it. Okay. And message me. Message me and I'll get you um that special discount for the game markets. I hired a marketer made 1,000 wishes and we have two options. push for 7,000 wish list plus streamers paying rage games or 10,000 wish list is best. I don't I'm sorry Raj, thank you for backing me but I don't understand what that means. We have two options. I hired marketer made a thousand wishes and we have two options. Push for 7,000 wishes plus streamers. I don't know. This sounds I don't know. Here's my hesitation Raj. This sounds

like a weird scammer thing that you're talking about because anytime you hire a marketing person and they're like, I can guarantee this many wish lists, they are probably hiring bot army to wishlist you and those wish lists are garbage. Absolute trash garbage. If it sound what I'm worried this sounds when you're like we have two options get this many wish lists or this many wish lists. That sounds like somebody's selling you bots. Okay, do not if somebody's guaranteeing you wish list they are scammers. Okay, folks. this to everybody. Do not pay for wish list. I that's why I don't like paid advertising. It just doesn't seem to work. If your game has it, you can easily get to 7,000 wish lists. And I don't mean easily. I just mean like you just give it to a content creator, they play it, and you get like 2,000, and then their friend plays it, and you get 2,000 for that, and you're at 7,000 within a couple months. Okay? That's the mark of a of a game that has it and will sell well. If it doesn't get those levels, again, go to my benchmarks page, how toarketame.com/benchmarks. If you're not hitting those benchmarks

like br everything you do is bronze tier or silver tier that means there's something that's just not clicking with the game and I would not spend money on marketers or advertisers because it doesn't matter how much money you spend on paid ads or PR people. It's just not going to work. If you put out a game and you're kind of hitting like upper silver tier gold tier and you're not paying for anything that might be a sign. See paying for marketing only multiplies things. Okay. And so Raj, when you said that, it makes it sound like you're buying wish lists, which those scam there are marketers are like, we we can guarantee this many wish lists. Option A, option B, which wish guarantee you want. They're just picking which bot engine they're going to hook you up to. Do not and they're never going to return. That's never going to return. Same. Okay, let's keep going. I'm keep going. Um, so I'm still in a catatonic state. There's nothing wrong with YouTube, with your YouTube or your stream. It's me at

YouTube. I think that the the general up at YouTube is like, "Oh, there's that Chris again. He's going to say bad stuff about YouTube. How does he like YouTube after I freeze it, and I'm going to be like, "Now I hate you even more. I at least I can I can still have a voice. I can still scream. I have no mouth, but I can still scream. My mouth doesn't move, but I can still yell at you all." So, please do not subscribe to my YouTube channel. I'm about to drop a a a 10-minute video every day so that I can get a free hat from YouTube. do not pay do not pay for the membership. There there's a $1 tier. I just created that cuz YouTube will send me a stupid hat and like they they brought me into this creator program where I meet with a coach and stuff and all my videos are like don't do YouTube. I'm I haven't had the meeting yet and I'm not going to do the meeting because I don't want to sit through and they're like Chris could you just not say YouTube sucks. I'm like I you can't control me. You're not my boss. You're not my dad. And so no I'm going to keep saying YouTube sucks and you should not create a YouTube channel folks. Don't don't create YouTube sucks. I don't know why people love it so much. You you just love the people that are on YouTube. You don't actually like YouTube. It's a misplaced love. Just

like to an abusive father. Okay. Should I participate with a demo in a themed festival before next? Yes. Yes. That's a great thing. You need to get The reason I say publisher demo as early as possible and just ride the wave is because these opportunities appear like the themed festivals, content creators, other festivals. They're all much better than Steam NextFest. You want to do all of them. You are not Never debut your demo during NextFest unless you're famous or unless there's some you're doing a rapid release game or you're getting some super special featuring. For the most part, for 99% of all people, your demo should go out live way before and you should do so much marketing behind the demo like festivals and content creators. the the Steam NextFest, the mentality you have to have is this is the grand sanara to my demo. I'm I'm leaving this world. It's like carnival. If you've watched Logan's run, when you do Nextfest, that means the red

the red icon on the back of your hand is turning red and and NextFest is like carnival and and you float up and then you explode and then you launch your game. If you haven't watched Logan's Run, go watch it. Awesome haircuts. Awesome. Um, they have a teleporter sex machine. It's a really it's a really great great website, a great uh movie from the 70s. It's fantastic. I actually went the the the port where they jump in to get into the underground cave system is actually a park in Dallas, Texas. I went to it and I tried to dive in. Nah, just kidding. I tried to dive in so that I could go to the underground uh Logan's Run area. Didn't work. Actually, somebody did try to do that and they drowned. It's called the water I think it's called the water garden. It's a really wild place. Dallas is weird. Logan's Run is weird. So, go watch Logan's Run after today. Stop watching YouTube. Go watch Logan's Run, which I think is on YouTube. But anyway, is it a good idea to launch a page and trailer now, or is it better to wait until the

next fest is over? I'm worried that my trailer might not get press attention. I don't know. Just wait like a week. I guess wait a week until after NextFest is over. Maybe it all this timing stuff doesn't matter as much. But yeah, just wait. Who cares? Just wait. Okay. Um, oh no, YouTube just scrolled ahead and I lost my place in my questions. So, these are great questions. I do have a hard stop at an hour, so I'm going to try and get through these as fast. Oh, I found it. Okay. Um, I know I'm frozen in a catatonic state. YouTube sucks. I know, but I can still I don't have a mouth that moves, but I have a voice. I can scream. Um, any advice for a game that's one of the genres you say don't work on Steam? Match three. Oh, match three is one of the worst genres. I'm so sorry, dude. My thought is ship it now. Whatever state it is. Every second and dollar you spend on this game is is is never going to be

recouped. I am sorry. I don't I want to be honest and truthful with you. What I want you to do is stop look up the look up on YouTube or ask Chad GBT or whatever you like Gmail or Google. Just search opportunity cost. Okay? Just search that and just soak in what opportunity cost is. Every single second that you spend on this match three game is going away. So my advice to you is polish it up. Like just whatever left you have to do, you're like, I'm thinking about adding a boss, don't don't whatever you do, just ship it because unless you have like a contractual obligation with a publisher where they say you have to do this stuff, but seriously, it just will not sell on Steam. Matchy is the worst genre. And as long as I mean, I've never seen a master tree do well on Steam. If you for magically you're getting a thousand wish lists a day. Okay, then

all my advice here is out the door. But if you're like, I get one wish list a day. Sometimes I get more deletes than ads. It's the genre. It's match three. Ship it as fast as you can. Just polish it up. Uh end add endless mode. Don't worry about bosses or the extended story lines. Strip all that out and ship your game and learn from it. It's okay. I don't hate you for making a match three. It's a It's a shame that people keep saying this stuff. Just make the game you want to make. Make the game that you like. Make the game that in your heart and and don't worry about chasing trends. This is the downside of that attitude is like, well then people are going to make match trees because some people like matches but Steam doesn't like matches and now you're stuck in this terrible thing. So I hate that advice that's like just make the game that you love because make the game that you love means some people are going to make match threes and they're terrible on Steam. And I'm so sorry that you had to hear advice that make the game that you want and don't chase trends because matches will not sell. They just won't. And now you've wasted all this time making a match three that's not going to sell because you chased your dreams or whatever. I'm sorry. Those people that told you to chase your dreams, they they betrayed you. That's the downside. So

please, please just ship it. Move on as fast as you can. I I I don't mean to do it. You you learned a lot by making a master. You learned so much. So it's not a waste. It's just now it's time to to to kind of close it up. Okay. I'm so sorry. I really I I wish you the best. I really do. Okay. Next question. Chris, I released a very rough demo of my game on Itch. Planning a much more polished demo on Steam later this year. Should I start asking content creators to try this early demo? Um, yes. Here's [clears throat] what you should do. Uh, read my blog up above my catatonic head that's frozen here that says search. Search H.io. Um, I forget what it's called. H.IO something. Just search H.IO. And there's one about root trees are dead and another one about benchmarks on itch. Do and here's the attitude I would have on itch. This is what I recommend for itch. Treat your game that this rough thing that you're making as a prototype. Don't think that you're going to make this game on Steam. Treat it as a rough

prototype. Reach out to content creators, hundreds of them, and see if anybody plays it and see if you can spike it up to like a thousand to 5,000 uh plays for your itch demo. And if it happens, if that happens, look at my benchmarks page for Itch. And I'll tell you, if that happens for this game, that means it's probably going to do well on Steam. If this rough prototype or whatever this game that you have on itch does not do that, if nobody plays it, even though you reached out to hundreds of content creators, I would try and make another one. Do another crazier Itch demo thing and try it again. Here's the thing is itch is a good platform to validate your ideas. and you should make multiple itch games and then pick the one that does best. And rather than saying I'm definitely going to make this game for a year, that's risky. I'd rather make three very rough it.io prototypes back toback every month and then whichever one does the best make that one. That's the decision process. I see too many people say, "I'm going to just see if my game's worth it and I'm going to put on itch." And no matter what

number comes out of itch, they're like, "I got a good response." And it was like, "What was your response?" Well, one person played it and they said they loved it. And so that's enough validation. That is not good enough validation. You need to do like three or four prototypes, see which one does well, and then the one that does well, you're like, that's the one. That's it. Use them. The one you pick is the one that does the best. Then there's no wishy-washy. You convinced yourself. Okay. All right. Fire question from stream your clip virals. Clips viral. That sounds like a YouTube channel. All right. Um, innovative co-op rage game right now will be a good idea, Chris. Um, first you don't get to say innovative. You don't get to decide if it's innovative. Your players get to call it innovative. Um, I still think they're good, but you just test it. You see if it's innovative. Put it out there on it. And if people like it, they'll like it. I don't know. Some of these questions when people just say like a genre question, it's like I don't know. Like there's so much in the words. They're like, it's a good strategy game.

And it's like, okay, well, if it's good and it's a strategy game, then it'll do good. like just saying a bunch of nouns other than unless you said match three. If you said match three or VR or puzzle platform, I'd say no. But all those genres that in my articles over my catatonic head where I can't move my head, I'd be pointing with my catatonic head to search for grand conjunction games, my demo report or my genre report from my last blog post that I published on Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember which day. Datist genres. If it's one of those genres, give it a shot. I don't know. Like there's so much. Just picking a genre is not enough. It has to be a good game. So, if you just list out genres that I said are good and you say, "Will that work?" Well, it depends on if your game is good. Make it good. Don't make a bad game. All right. Question. Question. I like the question emoji. If I'm not participating Steam NextFest, how long before or after does it make sense to release the demo? Um, I don't know. You can release it during NextFest. I don't think that's a problem. It's just whether you want to be sneaky Batro and try and steal the thunder of other Andies. It doesn't matter. Like folks, all these general

like if I launch on this minute or this day or this hour, is it going to be good? It doesn't matter that much, folks. The biggest question is what genre you picked. Whether you picked a match three or a VR or something else, whatever you picked, that is the big decision. The day, minute, second, hour, whatever you launch doesn't matter. That really doesn't matter that much. I mean, it matters a little bit, but the biggest thing that determines it is the genre and the type of graphics you picked. That's it. That's the matter. So, I'm going to any more of these questions where it's like I should I launch it on this or that. I'm just gonna say it it doesn't matter. [laughter] Okay. I get good feedback on my games on Reddit and planning on releasing Steam page next week. Seek an announcement trailer. Do you think it would be reaching out to IGN? Other Yes, reach out to IGN. Search my blog for IGN and I tell you how to reach out to IGN. Question. If it's a hot genre like narrative, what percentage of wish list can I expect to

convert to sales for the first six months? Nobody knows. There is no formula for conversion. It depends if it's a good game. So, don't make a bad game. If it's a good game, the conversion will be high. If it's a bad game, the conversion will be low. Just because you pick a genre, you still have to make a good game. Okay? You still have to make a good game. All right? And that's what depends like all this stuff. I know we talk about numbers. I usually just talk about numbers because it proves my points. Because if I just made this stuff up, people are like, "Well, what's your proof?" So, I have to do these charts and these numbers and these graphs. But the end result is it's still an art form. You still have to make a good game. There's no like easy formula. There's no checklist I can have you go through and if you check every box, that means you're going to have a good game that converts well. You just have to make a good game and it's an art and you just have to get good at it. So, I can't give you that because you could you could literally make a visual novel narrative game that's like poorly written child's hand scroll and it's the

stupidest story you've ever heard and put that up and you're like, "See, Chris, I made a visual novel and my conversion rate was 0.001%. Why? You told me it was a good genre." Well, it's got to be good. [laughter] You got to make a good game. So, it really is about being a good game. You have to make a good game. Don't make a bad game. Okay. Are community announcements post on Steam important or are they for my followers? I use Patreon, Reddit, and Discord to share updates. Don't know if I should do that on Steam as well. Yeah, share it on Steam, but just copy the same message between all those places you just shared it and put on Val. There's nothing. The numbers aren't really that great if you do a news alert, but the good thing is those alerts show up on your Steam page and it shows that your game is actively being developed. So, on your Steam page, you'll see news alerts and it'll just have it just looks full. Your page looks full and active and and like somebody's still developing the game. All right, I got less than 10 minutes. I'm just going to be hammering through these questions as fast as I can. That's why I'm just

going to answer the question. If anybody asked a question, should I launch on this or that? I'm just going to say it doesn't matter. [laughter] A game with 66 negative reviews went on 99% discount appeared on the deals widget. I know it doesn't. Sometimes the deals widget is wacky. Valve, I think sometimes they run out of um of people who have picked a time and Valve's like pushes a big random button and some random game pulls up and they're like, "We're going to do a daily deal." Don't freak out what other people are doing. Just don't people. Sometimes weird stuff happens to weird people. Sometimes good stuff happens to bad people. Sometimes bad stuff happens to good people. Focus on what you can do. What's the What's a serenity prayer? I know I don't know it, but it's like uh see what you can control and everything else doesn't matter. So say the serenity prayer. Look up the serenity prayer and say it because that one game that was really bad and had poor reviews got a daily deal. Just say the serenity prayer. Okay. Question. Is there really a big difference between doing a 3D game versus a 2D game? I don't think so. I think it just um here's the thing about

2D versus 3D games. I think a great way if you're like what's a good hook? Find a popular 3D game and make a 2D version of it. Find a popular 2D version game and make a 3D version of it. That's actually a very innovative way to make a thing. But make it a hit game. Don't say like, "Oh, there's this one obscure game that was a 2D game and I think I can make a 3D." No. No. Do the obscure version. Like, what if you made a 2D version of Peak? That's what I mean. Like, Peak is huge. What if you made the 2D pixel art version of Peak? It was co-op fun just like Peak. It has like energy mechanics just like Peak, but it's 2D. I have a feeling that would do well. That That's a very classic thing. So, I don't think 2D versus 3D matters as much as people would think. Um, sometimes 3D does better on Reddit. You know, if like you show cool 3D explosion, that'll do better than a cool 2D explosion, but there's other ways. Like, there's lots of That's what I like about Steam. There's so many different genres, so many different things that do well. Um, it just depends on the type of game you're making with the various 2D

versus 3D. Is January good to launch a rogike? It doesn't matter. Okay, question. Somebody said question then answer question. not famous real? I don't know. The void answer is true. Yes. Uh question from duddev. Um I'm an indie with zero following. Should I launch my Steam page in a small event? No event all four months. Just launch. Just announce it. Just announce it. It doesn't matter. Announce it whenever you can. Whatever lets you in, do it. You mentioned if this is your first game, just ship and join the next fest to learn. Is there anything that must be done in your opinion? even if you're just going for the first time. Um, just make a best game you can. That's it. Just do it. Um, reach out to the content creators. Even if it's your first game, just reach out to content creators. That's what my advice. Just even if it's your first game, you only spent a couple months, which is great. You've got the right attitude. You're doing good. My advice is just reach out to every content creator starting now. If you're in this February one, reach

out to as many content creators from now until February. Just every just blast it. Don't worry about follower counts or anything. Just sort based on people who played games similar to your game. Sort by most viewed at the top down to least viewed and just start hammering down the list. Put it into a spreadsheet and from now until the start of NextFest, just go down that list and say, "Play my game. Demo's on the page." Just just that that literally has to be the thing. Here's a trailer. Here's a link to my game. Demo on Steam now. Don't even send them keys. Just say demos on the Steam page. Um, Nexus question. Is there any benefit? I know, by the way, I'm trying to hammer through it. I got four minutes before I have to end this. I'm trying to go through as fast as I can. Yes, I know I'm frozen. You don't have to tell me that I'm frozen. I know YouTube hates me because I tell them they suck. Question. Is there any benefit sending your demo to publishers if you're looking for one? Will a positive demo help? Yeah, demos are now the only thing publishers care about. They want to see a demo. They want to see that you got traction.

That's all uh publish. They don't know. Nobody knows if your game's hot. That's why I can't answer the question. I'm gonna make a rage game that is actually a match three. Is that gonna be good? I don't know. Make a demo, give it to a content creator. If the content creator likes it, then send that to publisher. Say, hey, this content creator played our game and we got a thousand wish list. Then the publisher is going to be like, "Hot damn, you're signed." Uh, that doesn't matter. Like all this other stuff doesn't matter. You have to show the proof of it. Question. What does a strong player base phase look like before a demo? We are making a play test trailer and announcing alpha beta game. Just look at the median play time. That's the most important thing. Look at the median play time. And if you've run multiple play tests, is the number of people who signed up for the play test increasing? If it's decreasing, that's bad. But look at the median play time. That's the most important thing. If it's on itch, upload the demo to itch. And then look at my benchmarks for it.io. You'll see that question. Not famous real. Is it worth reaching out to content creators to play an early raw demo on it? I think I did that. I think I answered that already. Yes, put it on itch. Get content creators playing on itch. Um, question. I only answer

questions when there's big bold question. Qu question. If a game has strong characterization and story on top of gameplay, will it do better if the story is linear polish? I I don't know. I don't I can't answer this question because I don't know if it's a good story, it works. If it's a bad story, it doesn't work. [laughter] So, if this is one of those questions where like if I make a visual novel game, is it going to be good? I don't know. Is the game going to be good? I can't I can't answer. It depends on you making it good. You have to make it good. If it's good, it'll be good. If it's not good, it won't be good. So, don't make a bad game. Question. Announcement trailer and Steam page planned to release in two weeks. Is it worth emailing? Yes. Email IGN. Uh, search above my catatonic head IGN and I tell you how to do it. Um, um, let's see here. I'm looking for question uh from PHP trash. PHP great retro is posting a small proof of

concept for your game on itch a good idea I have no idea how to get traffic or visibility yes put a post somehow magically if you post it on itch people look at games here's the big misunderstand people have about visibility everybody looks at games okay every single game is looked at this is the big thing that people don't know as long as you put in the right places you reach out to some people look at these games and you're like, "But I posted it and it got no traction." Oh, people looked at it and they just are like, "Nah." So, as long as you follow my basic strategy, which is like post a demo, reach out to some content creators and if it gets traction, it gets traction. If it doesn't get traction, it doesn't get traction. That's because people look at it and they're like, "This game looks boring." And they move on. That's the secret. And then people always reach out to me. They're like, "Well, I did all that stuff and nothing got traction." Well, they looked at it. They just didn't like it. Oh, I think they're going to spam. I think my emails are going to spam. Oh, they're not. The emails are not going to spam. They're getting seen. It's just people look at the game and they're like, "This kind of

looks boring. I'm not going to play it." That's the secret. Every game gets looked at. The the internet is like a thousand little ants looking at every single pebble on the beach and they and every game is a pebble and they all turn it over and some of these pebbles are diamonds. And those I don't metaphor is getting away from me. And the and the ants grab the diamond and they pull it up to their queen and they say, "This game's awesome or this diamond." I'm telling you, every single game gets looked at. It does. It really does. I'm I'm I'm convinced of that. And and the games that do well just magically, this is why I say it's magic. The games that are just exciting to people just magically get surfaced. I don't believe in the hidden gems theory that there's these hidden gems out there. They aren't. If they are hidden, they get found very soon. As long as you kind of like make a demo, you put it out there and you like reach out to just a basic number of content creators, that gem will be found usually. Which is best for Steam? Enter the dungeon style rogike or vampires like I don't know. Just try them. I It doesn't matter. Make a good game. What about the Valve? Yeah, there

it is. There's that question. What about Valve with their 30%. If If you could sell a game on a website and make 100% of the money that you sell off your website, that's the name of my site. My site would be called how to sell how to market a video game on your own website. Unfortunately, the culture of Steam or of PC gamers is they will not play a game off a website. I wish it was true, but it's just not. We have We don't get to pick the world we live in. Should I upload my Steam demo now? It's my first game. I want to rush into NextFest. Um, well, if it's if it's your first game and you're releasing it within a month or something and this is the last, always do the last Nexfest before you launch. If this is the last Nexfest before I launch, then do this next fest. I am working on a driving rogike game, Driving Rogue. Would you like to hear the opinion on Steam next? I can't do Well, okay, one thing. If you buy my course off the top of my head, I can't remember which one it is. I think it's game marketing ideas. I think it's game marketing ideas. I am doing a live

Steampage review. This is how I'm going to end. So, if you buy my course next week, I'm doing a live Steampage review for everybody that's going to be in the February Nextfest. And you have to promise, I can't verify it, that you are going to be in the February Nextfest. I'm trying to prioritize people that are getting their page up for NextFest. If you buy it, I'm doing a live Steam page critique for everybody who did. And even if you bought this three years ago, you're still eligible as long the only requirement is you have to promise that your game is really going to be in the February Nextfest. And if you do get a Steam page review and you're not going to be in the February Nextfest, there's a curse on you. So don't do it and you're a bad person uh for trying to steal the spot that would go to somebody who really is going to be in February Nextfest. So um if you buy it, I can't remember. I should have looked it up. I can't remember if I did it for game marketing ideas or whichever one it is.

If you if you picked the wrong one, you bought the wrong one, you can refund it and say, "Chris, can I get a refund?" I am looking at pages on that day. You know, it's next week. I think it's next Monday. I'm doing it. Um, I will do them page, but it's only for people who buy it. So, um, but again, if you bought it years ago, you're still eligible. So, that's what I'm doing. It's the end of the thing. I thank you so much. I know I'm frozen and my lips aren't moving, but I'm still talking. Still talking. So, I wish you all the best. I really appreciate these great questions. These were good questions. Um um I hope you those of you who are in Steam NextFest do well. I I want to end on this positive note. Even if you don't do well, see how over my catatonic shoulder that doesn't move, there's a red box and there's a not red box. Even if you don't end up in the red box, Steam NextFest isn't the best festival. them. Most people get better wish lists outside of NextFest. The only reason I do these things is because people ask so many questions about NextFest because it's a mandatory thing. Like, everybody's guaranteed a spot. But just because

you're guaranteed a spot in this thing does not mean it's the best festival. There are other festivals that are themed specifically to your game. Those will get better results for you. They will. They will get better results than NextFest. I just do all this talking about NextFest because everybody asked me about NextFest because everybody has to deal with NextFest. But the best thing you can do is go to how tomarketaggame.comfestivals and uh through that apply for those festivals and that's those are going to be good. The other thing you should do is how toarketame.comfree. It's weekly blog that I put out. All the cool stuff that I do goes through there. Don't subscribe to my YouTube channel. And if you don't pay for the $1 membership thing, it was just a stupid thing I did to get a stupid hat from YouTube. And it's stupid. And if you buy one of those two courses, everything that I give in that membership is in that thing. And you get so much more than stupid YouTube. With that saying stupid YouTube, I'm gonna end the stream. Thank you so much. I'm sorry I just locked up here. I got like I got my locked up bones, but I can still talk. YouTube can't stop my voice. I can still

talk. All right. Have a great day, everybody. Don't watch any more YouTube for the day. I want you to really work on your games. I don't want you to watch more YouTube. No more YouTube. What I want you to do next is I made a video called Get One Hour of Work Done. And it's just a quiet space. It's like a dark screen. It just allows you to work. It's got some engine rumble noise to kind of set your mood in there. Don't watch any more YouTube for today. You've watched too much. If you watch this hour of me blobbing blah blah blah, you've watched too much YouTube already. So, kill YouTube. Destroy it. Unsubscribe and work on your game. That's the most important thing you can do is just work on your game. Get it done. And good luck.