Steam Page Teardowns for HTMAG Summer Sale 2024

It's summer Steam page review time. Time to review some Steam pages, everybody. Welcome to the first Steam page review that I'm doing this crazy week. It's sales week. It's summer sales week. This is when I put my all my courses on sale. It's summer time. This is when I do the craziest stuff. So, I'm doing a lot of crazy stuff this week. Some stuff is coming out real soon. It'll be exciting, so come on in. Pop your to say hello, what game you're working on. And if you can hear me, sometimes stuff gets crazy. So, yeah, do that. We've got We got some exciting things. I've got Steam pages to go through. So, welcome. We'll be doing Steam pages in a little bit. So, people submitted Steam pages. I got hundreds of them. I'm going to try and keep on a calendar a timer, and I'm going to go through I'm going to I hope to get like 12, maybe 15, somewhere in there. I'm hoping what

I can do, but I'm only going to go for an hour. That's only going to take. And then we got stuff going on. So, um while everybody's kind of coming in, let me just introduce part of the reason I'm doing this why I'm going for this is summer time is when I do my sales. So, I've got how to market a game.com/courses. All the courses that I've ever done are on sale right now. And we've got all these interesting things. Everything's on sale. Everything's on discount. Now, if you click these links, you can see the sale price. Now, sometimes, depending on your country, the sales price that I leave right here that I list and then you click it, it's going to be different and that's because Teachable auto calculates currency conversions and I think some sort of that tax all this kind of stuff. So, I know if you click this link it's slightly different. I can't I can't predict what the price is going to be. So, I'm sorry if it's different. I know it seems weird and I I hate it, but that's just the what the system that I'm using is. So, here's what I'm thinking. Since you all showed up and we'll talk about this. Wow, 87 people already. Okay, so here's

what I'm thinking. Um I wasn't a I was a little afraid you wouldn't show up. So, I'm going to try something. So, let me let me show you what I'm I've been working on. I'm trying some silly stuff this week. Um so, pro game game marketing ideas. This is my oldest thing that I ever created. I just It's kind of my I like I do a lot of things and I don't know where to put it. And so, that's game marketing ideas is where I put all this weird stuff that I have. One of the things that people have always asked me about is demos cuz they're like I'm always The new strategy is demos demos demos. You got to get demos out. You got to get streamers to play it. That's really where we're seeing a lot of games take off. Once they put their demo out, the game takes off marketing wise, wish list wise, all that stuff. And they're like, well, how do I design my demo? How long is too long? I'm making a short narrative linear game. What do I do? I don't know. I'm not a game designer. I can't tell you how to do this. But, I do know how to play video games. And so, what I've done I'm starting is this thing called uh game play tear downs.

Normally I do Steam page tear downs. And so, I'm doing these let's plays and I've started going through all the Steam Next Fest demos that were top rated and I'm just doing like 10 minute little ones. I'm not going to play the whole thing. But, it's like Tiny Glade because it's city builder or a builder game. And so, I kind of go through these. I'm starting this on game marketing ideas. If you already have access if you already bought game marketing ideas, you have it. If you haven't, you'll start to see these. Now, I'm just going through the list. It takes me a little while to record it. So, it's it's short, so you get the thing. And what I'm looking at is like how do they structure it? How do they set the borders? You know, how do they say this is a demo content or not demo content? So, it should be really fun. So, let's get to Steam pages. Thank you so much from everybody coming in. So, I'm going to do I've got my list. I went through all the Steam pages that you all sent. I'll start with these. So, I went through I got so many Steam pages. Let's do the reviews now. Um I couldn't do them all.

There were hundreds. So, I just picked kind of randomly, but also ones that showed good game play stuff. So, let's do it. And I want to try something new because it's live and you're all here. Um I kind of want a little bit of live review. So, there's a Q&A tab. As I'm reviewing it, post a question or a comment, but it has to be nice. Be constructive and put the game name in all bold and I'll read through some of these at the end of every one of my reviews, okay? So, we're going to start with this one. Below Rusted Gods. Let's do this. So, I'm going to do what I call the slow scroll, which is I start out. Now, we're just going to kind of look at the Steam page and people submitted and they submitted their comments. And they said, one of the comments that I got from this was, "Hey, we're making a horror game and we're just getting no traction." Well, kind of bump the screen here. Hello. So, we're not getting any traction on our horror game. And I always say horror is so good.

And they're like, "What the heck? Why am I not getting traction on this thing?" So, let's look at the Steam page, okay? So, we got this capsule. We got the little guys with the blacked out things. Pretty creepy. We've got unsettling hallways. We have weird looking consoles. Urinals. Urinals are always horror filled. But, good dividers. Good dividers. Um and it's the 70s and the 70s were a very scary time. So, we got some scary stuff there. So, good UI. I'm seeing the good UI. Real to real tape freaking freeze so crazy real real. And elevators this sort of thing. Um all the stuff. Okay, so they went through that and then we've got um if we go down, you've got the gifts in the more like this and they've got the the stuff like that. And we've got tags here. We've got horror, psychological horror, 1990s, 1980s, even though I saw a lot of 70s. So, a little bit there. Okay. So,

in general, here's kind of what my thought process. Like, okay, first let me start. Your game looks beautiful. Looks really cool. Looks like Unreal like you're using the Unreal thing. One of the things they said is, "Hey, horror is hot. Body cam is hot. This should be hot. What what's wrong with our game?" And so, looking at your thing, I watched the trailers, too. Um when I look at the Steam page, when you look at horror games, and I'll kind of roll the trailer a little bit while I'm talking through this. I'm just going to turn off the sound. I don't think you all can hear it. Um while we're watching Oh, wait. We're out of just the trailer, so we got to start over. Um oops. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Um so, when we watch the trailer, I would say watch horror games. And the thing that I noticed is the way horror games are marketed on Steam is monster first. It's usually most of the time monster first. Just like, "Here's a monster." And you're like, "Ah!" And it's like running. So, watch Choo Choo Charles. Watch the trailer I just posted just search horror I can't remember what the game was that I just posted. Um also a

horror game. Oh, a back rooms. I think it was called back One of the back rooms. You just search my blog for back rooms and you'll you'll see the game. The way you do horror games is the first second is like and then the camera like turns around and there's like this awful looking monster just like coming at you. And then it cuts and then you slow build from there. With this trailer, it starts with the slow build and it's showing scary stuff. And the other thing about a horror game is you always put the monster in the capsule. Now, these guys could be the monsters, but they kind of look to like just scientists and it's kind of weird, but it's it's off-settling, but it's not creepy. It's not horror. And so, that's what I think is kind of happening here. Now, I also think you're kind of crossing genres a little bit and I don't know if this works because you're doing body cam. I'm feeling some back rooms vibes. Like there's creepy stuff like a skull guy or guy without a head, but it's not the monster. And so, there's back rooms, body cam, and just horror all kind of

mixed together. Now, here's my theory is this is my theory and I don't know horror as well, but I think the the the page is not totally clear what it is. I feel like back rooms is a very very very specific aesthetic. It has to have the yellowish carpet. It has to have the tiles. It has to have the pools. It has to have the empty rooms. Nothing really in there. And if you see something, you're like, "This is creepy." I see some back rooms creepiness and I think your trailer is kind of feeling like back rooms. So, back rooms trailers work without the monster because it's the unsettling like, "Why is it so empty in here? Why is it yellow?" And it's specifically back rooms. Like it has to say back rooms and a lot of the fans are there because it says back rooms. Like it it has to scream back rooms. Whereas this, there's a lot of stuff that's not back rooms. Like, "Oh, it's creepy 1970s technology." And there's so much stuff and it doesn't seem like you're stuck in a back rooms thing. It's something different. The reason back rooms works is not necessarily the aesthetic. It's because it's explicitly you get to

explore the back rooms, okay? This does not say back back rooms enough and I don't know if it's tied into the lore of back rooms. So, that's off the table. So, you don't get to do the back rooms thing where you don't show a monster and just show back room stuff. Even though that game that I talked about did show a monster. They showed the bacterium, I think they call it, coming after you. See, you've got to show the monster within the first few seconds. So, if you're back rooms, you can just be unsettling creepy. If you're a horror game, you have to show the monster right away. And then if you're just like a walking simulator, you got to show walking or something. But, but I think what you're doing is you're straddling a couple genres. The other thing with um um body cam is body cam has to be a little bit staticy. Like it has to like it has to have that chromic aberrations on it. And the game is beautiful that you've done, but it's so high it looks so good. So crisp. The only body cam aspect of it is it's kind of warped. just like a very wide screen. And so, I think you're losing out on the the body cam stuff.

So, if you look up Don't Scream is a body cam one. There's a couple body cam horrors, but it's always in a forest. It looks awful. Like they've got like artifacts all over it. It looks like it's run through a video tape. This is so crisp. It's not triggering people who like body cam stuff, you know? And so, I don't think you're you're See, horror works right here. Like in the What is it? The amygdala? The the fear sensors. And it has to it has to pluck the note just right. And I think your Steam page isn't It's a little bit backrooms. It's a little bit straight-up horror. And it's like it's not triggering that either one. So, I always say you got to pick one. Are you going to be backrooms? Then remove all that technology stuff. Remove all that stuff. Or you're going to be horror. In that case, just show the monster coming right at you. You're like, "Oh, god damn." Or if you're going to be body cam, you have to make it much more chromatic aberrations and it has to look grittier. This game your credit looks beautiful. It looks really good, but it's not body cam. Body cam has to have It has to kind of hurt your eyes to

look at. So, I think that might be the thing is when I look at your Steam page, I can't figure out where you are in that spectrum because horror you can't just have horror. There's subgenres within horror and you've kind of spread the game out among all of them. So, pick one of them. Any of the three are fine. Of your horror, body cam, backrooms, straight-up running away from a monster. Whatever those three are, you just got to pick one. And your your whole Steam page has to say we are this one, okay? So, good luck. Look at some horror games and see what they're doing and and not doing. That's the big thing that I'm I'm kind of seeing from this one. I'm going to go to the Q&A. Let's see. Nobody left a Q&A, but that's fine. That is totally fine. Um Uh so, let's let's move on. Let's go to the next one. Okay, so this one is Enemy Metal. Okay, so um I'm going to do this slow scroll. Come on down. Okay, and we got

that right there. Okay, so the way I do it is let me read the short description to you. Let's let's start with the short description and we'll kind of go from there. So, 2.5D roguelike shooter with unique gameplay, powerful weapons, and killer soundtrack. Battle the dangerous enemies and defend the planets of the Sun Star System. Gather crystals and destroy turrets to level up and unlock exciting new spaceships on each planet. Okay. So, um one of the things I that always triggers me, the words I don't like in a short description is unique because well, you just if they just say unique if they're like unique gameplay. That's like saying if you went to a comedian like funny jokes. Like yeah, it's going to be funny jokes. Yes, obviously, but you don't get to tell that these are going to be funny jokes. You don't get to say, "I'm going to tell some funny jokes." No, you don't do that. That's a that's a deal killer cuz then it's like just tell me the joke and all I determine if it's funny. So, you can't say unique gameplay. You just have to tell what the unique gameplay is. So, I don't And this is part of the thing

that I didn't quite get was I didn't see the I didn't know what was unique. You know, it's like I was trying to look for the unique thing and you have to tell me that. And you can't say this is the unique thing. You just have to say, "Hey, when you hit the A button, it flips your ship upside down and then you have to play a second game that's an idler and then we push A again, it flips back and it's a different game." But whatever it is. I just made that up. Um you've got to do it. And you just have to say here's the unique thing. But don't use the word unique. A couple other words that are triggering words for me are unique, beautiful, funny, inviting, all those sort of things cuz then you're kind of like, "Well, I don't You don't get to tell me that. I get to decide that." Like beautiful graphics. You don't get to tell me beautiful graphics. You show me your graphics. I determine if it's is beautiful. And I don't mean me, Chris Zukowski. I mean me as the Steam shopper. So, watch out for that unique word. I I always get triggered by that. Speaking of triggering, I'm going to click this first thing and let's see what happens if we click Jack James' name. I'm triggered. Okay.

All right. So, here's the thing. Create your creator page. Everybody right now on the call, create your creator page. When you click your name, it should go to your creator page, which allows people to follow you and it allows your name to appear in the search box. I will be clicking every single developer name here. And if I see that you have not set up your creator page, I'm going to yell at you in a very nice way. I appreciate you. I know it's hard. It really is confusing to set up your creator page, but you want to create your creator page. So, this does not look good when you click your name. Right now, everybody on the call because everybody gets this wrong. Go set up your creator page right now. Well, then after the call's over. After the call is over, go do that. That's your That's your Wednesday afternoon or what day is it? Thursday? Thursday. That's your Thursday afternoon activity is to set up your creator page. So, definitely create that up. Um one other thought that I have and I I I think uh I I would hire I'd go for an the capsule I think you need a little something. There's just missing

something. I would hire an illustrator. I know it's expensive. I mean you may have hired somebody, but I don't There there just feels I'm something with the text it just feels like it was a screen grab of your models, which is fine, but I think you need a little extra zhuzh. You did get the You did get the trails, which I always say get the space trails in there, but there's just something it needs a little extra graphic designness to it. I can't put my finger on it, but I would consider recommending hiring a graphic designer. Look at some of the examples of other space games. I often talk about them. I think you probably watched it cuz you got the space trails in there. Spaceship asses, they call it. Um try that. Take a look at that. That's that's kind of my thoughts on that one. Um I'm going to go to the Q&A. See if anybody has anything. Okay. Um Somebody mentioned the Discord. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yep. Okay, so uh let's Let me find the next one that I want to do here. Just

give me 1 second. Okay. So, I am going to do this one, which I like. Glory from Glory to Goo. Okay, so I'm going to do the slow scroll on this one. Okay. Look at that cool GIF. Build an army, explore and expand. Let me go down here and click this. Now, the reason the developer reached out to me was they said, "Hey, we had a actually a really good early access launch." And that's congrats. Good for you. This looks like the right type of Steam game. Very deep colony sim, base building. Very good. It's kind of an RTS simulator. So, we're in a special situation where Okay, I'll be I'll be honest with all of you. Um your launch is your launch. Once you launch, it's very hard to change course. So, if if you're looking at if somebody sent me a Steam page and it didn't do

well, there's not much fixing a Steam page isn't going to do it. Okay? It's just like the game is what it is. But in this case, you have a pretty successful game. And I I I think really successful and it's early access. So, you're in a special situation where your post-launch I think some updates to your Steam page could really help. Okay? And there's one other game we'll we'll review today and I hope I can get to it. I'm going to set a timer just to make sure that I I stay on target here. So, I'm going to set an 8-minute timer, actually 10-minute. Let's do 10-minute timer. I'm going to try and get this done in 10 minutes. Okay. So, From Glory to Goo is a sci-fi survival RTS set on an alien world serve as humanity's bulwark by establishing a colony and supporting your colonists still in orbit. But beware for the goo, a relentless and shape-shifting force approaches from all sides, even above and below. I think this is great. And a couple things and we're going to talk about this in other Steam pages. It establishes the risk. Like what is the aggressor? And that's the same thing with horror when you see like the first few seconds of the trailer always has

the monster running right at the camera. Um what is what is the problem? And you establish it. It's the goo and it's coming and it's relentless and it's coming from above below and all that. And you got to build the base. Excellent uh a short description. I think you did a great job. And your screenshots are complicated as hell. Like I have no idea what this is all doing. It looks complex. It is deep. Complexity, love it. Looks so good. You're doing a great job with the screenshots. Now, one of the benefits of having a game that's released is you can look at the comments. I know the reviews are bad. I can be bad and hard for yourself to read, but you have great reviews. So, I was looking at some reviews and see what see what the fans say. So, I'm going to go down to the reviews. I was reading some and let's hopefully I can find one. Love this. It's a less polished, lightly less tightly balanced, less visually legible version of They Are Billions. That's kind of I know that's like not a compliment to compliment, but it's

backhanded. I would take it as a compliment. You did good. They Are Billions is a massive game. But I always look at reviews to see what game they're comparing you to and that's a good sign. Even though this is kind of a backhanded review, I think it's good. I think it's really good and they're relating it to a game. So, now we know They Are Billions is what you are actually like. So, then what I say is let's go to Billions. Um I'm going to open this in another tab and we're going to flip back and forth on you. So, here's They Are Billions. Look at this. Base building. So, what you want to do is you want to get yourself nestled right up to They Are Billions. You want to like nestle your game right in there so that somebody, hopefully the Steam algorithm, will look at somebody who's played They Are Billions like for a billion hours and is tired of the game and then see your game and is like, "Well, now let me try that next game that's being recommended." So, what you want to do is match your tags so that you're very similar to They billions. So when I look at the top five, remember your top five tags are the most important, they have base building colony sim strategies zombies

and you have RTS colony sim base building tower defense. Um other than the zombies, I think you're very much the same. So I would just straight up copy these tags except cut out the zombies one unless you could argue that the blobs are actually zombies or something. Um just straight up copy these tags because then what you want to do is you want to nestle yourself in so that the Steam algorithm will hopefully recommend your game when somebody's playing a lot of billions. Okay? And you also kind of want to pick up some other cues from how billions is kind of phrasing some stuff. Look for phrases that they use maybe like onslaught or endless mode and work those terms subtly into your Steam page. You just want to trigger fans who are fans of billions which is a super hit game. Like if you could just get if you could just peel off 1% of the 1 billion's fans we are billions fans, you would be a rich person. Um and so what you want to do is just

you just want to figure out how to how to get to them and get into their head that you are that same game. Okay? Couple other things I do and not even reach out to the billions fans. Maybe they could cross promo you. Um let's see if they let me see if billions showed up in your more like this. Let's just see. Manor lords, infection, stronghold, kind of no. Oh, there they are. There's there there there are the billions. So it's close but I would knock it even harder and get even deeper into their similar tags. Um okay, one other thing is um what I like is you've done a lot of patch notes. This is great. This shows you are an active good dev. Good job. Thanks for doing that. That just shows we're constantly updating it. We are good dev. We do this stuff. That's what EA fans want. They want to see that you're supporting the game and you're doing those updates and you're listening to the community. So great job. I totally give you credit for that. I give you big props for that. Um the one thing that I would I would put in a road map. I know it's hard but in your case a road map might really help just again to

reinforce we're good devs. We're doing daily updates or whatever updates. Here's the road map. We're listening to the community cuz they like you. That's what I got from the reviews. So harness that power. Do it. I I mean I can't I can't tell you much more. Is is your your screenshots are good. Maybe I always like to throw in one like tech tree screenshot. Let's see if you got a tech tree screenshot. Maybe do one of those. Um let's see if you got a tech tree. This kind of tech tree as Yeah, you put it in the number four slot. Good. You're doing it. Everything's good. Everything's fine. You did good. Congratulations on your EA launch. I'm I'm going to add it to my wish list. Um you're going to watch it live getting added to my wish list. I like it. I'm going to follow up on this. I got to add this to my wish list. I like it. It's good. Good job. Let me go into the next one. Oh, let me let me check over to the Q&A tab. Um Oh, okay. Extra Steam details. Okay, somebody asked about extra Steam details. Let me talk about this. So everybody should go install the Steam DB

Chrome extension and I'll show you what that is. So the Chrome extension is this thing and what I do is I look at the number What I like about this Chrome extension is it tells you the number of followers. And what you do is you it's not exact but you multiply it by 10 and you close you kind of get a sense of the number of wish list they have. So they're looking. They're probably at 50,000 something wish list. I bet they're at even higher because typically follower count to wish list count is about 10. Sometimes it's 12. Sometimes it's nine but I'm just looking ballpark. Like is this a 5,000 wish list game, a 50,000 wish list game, a 500,000 or a 5 million wish list game. That's what I that's what I'm I'm playing with. Also the player counts is really big when you launch your game. It's a good way to judge if you look at how many total players have ever played this game and what is it. All time peak was 200. That's pretty good. That's like a a decent middle income thing. Sometimes if you see thousands or 3,000, that's like a big hit. Simon Carlos has some

calculation he's done. I think it's like five times your day one peak is the number of sales you're going to have for the I don't remember it. I should write it down. But you can kind of estimate the number of sales that happen just based on the peak number of concurrent players. And so that's that. The other thing that they do which I don't care about is they have this Steam DB rating which is like some sort of algorithm where they look at the number of reviews you've had in the most recent and the number of updates you've had and they give you this judgment. Don't freak out. Some people some of the pages we are going to look at might get like a warning red. Don't pay attention to that. It's some dorks who love gamer dorks who really hate devs who don't update. But if you notice, what is his rating here? Um 83%. That's the Steam adjusted thing. But you'll see they like the updates. This What I like about the updates thing is it doesn't matter about when they update it. What it tells me is it signals that people who Steam DB players are very hardcore Steam players.

Not mostly devs and Steam players but they love to see updates. They hate it when a game is not updated. Games are live services whether you're gas games as a service or not. Steam players love to see that dev is a good dev and updating it. So that's what I'm talking about when I see that stuff. Okay? So let's check out strategem blue. DID YOU DO YOU'RE KILLING ME HERE. EVERYBODY go create your creator page. If you have a hit game, go create your creator page. This is not the creator page. Please for the love of God, folks. Go create your creator page. Now if you want some more tips on how to do it, how to market a game that comes slash not that one. How to make a Steam page. I talk about all the stuff. How to make your Steam page better and I did this based off of research that I did where I followed shoppers like normal people. I specifically said, are you a game dev or are you a streamer? If anybody said yes, I said you're out. I only did regular ass gamers and I said, show me I just said, browse Steam for an hour. I

just said, browse it for an hour. What do you pick up? What do you look at? Um and this is the some of the stuff they did. So always create your Steam creator page. Okay, please. Just just so that I don't have to yell at you. Please do that. Okay. Um let's see what we got here. I'm going to do the next one. Thank you so much. Let's do the next one here. Let me just look at my notes to find the the next one that I want to do. It is okay. Hey. This is Star Mission Remote Sectors. Okay, I'm going to do slow scroll. Okay. All right. Um let's see here. Let me let me just see here. There's no context as to what this is all about. What's the problem here but

I'm going to read the short description. The year 2020 2224. I'll just say it that way. As the commander of a spaceship, you explore a remote planet with your advanced abilities. Enjoy relaxing story rich adventure gameplay while uncovering hidden mysteries, gathering cosmic energy and upgrading your abilities. Okay, so um very good. Um cool graphics. It's definitely I'm I'm getting good space vibes. Let's see let's click this beta. I just want to see what happens. I don't under I think you might have a bug because when I click Oh, that was weird. That was weird. That that was probably me or it's probably Steam. So when I click the beta link join the beta and went to this thing which is good. Mailing list, I love it. Oh yeah, way to go with the thing. This is a great call to action to have. Hey, join the beta. You're going to get access. This is perfect. This is exactly what you should be doing to build up your following to get that thing. So great job on that. I love that clear call to action. Beta test the game. Boom. Click it. Um Um you might try. I would say test it. Just

say um sign up for the beta. See like beta test the game or make this look a little bit more buttony. I mean it looks buttony but maybe like this specific piece of text buttony. Minor thing. I think people know what they're doing. I knew what to do but I'm a weirdo. So you click that and you go to the Steam to the to the mailing list sign up and then I'm sure he's going to distribute keys. Now um one of the things that I was looking at. Um what is Okay, there's Wait here. You know, one of the things that you do with your Steam page is to define your genre to people so it's crystal clear what it is. When I saw the game and I was going through and I see the abilities and I see collecting objects, I'm thinking kind of like Factorio or Satisfactory where you're like first person. You're kind of crafting, kind of building a base or something. When you said spaceship commander, I see some weapons and like this stuff. Something and it's kind of

crafty buildy. And then I see narrative and I see right here walking simulator as your first tag and I'm like cuz walking simulator is a very specific sub genre. Walking simulators are like, oh, I'm just going to explore this space. I'm going to pick up objects and through storytelling, it's going to tell me the person's life or the thing based off the objects and there's going to be a story woven in. And it's much more narrative and um which is fine. Again, it's similar to that rusted gods below the rusty gods or whatever. Um it's like you can be a walking simulator. That's cool. You can be a Satisfactory style. That's okay. But to be both is a little People are like you're going to alienate both fan bases cuz they're very different. The crafty buildy people are very like don't tell me any story. I just want to be a spreadsheet worker. Whereas the narrative people are like just let me explore an environment on my own and I'm going to hear all these story elements.

I don't know which one you're going for, but you got to lean harder on whichever one you're going to go for. And one of the things that told me that I don't feel as walking simulator is I watched the trailer and it's it's vibe it's there's no text, no story. Typically a walking simulator or one of these narrative first-person adventure games, there's like a narrator saying like the scientists have been disappearing or you hear a guy say like the test subject has blown his his liver has blown and it's bizarre. You know, and it's like and it's like it's setting up the story and the mystery and you're like oh god, WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN? OH AND THEN IT TELLS YOUR GAME'S NAME. THEN I'M LIKE OKAY, THIS IS A narrative game. There's narrative here. There's a story. And there's like this. But when I see the um uh the thing it says enjoy a relaxing story-rich adventure. The trailer was giving me no story vibes. And I think I watched both of them. I saw the thing where it's like you can pick up and rotate the rocks and stuff, but I don't

know the stakes. Remember how when I was talking about the the goo game that the previous one? They set up the stakes. They're like uh monsters are the goo monsters are coming from above and below. You've got to protect your base. All right, I know the stakes. I know what's going on. What's the pressuring? This one I don't know like am I stranded? Is it because of my fault is there somebody evil corporation stranding me on this island on this um space station? Am I trying to get off the space station? I know I have magical powers, but what's the story behind the magic powers? Did I accidentally fall in ooze and now I have magic powers? Is there a story should am I losing my powers? Am I becoming evil? There's like so many narrative threads you can do that I would expect to see that in the trailer. I mean when I see the thing where it's like um uh ch- ch- uncovering hidden mysteries. Well, what's the mystery? You got to at least tease the mystery like how the mystery is how did you get your powers? The mystery is why are you on spaceship or why are you stranded alone out here? I want to see that you can't just say

there's a mystery. This kind of one of those triggering words where it's like unique gameplay or mystery mystery. You have to set up the mystery by just telling them like you could just in your short description you're like who sent you here? Why are you all alone? You you know, that is the mystery. You don't say I'm going to give you a good mystery. Expect it. No, you you literally have to give them the mystery. And so that's why you got to set up those stakes. So that's the main thing is like I need that Steam page to be very clear. Like am I a narrative game or am I going to be a collectathon crafty building game? And right now it looks and it feels like a buildy crafty. And in order to get yourself out of buildy crafty and into narrative world, your trailer has to have voice over. It has to have a lot of text over it. You have to like do more text here to set up the mystery. And you really have to be careful with this tag. See, that's the thing is like a lot of these story-rich, that kind of thing. I just I think you need a little bit more you you got the Firewatch thing which is the classic one, but like watch the Firewatch trailer. They were they're

very good at setting that mystery. Like who's in the tower? Who's that? Who if you're out there, who's up in the tower? See? See, that's the mystery. You don't say there's a mystery. You say who's in the tower? That is the mystery. Like well, who who's in the tower? See what I mean? You've got to you literally have to tell them what the mystery is. You can't just say there is a mystery. You see? Okay. Um Um I'm just reading something. Um do you think it would be interesting to do a comparison between games that has a creator page and games that don't to see any difference popularity and see? No, okay. So here's the thing. Um I don't think like you you turn on creator page and all of a sudden you're going to get traffic. That's not how it works. You are why you're doing creator page is you never know when you're going to go big and you want to get followers to your studio because like I always say, you want to release lots of games. Everybody should be releasing lots of games. And if you don't have a creator page, nobody can follow you because the benefit of a follow is every game you release

if they follow you as a studio, they get an email when you release. Whether they wishlisted it, heard your game at all. I mean it's it's there. It's it does something. And it's not a game changer. I just say like you should do it. It's like one of those tools that you're paying for. Like you pay Steam 30% of your revenue. That's huge. You're paying them a lot. You might as well use all the tools they give you. And one of the tools they give you is a Steam creator page. Now, I'll be totally honest. It's not going to give you a bunch of traffic, but it's like just set it up. It just feels better. Did I click on Did I test you? Did I test your thing? Ralph. Ralph. Let's see if this is the thing, Ralph. You got to all got to set it up. So what's going to happen? I mean it's it's nothing. It just show like this doesn't look good. Like and I don't and I don't mean bad, Ralph. I just mean like this looks very default, okay? And what you want to do is when you have set up your creator page, it looks beautiful. It's like got a featured game. It's got all this stuff, all these things. So that's what I mean by you should do it. It just makes your page look better. It's not going to like

turn your stuff around. So that's why I I say it. And a lot of these things and and let me set let me set some some standards here with your Steam pages. Folks if you were to perfectly design your Steam page. Like you follow all the stuff I talk about, it's not going to like overnight all of a sudden your Steam page traffic is going to be like 100 times better. It's not. That's not what we're doing here. That's not the purpose of changing your Steam page or updating it, okay? Because what you're trying to do is establish a baseline of quality. You're like I am not an asset flip. I am a good game developer who works hard and knows the business and I understand the game, okay? And I understand you know that I'm making a quality game and I know what's going on. Because there's so many fly-by-night like asset flippers that make your page look terrible. Because and here's the thing is sometimes I see it in the in the you know, share my numbers and stuff or I need advice or feedback and stuff. People get into like super statistics. They're like well, I changed the capsule and I changed the short description and I saw a 0.5% increase in my

click-through rate. That is just noise. You're over-interpreting noise. Here's the thing is you can't for the most part changing your Steam page does not really affect your traffic overnight. What it does do is it sets you up when you do have an influx of traffic. Cuz here's one thing what you'll do is a lot of people say like I reach out to streamers and they I think it's going to junk because they never respond to me. And then I look at the Steam page and I'm like oh my god, the Steam page is not representing the game very well. And so that was the timer. I'm going to move on to the next one. And so then the streamer you know how I keep saying like I don't know if it's this type of game or this type of game. Well, the streamer is doing the same thought process on your page when they get to it. So you send them the page like can you cover me? I just uploaded a demo. I'm ready to go. I'd love to have you cover it. So the streamer goes to your Steam page and goes like is it I I don't play narrative games. Oh, is this a narrative game or is this an open-world survival craft? I can't I can't tell. What is it? That's what the streamer is saying. And if they can't

tell there's so many games coming in they're like I don't know. I don't like the I I like one of these genres, but not the other. I don't know and they throw it over their shoulder and say maybe I'll cover it later. You don't want that. So what happens is when you improve your Steam page and it's like I've nailed the genre. I am definitely this game in this subgenre. When you send it to streamers they're going to be like heck yeah, this is my type of game. Let's play it. Let's load it up. And then and then they like look at your castle like that's great castle. I'm going to put my face on it. And then they put their face on it and it looks good and you get coverage. So um having a better Steam page doesn't automatically give you more wishlists. It just sets you up for better wishlists if that makes sense, okay? So that's what I just want to set expectations. So people like Chris, I did everything you said and my wish list levels are still bad. It's like well you have to bring outside traffic. Okay. Um I'm going to take a quick 10-second break. This is Space Sprouts. I love the way that sounds. Space Sprouts. Space Sprouts. Okay. We are going to scroll slow scroll this. Oh, and it's got a little demo. Maybe I'll

play this in the thing. Okay. So let's go on down the list. Show more. Okay. Now the way and what I'm saying what what what the developer said when they submitted their game cuz I said what's your comments? They said we were in cozy direct with wholesome cozy wholesome direct. Here's their big banner. They're in it. Now usually when you're in a festival they put your big banner here. This is awesome. Way to get into the festival. Um they were like we're just not I don't know. We're just having some weird stuff with the wholesome cozy stuff, okay? And here's kind of my thought with and they're like we want some feedback on Steam page. So let's take a look. Let's see what's going on here, okay? So embark on a journey with cozy cosmic chaos. Man, you all you all are really good with the alliteration. I like it. Dive deeper into the mysteries of the solar punk spaceship with each replay. Get entangled in the ship's unique physics

and make this place your new home. And we'll scroll down here and kind of a I like so um here's what I really like. Your Oda first-time space traveler forging their own journey to mysterious solar punk spaceship explore space. So I do I like your short description for the most part and then we'll go into what I'm worried about a little bit. Um but you just kind of hit the basics. You're like this is what it is cozy solar punk this. And then down here in the more like this, this is where you get into the lore. I personally like this. I think short descriptions that go too lore heavy not so good. I don't it just it confuses people. People are just trying to figure out when they read your short description, what game genre is this? What what makes it unique? That's what they're trying to say. They're You know how I keep talking about these boxes? They're trying to box your game in. And that's not a bad thing. They're just trying to figure out, are you this? Are you this? Are you this? And then after they hear this this or this, they say,

"But, what is different about this box?" So, you are in this box, but what is new? And so, I think you did actually a really good job about saying, "We are this box, and we have this unique physics thing." That's cool. And then, you get down to the lore down in here. This is good. This is what I always recommend people, because people don't want lore right up front. They just want to know the box, and they're like, "I like this box. This is looking good. Let me scroll down and find more." And that's when they read the the lore-heavy stuff. So, I think you did a great job here with the lore. You start talking about the name and all that. You use some good GIFs. Um, a mysterious ship of wonders, cozy cosmic chaos, limited-time unlimited knowledge. Okay? So, um, one thing that they did very well I did I'll bet you took the uh the how to make a Steam page course, cuz you you really nailed it. Like, you did the three things. One thing I often recommend, and I think they did a good job, is you pick your three big things that your game is about, the big pillars. Like, what is this game really about? And that's your GIFs. And it

makes it just easier to classify, to come up with the stuff. So, boom boom boom, three things, show gameplay, describe what the gameplay is. I think you did a good job on that. I mean, I don't know if you took the class or not. Um, before I get too deep into it, let's check your click your thing. Uh Folks, create your creator page. And I bet you'd have a really good creator page, cuz your graphics are beautiful. Okay. So, um, make that creator page. Now, here is what I'm thinking. It sounded like, I can't remember if you literally said this, but it sounded like you were saying, "We're cozy, but we're just not fitting in." Something like that. Here's my thought. I read a lot uh you you keep bringing up the physics thing. You know, there's a lot about um uh chaos. Oh, this is the thing that kind of triggered me was um "Get entangled in the ship's unique physics." There's that unique where I don't like the unique physics. It's either physics or not. And all you have to say is it's anti-gravity. I

I know it's unique that you have anti-gravity, and I could tell by looking at your trailer and stuff like that. Like, your animation, your physics system, the gravity system, it's hard-coded. Like, you all did a great job. It looks cool, and like her arm kind of looks like it's rendered in physics, like it's it's simulating her arm doing stuff. That's cool. That's impressive tech. Really good coders on your team. But, I don't think it's as important. And so, sometimes I see this with development teams is they spend a lot of development time on a feature, but forget and it just supports the bigger game, but they spent so long and so and it was so hard to do that they focused their marketing on this thing that was hard to do, but it's not actually that important to the game itself. I mean, I I I I want to tell you like I mean, in other words, it's not the central aspect, but it supports the game, but it's not the central focus. So, they outsize how much they should talk about this thing that was hard to do, not how much it matters in the game. And I think you can get away. You don't

have to say unique physics. You can just say you're in outer space. And it was like space physics. It's like anti-gravity or gravity. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't. I don't think it's that unique. And And that's not a pejorative. I just think you should I feel like you're spending a lot of time wrapped up trying to explain this physics, when it's actually kind of easy. It's just like, yeah, it's you're in a spaceship. Of course, there's going to be anti-gravity, and you can flip and focus on the ground. I don't think that's the pro I I like I don't think that's something that you can focus on. I think the unique thing about your game is that you are space in your space, and you're trying to navigate space, and it's a cozy environment in space. That I think is unique, and that's what you should focus on, and a little bit of the narrative stuff. I think you should downplay the amount you talk about physics. And I think you're spending so much time talking about the physics that it's crowding out your ability to talk about the cozy and the story. Because here's the thing, you have to understand they always say, "Understand your audience." Some of those marketers. They're like, "Yeah, you got to understand your audience." My theory, based on some knowledge of cozy gamers, is

the cozy and wholesome, they want narrative, and they kind of want the comfort of organizing their lives. Um, games provide that niche, and it's either the big genres for cozy games are like farming, managing a store, and like organizing uh space, like a room. You'll notice that it's always going from chaos to control. I'm moving this chaotic world, and through this game, I'm able to bring my closure to my life. I'm feeling more confident, because I got control over this thing. Okay? And so, I think your game needs to play up that aspect, and that's what makes a game cozy, wholesome, that kind of space. You'll notice they're always these establishing a farm, running a horse ranch. It's about you having control of your life and making things. And I think, this is my theory, and I know this this break game design. Um, I think the trailer is good, but the thing is, it's too wholesome to wholesome's general aesthetic. It It

like, graphics-wise, it looks so wholesome, hand-drawn, um, you know, right color palette, all that. But, if you'll notice, and I I'll just pull it out a couple times in the trailer, what I saw was Let me tell you the exact moment I went, "Whoa." Um, you need to create comfort. That's what cozy games are all about. And I'm going to freeze it right here. Okay, here we're going to see it. Now, this looks like a pretty cozy environment, right? I'm still here, right? Um Yeah, I'm still here. Okay. Um, I just freaked out, cuz it covered my screen. Um, so this is a cozy environment. This looks cozy. But, look what happens when you take this action. Boom, it explodes this plant. Plants pile everywhere. You just made the environment messier. And everything I know about cozy is going from cozy from chaos to calm and cozy. Everything's calm and cozy. And that clip right there was

chaotic. It was like, you just your actions led to chaos, which is going counter to what cozy games want. Cozy games want to be we're making something that's not cozy, cozy. And what you went You went from cozy to chaos. And I think, now this this is getting into game design. The game design doesn't feel cozy. I mean, from what I'm seeing what I'm seeing through the Steam page. And again, I'm not a game designer. I don't do that. But, I think some of the trailer that I'm watching is chaotic, and it's stressful. Like, this is actually a pretty stressful. Like, she's playing guitar, she's enjoying it, and then she throws it out the wall, and then it like sets off gravity. Everything goes crazy. Like, cozy is about No, no, no, we are calming things down. We are calming it down. And this trailer is making things crazier. Like, look at how Like, that was pretty Oh, now it's all jammed against the wall, and now she's floating in lasers, and it's like it's it's chaotic. And she's like getting sucked into a black hole. That is Black holes are not cozy. It's like, the trailer ended very chaotic. And I think, my theory is that's why you're feeling that kind of

like, "Something's not connecting with the cozy folks." And one of the things I did was the the people that really cooked off the cozy farming, or not farming, but cozy room building, which I think is what you kind of are, was um let's just look it up, is um Unpacking. And um if you watch the trailer, I'd recommend you watch the trailer for Unpacking, you will notice that it is always Let me make it big. You will notice that it goes from a I mean, I know they're neatly packed in boxes, but it's going from chaos and not cozy, and by the end it is cozy. See, they're always transitioning towards cozy. Everything's getting cozier. And your trailer is stressful. And so, I think the cozy fans are like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not cozy here. I'm getting stressed out." Like, I was getting stressed out, and I'm a I can take the stress. I don't need to be cozied. I I I am I don't need the cozy vibes. I don't need them. I'm pretty self

Like, I got it. But, I was stressed out after watching the trailer. And I think I think that's kind of the thing. I think you're running counter to the cozy vibes. So, if you I would rewatch these trailers, but notice how everything is getting more organized. It's going in the right direction. It is getting cozier, getting more calm, more put together. Everything's looking better. And your trailer is the anti like, is going towards entropy or whatever. What I can't remember the physics. Entropy. What What's the one falling apart? So, that's kind of what I'm I'm feeling. And so, maybe that is the game, but you might also say like, "Hey, you're And I think this is your unique selling proposition." Like, "We're making a cozy spaceship. You are taking chaos, and you're making the chaos of space cozy and calm, and I'm I'm relaxing in my cozy spaceship covered with these plants." So, that's my general thoughts on that. Um Any other thoughts? I'm just going to go to the questions, so um No other questions. I hope I I'm still online. Uh so, great comments. We got

about five loyal member of the community. Thank you for being in the community. Uh Roggen EC, I've been following it for a while. You're doing great. So, I know this game Let me just Let me just do the slow screen, so everybody else can see what's going on here. Um, let me slow scroll. Okay. That's that. Okay. So, here's the backstory. I know it. I I I don't have to You don't have to leave any comments, so released during the height of the um Vampire Survivors craze and this game I always like to be the most extreme. Like I always like to see a games like we are this, but we're the most of this. And so what this game did Look at this, you can see the wall here just one second. Okay, so what Rogue Genesia said, we are Vampire Survivors, but we are the most

roguie rogue-like uh you know, hardcore upgrade playing different things. Like we've got the Slay the Spire thing, but it is hardcore. Look at that. This game is like hardcore number driven. You are upgrading the wazoos out of this thing. It They knew what they were. We are this genre and this is our difference. That's what I love what you did with Rogue Genesia. And um when we were talking to when I was interviewing the folks who made Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, they loved your game, by the way, and they said we took a lot of inspiration for that. And they said, when we were talking, they said, we think Vampire Survivors is about no control. You just run around. The control happens around you. Um but they said Rogue Genesia did a good version of it where they actually you have more control than most games most Vampire Survivor likes. And they were And they said basically like we knew you took that space, and so we didn't want to take that space. We knew you did that. And so even other game developers were looking at your

stuff and saying, we know your stake. So you clearly outlined who you are in the shut subgenre. That's why I like this game. Okay, that's why I like your Steam page for the game. I want to end on a positive note of how good a Steam page this is. Um and so um walk upon a new world and slay foes um endangering it. Rogue Genesia's action rogue-like. See, this is what sets Vampire Survivors like where you fight relentless hordes. There it is. It's setting the genre. It consists of hundreds of thousands of monsters. Carve your path through their ranks, defeat the boss, and save one of the many worlds. This I think is your unique thing. I think you could I like your first sentence. I think you should just replace the second sentence. And you staked out this place, I think, as you are the most hardcore Slay the Spire rogue-like. That's your zone. I think you could crank that up a little bit more in the second sentence here. You could do a little bit more of that. You do a good job with your screenshots.

I think you could do even more. Um like this. This is This is the unique selling for it proposition of Rogue Genesia. This visual I haven't seen this like this is very unique among the rogue-likes, the action rogue-like Vampire Survivor likes. Very This is your kind of unique selling proposition. And I like this. You're just like look at this. This looks kind of dingy, hardcore, gross. You know, just like oh, look how complicated this looks. Very Slay the Spire. You set it up. This I'm glad this is your first screenshot. Don't change this. Um You got boss fights there. You've got this. It's collected treasure. You've got the classic screenshot that looks like a Vampire Survivors like. Your screenshots are fantastic. I would move this. There's one that I saw Oh, you don't really have it, but you do have it down here I saw. This screenshot You had a very good I don't know where it was. I saw like a very big upgrade shop screenshot. I don't remember where I saw it. Maybe somewhere else. Um you had a very good screenshot that was like it kind of hurt my eyes to look

at it. Uh maybe it was in the trailer. I would put that in there. Put the hardest core nastiest gooey that you have, because that's what sets you apart. You're like, we are super hardcore. I kind of feel intimidated looking at your Steam page, and that's not a bad thing. Because it's like, I don't know if I'm hardcore enough for this game. That's what I get the vibes from, and that's a good thing. You It's good People always think, oh, I got to be the the the version for non-gamers. No, no. Rogue Genesia is like, I'm for the hardcore. You're not hardcore enough for my game. And I'm like, challenge accepted. That's the vibes you got on your Steam page, and I think you should play it up even more. Um And then the other thing, because you've released and you've done well, you've got a lot of good reviews. And I would mine your reviews and pull out the words that they say. I would even have a testimonial section on my thing. Again, the ones that emphasize your unique column, because you have a unique thing. You are the hardest core Vampire Survivor likes, not for babies. And

you'll see these sort of things like um See this? This is it. That That right there is your unique selling proposition. See, they do this for free. Reviewers tell you what your unique selling proposition is for free. So you play this up. Figure out ways that you can play this sentence up, which is this is the most hardcore card-based Slay the Spire upgrades. You could do so many upgrades to your characters. Put a couple screenshots that show how hardcore you can upgrade your guys. The the complex menus that you've got. Play that up. Put quotes in that say like the most hardcore action rogue-like. Let's see if we can find one that's good. Cuz you do have some good reviews in here. Uh da da dum. This is amazing. The other one that I think is good quote for you is um somebody said that they loved how much you updated. Um bum. Somewhere I I I was I should have highlighted them. Um See, this right here. Slay They're They keep saying it. Slay the Spire path plus Vampire Survivors. Play that up as much as you can. That's

why I don't want you to change that. Um Mm mm mm. Let's see here. I'm trying I'm trying to find out where some of this stuff is. Uh I don't have it. But I would mine the reviews and find reviews that say like this is the most hardcore this. Put those quotes in there. Ask for credit Message them and say, hey, thank you so much for doing this. Here's some free DLC or something. Um put that in there. Okay? I think you I think you're in a very unique proposition position where you have success. Now it's just a matter of capitalizing on it. You do great updates. You do one a month for updates. That's perfect. Everybody should be doing that if you've got a successful early access game. Um you do patches. I would like to see a road map. Again, I like road maps once you've gotten into early access that show how hardcore you are. Like we're going to add the this really complicated thing like in your road map and you're like, oh god, I don't even know what that is. I'm a little intimidated. But that just again sells that myth like we are the hardcore Vampire Survivors. That's your position.

Play into it more. Okay? Um that's what I would do. And then I would ask for a daily deal or anything like that. You deserve it. You definitely do. So um that's the last review I'm going to do. Um maybe I'll stick around. Okay, so I know I said I going to end at the top of the hour, but I love hanging out with you all. Ask some questions. Why don't you just ask a few questions? I'll do a few more minutes of questions, and while you're doing that while you're asking those questions in the Q&A tab, I'll look through this. Hey, set a 10-minute timer. Okay, I'm going to answer real quick questions. I'm not going to be deep for 10 minutes. At the end of that, I'm going to end this call, okay? So ask your questions real quick. Um Um how do you use X with Y in the marketing materials? Should I reference the name of the product or description? Um I If you're a small indie and you don't have a known quantity, you're this like your first game, nobody knows who you are, I think it's okay to do X plus Y. If you are a Nintendo or a big big famous developer and you're

like, oh, we're like these two indie games, that can come off a little hard because you're like a big powerful thing sucking up the indies. I wouldn't do it. But if you're just a small scrappy indie, I'd say Slay the Spire plus this, and people are like, oh, cool, that sounds good. I do like X plus Y. As long as And people are like, well, what if you get it wrong? Well, don't get it wrong. Like get the actual X plus Y. So that's my recommendation for that. Um I have reached more than 11,000 wish lists, but I am still not in top wish list leaderboard. Any idea? Um I don't know why. It could be if you've got ads If you've done a lot of ads, they could be lower converting wish lists. Who knows how the Steam algorithm works? Uh cuz sometimes we suspect there's something about quality of wish lists. Like if people wish list it and they haven't bought a game, that doesn't count. So I don't know. That's kind of weird. Send me your game name. Just Discord message me and just send me your game name. And tell I get Discord messages all the time. So say, here's my game. I'm the guy that has 11,000 wish lists, but doesn't have a rank. I'm just curious. I don't know.

Um would you please do one more unreleased game? Um I don't have time. I'm trying to get through these. Maybe later. I'll do I'll do another one soon. Um I'll do another one of these soon. Um what's the wish list velocity rate? That is important for leaderboards. Wait. What is wish list velocity? Okay, so what's wish list velocity? I wrote a blog. Search my blog for wish list velocity. Just search it. I give the explanation. So I'll give you the one-second explanation. There's nothing really in the algorithms wish list velocity. But I mean, Steam Next Fest kind of was based off that. It's just how many wish lists did you get yesterday? That's your wish list velocity. Like did you get 100 in a day? 300 in a day? And the thing is um the reason we talk about wish list velocity is if you spend enough time on Steam. Like if you launched your Steam coming soon page in 2015, let's say, and you just ground it out to today, didn't release your game, you could have 100,000 wish lists. But that you know,

that's like a decade basically of grinding out wish lists. So a decade of of wish list grinding, that's like 10,000 a year. That's not a whole lot. And so when you say I have 100,000 wish lists, the second question you should be asking is, well, over what time period? If you told me I have 100,000 wish lists and we announced our game last week, holy crap, that's 100,000 wish lists in a week. That's awesome. That's good velocity. If you didn't, then I'm like, okay, well, you have 100,000. You're probably not going to convert well. So search the blog, and it's not People over analyze it. It just matters like you just can't grind forever and collect wish list. It's not a solid number. You really understand how exciting your game is based on that velocity. And you're going to like what's a good velocity? How to market a game.com/ benchmarks. I look at a bunch of velocities. In my general opinion, it's like if you're making like 100 wish list a day, 300 wish list a day, that's good. That is hot. You are a hot game. So that's in general what I see.

Okay. I want to watch more of these webinars. When do you do them and how often? I don't want to miss future Steam reviews. What you do and I this is where I'm going to upload it. Here's my website. If you want to watch any that I do, go to talks and I list all the talks and appearances that I do on this thing. That's where I upload them. Join the mailing list. Mailing list, mailing list, mailing list. howtomarketagame.com/free or you click the free stuff thing. Sign up for the mailing list. I always tell people and I always record them. Every single time. Nobody ever has to ask will this be recorded? It always is. My entire life is recorded. Okay. So that's how they go. Iggy, join the mailing list. That's the most important thing. If I'm blending blending genres, city builder and action roguelike, what tag should I use? No similar games. Action roguelike is what you should do because I have a feeling city builder fans don't really like the action side of it. They want to sit and contemplate where they're going to put the police

station. So this is the thing. This is blending genres folks. This is why I say it's risky. You can alienate both sides. Like city builder fans might I don't know if there's that, but um city builder fans want one thing, action roguelike want another. You could be blending them. So what I recommend if you're having trouble say we're a city builder. Like this month, the month of June, you're just like we are the city builder with a twist. Just don't say twist. I hate the twist. Twist is like unique. It's like just tell me the twist and then I get to determine if it's a twist. You just say city builder plus roguelike. I actually like your pitch. I kind of can visualize what the game is. Put that out there. Market it hard as a city builder. Okay? For the month of June. Then and reach out to a bunch of city builder streamers. See if anybody picks you. Then in July, well really do a full month. So July is city builder month. And then August is Vampire Survivors likes month. And you say you rebrand the whole page and you say we are a Vampire Survivors likes. Ba boom. And then you

like reach out to a bunch of Vampire Survivor fans, like people who play those and say here it is. Reach out to the streamers and see which one gets more traction. City builder month of July or August which is action roguelike month. Which one did better? Okay? Which had more people interested? That's your answer. I can't determine. It's different for every genre blend. It depends on how much you're blending. But for the most part, I just say test it. And most of the time, my bet your action roguelike. Your action roguelike with a little side meta. Okay? It's usually whatever the core inner ring what you do from second to second is your genre. Everything else is just the outer ring. Also search the what your gamers want. Just a couple blogs ago I I explained what I mean by the gameplay loop rings. Um people want what do they want? Easy, hard, easy. You'll understand. You'll understand when you read the blog. So how to market a game.com search that blog. About Space Sprouts. Would you recommend them to switch from cozy and wholesome keywords to something else?

I don't know. I don't think I would. I think it's a little too late for that. By their graphic style, the color palette they've used, they're they're trying for wholesome land. It's I think it's a little like this is the thing is I kind of think indies change too much. Just write it out. In your next game you figure it out. That's what I'd recommend. Finish the course you're on. Try the best to market it the best you can with the game design. But it's better just to stick to the plan. Ship. Move on to the next game. If if it turns out bad. Okay? I don't like it when people are like, well we're going to redo the whole engine. We're going to redo the game. No. Ship it. Learn the lessons. Move on to the next game. That's my basic advice. Don't spend too much time redesigning things. More games. Release more games. Okay? And then you learn. Oh god, cozy games are very specific. It has to be land based cuz here's my theory. I'm a little worried that it's space based cozy. You find out and this is how you experiment. You find

out where the limits of a genre are. My theory is space is not cozy. There's nothing more hellish than space. And it is it is awful and it is terrifying and it messes with your brain when you think about space too much. Cozy is like a warm blanket and so it's it's very terrestrial. It's the classic farm, the classic dorm room, the classic fireplace. You know, that's cozy. It's what we know. Cozy is what we understand, what we know, what we return to when we were children. That is cozy. Space is like other worldly and it breaks our brains and we can't understand it and we weren't we did not evolve to live in space. And so I think my theory in general is there's just a natural antagonism between wholesomeness and space. I'm going to Carl Sagan on you here. But I just that's kind of my theory. That's my theory, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Okay? But that's that's what you learn. But you don't learn this stuff until you release the game. And it's it's not bad.

Nobody's dumb or stupid for doing that. We have to try things that are a little on the edge and then we learn and we theorize why this is wrong or this didn't work out and then we move on. Um and I I don't mean to call them out. I I just mean that's that's just my general impression of why they're having this feeling of like it is not connecting. And this is why genre mixing is so hard and so risky. It's riskier than indies think that it is. That's that's my general theory. If you accidentally launch your game into early access but pulled it down, how would you recommend to proceed? Keep working on that page or start a brand new game? You're kind of toast. If you just I mean if it didn't sell anything and nobody got any press I would just you can't really rip the game down. Don't. Early access folks is dangerous. You are playing with loaded weapon when you're playing with early access. You kind of are are toast. It is. Like I

I I don't know how many you sold. If it's like, hey we sold five copies. Yeah. You can't rip down pages. I think you can tell Steam to pull the page or pull the game from market and then refund everybody could who did it. But yeah, if you accidentally early access released there's not much you can do. You are kind of dead in the water. Yeah, so be very careful folks with early access. I don't again kind of like mixing genres. I think indies do too much early access. Okay. Um All right. That's the time. Thank you so much for attending. Um please consider buying one of these courses. And again, this is people always ask me Chris, how do I support you? Like is there like a Patreon I can contribute to? It's like I don't want a Patreon. Like what I want is to help you. And this is how I help you and this is how you support me. And so those folks who did buy the course, I thank you so much

for doing that. This is how I'm able to do this full time. Like this these two courses and well all my courses is how I'm able People are like you give away so much stuff for free. You do so much content. Why and how? And it's like this is what allows me to do the free content. Okay? This is how you support me is buying the courses. This is how I make my living. This is how I do it folks. And so um by buying these courses, this allows me to do what I do. And so I I thank the people who buy the courses so much because it allows me to do this this stuff. Like this is amazing. And I thank you so much. Like you are the reason I'm able to do this. And I cannot thank you enough to those people who who pay for the course, bought the stuff, anything. Like I know these are expensive. These are premium classes. Um Um there but I have a whole range of stuff. But this is how you support me. If you like Chris, I really like what you I don't want tips. I don't want the stuff. I want you to learn stuff. And

everything that I put out will teach you something about how to do this based on what I've learned. And so I don't want the free stuff. I don't want I don't want like I don't want tips. I want you to learn. And so this is how you support me. This is how you do it. I don't do Patreons. They kind of suck. So please consider your supporting me. I really appreciate your time. I like hanging out with you all. These are great questions. These are great Steam pages. Um have a great Thursday and I I'm going to post side note. I just did a collaboration with Hugo from Code Monkey. So check YouTube to search Code Monkey's latest video. I think it just uploaded it. So if you want an extra hour of Chris, he just uploaded an interview I did with um with the Code Monkey. So kind of a fun crossover episode like the Flintstones when they met the Jetsons. So the Jetsons, not the Jensens. The Jetsons. So it's a kind of fun crossover episode.

Thank you so much folks. Really appreciate hanging out with you. Have a good day. Bye.