Regarding 07:16, mere hours after this video went live, Steam announced they are ALLOWING AI art from now on: steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3862463747997849619 I still think you should go for a real artist for your capsule image however, since this will allow you much greater control over the final product. -M

@VforVictorYT

4 ай бұрын

Will use AI for all images in my game, I think it's more personal than hiring an artist when you are a solo dev, it will still take several hours of prompting and post editing to get really good images so it will not effect the consumer negativity at all, the opposite actually, now I can have much more rich diversity of art. If I want 1000s of images before that would cost a fortune. That's why most indie games have repeated assets.

@lojgon6460

4 ай бұрын

The capsule image for Songs of Everjade is very obviously ai generated so you did not go for a real artist there?

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

@@lojgon6460 We did go for an artist, but we got shafted because they claimed they didn't utilize AI, and we ended up with a hybrid of real art + AI. We're working on getting new art before the game actually releases. -M

But the problem is, one month into development you dont have pretty visuals to show in the screenshots and the trailer. I dont want to put my ugly prototyping art on Steam.

@mitratoncortale2005

4 ай бұрын

Heavily agree, marketing is important but you have to be able to display quality, otherwise you'll be pushing away your audience. Best to do is have something people would be interested in, then advertise a vertical slide

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

I raise you this: store.steampowered.com/app/1949610/Luminous_Realms/ It's using heavy prototyping art, yet is currently sitting at around 9000 wishlists still. You can always keep updating your store page, and Steam will keep pushing your game to players if they think it's a match. One month into dev may still be early, but definitely after 3 months you should look into getting that page up! -M

@mitratoncortale2005

4 ай бұрын

​@@bitemegames Pretty sure most of the hype from this game is coming from the game-play being very heavily inspired from the success of a very beloved game, kingdom hearts Though I do agree with the early marketing (including steam), but only when you have a vertical slide to show. Few teams in past have made the mistake of advertising too early, losing audience members from unpolished work and losing the interest of others as they have to wait extreme times from the early stages of game development

@mitratoncortale2005

4 ай бұрын

Side note, turning off notifications to avoid the back and forth debate. It can be successful at times but mostly harms any chances of success

@bg-bliss

4 ай бұрын

​@@mitratoncortale2005I totally agree. Advertising too soon could also lead to selling early ideas that may not make it into the game and as we all know, promising something that could be out of the project scope at least during first release can get you into hot water. In my opinion you should try to balance between expected release date and content you currently have so that the game is still under dev but has a good amount of content for people to see. Game plays, images, trailers etc.

its nice to see a video from u guys

Honestly, one of the best videos you guys have put out. Thank you!

30 seconds into the video and I am already in agreement with WHATEVER YOU SAID! I heard Thomas Brush blabbing too much on this topic and bcz of him first thing I did after starting working on my open world game was to "create the Steam store page" haha.! Best decision EVER! I am soooo glad you made a video on this topic because I still meet a lot of new game devs who are working on something extraordinary, but still don't have a store page yet..

I needed this reminder! I've had my page mostly done for a while, just need to finish the last few bits off. I'll have it up before I put out my next devlog!

Great video! Steampage will follow up in april sticking to the plan your earlier video suggested. Right now I only have an ugly prototype for the basic mechanics and a lot of work ahead. I started this year completly from scratch and the backend so far looks very promising. I just need to get a grip in UI design and make the first fully fletched gameplay loop level. Progress is going 😁

Im from brazil, i started to watch your videos to become a game developer and you help-me a lot since then, and if you want i can translate and localize your game to brazilian portuguese

Theres a catch with GIFS on Steam. Dont have too many, or at least not too big in file size, because it will load VERY slowly and that will delay showing the trailer and screenshots, so be careful. I would recommend staying under 3-4 MB total of all GIFS together

@coregazer

4 ай бұрын

Not only that but it's going to have diminishing returns in terms of impact. I don't think people liking 'motion' is the only thing that makes gifs work. It's that they're a useful way to show off snapshots of gameplay. My personal opinion is that you should have enough gifs to show off the best or most unique selling points of your game, and maybe one to show off the general gameplay and not much more than that.

@scotmcpherson

4 ай бұрын

it should be noted you mean motion GIFs mini-clips or memes....GIF the file format itself shouldn't be problem.

Called out: Yes, i do not have a steampage. Because i have no art yet and i don't think grey boxes and placeholder sounds ripped from Quake would be very convincing. When art and mechanics come together we will create content to show publicly, but right now it would only end up on ignore lists. I sometimes wonder how mich the ignore list is worth. Does your relatively close friend Chris Zukowski also do stuff about ignore lists? Calling out: AI for the capsule....wait a sec. Too obvious. That's a trap! 😧

Just. checking it out now .... because as usual, you're right. Always a good vid.

Decided to put my game on Steam earlier since it's my first solo dev project and I want to see how it goes. Right now, I'm working on a short teaser, not a full trailer or anything. Making all the game assets, Steam capsules, and teasers is a lot of work, but I'm hoping it'll show if my game has got potential based on how it does on Steam. Failing early can be good, you know? If it doesn't get much attention or wishlist adds, it means I might need to switch up the capsule images, play around with tags, or even change up the game mechanics. Getting feedback early is super helpful to figure out what's working and what isn't.

@thomasbelk8745

4 ай бұрын

Like your attitude, playtesting might be a better tell than the Steam page. You may have a great idea but are just unlucky/do not have enough initial eyeballs on your game to get proper feedback tbh. Good luck on your game, I hope you get it to a place where you can be proud of it :)

@brainchildpl

4 ай бұрын

Totally agree about the demo, but I don't currently have a demo. Creating a demo requires a LOT more work. However, I'll definitely have a demo ready before working on the final release or an early access version. It won't be a simple game, and my programming knowledge is limited, so I'll need the game to be extensively tested by players. I can't afford to do this testing otherwise, so the only way is to have a demo and possibly an early access version. But I'm not yet sure about releasing an early access version... I'll see.@@thomasbelk8745

I'm just waiting for my capsule art then my first Steam Page will be done! Also, the Chris Zukowski course was a HUGE help.

I feel called out 😆 It's definitely something I'll get done with short term tho, before making any more devlog or any kind of promotion of my game. Cause promotion without any concret action a potential player can do, is a waste of time and a waste of opportunity.

@anonimowelwiatko9811

4 ай бұрын

You probably should have something to show and something that will already be part of your game so if your art is subject to change, people might feel betrayed. Same with gameplay. I would say it's good to have store page once you established playable demo. So polished game but with only one level out of 20 for example.

@RockyMulletGamedev

4 ай бұрын

@@anonimowelwiatko9811 Art is obviously not final, but good enough to make some placeholder trailer and get a couple of screenshots that will be updated later. I do some devlogs about my games and I feel not having a "go wishlist my game on steam" being part of it is a huge lost opportunity. I feel marketing goes hand in hand with gamedev, but marketing without any possible call to action feels like a waste.

I literally just need the name for my game now, the page is mostly setup with a placeholder name 😅

Chris Zukowski is a legend , his marketing advice is really useful and insightful

@tymondabrowski12

4 ай бұрын

Why is there only one specific guy talking about this though? Every single video about marketing for indies, especially Steam page optimisation, has him. I'm not complaining, it's just a bit strange that no one else even tries to be an expert in that. Also he's good at branding since hiw would I otherwise remember his name? I've seen repeated speakers on GDC or gamedev channels but I usually recognise them by the project they made.

@ergohash2517

4 ай бұрын

@@tymondabrowski12 idk. i am sure there are others, i remember seeing some conference talks for game marketing, its just that there is usually no need to run a youtube channel for this - one thorough talk at a conference could be enough to share your advices and experiences, so thats why it usually only leads to Chris on youtube.

@MoonlitDragonInteractive

4 ай бұрын

that Chris guy is overrated af

Hey man.. I 'm making my own game too and I 'm from Brazil... in here things are much more cheaper on terms of work, so it's very easy and cheap to localize for Portuguese if you hire a Brazilian for that... if you guys want I can help you find someone to do that for you... I think localizing for Brazil is a good choice since we are fifth-largest market for games in world.

I have a use case where 1 month in to development, you do not want to start a steam page....why? You don't have anything to "show". I have been working on a game for months now, and other than a practice pitch and capsule player, I have nothing to show for it...Why? I am not yet working on art or actual game play mechanics. Just a basic 1st person controller, and as I said a demo scene for testing. Everything else is just foundation, networking, security...all the things I want to get done so I am building my game ON TOP of it, not trying to retrofit it in later. Otherwise....yes get a steam page as soon as you have ANYTHING to show.

@brainchildpl

4 ай бұрын

Putting your game on Steam only really makes sense when you've got something cool to show off. For a lot of solo game devs working with simpler art, like pixel or basic 2D, a month might be enough to showcase some neat stuff, especially if their game is straightforward and the graphics aren't going to get much fancier. It all boils down to the kind of game you're making, the art style, and stuff like that.

@AramoniumGames

4 ай бұрын

@@brainchildpl Yes, have a minimum amount of game features to show off on your Steam page is important. It just has to look like it works, and have OKish visuals. I made a list of game features I wanted to show in a video, some are Unique Selling Points, nothing too impossible to make. So far it ranges from mostly done to almost finished, and I've left the easy but time consuming stuff to last.

Alright, fiiine. You're right. I'll start setting one up this weekend and after my next playtesting build is done I'll flesh it out and make it public soon. Now I actually have to make a trailer! I still have some doubts since I only have a small level set up right now and not all of the mechanics I'd like to have are in place yet, but I'll just try to make due with what I have and then add more screenshots on Steam as development continues. Wish me luck!!

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

You'll love tomorrow's video ☺ -M

@wittyadrian

4 ай бұрын

@@bitemegames Ohh you tease!! I can't wait :D. Are you also planning a video on the more business side of things? Specifically the idea of setting up a company for tax purposes, opening up a separate bank account, going through Steam's tax form, etc. After you convinced me I started looking into that stuff and there's quite a bit of confusing info out there on what you need to do in order to set everything up correctly. Would love to hear your take on it!

Thank you for the advice. You said it is best to have the page up in a few months, with assets and a trailer. It makes me wonder though, what kind of art and trailer can you put up just in a few months? I barely have any, for my game and it will probably will change during development.

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

You can put up pretty lackluster visuals, if your mechanics are still compelling. In the end, you can keep updating your store page as much as you want, if Steam thinks a player is a good fit for your game, they will keep pushing it as well. Songs of Everjade's first store page visuals were horrendous, but still we got wishlists from it, since we could send people over to it. My favorite example of not needing fancy graphics has to be this: store.steampowered.com/app/1949610/Luminous_Realms/ It is using default unreal prototyping visuals, but sell the vision, and is currently sitting at around 9000 wishlists already. -M

I'm literally waiting for the ID verification to complete so I can upload my first playtest... Then you posted this!! C'mon, don't judge me!

Itch can still be a jackpot. I feel like many indie games got big at itch and then that popularity tranferred into Steam. It's also pretty hard to get seen at Itch, because it has a huge amount of games uploaded every day.

I was getting a steam page ready in time for Capitalism and Economy Fest, it's not been done for reasons out of my control. Had no internet for 3 weeks of December, stupid ISP still won't admit they screwed up, much less refund us. Next event is Nextfest, I can easily get everything setup in time for that.

Do you need to have a full company set up to register as a dev / publisher when setting up the store page? Certainly something to have prior to release but not every new solo dev might have this after a month.

@nuin9937

4 ай бұрын

No you don't have to

@AramoniumGames

4 ай бұрын

You don't need a full company anyway. In most countries you can just setup as a "sole trader" and register a company/trading name. Only three reasons to set up a company: 1. Employing other people full time (eg artist, assistant programmer, marketing person). 2. Partnerships, where 2+ people are working on the game and sharing the profits. 3. Expecting to make a large sum of money from sales (eg $200k) and company structure means less taxes.

I tested this theory about what brings my attention when I look on Steam art right away. Two things basically: pixel art and humans. Pixel art is my personal preference as I have been playing games since a young kid and whenever it was NES, GBA or old PC games, they either used sprites or not too pretty 3D models. I also love anime but most characters strike me as "generic" so they are just a noise which I filter. Now, interesting thing is that even if I wasn't into some genre or had no interest in picking up certain title I already knew, if there was a human face, specially when it had visible emotions and was looking at my direction, it took my attention instantly. On other hand, if I saw just a text, no image, scene, anything telling me about the title, I had no interest at all. Unless it was pixel art. Then sure. This is how I got Stardew Valley. So yeah, humanoids, ideally with emotional facial expression, looking at you. Or pixel art. I will never say no to nice pixel art.

Does anyone know if at 10:09 the extract with Chris Zukowski comes from a particular video? If yes, which one? That would be really interesting to see I think.

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

It's from a private coaching call we had with him, just about our game. It's not public. -M

@JeromeMillion

4 ай бұрын

@@bitemegames thanks for replying ! I thought this might be the case indeed. Well you guys shared the written analysis anyway so I'll check that ;) ! Thanks 🙏 !

Hey, some1 PLEASE help me! I followed this "early page" advice, but I didn't have TIME to work on my game for almost a year, so the game has been sitting there with bad images and descriptions. Do you think it will be "stained" or something like that, even if I improve the images later/when I have time? Thanks!!

Thanks for the advice. But the motivation to make video games can come both from an artistic side as well as an industrial one. From the industrial view your argumentation here makes a 100% sense, but I also want people to make games with an artistic confidence, that does not really care about sales or is afraid of losing a few as well. That is the ideal for me as a player: Devs, who actually have a steam page, but have all their focus on the art of making the game itself, not really on market research or maximizing sales, which might water down their vision. Maybe that is mostly my personal taste, because I like things that are very unique or go against the grain.. The people who made Disco Elysium for example surely didn't do ideal marketing in the beginning or had their steam page up early. Yet they made something really new, that would have been recognized, no matter what. Of course that's a one in a million example, all I want to say is that yeah, having a steam page is good, but if you don't have one yet, maybe that's okay too. :D

What about Epic Game Store or Microsoft's GamePass?

Store page? I don't even have a game yet...

Does this apply to mobile games as well?

Do you see steam increasing or decreasing their price to list a game in the near future?(1-3 years)

@bonehelm

4 ай бұрын

I don't see them changing it any time soon. But If they do change it, it'll probably be a higher price.

Is it $100 per game basis or for the account ?

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

Per game, the account itself is free -M

Like your content - but wanted to give feedback - the music does not add value inmho and is kind of distracting in these talking videos - was pausing and looking around where these "sounds" came from...

Is there a risk of making a steam page before having people to wishlist it and Steam decides to bury your page by any chance? I'm just wondering if steam would think this page isn't getting and traffic, if it will hurt you when you start pushing a bigger marketing effort in the future?

@bitemegames

3 ай бұрын

Steam doesn't really work that way, as you don't really get a boost in traffic the first time you put your page live, and it uses the same rules to determine new & trending / popular upcoming for a brand new page vs once that's years old. It has a 2 week rolling window, where the games that get the most wishlists in those 2 previous weeks, get more visibility. Any other games are treated the same, regardless of store page age. -M

@jonathantylerdesign

3 ай бұрын

@@bitemegames Oh! sweet, okay. Well that's good to here. I better go get that Steam page started then haha

How can I create a steam page with no art experience and just some basic mechanics developed? Would that be interesting to anyone, just a recording of whatever I have?

@StealthyShiroeanGames

4 ай бұрын

I think that whole 1 month thing has to be relative to your own work rate and what you have. I mean yeah, I don't think that would make much sense to make a Steam page quite yet for what you're describing. But if you give it another month or whatever is relative to you where you have your game more fleshed out (I'd assume some basic placeholder graphics and decent-ish gameplay?) then that would be worth it to make the Steam page. Especially since you can modify it whenever. Basically, Marnix is just stressing the fact that the sooner the better because it allows for people to wishlist and potentially attract customers.

I heard you accidentally say "Giff", as in gift. Just embrace it and abandon the whole "Jiff" crap! Don't cave in to the pressure!! You're better than that! LOL!

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

I shall henceforth only reference it as "Graphics Interchange Format", the safest option. -M

@gdomjan83

4 ай бұрын

GIF for the win! Jiff? Get out of here! :D

I kind of disagree. I’ve been working on my game for 7 years now, and I don’t have a steam page.. Why? Well. If people can see how long time the game has been in development, and if progress is stalling. Then they will come to the conclusion that the game is going in circles, and they will realize how long it will the developer to finish the game. And then they will lose interests in it.. Many games ha a 3-5 year old demo, and then nothing after that. And that just sends a really bad signal to the gamers. I would say, wait with the steam page till maybe a year before release, when you are also starting to market your game.

@brainchildpl

4 ай бұрын

Why not consider putting your game on Steam now, especially since you have a more thought-out plan after 7 years of development? In my opinion, at this stage, you should have a clearer idea of your game's direction and the remaining development time needed for a playable demo. Of course, this approach assumes you plan to continue updating the game post-demo release. If the plan is to release a demo on Steam without further updates, then it might not be the best strategy. When people see that you're actively working and updating the game, they're more likely to notice your efforts. This increases the chances of them wishlisting and eventually purchasing your game.

@ryuusaisai

4 ай бұрын

Counter point, people can wishlist (it costs nothing) the game and be notified when the game is released. If you come across a gem that hasn't released yet, and not much further info on it, you will forget about it. But if it's wishlisted, Steam will notify you, making you remember it and look over it again. People will mostly care about how long a game is in development if the dev is actually open about it. E.g. monthly devlogs for over 7 years, promises of release dates, early access.

@Lacotemale

2 ай бұрын

I'm kinda similar. Working on my game for 3 years. Never had enough quality art to take good screenshots or make a trailer until now.

hey, most of what you mentioned has become somewhat disposable. Since Steam has now reversed its decision not to allow content generated by Artificial Intelligence, an event of this is palworld kind of its generations of content, "the pals" are somehow not only seeds but have the same characteristics as pokemon. .. and this was the gateway to any and all rubbish, as artificial intelligence was not yet regulated, it generated discomfort on the web as much of the content available for free or generated by fans was copied and used to train and generate new models... still Copyright for intellectual content goes down the drain. This text refers to the section of the video from 2:59 min to 6:05 min, an excerpt related to why it doesn't itch...

Well I totally disagree, let me explain. First, I already did a store page for my game, and it has good visuals, did it as early as possible as others recommended. What you need to know: 1- when you put a Steam page, you get strong traffic from Steam for like 2-4 weeks, you need to snowball at that stage, if you don't, you are buried for good. (AKA, even after putting your stuff 3 months later, you will get less than 5 wish lists per week). 2- the moment you will get that passive wish lists as you mentioned, with a velocity, this velocity depends on the store page quality, a decent store page with all gameplay footage, ready art will get you 50-100 wish lists per day, how far this will snowball it depends, now the momentum is kept. 3- so according to 1 and 2, launch the store page when you have a demo, with a demo (a good one not a crappy one), you will multiply your odds by 10 4- these info in 1,2 and 3 are based on my tracking efforts for so many games released or went into early access in the past 2 years. 5- example of 2 different games with similar quality, 1 of them put the store page with a ready gameplay and demo, and the other put a store page just to hold some page until they get ready for a demo or early access a- ready gameplay and demo, Soulstone survivors, steamdb.info/app/2066020/charts/ b- an early store page, a game like Tendryll that I just found a video for it today, steamdb.info/app/1915780/charts/ TLDR, put a store page when your demo is ready to snowball.

I love that Game devs are so dependent on a single platform, so dependent on pleasing them, that instead of making the game they must become. Arresting experts. Valve can do with Game devs whatever they want, they are entirely dependent on it, and instead of deconstructing this power vacuum, all that game devs can do is succumb to their absolute dominance. It must be really difficult being a game dev.

@bitemegames

4 ай бұрын

Epic Game Store has a looong way to go unfortunately. -M

@emberchord

4 ай бұрын

@@bitemegames but that is yet another platform. The dependency on the platform itself is the problem, not _which_ platform it is. But of course, at least some competition would be great. But competition is merely a remedy, not a solution..