How To Sell More Games on Steam! (Store Page Optimization)

Рет қаралды 181,140

Күн бұрын

How do you make a great store page for your indie game on Steam to get more wishlists, downloads and ultimately sales? Professional indie game marketeer Chris Zukowski shares his best marketing and optimizations tips and tricks to make sure your Steam page gets the visibility it deserves. This video is a must watch for everybody who wants to succeed as a full time indie game developer.
● Check out Chris' free course on how to set up a better Steam page: howtomakeasteampage.com/
● Subscribe to Chris' free indie game marketing newsletter: howtomarketagame.com/free/
● Wishlist Will You Snail on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/11...
0:00 - Intro
MY STEAM PAGE FOR WILL YOU SNAIL
0:31 - How People Browse Your Steam Page
5:30 - How To Tag Your Game on Steam
12:23 - Best Practices for the "About This Game" Section
16:47 - How Many Wishlists Should You Have? (My Analytics)
21:05 - How To Promote Your Game to Get More Wishlists
24:15 - How To Analyze Your CTR on Steam
26:22 - How To Get Visibility From Discovery Queue
STEAM PAGES BY OTHER INDIE DEVELOPERS
29:16 - Karlson by Dani
34:58 - Hollow Knight by Team Cherry
40:17 - Glitcheon by Yän, River and Bonicle
46:29 - Slimekeep by BenBonk
52:52 - Dorfromantik by Toukana
1:00:11 - Outro
● Join the Will You Snail Discord: / discord
● Join our creative game dev community on Discord: / discord
Please be so kind to share this video with your developer friends to make sure I can keep making these. :)
Hope you enjoy!
#gamedev #indiedev

Пікірлер: 574

@howtomarketagame 3 жыл бұрын

Hi folks Chris (the guest) here in the Comments. Feel free to ask me anything

@prettyfrenchgames 3 жыл бұрын

Hey Chris, I'm a nobody in the game industry, working on my first game. Is there an optimal way to use the "marketing beat" of releasing my first trailer to bring people to my Steam page or should I just post it on youtube and move on?

@GonziHere 3 жыл бұрын

Hi, thanks for an incredible breakdown. I just want to ask about a steam page ASAP - could you define "as possible"? Vertical slice might not have different zones (for screenshots), there might not be enough ready for the trailer... or is art that will become obsolete fine? Can "empty/bad" steam page hurt me? Thanks.

@TheRealPunkachu 3 жыл бұрын

I have a question. You mentioned that games with lower than 10,000 wishlists were hit hard by Steam's algorithms. Is there anything you can do to combat this when developing a game with a smaller marketing budget and shorter timeframe? As in, if your game has a smaller target to hit. In my particular case I don't know if my game would benefit from that level of marketing. Or do you maybe think I'm overestimating the difficulty of hitting 10k? Thank you so much for the insight shared in this video! It's incredibly useful intel.

@howtomarketagame 3 жыл бұрын

@@prettyfrenchgames Hi! I know you. Yes contact as many press people as possible. 99% will ignore you. The 1% can do good things.

@howtomarketagame 3 жыл бұрын

@@GonziHere It is ok if art becomes obsolete because then you can do a news beat describing what changed. Do it! make a steam page.

@nebulaxis7849 3 жыл бұрын

“Most people on steam don’t watch the trailers” I’m not mad that he’s wrong I’m mad cause he’s right

@CooLooZ 3 жыл бұрын

Well videos on steam store are extremely buggy, so I'm not surprised at all.

@TheSimonCle 3 жыл бұрын

Ill watch the trailer if the screenshots and description captures my interest, and clearly shows the gameplay. I’m amazed how well I for into the user he is descriping

@MotraZotra 3 жыл бұрын

Game developers don't play as many games as non game developers. Because we are busy developing.

@studioprimitive 3 жыл бұрын

Trailers are a waste of my time. They are a pain to find what you want. I just look at the screenshots and read the description.. exactly what he said people do.

@MotraZotra 3 жыл бұрын

@T R gamers play games every day. You work on your game every day. It's not even on the same scale.

@bluerhino1046 3 жыл бұрын

Jonas is talking like when I talk to my teachers. "uh-huh" "yep" "I see..." "definitely"

@evon2543 3 жыл бұрын

He is

@JonasTyroller 3 жыл бұрын

That's because he definitely was my teacher here.

@PumpyGT 2 жыл бұрын

@@JonasTyroller Lol

@user-dz6on9or5d 25 күн бұрын

@@JonasTyrollerhey, I have a problem with the achievement section, it's not checked in steamwork :( please help me 😥😥

@Ziziwai 7 күн бұрын

@@user-dz6on9or5d Did you get it figured out? I know there’s a separate section where you add achievements, but there’s also another section where you checkmark that there *are* achievements. Maybe you added them but missed the second thing?

@Danidev 3 жыл бұрын

Awesome video, and thanks for the feedback, ill definitely make some changes :o

@Jayden-rk5fl 3 жыл бұрын

dont add more billy

@solidboots 3 жыл бұрын

*e*

@syedsadiq8631 3 жыл бұрын

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/qJeIdqZ9nLXaaGg.html

@funnyassclown8869 3 жыл бұрын

Hi dani

@fahimjunayed5894 3 жыл бұрын

Looks like our good old friend unity's particle system has to add some juice to these screenshots. Because as a wise man said, "Particles are mandatory." - Plato 2021

@BenBonk 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks so much for the feedback! Definitely going to make some changes right now, and work on improving the steam page later on into development.

@LeMellow 3 жыл бұрын

Heya!

@flashplays6489 3 жыл бұрын

Good luck then

@jaochao9614 4 ай бұрын

not gonna lie, just checked out your page, i was hesitant when watching the video to check it out, but i genuinly want to try out your game now after checking your page. looks fun, respect

@KlausWulfenbach 3 жыл бұрын

Step 0: Finish your dang game and put it on the Steam Store. I'm still working on that one.

@maciekpryc3416 3 жыл бұрын

Nah, you definitely don't want to wait until your game is done with creating Store page... but yeah, it's good to finish your game, sometime xD

@omerfarukbykl6097 3 жыл бұрын

@@maciekpryc3416 agree with you

@10dvvks.d.r.tharun15 3 жыл бұрын

lol

@fahimjunayed5894 3 жыл бұрын

step -2: repair your pc step -1: find a game idea these need to be done first for me.

@AstralStudioGames 3 жыл бұрын

Same

@ollie-d Ай бұрын

This might be the single best video on optimizing a steam page. I’m sure the meta has changed slightly over the years, but it at least teaches you how to assess steam through a specific lens

@babasheep2828 3 жыл бұрын

Great! Now I can sell my master piece! It’s about a plumber, that goes to save the princess from a dragon looking guy! I think it’s pretty ingenious.

@typodoeseverything 3 жыл бұрын

UhH tHaT's JuSt MaRiO bRoThErS

@kayyy5034 3 жыл бұрын

Wow never heard from that idear befor. It will be great

@babasheep2828 3 жыл бұрын

@@kayyy5034 right!

@enderguardian7443 3 жыл бұрын

I think it will change the gaming landscape

@babasheep2828 3 жыл бұрын

@@enderguardian7443 yeah!

@richardstevenson371 3 жыл бұрын

I do exactly what he said people do with trailers lol. And he’s right that I’m looking for gameplay. I occasionally binge through the discovery queue which leads me to a lot of games I don’t want, and I want to get through those quickly. I will look at the description, gameplay, and review score. Because I have so many steam games, I am almost always not wasting time looking at anything below Very Positive. There are some times I will go with a mostly positive or mixed if it is really affordable and the idea fascinates me and clearly it was too niche for people based on the comments. I will say I skim the text, not ignore it completely. It’s where I go when I like what I see in the screenshots, etc.

@NoNameAtAll2 Жыл бұрын

but how many of the games you got have you actually played?

@jwddwj9 3 жыл бұрын

Literally paused to video to go dump the indie tag from my game lmao. Fantastic colab, this was so helpful.

@YaenGamedev 3 жыл бұрын

Oooh boy, Glitcheon is in this. Chris knows what he's talking about so I'm kinda anxious to hear what he has to say but hope we can improve our presence with the feedback. (haven't watched yet)

@YaenGamedev 3 жыл бұрын

Quite helpful and actionable! That's how I like my feedback. Thanks a lot!

@flashplays6489 3 жыл бұрын

Its nice u guys are happy with this keep it up

@flashplays6489 3 жыл бұрын

I played glitcheon amzing game btw

@indigu6624 3 жыл бұрын

Good luck! Excited to see how creative you get with the improvements on your page.

@YaenGamedev 3 жыл бұрын

@@flashplays6489 Thank you! Glad you like it so far

@WesleyVanroose 3 жыл бұрын

This is pure gold! This such a big hurdle for indie to get their games to the big market.

@emanueltejadacoste2250 3 жыл бұрын

Cant believe i watch this complete video at first recomendation and Im just a web developer

@richardstevenson371 3 жыл бұрын

“Overcome a predictive fully-voiced AI and his robot army in this fast-paced action platformer.” Something like that that really highlights your set-apart features: 1. Predictive AI 2. Boss Fights 3. Hybrid Gameplay Elements (Tower Defense, Basketball, etc.) Not sure how to word that last part concisely but this would grab my attention on what is special and awesome about Will You Snail.

@ThePC007 3 жыл бұрын

I like how you put emphasis on the fact that it is fully-voiced simply because it makes it easier to connect the description to what is seen in the trailer.

@ibrahimouhamou9732 3 жыл бұрын

I just want to say that sometimes I ignore the games just because the trailer doesn't exist

@izzyhope58 3 жыл бұрын

11:02 Getting Over It, Psychological Horror. Lol, That tag SOOO true

@igpaygames 3 жыл бұрын

A good follow up video would be to implement Chris's suggestions about tags and stuff and then tell how it affected your numbers.

@sanderambroos5210 3 жыл бұрын

The best thing about this channel is the fact thas Jonas is willing to learn himself through showing us these discusions! Thanks for sharing!

@HelperWesley 3 жыл бұрын

This was an awesomely informative video! As a solo developer myself, I love seeing this sort of thing and I'm sure others do as well. Thanks for sharing. :)

@broganking9830 3 жыл бұрын

Goes for 1 hour, felt like 5 minutes. What a power house of knowledge! Thank you so much for the video. I've signed up for the course and newsletter!

@UnderfundedScientist 3 жыл бұрын

Such great advice, I'm about to re do my itch page

@brannonharris4642 3 жыл бұрын

Holy shit. This was a great video. Jesus, man. Way to just crap on the rest of the devs trying to sell us full time courses. I appreciate you, man

@VitorGuerreiroVideos 3 жыл бұрын

This is awesome! Thanks a lot for sharing Jonas and Chris! Awesome insights here!

@tuatarian6591 3 жыл бұрын

I appreciate that you record & upload these to your channel, this is super useful for everyone

@SnutiHQ 3 жыл бұрын

This is a colab video we're hyped about!! 😍 Thank you Jonas and Chris for taking your time! 🎉🎉

@jonathanlorenz-indiedev 3 жыл бұрын

One of the most informative video on your channel so far, while still being about your journey releasing your game. Good job!

@mementomori7160 3 жыл бұрын

Jonas, I thought about it a lot and I think you're one of the greatest game devs on YT, your videos always teach a lot of useful stuff I don't see in other places(maybe I don't look hard enough, but YT is like steam, you only have a few seconds to interest people) And I like that you wishlisted the game while recording, just because you felt it in the moment

@nilsmuller-cleve6769 3 жыл бұрын

Saw one of the GDC talks and it was great. Nice to see this advice applied to real examples.

@ItzRyanF00 3 жыл бұрын

I had never thought about it like a product inside a store, that makes so much sense but went over my head so fast. Thank you!

@yigithanion 3 жыл бұрын

I didn't know I needed this. Thanks.

@ThousandAnt 3 жыл бұрын

Terrific conversation! Thanks so much for doing this guys. Lots of great info.

@UnderfundedScientist 3 жыл бұрын

Seriously awesome of you to show your numbers to help educate

@editdev 3 жыл бұрын

super insightful! thanks jonas

@Nomadnetic 10 ай бұрын

This is amazing, thank you for putting this video together.

@korixioo 3 жыл бұрын

Great guest! I'm in his newsletter, very useful information!

@saultoons 3 жыл бұрын

Very helpful, will definitely refer to this in the future, thanks Jonas and Chris!!!

@Zeraxxus 3 жыл бұрын

This is a really great interview / learning session. So much good knowledge is poured out. Worth the whole hours watch from start to finish! Well done Jonas and Chris . *clap* *clap*

@FlatThumb 2 жыл бұрын

Very interesting and useful. Subscribed to the newsletter Chris!

@CaptainNinjaKid 3 жыл бұрын

I can't believe how useful this video felt. Good work

@kintrix007 3 жыл бұрын

Can't wait to watch through it! :)

@TheLegendsOfTynedale 2 жыл бұрын

An incredibly useful video! I've learnt loads. It's interesting to know my click-rate is high but my wishlist conversion needs improving and how to do so. Thanks so much and please do another video like this!

@szepad3687 3 жыл бұрын

This is gold mine right here and it's also free! Thanks Jonas and Chris!

@anhedonie92 2 жыл бұрын

I see that you implemented the changes that were talked about here, I would love to see a followup video with the results of the update. Thanks for the great and informative content!

@makemypetgamedevprocess6475 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for this video Jonas, no one really talks about it. Keep it up ❤️

@JustDaZack 8 ай бұрын

So much to learn here! 🙏 Great vid! 🙌

@thisgamedev 2 жыл бұрын

This is really helpful, thanks again Jonas for an amazing video :)

@SchneiderRob 2 жыл бұрын

Dude, awesome video. Chris has great feedback. It's cool to see you receiving feedback because I love your game test videos and think the feedback you give is awesome. So when I see you keep an open mind and learn from others, that just reaffirms that you are a great teacher. One who accepts they can improve will improve. One who thinks they are the greatest will never be great.

@TinCanToNA Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for this! It feels like enormous value added for free

@strollingstickgames6407 2 жыл бұрын

Awesome advice, there is so much to think about when launching your game but if you get the basics done you can increase your chances of success a lot!

@luisspielzeit6581 3 жыл бұрын

Danke für dieses Video! Das hilft mir bei meiner Spielentwicklung sehr weiter :)

@AntiqueGear 3 жыл бұрын

Dude, this video is a marketing goldmine! Very helpful! Thanks!

@Novemtails 3 жыл бұрын

Great video. I really enjoy each minute. Thanks

@gazzagamesstudio9458 3 жыл бұрын

Wow, time to start taking notes. Great advice!

@Lugmillord 3 жыл бұрын

Wow, fantastic information. This goes right into my favorites!

@j.vonhogen9650 3 жыл бұрын

Really awesome video! I've learned a ton of stuff by just watching this video. Thanks a lot!

@porchettogamedev7540 3 жыл бұрын

Thank you man! This is GOLD!

@NotFamousReal 3 жыл бұрын

Really really great advice here and a lot of detailed specifics. I just launched my games page, but haven't got much of any traffic or wishlists quite yet. Lot of work to do!

@razvaniuga9164 3 жыл бұрын

Great video! Thanks!

@dirzz Жыл бұрын

Priceless information, thank you!

@ViroidGames 2 жыл бұрын

Finally had time to watch the whole thing. Thank you for this.

@JonasTyroller 2 жыл бұрын

Thanky you fro making the time to watch. ;)

@yellowmarkers 2 жыл бұрын

@@JonasTyroller Thanky

@LetsPlay4Free 3 жыл бұрын

Just checked the new description. Much better 👍 ;)

@SteinMakesGames 2 жыл бұрын

Great video! Wrote down plenty of useful notes for a future Steam page :)

@10dvvks.d.r.tharun15 3 жыл бұрын

wonderful video ! love ur content keep posting videos like this

@TheAsbj0rn 2 жыл бұрын

this is very insightful. thank you for sharing!

@woeliewoeliewoelie Жыл бұрын

Such valuable insights! Thanks a lot

@wizzlez9615 2 жыл бұрын

I feel like an expert on this now, very well explained and has awesome tips! Definitely going to have to come back to this when I release to Steam someday!

@TheShelfman 3 жыл бұрын

This was a really useful and insightful video. Really glad you and Chris talked about all of this!😁

@yellowmarkers 2 жыл бұрын

TheShelfman

@jwakeuplink7671 2 жыл бұрын

There's so much mixed and vague information about indie game marketing out there, but this was a really great, in-depth look at some of the practical steps you can take to improve your game's Steam page performance. Thank you both for this :)

@geniusapple6471 3 жыл бұрын

This really was insightful, and definitely helpful to people like me who are trying to make an Indie game. Good work Jonas :D

@AstralStudioGames 3 жыл бұрын

Definitely going to help me on my upcoming indie game VOID! (Although that game won't come out for years since it just started coding a few months ago)

@AndrisGameDev 3 жыл бұрын

This was very informative. Another bit of info for you guys, that even tho earlier the top 5-10 tags were indeed very important and useful when matching your "target games" tags, today they matter way less IF your game is not already selling well. Earlier targeting other games' "more like this" section was pretty easy but since 2019 it is kind of impossible.

@dragoran149 3 жыл бұрын

Awesome interview/workshop. I stopped game dev but this is a must watch for all indie.

@yespa Жыл бұрын

This information here is actually really really valuable!

@XanderwoodGameDev 3 жыл бұрын

Such a useful video. I will eventually be looking to get my game on Steam. I'll be coming back to the this a few times before then I think!

@Woots 3 жыл бұрын

This video was very enlightening!

@Gilel5 3 жыл бұрын

Just wanted to say great video man its super interesting and insightful

@hristoborisov3713 Жыл бұрын

this is amazing info/advice thank you so much!

@johnhickersantilan4295 Жыл бұрын

This is really interesting, thanks for the information

@PhillipAmthor 2 жыл бұрын

This is perfect, thank you for showing all sides of a modern game!

@evon2543 3 жыл бұрын

Extremely useful video!

@LibonatiDesign Жыл бұрын

I learned sooooooo much from this video! Thank you so much!

@mohmadaliyaghmay1117 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks a lot for videos, really helpful.

@blackcitadelstudios Жыл бұрын

Currently building my steam page now. Just to get early wishlists. Thanks for the insights. ☺️🙏

@thedjsente5858 2 жыл бұрын

This guy is spot on for how I look through a steam page... I even skip through the videos like that... and I am trying to find out what the gameplay is like... probably for you all as well.

@mdhsoftware9031 2 жыл бұрын

Awesome - that's a real eye-opener!

@ahmedelborki5982 3 жыл бұрын

Thanks man for this video

@JL-kz2nu 2 жыл бұрын

Very useful, thanks a lot!

@computery Жыл бұрын

Literally the most informative video I have ever watched

@jampgames2955 2 жыл бұрын

I learned so much from this, a very informative video.

@esotericgamedev Жыл бұрын

Really good video thanks

@fear-the-phantom 6 ай бұрын

This is a pot of gold. Super useful, thanks for putting this together!

@sashamakeev7547 2 жыл бұрын

For real thanks on this vid. I will consider many new things i learned when i will ship my game on steam.

@weenyboi 3 жыл бұрын

I definitely just click through the trailers looking for something interesting just like he said lol great video

@-highlyne-8679 Жыл бұрын

I have a huge steam game catalog and it feels like this dude is reading my mind when it comes to buying games. certainly some great advice to take into account when trying to market your game on steam.