Indie Games Get Buried in Steam Next Fest
Many indie game developers are expressing concerns about visibility during the Steam Next Fest. They worry about being overshadowed by larger titles and finding it difficult to cut through the noise, even with marketing efforts. Some are questioning whether participating is worthwhile or if they should scale back other promotional activities.
SOURCES (60)
“A big milestone reached by our team: Time Survivor is officially registered for Steam Next Fest (October 19–26, 2026)! We're posting this because we're so excited to take part in our first Next Fest, which finally gives us a deadline to release our game after…”
“A big milestone reached by our team: Time Survivor is officially registered for Steam Next Fest (October 19–26, 2026)! We're posting this because we're so excited to take part in our first Next Fest, which finally gives us a deadline to release our game after almost two years of development. At the same time, we'd also genuinely love some feedback from other developers and players. We have around 3k wishlists, gained mostly thanks to a big YouTuber who found our game, made a video ab”
“Hey everyone, hope you're all good, Does anyone know of festivals for indie devs that allow submissions for web-based games? (And they're web based because my laptop can't run any game engine lmao.) The game is just like any game though, has some web-based mechanics, cutscenes, music, and a story. I'd love to attend them but sadly my country only has 1 event (which I'll apply to for 2027!) so these submission has to be remote. I'm not sure how this works. The event where”
“TLDR; You won't find a marketing revelation here... Big marketing beats (Press, Creator, Next Fest etc.) can be kingmakers and if you didn't "use" these, yet, then you shouldn't be discouraged by small wishlist counts like I was. 3 days ago I woke up to 725 wishlists after an seemingly endless grind. I regularly posted on social media but my biggest spike was 50 wishlists on Indie Sunday. It felt discouraging at times since I'm working on the game for 16 months already.”
“Hello, right now my studio trying to rapidly developing games. We are targeting to finish 6-8 games in single year. We don't have any confusion in the development stage, but what I worry is; is it okay to submit 2-3 games in single steam next fest? Since there are only three SNFs a year and we are developing our titles simultaneously, its becoming difficult to manage release dates and accurately time our major marketing beats (snf is a big beat). Let's say that the demos are polished and”
“Hi guys! We announced our new game about a week ago and noticed something interesting that we can’t really explain. The announcement brought us 3k WLs through the trailer, outreach to “warm” influencers we already knew from our previous game, and some paid promotion (Just in case anyone’s wondering, the paid ads didn’t perform particularly well for us) We also joined a Steam festival. Our game appeared on the festival page and got almost 60k impressions in one week, but the click-through rate wa”
“Hey everyone! I’m currently hard at work developing my indie game, and I'm gearing up for the upcoming Steam Next Fest! 🚀 Right now, the core framework is mostly built around PvP, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of solo play style or PvE content I should add for players who prefer enjoying games by themselves. If you were playing a game like this, what kind of solo mode, features, or PvE content would you want to see? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments—it”
“https://reddit.com/link/1vw3qhj/video/6yzvvhgur3lh1/player Hey everyone! I’m currently hard at work developing my indie game, and I'm gearing up for the upcoming Steam Next Fest! 🚀 Right now, the core framework is mostly built around PvP, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of solo play style or PvE content I should add for players who prefer enjoying games by themselves. If you were playing a game like this, what kind of solo mode, features, or PvE content would you want to see? I”
“I've started building my steam page today, and I have a trailer almost final, but none of the capsule / library art done yet. I also have a fully playable demo ready to release whenever. I was planning on taking my time with the steam page and releasing the demo sometime mid October, but realized that's terrible timing with Next Fest around the corner. Next Fest registration ends on Aug 31st, I did opt in in just in case... I could bum rush and get my page up and running by Aug 31st but”
“I'm currently making a game and I'm considering whether waiting until a steam next fest is worth it? I think I can finish the game in the end of november, meaning I would have to wait 3 months until a snf, but every popular game gets copied and the general feeling is that people start caring less. So the 5th nodebuster incremental game might still get popular, but the 20th gets the "oh just another nodebuster..." treatment. The 3rd shop sorter game might still be interesting, b”
“I have a silly quick little game I want to try to get in for the next Steam next fest (Aug 31st reg deadline). I would be submitting the Steam Page today and hope it gets approved before Aug 31st. But say Steam rejects the page for w/e reason. This would give me less confidence I could make the Aug 31st deadline. Could I then repurpose that game page (and $100 fee) for a totally different game (so totally different name + screenshots)? And it would be completely fine I assume (I would just join”
“Basicly, ill soon get my game's steampage and i was thinking on how to get wishlists. Do you think that doing pub post telling about the game, the dev process and posting the same post to a dozen relevant sub would be too pushy ? How would you feel if u saw a post about a cool game, checked the profile and saw the same post was posted 10 times ? would that cool you off ? submitted by /u/Nyxef [link] [comments]”
“Hi, I'm signed up for the PVE Steam next fest that starts in two weeks. And I was wondering if it's better to start pumping out gameplay shorts now, or wait to release the shorts during the next fest? I'm already make social media posts and trailer and occasianl shorts. I'm specifically asking is it best to put most of my marketing effort before or during the next fest? submitted by /u/DandersonJA12 [link] [comments]”
“I published my Steam page about a month ago, but the game barely got a dozen wishlists. I submitted the game to a trade show with an alpha version, and the feedback seemed encouraging. Any suggestions? submitted by /u/Erym03 [link] [comments]”
“The game has 6,000 wishlists and has already participated in Steam Next Fest with a demo. The game was ‘frozen,’ and nothing has happened with it since. Do you know of any similar games, or have you had any experience with something like this? submitted by /u/Der_Schamane [link] [comments]”
“Hello! I'm the project lead for the game Benthos , and we've been hard at work cooking up a publicly playable Demo! Our goal is to participate in the upcoming NextFest this October, and I wanted to take this opportunity to hear from Indie Developers who have previously participated in NextFest. What did you do right? What did you do wrong? What would you have done differently if given the chance? I want to hear all about it from real developers who have been in the weeds of this. This is”
“I am developing a free to play game and I would love to participate in Steam Next Fest probably next year. Can a full free to play game participates? If not, could I named it as a DEMO/BETA? It is a free to play online tcg/card game. submitted by /u/Powrrett [link] [comments]”
“https://preview.redd.it/3bgkd05ic5kh1.png?width=858&format=png&auto=webp&s=e85d36b282c5f0a6ea6383c034602d613b7cd297 Hi, I recently organized a thematic event on Steam and grouped around 75 different games from different developers. The theme was "Games made in Spain" and these are the stats we got over 17 days. However, I don't really have anything to compare my stats to, so I don't know if this is okay or is nothing. Someone with experience in this field? :)”
“I’m working on a pinball roguelite called Pinball Realm. I thought Pins & Pegs Fest would be a really good opportunity to show the demo, so I joined the event and even made a trailer for it. 😔But so far, it hasn’t brought the kind of feedback I was hoping for. I was expecting at least a few comments, and hopefully at least a few wishlists. The event has been live for about half a day now, but there still hasn’t been any movement in my Steamworks stats. I’m worried that the first 12 hours af”
“Hi! I wanted to make this post to show the effect on wishlists that this small festival gave. My game was admitted into Debut Festival that just ended today. Here are some numbers: - WL's before: 350 - WL's after: 390 Store page + demo has been out for 4 months now, so this 11% increase was actually pretty big compared to the average amount of wishlists I'd been receiving before this week. Debut Festival is a small festival, total amount of games was around 600, I think. My game is a”
“We just gained around 1,000 Steam wishlists in a single day, and almost all of them came from Japan. Japanese gaming publication AUTOMATON discovered a Reddit post I made about one of our longtime players and wrote an article about The Hive. Their post on X then exploded to over 500,000 views, sending a huge wave of Japanese players to our Steam page. Sometimes one completely unexpected story can change everything. Original article, I did google translate it to understand what they are talking a”
“It says the registration deadline is Aug 31st. Is it possible for me to make it in time and register if I haven't submitted my store page yet? I also haven't finished the trialer, so it will take me still a week or two to prepare some basic screenshots, description and a trailer and submit for approval, and then hopefully I can publish the Coming Soon page after that without much hold up. submitted by /u/Hot-Tomatillo-9929 [link] [comments]”
“Let's say I have two games, both with fewer than 1,000 wishlists, and one of them is even below 200. At this point, marketing feels like a classic indie dev situation: it takes a huge amount of time, I don't really have a budget for it, and the results aren't really there. So is it actually worth releasing the game on Steam? From what I understand, Steam's algorithm heavily considers how a game performs around release, especially sales and player activity. With such a small wishl”
“Super excited to share this milestone for our little indie game! Tank Mates is a chaotic physics-based co-op platformer where two players control one tank one controls the left side, the other the right. You’ll need to coordinate through deadly obstacles, enemy tanks, explosions, and some very questionable jumps. It supports online co-op, local co-op, and single-player . We’d love for you to check it out, wishlist it, and let us know what you think! Tank Mates on Steam submitted by /”
“Hey everyone! I'm Nico, and I'm working on my first commercial party game. I genuinely feel like we have a pretty good game based on the feedback we've received so far. We've had the opportunity to showcase it at a few local gaming events in my city, and the response from people actually playing it has been really positive. However, I'm much less confident about our Steam page and marketing strategy. Our Steam page started collecting wishlists on July 8, and so far we've”
“Hey guys! Would like to know what would be your no. 1 tips to market your game in 2026!? I find it really hard to reach an audience only through steam/steam next fest. submitted by /u/Exact-Pop-3459 [link] [comments]”
“Background: watched a YT interview of indiegamejoe and decided to throw him a quick dm on Discord about our game Railborn. We're a 2 person team so finding time to do any marketing is essentially impossible. Wasn't sure I'd hear back from him, Twitter for us has never been very effective, so I moved on with my life. On 14th July he posted: https://x.com/IndieGameJoe/status/2077211662525092162 Then over the next 4 days our wishlists skyrocket - over the next 4 days we earned +11k wish”
“Sorry for stupid question, im new to gaming dev, i just dont understand why do someone need wish list when he release a game on steam? I asked AI for answer but all was generic BS that is about better positions on steam.. is it true? Also AI told me avg earning for 1 indie game is around 200 euro.. What if someone will release game on steam without any wishlists, any ads? If game is good it will do just fine, right? submitted by /u/No_Twist_678 [link] [comments]”
“This is my first Steam Fest, focusing on older games that kept improving at their labor of love! If you released a game a while ago, but still continued to improve and build upon it even if it didn't do so well on launch, this Fest is your second chance to bring new players! Specific Requirements Game must have released/EA'ed at least 18+ months ago Published a major content update in the past 12 months (See the application form for clarification) I hope Valve will approve this. It's”
“This is my first Steam Fest, focusing on older games that kept improving at their labor of love! If you released a game a while ago, but still continued to improve and build upon it even if it didn't do so well on launch, this Fest is your second chance to bring new players! Specific Requirements Game must have released/EA'ed at least 18+ months ago Published a major content update in the past 12 months (See the application form for clarification) I hope Valve will approve this. It's”
“Hello hivemind, I'm at a loss here. Our game ( Hope: A Sky Full of Ghosts ) is participating in Steam's Cyberpunk Fest, and although I know it's not for everyone, it feels like Steam isn't showing it at all. Each spike in the graph is an event we have been in, so I had high expectations when we got approved by Steam. I know our game isn't the next What Remains of Edith Finch, Thimbleweed Park or Mutazione, but I hoped an official event would bring more people than non-officia”
“I've been marketing my indie horror game for about 2 months now Current result: 162 Steam wishlists And honestly, I'm starting to wonder if I'm approaching marketing completely wrong I've tried posting gameplay clips, Shorts, TikTok, Reddit, dev updates, etc. Some posts get thousands of views, occasionally something performs really well, but converting that attention into actual wishlists has been much harder than I expected. So I'm curious, especially from developers who'”
“We're a two person team about to spend our one Next Fest slot in October, and I'd rather get this wrong in a thread than in November. Setup: first person survival crafting game, 30 minute rounds, procedurally generated islands, solo or four player co-op. Store page has been up for a few weeks. Early Access launch is planned for November, and we're still deciding where in the month to land. Next Fest closes on October 26, so early November puts us about two weeks after the fest, and l”
“My team is getting ready to launch Early Access for our studio’s first game, but I’m wondering if it would be better to wait and build toward Steam Next Fest first. I feel that delaying the Early Access launch could give us more time to prepare, promote the demo, and hopefully get more attention during Next Fest. For developers who have gone through this before: was Steam Next Fest worth delaying your launch for? I’d really appreciate any advice or experience from other developers. submitt”
“Our game, Warped Universe, got accepted into the Cyberpunk Fest on Steam. It feels really cool to be in this. We were discussing old sci-fi movies we loved back in the brainstorm phase, and started looking at concept art of those movies. The Blade Runner concept art by Syd Mead really struck us with the watercolor look and contrasting colors. We eventually decided to base our game off the look of those paintings versus the actual movie itself. This is why our game environment has a painterly loo”
“Festival just started, and it is my first ever big steam festival, so no experience to say anything about this position. Is it good? steam page submitted by /u/playsynapse [link] [comments]”
“I am currently preparing a more serious external playtest for my indie game and I am trying to understand which recruitment methods actually work. I enabled Steam Playtest signup without any promotion. After releasing the Playtest app, the number of requests jumped to 108 within a few minutes, which made me to suspect bots and other non-genuine accounts. Still, I granted access to 14 applicants, and after two days none of them had launched the game. This makes the public Steam Playtest signup po”
“For the past while, I’ve been working solo on FLATLINE — a moody, narrative-driven experience set in an abandoned, overgrown version of London in 2036. Today is a big moment for the project because the game is officially participating in the Steam Cyberpunk Festival, and the free demo is live right now! If you enjoy slow-paced atmospheric exploration, dystopian urban settings, and dark storytelling, I’d love for you to check it out and let me know what you think. 🔗 Steam Page / Demo: https://st”
“While preparing for my game demo release and I came across the Steam traffic page. I didn't even realize there was a coming soon list for demos but I saw this row and was kind of surprised by how low the click-through percentage was, at only 0.35%. Is this normal for upcoming demos, is my capsule art just really bad, or is there something else I'm missing? submitted by /u/vagabonesgame [link] [comments]”
“Hello Fellows! My game has recently had a significant wave of attention and is gaining 1k Wishlist and over 1k playtest signups per day following a July 29th trailer launch. I am wondering whether I should expect any sort of visibility on places like "MORE LIKE THIS" section, "Discovery Queue", and even "Featured & Recommended", or others. While common wisdom says "yes, of course", keep in mind that my game is not released, has no playable demo yet. I”
“My game will be on a festival soon and I'm looking to improve my Steam Page. What do you guys think? Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4222520/Hordestomp/?beta=0 submitted by /u/Proper_Translator678 [link] [comments]”
“The game I'm working on called "Hordestomp" and I will be joining an upcoming festival on Steam! I'm looking to maximize wishlists from this event so I've updated my Steam Page. I've previously asked for feedback before and updated the Steam Page accordingly. So I'm looking for feedback again! Here's the Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4222520/Hordestomp/ Here's the Steam Demo if you'd like to try it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app”
“The game I'm working on called "Hordestomp" and I will be joining an upcoming festival on Steam! I'm looking to maximize wishlists from this event so I've updated my Steam Page. I've previously asked for feedback before and updated the Steam Page accordingly. So I'm looking for feedback again! Here's the Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4222520/Hordestomp/ Here's the Steam Demo if you'd like to try it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app”
“This is a bit of a marketing question. I'm solo-releasing a PSX-style game on Steam called TRAUMAHACK. As I've shared it around and made posts, I've noticed that the game tends to resonate with peole that have played Half-Life (both 1 & 2). I'm at an impasse because I don't know how to reach that crowd. Like, do I just go onto their subreddit and post blatant advertising? That will break rules and just get the post taken down. I feel lucky that I know this group of people”
“As a solo developer I am really happy to announce my game has been accepted to participate Steam Cyberpunk Fest. I do not have a demo yet. But I think it will be a great experience for me to prepare Steam Next Fest October. I would be really happy to hear about your experiences and advices for any steam fest. submitted by /u/Jimmy_okacha [link] [comments]”
“I have a game and I am about to release a demo. I also want to participate in Steam Pins & Pegs Fest on 17 August. Is it better to release the Demo on 16 August or tomorrow? submitted by /u/cristyhj [link] [comments]”
“Only on this weekend we went to our first IRL expo at EAI JOGOS ( São Paulo - Brazil )... i was a bit nervous because our only laptop is old veteran that doesn't run vulkan but we could make 20+ people play our game with almost no bugs ( it crashed hard with one person and it made me kinda anxious )...that day alone was extremely good. Then a streamer that i raided some times played my game the next day.A medium sized stream normaly hitting 80+ viewers absolutely loved my game. We launched o”
“This year will be our first time exhibiting at Gamescom as indie developers. We're a team of just two people, and thanks to an incubation program we'll have our own booth to showcase our game, Tainted Ground. It's like a dream for us, but you can not live on dreams so... Here's our current plan: Book meetings with publishers and other industry professionals: We've been using MeetToMatch to schedule as many meetings as possible before the event. Publishers are our main focus,”
“Posted last week asking what makes people stop at booths and got some good answers, mostly swag and demos and people not looking bored lol This one's more specific though. last Dreamforce I went out of my way to visit a booth purely because they had this game running, they'd set up an actual dedicated space for it, not just a corner, and they were giving out gifts to whoever won. I ended up staying there way longer than I planned just because it was fun and everyone around was hyped So i”
“I reorganized my game assets and Steam tags. I added a little more information about the lore; I hope "Beat Tarusu" gets accepted into the festival. submitted by /u/Jimmy_okacha [link] [comments]”
“My game is listed in an upcoming country-specific developer festival on Steam (third-party, not Valve). There's a separate shelf for demos that release during the festival – vs a general shelf for games that already have a demo. so, the question i have now: does releasing the demo exactly during the festival actually drive more visibility within the festival itself? Or is the separate shelf just cosmetic and the traffic difference is negligible? Trying to decide whether to release now and st”
“My game is listed in an upcoming country-specific developer festival on Steam (third-party, not Valve). There's a separate shelf for demos that release during the festival – vs a general shelf for games that already have a demo. Question: does releasing the demo exactly during the festival actually drive more visibility within the festival itself? Or is the separate shelf just cosmetic view for those who wanna check new one and the traffic difference is negligible? Trying to decide whether t”
“A few days ago I decided that I want to release a demo of my first commercial game during the February 2027 Steam Next Fest. It's a small tower defense game with cards and enemy waves, and I think it's a realistic first project for me. The problem is... I've never released a game on Steam before. I'm honestly a bit overwhelmed by everything outside of game development itself: marketing, setting up the Steam page, the submission process, building wishlists, deadlines, and”
“We opened our Steam page with 89 wishlists just before Steam Train Fest. By the end of the festival, we were at 381 wishlists . Curious to hear how much Steam festivals have moved the needle for other developers. submitted by /u/Noktaloren [link] [comments]”
“We're a small team working on Cages: Hidden Worlds, a first-person puzzle game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4232550/Cages_Hidden_Worlds/ We're looking to apply to events, festivals, partnerships, anything that would get eyes on the game. Currently, we're following the howtomarketagame calendar and applying where we fit, but beyond that, any suggestions would be most welcome :) We do have a budget, so paid entries are also viable. submitted by /u/SnapbreakGames [lin”
“https://preview.redd.it/o1hj9llt6lfh1.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=88ab59641011e69252f000c9ad853a1281089713 The overall numbers are still modest— 3,050 net wishlists —and while the marketing campaign started to lose momentum over the past week, Steam has given the game much more visibility during the last three days. Here are the impressions from the past three months: https://preview.redd.it/506j40zz6lfh1.png?width=1294&format=png&auto=webp&s=f8bca4f9e3165f4e5486”
“Any ideas on how I can make it look more appealing and professional? I wanna also make it look very autumnal, for october's Next Fest. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3322730/Nocturnal_Visitors_Book_One/ submitted by /u/miguelhdeath [link] [comments]”
“So my game has been around for about 18 months, getting abut 0-1 wishlist per day. Then suddenly, with about 40 days left to launch, it gets 30, 10, 10 and 10 wishlists these last four days, respectively. I've searched online, hoping to find some positive mention of it, but with no result. Is the sudden surge in wishlists due to recent changes in how Steam handles games as launch day comes closer? I released another game on April 21 and there was nothing like this. submitted by /”