Chris Zukowski: Marketing Ladder on Steam
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- Marketing a game is tricky and confusing. In this talk, Chris Zukowski will review the best practices for marketing your game. He will show you examples and actual data from recently released games that illustrate how the Steam algorithm works.
Chris Zukowski is a game marketing consultant and strategist. He has helped Games as a Service companies, Indie Publishers, and small to single-person teams understand their audience and communicate with them in a more personal way. He specializes in optimizing your marketing for the Steam algorithm, creating fantastic Steam pages that sell themselves and setting up Email marketing campaigns that your fans will look forward to opening. See more of his amazing work, read the blog, order the newsletter, and start a course here: howtomarketagame.com/
Recorded 13.2.2023.
00:00 - Intro
04:06 - The Ladder - how to get your game featured on Steam?
05:17 - Initial Attention
06:26 - 6 types of Magic
10:55 - How to get wishlists?
11:58 - Seeing is believing -games
10:07 - Playing is believing -games
19:33 - The (no) secret to success
20:09 - What type of game sells?
24:09 - Does my game have The Magic?
25:33 - When do I make a coming soon page?
28:28 - Continued Growth
33:19 - Curated Exposure
37:38 - Steam Featuring
40:14 - Launch
40:39 - Steam Curation
42:07 - Trading up
Somehow funny how a lot of people who talk about all the best ways and tools to market your game and then recommend to watch this guy, and the one crucial thing Chris tells his audience is: you have to deliver quality, if you want to success. Chris actually doesn't deliver any new or groundbreaking info here. I perosnally don't think this talk is inspiring, but rather he is grounding his listeners. Great talk, great examples, motivating, and a very sympathetic person.
Great video!
I wish the captions weren't baked into the video though. It made it tough to read the slides.
Very good point, thank you for the feedback. I need to look into that.
@@lgin I second that, it's a minor issue but it was a little bothering at times.
Great talk! Thanks!
Indie devs: "What time do I post on Reddit?"
Chris Z: "You post on Reddit when you have a good game. That's the best time to post"
Literal lol.
Hah yeah, I 'm glad I remembered to mute myself before that one!
Chris is a gift to many of us. Keep it up!
Always great to see more talks from Chris! Found this by chance in my youtube recommendations
This is treasure trove of knowledge! 🤩
invaluable information. thank you 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿
Priceless! Thanks Chris
I can't get enough content from Chris... This video is just A-MA-ZING!
This video is a great resource! Thanks!!!!
The best ever video about Steam marketing. Thank you for sharing!
We agree ;) Chris is awesome! We're happy to be able to help.
Amazing value
awesome talk! i feel like Genre chart isn't fully accurate. we need to know total amount of games released in given genre and then calculate the percentage of how many made to the top reviews.
Also, "top" isn't very useful. Firstly, the value changes. Secondly, depending on how it's calculated, it is either by revenue (so a cheaper game would need to sell more copies) or by number of copies (so revenue could be anything based on unit price). Thirdly, at least a mean would be good. Games that go top are, by definition, statistical outliers. Most devs will never hit that, so knowing the mean or what percentage of games make it into the top quartile would be much more useful.
Loved it, thanks for posting :)
Great video! Wish I’d found this guy sooner
My new favorite guy on the internet
Many thanks for the guide! What magic does a story-driven game fall under if there isn't incredibly beautfiul graphics, #4 amazing addictive gameplay? In this case, what if the demo is unable to capture the essence of the story due to the demo necessarily being too short or if the plot and character development only pays off much later?
I'm sorry to say this, but if you're unable to communicate the magic in the length of a demo.... it's unlikely that a significant number of players will be committed enough to get to the point where you do.
You absolutely can and should leave story hooks for later, too. But some "magic" needs to happen in the early steps, too.
@@lgin Thanks for the detailed reply! So the demo needs to have its own self-contained storyline in addition to leaving story hooks that set up something later? That honestly makes sense!
@@EruElpidus I know it's a big title but your situation reminded me of Resident Evil Biohazard immediately, they probably had the same issue and came up with a clever side story to be used as demo. I guess such solutions would be really useful if we're not developing mechanics based games.
Got an eery place you're going to build your story around? Send a documentary crew and make them sh*t in their pants in 15 minutes and leave the player with a hook. ^^
you should drop a link to his website in the description
That is a good point, why did we not think of that! Adding now. Thanks.
np! love what you're doing!@@lgin
When he says multiplayer games don't do well on Steam, does he mean local multiplayer (for eg. two in the same computer) or does he mean internet multiplayer? I hope he reads this comment. This was a great video.
Hope he reads this and answers!
From my part - one thing that's definitely challenging for indies when it comes to online multiplayer is the "cold start problem" - i.e., to be interesting as an online multiplayer you already have to have a certain number of players. How do you build that fast enough with an indie budget and indie visibility? Before the early players realize that there's no-one to play against, and give up?
Local multiplayer, then, is a different challenge - how many Steam players actually play on the same computer all that often? As far as I know, the number isn't that high, that's more a console player thing.
But let's hope Chris notices this and answers, too! Happy to hear the video was useful!
@@lgin great comment. Very interesting. Thanks.
good marketing starts with a good game..
And not just a good one, but a magical one ;) very true, marketing cannot force people to be interested in an uninteresting game.
Ngl, abusing a demo as early access without getting the bad rep that often comes with early access nowadays (I mean, justified in many cases) is probably the most genius idea I have heard this entire year.
I have a demo, still no interress in wishlisting my game. I wonder what i missed out.? here is the game : a land Goo's crazy
Hey man, saw your comment here and I checked up your game. I know its been a while, but I hope you don't mind my criticism! I don't mean to be rude, I only wish to help you maybe have more successful game lauches in the future!
1. First off, I think the game's name is a little confusing. Just by reading it I assume english is not your first language (it is not mine either), but I think the usage of apostrophe in your title makes no sense. It probably already pushes some people away from your game. Having a grammar mistake in your title makes it seems amateurish.
2. I think your presentantion is too dense on information in general! The gifs in your Steam page are too fast to be comprehensible, "The Altar"'s gameplay trailer has some huge objects in the foreground of the scenery that detracts a lot from the gameplay (from what I see in the pictures, I think the ice levels' foreground is also too dense in information) and there a bunch of static icons on the screen at all times that hardly seem useful for the player (For instance, you don't need to have the command for opening the menu on screen all the time, since the player will rarely consult such information during combat. Have this kind of information fade out and only show up when the player stays idle for a while!).
3. Incomplete assets? From the trailer itself it seems you use some images in the character's skills/attacks that are not setup correctly, where they should have transparent backgrounds but are displayed as solid white squares. This kind of amateurish mistake would immediately turn most people away from your game.
4. You don't have a real trailer. You put two long gameplay videos, but you don't have an actual built and marketable trailer for people who do visit your page...
@@Detril2000 thx for the constructiv critisism. Yes i deleted the Demo and the trailer is also deleted and I am on a new one.
I have made manny changes white some marketing folks. The train is off for this game as you said. The box is opened and inside is exactly whats promissed from outside. I dont want to look like a Professional Gamestudio. That would be a lie in front of field, so I just slowly adjust my flawor of love until it is commercial enought. Still you comment is 100% worth and I will think about it.
@@Detril2000 In these 5 month manny things changed for a good. WISHLISTS will not raise annymore after release. I just failed to take the ticket of steams rules. Next fest and early marketing. Rest is well luck and some Professionality. My 1st Game, is ok for now. May I send you a key to try the game. Maybe You find some more good changes. Regards VELEST from Switzerland
@@VSalgc I'm glad you are still working on other games! I found your art very unique and charming, and I'm sure that with all your learned with your first release you will have greater success in the future!
Regards Detril from Brazil!
Looks like I am Srewed. I making a puzzle game called SCULPT.
I am a prime example for being in the lowest tier in all of Chris' charts, lol. The only thing I am in the median range is average demo play time.
Why don't AA and AAA game studios use this framework(or something similar)?
I'm sure they think about this stuff, too! From what I've heard from friends who work in those studios, they do.
But they also have plenty more resources to pour into marketing, so their options aren't as limited as those of an indie. Also, they have already built a bunch of visibility by becoming AA / AAA - they already have the eyes of press and influencers. They have the leverage built in, whereas indies have to build it case by case until they've got enough fame.
Im not sure if rules has changed since this video but r/gaming doesnt allow promoting your own game on there as of now, at least my post was instantly removed.
"a door knob for a cooking stove" what??
Chris did a bump of coke before this talk - he's so hyperactive 😂
I have never done drugs. It is just being into stuff.
@@howtomarketagame and we're thankful for you being into stuff! Your excitement is energizing for the rest of us, too.