The amazing thing about Steam and its player base is that they buy games they aren’t going to play. More than likely the person buying your game is not going to play it.
In today’ blog I am going to deep dive on how Steam players actually behave which hopefully makes you less anxious about selling your game.
Let’s start with this famous quote from Reed Hastings the co-founder of Netflix. It goes like this:
“We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO there are thousands of competitors in this highly fragmented market vying to entertain consumers… Our growth is based on how good our experience is, compared to all the other screen time experiences from which consumers choose.” Read the article here
And then there is this other similar comment….
“You know, think about it, when you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night. We’re competing with sleep, on the margin. And so, it’s a very large pool of time.” Read the article here.
Side note: Netflix is being dramatic for marketing effect and make them seem more important in the eyes of shareholders.
Now you are reading these quotes, developing your game, hoping that it will sell well, and you might fear that if Nextflix, Fortnite, and sleep are all competing for a person’s time, how are you, tiny indie, possibly going to steal an hour away from these giants?
But the reason Steam makes indies so much money compared to all the other platforms is that they have built up an audience that is full of super die hard hobbyists. And by definition a hobbyist is someone who is very interested in a subject and doesn’t worry about how much money they are spending on it.
Basically, hobbyists buy stuff not because they actually want to consume it, but because they are collecting it.
Let me explain.
I like to search random hobbyist subreddits and search “pile of shame.”
Here is a Lego pile of shame. The guy posting it asked “Here’s a question: what set would you say I should NOT build and why?”
On the Warhammer subreddit, someone posted their pile of shame and said “This is the year to work on the pile. And this isn’t even counting all my completed models waiting for paint.”
Knitters call their “pile of shame” their “stash” and post memes like this:
The Japanese even have the word “tsundoku” which means buying books and piling them up knowing that you won’t read them. Image credit
The power of Steam as a platform is that it enables hoarding
A couple years ago Simon Carless wrote this really good article that found that the median steam player has 51.5% of their collection unplayed. HALF!
You are not competing with sleep or Netflix
Valve cracked the problem that Netflix was struggling with: how do you sell to people who have so much entertainment at their fingertips that they don’t have enough hours in the day to play and watch it all. Valve basically added infinite hours to a gamer’s day, it is a theoretical future day where gamers might someday spend hours playing your game (but let’s be honest, won’t).
The reason game developers are willing to give Valve 30% of their revenue is because the Steam marketplace is packed with super gamers who throw money at games they have no intention of playing.
When I ran a survey of games that participated in Steam Next Fest, I found that for the median game most people only wishlist a game without even playing the demo. THE DEMO IS FREE! If players are so interested in the game, why don’t they play it!
After I published this study data, many developers couldn’t believe this. They thought that this is proof that developers shouldn’t waste time making demos if the majority of shoppers aren’t even going to play them.
You still need to make a demo! And yes most players won’t play it. But that isn’t bad. Steam players get satisfaction out of finding a hidden gem and adding it to their collection. This is how Steam and their player base functions! Regardless if it is a free demo, or a full game, hobbyists find satisfaction in collecting. Even if they know deep down that they will never actually play it.
So what? How does this affect me?
So first, go in knowing that most people will probably buy your game and never play it. Don’t be discouraged by that! This is totally normal for Steam. It’s a good thing for developers. If Steam shoppers were rational and only bought games they were going to play, we would sell a lot fewer games. Half this industry would be gone.
Knowing Steam players are hoarders explains why you give them that 30%: you get access to a bunch of drunken sailors who spend money irresponsibly.
If you have released a game, you can look at the Steamworks Financial data to see Lifetime total units (which include sales from Steam, and key activations) and compare that to the lifetime unique users who actually launched the game.
Most of this data is just “just so” information. You can’t really take advantage of it. I don’t think you stress and spend your days wondering how you can make more people who bought the game play the game. And don’t ask me to do a deep study asking everyone for their ratio. I don’t think that is an important thing to track or obsess about. I bet that the more popular a game is, the more people buy a game and not play it. Also if your game appeared in a Humble or Fanatical bundle, it is going to be much much higher.
My guess (but I have no definite proof) is that when a game has buzz and everyone is talking about it, more and more steam shoppers buy it even though they don’t intend to play it right away. They probably say to themselves “I should check out this game, a lot of people are talking about it.”
Also, having a good genre and hook might be why shoppers buy a game even if they don’t play it. The game has to intrigue people on sight. That doesn’t mean your game has to be click-bait or a lie. A good example of this is the game Slay the Princess. The stakes, the hook, and action are all right there in the title and the thumbnail. Kill this princess! It is a good, complex, beloved game. Slay the Princess sold much better than Black Tabby Games’ other game Scarlet Hollow because, as the developer pointed out, it has a much subtle proposition that takes longer to explain.
So, don’t be coy, don’t bury what makes your game interesting because you don’t want to “spoil” the story. Spoil it! Get people so interested they THINK they will one day play it.
This might also explain my theory that games that have a very clear genre do better on Steam. If players can look at your game in a glance and figure out the genre, they are more likely to impulse buy because they say “Ah, I love open world survival crafting games! I know this! I am definitely going to play this once I am finished with the other 20 OWSC games in my collection.” If your genre is ambiguous, you won’t be picked up by hoarders.
So, lean into genre tropes. Make sure your trailer, capsule, and UI at a glance look like the other games in your genre.
Also this might explain why launching next to a big AAA launch doesn’t really affect us (I explained this here). If a player is collecting they will just buy the AAA game AND your game if it is interesting enough.
Also this explains why bundling works (I explained bundling here). About 10% of people buying a game will opt in to buy a secondary related game for a discount. They don’t even want to play that bundled game it is just a “why not?” impulse buy. They aren’t going to play it.
Finally, you need to discount your game frequently. Discounting triggers the wishlists which triggers the email that says “this game you wishlisted is now on sale.” The steam summer sale starts this month. The summer sale is the leading way that players fill up their library with games they will never play. Sales drive impulse buys. So always participate in them. Discount your game every chance you get. You are trying to get the impulse purchase.
Full disclosure
I too participate in video game tsundoku. SteamDB has a tool that will show you how few games in your collection you have actually played. Here is mine. 2/3rds of my games were never played.
To see your own stats go here:
And enter your Steam user ID.
Summary
So I think I just spent a bunch of words giving you something to worry about and then told you not to worry about it…. don’t worry about this.
I think it’s just important for developers have a more realistic understanding of who their audience is.
You should probably be more jaded. Not everyone who buys your game is a ravenous fan who will join your discord, do cosplay of your main character, and participate in art contests. Your game is just another brick in their tsundoku pile.
Enjoy game development kids!