Monday was the first day of Steam Next Fest. Now that participating games have about 24 hours worth of data, the first question out of developer’s minds is “Is this normal?”

I have been collecting wishlist and impression data from several past festivals and today I am announcing a little tool where you can enter in your daily Store Impressions and Wishlist totals and it will show you where the game performs according to the past festival. Check the tool out here at howtomarketagame.com/snf

What’s new this SNF?

Not a lot. So far the only thing I noticed was this button that doesn’t actually function:

This button mainly serves to tamper the regular comment “Steam is now all AI art!” Well in the first 2 days you are going to see some real weird shit on the front page of Steam. Don’t worry. It happens every year. This is what distributing visibility to smaller indies looks like. You will see some unprofessional, some scammy, some questionable artistic choices. It will go away Wednesday when the algorithm decides what is worth.

If you want to see me look at what is new and a tour of the new wishlist comparision tool check out my new youtube video:

Common questions about Steam Next Fest

  1. I have data for how my game performed you are probably going to want it right? Maybe. I don’t know I am kind of tired of writing about Steam Next Fest. The algorithm doesn’t look like it has changed much. So unless I see some really really big changes vs the February 2026 edition, I am probably not going to write about it. Just use the tool. Let me know if anything is very very off regarding numbers. I have said pretty much everything there is to say about SNF with this bench mark report.
  2. Ok my day 1 numbers weren’t great, how do I improve it for the final days of SNF. Unfortunately there isn’t much you can do. Don’t run ads because all the big publishers are already and you will be bidding for ad space against them. Content creators already have their calendars booked for what games they will play. Everyone in SNF is already posting to Reddit. My advice is just quickly patch your demo if there are major bugs, but other than that releax. Play some demos. Learn and see what other games are doing well in SNF.
  3. (Wednesday or Thursday) the SNF top banner will turn into a pop-under banner and some AAA game will take the top banner spot. Don’t Freak Out. It happens every single SNF. People complain that it is hurting their visibility, but it has been that way every single SNF. You get 15 minutes of fame, at least Steam gave you 3 days.