The first Steam Next Fest of 2025 is now over. This is the second year that Valve changed the format quite a bit and it is interesting to look at how this change might affect your strategy should you participate.
In this post I will be looking at some top down observations and “vibes” I got from it but to truly understand how it went I need more data. So if your game was in the February Steam Next Fest, please complete this form:
👉 Steam Next Fest February 2025 Survey
Vibe #1: No gatekeeping Day 1
If you explored Next Fest on the first day you would have noticed some very unprofessional games. This is part of the plan. Last Next Fest Valve decided to open the gates and let every game have equal exposure. However, I don’t think most people are ready to see everything Steam has to offer.
Some journalists reached out to me about “AI Slop” games. I gave my full more nuanced response here. Aftermath: Steam Users Worry Good Next Fest Games Are Being Crowded Out By AI Slop, But the Real Problem Is More Complicated. (Side note: who said there was a problem? I didn’t write the title. Be aware of press negativity bias)
I noticed browsing Day 2 most of the “slop” was gone. Steam players are very smart and if the game doesn’t look good to them, they don’t wishlist. I am very confident in the Steam algorithm and the Steam player base to find good games.
Vibe #2: Top of the charts started moving
In previous Next Fests, the charts were one of the first things you saw. This leads to an extreme winner take all. Also the charts didn’t move very much. Here is my take on all 3 of the charts
“Popular Upcoming”
This chart represented games with the most total wishlists. It didn’t move much – which isn’t surprising. No single next fest can get one game hundreds of thousands of wishlists more than another game which would make it rise up those charts.
Based on my estimates to get into the top 25 of the list, you would need around 7400 followers by the start of Steam Next Fest which is about about 70,000 wishlists. This is actually in line with most other Next Fests and doesn’t seem like some sort of exponential ramp-up in baseline wishlist requirements.
“Top Demos”
This seemed to be based on total number of plays for demos (not CCU) – a smart move considering idle games do much better in CCU than a short puzzle game.
I have no idea the number required to end up here (the survey linked above may help).
But this chart moved quite a bit through out the week.
In fact I saw 6 games rocket up the chart by the last day that were not there the first:
- Megabonk
- Emissary Zero
- Is This Seat Taken?
- 9 Kings
- Fellowship
- Shape of Dreams
“Trending Upcoming”
This is the number of wishlist counts. Similar to “Top Demos” This chart moved quite a bit throughout the festival. My bet is the window that they track “trending” was quite short so that new games could appear and disappear from the list.
For instance the following games fell off the chart:
- Total Chaos
- Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark
- Nice Day for Fishing
- Darkwater
- Solasta II
- RailGods of Hysterra
- Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days
- Aethermancer
- Deliver At All Costs
- Monster Train 2
These games appeared on the chart by the last day:
- Haste: Broken Worlds
- Shape of Dreams
- Chernobylite 2: Exclusion Zone
- Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days
- Dragonkin: The Banished
- PUBG: Blindspot
- The King Is Watching
- Schedule I
- 9 Kings
- Whisper of the House
- Junkyard Builder
- Pastel Parade
Encouragingly a game like Pastel Parade only gained about 129 followers from before the festival to the end of it. I know of other games that had bigger swings but still didn’t end up on the list. So it is a mystery how they got there.
Vibe #3: Find friends at SNF
2 of the hottest games were The King Is Watching and 9 Kings. Both are pixel-art crafty-buildy-strategy games where you must manage a city to build up defenses from an onslaught of enemies. Both have the word “King” in them. These two games should be rivals right? They should hate each other? They should despair that someone copied them. Lawyers should be called.
NOPE
They actually partnered up!
They announced during Next Fest that upon launch they would be bundling together. It is great that they reached out to each other and amazing that they did it so quickly. THIS is good, proactive marketing.
Here is their announcement and sister announcement.
This is how you market folks. Indie game developers are not in competition (see this post) and learn about economies of agglomeration
Vibe #4: Very tailored results
In the week before Steam Next Fest I played a fishing game and a Idle Farming game. My recommendations on day 1 and 2 were all Farming and Fishing.
I was trying a bunch of demos throughout the fest and by the end I was getting platformers and automation games.
Just one data point, but it seems my Next Fest recommendations were heavily weighted by what I played recently.
This shows you must be aware of current genres and ensure your tags are correct!
Vibe #5: Cool demo tricks I saw:
- Add more levels throughout the game as Shotgun Cop Man did to encourage replayability. Also here is their “beat the demo” screen:
- I really liked this final “nag” to add to your wishlist after beating the game. This is from Is This Seat Taken
Vibe #6: Most played demos
At the end of the Fest Valve published a list of the most played demos
I looked at each and assigned 1 and only 1 genre to each. Again, this is not based on tags, but on my own judgement. Here were the most common genres in the top demos:
Crafty-buildy-simulation-strategy games are again top of the charts.
I also classified every single demo based on the types of graphics they had. Again these are my judgements. If you are wondering “Realistic sim” is that basic art style that most Simulation games have. Where they are realistic looking models and objects that you get off an asset store; they aren’t ugly, but they aren’t stylized. They kind of just look like mannequins walking around.
Note how high Pixelart is. A lot of devs feel self conscious making Pixelart games. Don’t be! But one caveat is that all of the pixelart games were strategy, management, or Vampire-survivor-likes.
My theory is that pixelart allows developers to make deeper games because of the lower cost of asset creation. Pixelart hurts games that are more narrative and content-based games like platformers and RPGs since those games are all about immersion and novel graphical effects. Note that all the RPGs and platformers were 3D games. Actually there was only one Platformer in the top charts and that was HASTE: Broken Worlds which has a beautiful unique art style using 3D art.
Demo lets plays
As part of this Next Fest I played a bunch of demos and posted analysis to my Youtube Channel.