One of the most common questions I get is along the lines of “I don’t want to put my Steam page up too early because I don’t want to overexpose my game before launch” Or “I don’t want to reach out to content creators now because they will be tired of my game by the time of launch.” These people always think gamers get “tired.”
The number one brain adjustment new indie game developers need to make is that ESSENTIALLY there is an infinite number of players on Steam. You cannot, as an indie, every, in any way, show everyone that would buy your game.
Consider The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. It was originally released in Nov 4, 2014. As part of the 2026 Steam Summer sale the team discounted the game to a historic low of 90% off.
This triggered a huge resurgence in the game. Last week there were over 150,000 concurrent players of a game that was 15 years old.
The developer Edmund McMillen reported that it had eclipsed his latest game mewgenics for the most concurrent players.
This is where you have to start changing how you think about Steam. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth released over a decade ago and was WILDLY popular at launch. It was made by one of the most well-known indie game developers. It was even a remaster of an earlier version released in 2011 (which is why some people say the game is 12 years old and some say 15.) On any typical day (even before the 90% off) the game had ~20,000 concurrent players.
How is there anyone who hasn’t already bought this game over the last 15 years?
The reason, is that essentially, Steam is infinite. You must picture it as you do the cosmos. There are over 132 million monthly active users on Steam and 1 billion Steam accounts. You will never EVER EVER expose your game to all these people. You are too small, you will never be able to reach every single person.
Also, even if you mess up and show an early version of screenshots, or upload a buggy build of your demo, you can pull it down and fix it. There is an infinite number of people who will see it again for the first time.
“Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs — in time, in space, and in potential — the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors”
– Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot
But why isn’t anyone wishlisting or buying my game?
If the Steam universe is in fact infinite then shouldn’t we all be able to live as full time game developers? There has to be someone out there who will buy my game?
Theoretically yes, but the limiting factor is the relative excitement of your game. There may be a star that out-shines you.
If there is a game that is similar to yours but their gameplay is more fun, the graphics are better, the audience will spend their time playing that game and not yours. When shown your competitor, they will spend their money on it, not yours.
If the Steam algorithm shows your game for 1 day, and it does not sell as well as another game that is shown in the same spot for the same amount of time, Steam will always choose to show that game before yours.
That is the mental switch you have to make. You cannot over-expose your game, the bigger risk is that your game is not interesting enough. The biggest hindrance is that when people see it on sale they say “eh, maybe later.”
What you should fear
So when you are planning out your marketing strategy don’t ever think “I need to wait, I might over-expose my game” or “Hey I don’t want to reach out to content creators too early because I might ‘burn them out’”.
You cannot.
If you are trying to figure out why your launch underperformed, avoid the thought “We may have over-exposed our game too early.” It’s impossible.
The biggest risk is that you are making a boring game. Do everything in your power to avoid that fate.