It’s officially spooky season – I pulled our family’s Halloween decorations out of the garage this past weekend. Our collective need for Halloween and horror is to expose ourselves to our fears (irrational or not) so that we can transcend them and take on the real horrors of the world. Continue Reading
A deep dive into the games of the spring showcases
On Tuesday I posted about the big spring showcases and which ones performed the best. In today’s post I am diving deep into both the top and bottom performing games. My hope here is to help you figure out how you can get the most out of these showcases and Continue Reading
What are game showcases?
This is a showcase: They usually take the form of a video, posted online, often broadcast live. They feature back to back game trailers played in a somewhat random order. Sometimes these showcases are hosted by a gaming celebrity who you are tangentially aware of because of their appearance in Continue Reading
10 Reasons why you shouldn’t delay contacting content creators
In the years I have spent studying Steam, the biggest revelation I have had is that you should not hold back. You cannot “overexpose” your game. People do not get tired of you. Wishlists don’t get old. The reason a game does not do well is NOT because too many Continue Reading
How much should we freak out about Silksong
So big week this week as Hollow Knight: Silksong is releasing tomorrow and it is the #1 most wishlisted game on Steam. Should we scream? Cry? Yell? What is an appropriate level of fear? Here is a chart of the number of games with at least 400 followers released every Continue Reading
The demo effect: From 7000 wishlists to 42,000
Hello! This is the second installment of case studies about games released by our Moderators. Today we are looking at Parcel Simulator. A surprising number of the HTMAG moderators have gone on to release hit games! Yes yes yes correlation != causation. But, come on, something is rubbing off on Continue Reading
Gnomes: Tower Defense with 10-month dev time hits $367,484
Alright bear with me for the log rolling, but somehow the HTMAG discord has the best moderators. A high percentage of our mods end up releasing successful games. Maybe moderating all these developers’ posts gives them a deeper understanding of the industry? Maybe it is osmosis? Maybe good karma for Continue Reading
2025 Q2 games that are selling
There actually are games that are making money on Steam. Real money. And even small games made by small teams (sometimes even one person) are doing it. Every quarter I dig deep and look at and play Indie games that have earned over 1000 reviews to get a sense of Continue Reading
Don’t make your game free
I have seen a number of marketing strategies lately where developers release their game free with the hope that they will get more visibility. In today’s blog I will explain to you some of the strategies and then warn you of the dangers of free and to persuade you against Continue Reading
Can you market a game with zero following?
Lately I have been seeing more and more first-time devs lament “How can I possibly market my game when I have 0 following! No social media, no youtube subscribers.” In today’s blog post, I am here to reassure you that a huge number of the games that do well come Continue Reading