Secrets of Successful Marketing for PC Games on Steam

What the talk is about

Serhii Hyliuk talks about marketing a PC game on Steam, using a mobile game his studio ported to PC in March 2015 and reviewing the mistakes he made. Main points: Steam gets more new releases every year, so a game needs quality, a distinct niche and no in-app purchases; the store page should show real gameplay in the trailer, plus trading cards and achievements. The strongest channels are players and forums, social networks and a dev blog, and video bloggers and Let's Play creators, who are trusted more than the press and are best approached by sending a game key right away. He also shares his pricing and discount experiment, where a deep discount produced the biggest revenue spike. In the Q&A he covers early access, publishers and marketing budgets. Useful for indie teams preparing a Steam release with little or no marketing budget.