My First Solodev Game on Steam! (A Small Question)

I have no idea, but have a bump so maybe a fellow dev sees it and can advise.

Depends on the size of the YouTuber (if Let's Play videos is what you're referring to), but they'll probably do a video on your game in return for a free key for it.

Well what kind of game is it a little arcade style one or a bigger one that is more of a longer game? What price are you thinking of? You and by you I mean anyone should be looking at any game they put out as a fail from the start - that way if it fails it's not too bad

I mean with the amount of games coming out every day from big to small and everything else people need money for - most games will get a little sales but not enough to make it a full time business

As for paying people to make videos on it or Stream it unless you can pay people with a free key I wouldn't bother - I (and of course I don't know you) would doubt you have contacts already and no offence but I can't see you having the money or be important enough to get someone of decent size to play your game - if they do they would maybe do it for a lot more people again you would get lost in the shuffle.

You have to think how much money you want to/can afford to spend on promotion - I mean you said you have 150 wish-lists (which is really good) but until they are sales that means very little sadly as anyone can wish-list 1000's of games at any time without every really doing more than that.

One thing I would advise against is using one of these sites where you do a few tasks for points to spend on free keys - two reasons paying them to add a task to wish-list your game is:
1 - They wish-list it just for the points and don't even look at what the game is about
2 - They wish-list it grab the points then un wish-list when they are claimed

Maybe do a 50+ key giveaway on here is more the way to go while I can't say if the game will be played still you have more of a chance to get it in the hands of gamers who might give fair and honest feedback and reviews as again paying a streamer (even with free keys) means they are more likely (not everyone of course is like this) to say overly positive things in the hopes of other dev/pub or maybe if you get another game out getting keys for free from them.

I hope some of this helps you

If you are an indie dev, you shouldn't go all in on your game. The truth is most indie games don't even make back the 100 usd the steam store page cost. Also the way Steam works, you shouldn't release a game below 7k wishlists, because the algorithm won't place it on the front page on your release date, if it's below that. Wishlist conversions are generally very low, around 5%, so 150 is not nearly enough.

You should look for similar games and find where their players go to and promote your game there. If your game is about aliens, maybe posting on alien related subreddits or facebook groups etc would be ideal. I doubt influencers are worth it, unless you specifically seek out people in your genre. If your game is a strategy game, and you pay a big influencer who primarily plays fps games, that won't translate to more wishlists, because his/her audience don't care for strategy games.

Well, given the premise of your game, there’s going to be a lot of people not interested in the game…

I'm sorry to break the news to you, but you probably will not be making money on your first release. Unless you come from a very eminent game studio and your name is well known, the vast majority of one-dev games (99%+) don't see any significant return. Certainly not in the range of something that would make sense financially, with all the time spent creating the game.

There are several one-dev studios that have Youtube channels. I recommend looking them up and comparing strategies. My first recommendation, though, is lowering your expectations.

1. Register as a developer (green) to keymailer.co
2. Find and claim your game
3. Fill in missing data, trailer, why influencers should play it and such, start a campaign and wait for requests
4. Check out upgrades, some are worth it for press blast, outreach and such - but only if your game is really attractive

I think you can leverage the curator system through steam and send keys to reviewers that way, though I personally have no clue how helpful that is to devs.

Regardless, your game ticks boxes for me, so I wishlisted it.

as a person whos been gaming for years
i fucking hate influencers and dont trust the reviews they give at all
you need unedited gameplay footage on the store page. what people can trust the most
also is there a setting to turn off the blood? i turn blood and gore off in every game i play

It's not my style at all, but the game looks great for your first attempt at development. Whether or not this one is a financial success I hope you keep going!

You are going to get lots of 'expert' advice but only a very small percentage of people around here actually have firsthand experience in developing or marketing a game. Everyone else is pretty much making stuff up or repeating something they read one time. Take all amateur advice with a grain of salt. (And that includes mine!)

And speaking of amateur advice: mine is to take advantage of this website as much as possible. This is a pretty good way to reach a decent amount of Steam users, at no cost.

best advice I can give you is to release the game not just on steam, but on itch too if it's possible (idk how it works though). Reason is, there's a lot of big youtubers that do series like "Let's play 3 short games" in a video and they almost ALWAYS pick games from itch and steam. It was thanks to those series that I became aware of the Chilla's Art games, the Fears to Phantom games, etc;

I would never found out if I didn't see those series from said youtubers (and even though I have yet to play them, I own one or two for this exact reason).

Now this doesn't guarantee you will have success, but the more exposure the better. I wishlisted your game, good luck!

So, some real talk.

The game looks interesting, but it will definitely be a niche Indie title.

Unless you have a real marketing budget, don't pay for streamers to promote it. And before you hire anybody anyway, always look into what games they've covered and any tangible results that have come from it. Chat with other devs who have hired them. People usually make promises that are beyond their actual capabilities. Don't fall prey to that.

Similarly, when looking at offering licenses via Curator Connect, don't just send it to the top curators Steam shows you. Most of those curators won't actually play your game and at best will post meme curation to their mostly bot followers. Dive a little deeper and read how they actually review games, look at how frequently they post quality reviews, and so on. A good reviewer who rarely posts reviews is of no benefit to you either.

In both of the above, check to see if they specifically cover games such as yours in any real capacity.

Basically, do your due diligence. Most influencers/curators only care about getting free games rather than actually playing games (or playing more than the minimum required to honor a contract). Never make decisions based on a fear of failure.

one of the many devs here once posted a youtube video about how his experiences with his first game, Regrowth .
dont know if itll answer all your questions but it might be interesting for you