The indie game publishing guide: every job from Steam page to launch

Most games on Steam sell few copies, and the ones that sell usually built an audience before launch. Each section below is one job, with a guide for each question developers ask about it. Flockbay builds the game on Godot and does many of these jobs from the same chat; the publishing tools are free in beta until 1 December 2026.

• How to make a Steam store page, step by step: Build a Steam store page: description, About This Game, tags, capsules, screenshots, trailer, requirements, content survey, review, Coming Soon.
• When should you make your Steam store page?: As soon as you can talk about the game publicly and its look and loop are settled.
• What a Steam Coming Soon page does for your game: A Coming Soon page collects wishlists, opens your Community Hub and puts the game on upcoming lists.
• How much does it cost to put a game on Steam?: The Steam Direct fee is $100 per game, refunded once it earns $1,000.
• How long Steam's store page review takes: Valve reviews a Steam store page in about 3 to 5 business days and asks for it at least 7 business days ahead.
• How to write a Steam short description: Steam's short description is a few hundred characters of plain text beside your capsule.
• How to choose Steam tags for your game: Steam needs at least 5 tags and shows 20.
• How many screenshots does a Steam page need, and which ones?: Steam requires at least five screenshots at 1920x1080 or larger, gameplay only.
• How to use GIFs in your Steam store description: Steam allows images and looping GIFs in About This Game: under 5 MB each, 15 MB in total.
• Steam image sizes: every capsule, library and event asset, with templates: Every Steam store, library and event image size from Valve's Steamworks docs: capsules, screenshots, background, hero, logo, icons, with free templates.
• Steam capsule art: sizes, rules, and art that reads small: Steam's capsules: header 920x430, small 462x174 (drawn as small as 120x45), main 1232x706, vertical 748x896.
• How to fill in Steam's content survey: Steam's content survey has three parts: general content (regional age ratings), mature content and generative AI.
• Steam's mature content settings, explained: Steam's mature content answers decide which players see your game under their content preferences.
• How to write Steam system requirements for your game: Steam asks for minimum and recommended specs: OS, processor, memory, graphics, storage.
• How to localize your Steam store page: Over 60% of Steam users use it in a language other than English.
• Which languages to translate your Steam page into first: Pick languages from data: Steam's hardware survey, your traffic and your wishlists by region.
• Setting a release date on Steam: Coming Soon, a quarter, or a day: Steam shows a release date five ways: exact day, month, quarter, year or Coming Soon.
• How to move your Steam release date without losing momentum: Steam lets you change a release date up to two weeks before it.
• How to set up a Steam page for your demo: A Steam demo is its own app of the demo type, attached to the base game, with its own build review.
• Steam page checklist: before you submit for review: A Steam store page checklist on Valve's rules: copy, tags, the four capsules, screenshots, trailer, languages, requirements, content survey, review.
• What the best Steam store pages have in common: High-converting Steam pages share a pattern: a capsule that reads small, gameplay in the first screenshot and trailer seconds, a one-line hook, specific tags.
• How to update your Steam page as the game changes: Steam page changes go live when you publish, not when you save.

Flockbay's Steam page drafts the copy, tags, content survey, capsules and library art, and exports a .zip you upload to Steamworks yourself.

• How Steam wishlists work: A wishlist asks Steam to tell a player about a game.
• How to get more wishlists on Steam: More Steam wishlists come from a page that converts and traffic sent to it: festivals, creators, a demo, clips, devlogs, ads.
• How many wishlists do you need before launch?: Work it back from sales: launch week sells a median 0.15x of wishlists for bigger launches.
• Steam wishlist conversion rate: what is normal: A median Steam game with 25,000+ wishlists sells about 0.15x of them in week one, per GameDiscoverCo.
• How to check how many wishlists a Steam game has: Wishlists are private, but followers are public.
• Wishlist deletions: why players remove your game: Every Steam game loses wishlists; buyers leave the list too.
• Steam's Popular Upcoming list: what it is and how games reach it: Popular Upcoming ranks unreleased games by wishlists and their pace near release.
• How many wishlists a day is good?: A good daily wishlist rate is the one that reaches your target in time: 10,000 in a year is about 27 a day.
• How to get to 10,000 wishlists: 10,000 Steam wishlists is a common target, about 1,000 to 1,500 first-week sales at the median.
• Is 7,000 wishlists the magic number?: 7,000 wishlists is Chris Zukowski's rule of thumb for reaching Steam's Popular Upcoming.
• When Steam emails your wishlisters: Steam emails wishlisters at release, at full release from Early Access, for discounts of 20% or more, and once for a demo.
• Wishlist velocity: why the rate matters as much as the total: Wishlist velocity is how fast a game gains wishlists.

Flockbay shows your followers, an estimated wishlist range, and exact wishlists on your own Steamworks key.

• What is Steam Next Fest, and who can enter?: Steam Next Fest is Valve's week-long festival of playable demos, three times a year.
• How to sign up for Steam Next Fest: Register for Steam Next Fest from your base game's App Landing Page in Steamworks.
• Steam Next Fest checklist: eight weeks out to the last day: A Steam Next Fest checklist on Valve's own timeline: registration, demo review, store page, Press Preview, launch day, the week and the wrap-up.
• How many wishlists does Steam Next Fest bring?: In a February 2026 Next Fest survey the median game gained 806 wishlists, the 95th percentile 13,461.
• How to livestream your game during Steam Next Fest: Stream your demo to your own Steam store page during Next Fest: the RTMP token, OBS settings, the broadcast event, the demo App ID trap, and what to show.
• What to do after Steam Next Fest: After Next Fest: read what moved wishlists, decide whether the demo stays up, fix what players hit, and plan the launch.
• Steam's themed festivals: what they are and how to get in: Steam runs week-long themed fests (Racing Fest, Rhythm Fest, Couch Co-Op Fest) open to Coming Soon and demo games.
• The Steam sale calendar, and how to plan a launch around it: Steam's Winter Sale runs 17 Dec 2026 to 4 Jan 2027; Spring 18–25 March and Summer 24 June–8 July 2027.

• How long should a game demo be, and what goes in it?: A demo should be long enough to hook and short enough to leave players wanting more: often 15 to 60 minutes.
• A prologue or a demo on Steam: which one?: A Steam demo is a demo app attached to your game; a prologue is a separate free game with its own page, reviews and hub.
• How to update a Steam demo, and when to take it down: Update a Steam demo by uploading a new build to its app; a separate demo page keeps its reviews.

Flockbay's playtest links put the demo in front of testers before Steam does.

• How to publish a game on Steam, start to finish: Publish on Steam: join Steamworks, pay the $100 fee, wait 30 days, build the store page, pass review, stay Coming Soon two weeks, then press Release.
• Steam release checklist: from three months out to launch day: A Steam release checklist on Valve's own deadlines: paperwork and fee, store page review, Coming Soon, build review, pricing, launch discount, release.
• What day should you release your game on Steam?: Most indies launch Monday to Thursday, away from big sales, Next Fest and major releases.
• Steam regional pricing, explained: Steam prices games in 37 currencies.
• Should you use a launch discount on Steam?: A Steam launch discount is up to 40%, runs 7 to 14 days and is set before release; Valve suggests 10% to 15%.
• Steam's revenue share, explained: Valve takes 30% of a game's Steam revenue up to $10 million, 25% to $50 million and 20% above.
• Early Access on Steam: should you use it?: Early Access suits a game that is fun now and gets better with players, like a roguelike or a sandbox.
• How to answer Steam's six Early Access questions: Steam asks every Early Access game six questions: why, how long, what changes, current state, price, community.
• Steam refunds, from the developer side: Steam refunds any game asked for within 14 days and under 2 hours played.
• How to plan your first Steam sale: Your first Steam discount can run 30 days after release.
• How to get your game Steam Deck Verified: Steam Deck Verified needs full controller support, text readable at 1280x800, 30 fps by default and no launcher friction.

• How the Steam algorithm recommends games: Valve says Steam's visibility follows what players buy and play, plus tags.
• Steam's Discovery Queue, explained: The Discovery Queue shows each player a personal run of games from their tastes.
• How Steam decides "More like this": Steam's More Like This uses a game's top 20 tags: overlap matters more than order, and rare tags weigh more.
• Steam UTM links: where your wishlists come from: Steam counts visits, wishlists and purchases from UTM-tagged links, attributed within 72 hours.
• Steam curators: what they are and how to reach them: Curator Connect sends review copies inside Steam to up to 100 curators, 5 copies each.
• Steam events and announcements that get seen: Steam announcements reach followers' feeds, your store page, the Library and the Community Hub.
• How to use Steam Broadcasting for your game: Steam Broadcasting puts a live stream on your store page and the Broadcast hub, free.

• How to make a game trailer, step by step: How to make a game trailer: open on gameplay, capture clean footage, cut to music, end on the title and a call to action, and export to Steam's spec.
• How long should a game trailer be?: Most indie game trailers work at 60 to 90 seconds, teasers at 15 to 30 and ads at 6 to 15.
• Steam trailer requirements: format, resolution and order: Steam's trailer specs: .mp4, .mov or .wmv, H.264 and AAC, up to 1920x1080, 30 or 60 fps, 5,000+ Kbps, 16:9.
• AI game trailer makers: what AI can and cannot do for a trailer: AI can find your best gameplay moments, cut to a beat, write title cards and reframe for vertical.
• How to make a teaser trailer for your game: A teaser is 15 to 30 seconds that shows the hook and the look, then stops.
• How to cut a 15-second ad from your game trailer: A trailer is not an ad.
• How much does a game trailer cost?: A game trailer costs nothing if you cut it yourself, a few hundred to a few thousand from a freelancer, and more from a trailer studio.

Flockbay's Video studio cuts trailers from your real gameplay.

• What is a devlog, and is it worth making one?: A devlog is a running log of a game being made, as video or text.
• How to make a devlog video: Make a devlog in five steps: pick one problem, script it, capture gameplay, record narration and edit, then title it by the problem and link your Steam page.
• How long should a devlog be?: Long enough for one problem: three to ten minutes for most video devlogs, under a minute for a vertical cut, a few hundred words for a written one.
• Where to post devlogs, and how often: Video devlogs on YouTube, written ones on Steam, itch.io and your site, clips on TikTok and Shorts.
• Devlog titles and thumbnails that get clicked: A devlog title names one problem; a thumbnail shows the game at its most readable, with three words at most.

Flockbay's Video studio cuts devlogs from your real gameplay.

• How to make TikToks for your indie game: TikToks for an indie game: one moment per clip, the hook in two seconds, gameplay framed 9:16 with captions, and a link to your Steam page.
• How to make YouTube Shorts for your game: YouTube Shorts for a game: vertical clips up to three minutes, the hook first, real gameplay, captions, and a link to the full devlog or your Steam page.
• What makes a gameplay clip go viral: Clips that spread show one surprising, satisfying or funny moment in two seconds, read without sound, and loop.

Flockbay's Video studio cuts shorts, and Social posts posts them to TikTok.

• How to market your game on Reddit, and on every other channel: How to post your indie game on Reddit without getting banned, and what works on YouTube, X, Bluesky, Discord, Twitch and Facebook groups.
• The best subreddits to post your indie game: Where to post an indie game on Reddit: general indie subreddits, developer communities, your engine, and genre subreddits where your players are.
• Screenshot Saturday: how to use it for your game: #ScreenshotSaturday is a weekly tag where developers share progress.
• How to market your game on itch.io: itch.io rewards browser builds, game jams, devlogs and good tags.
• How to schedule social posts for your game: Batch a week of game clips in one sitting and schedule them: what to plan, which tools post natively, and why replies still need you in person.

• How to market an indie game: Indie game marketing in one plan: hook and audience, an early Steam page, then festivals, creators, a demo, clips and devlogs, measured by wishlists.
• An indie game marketing plan, with a template: A one-page indie game marketing plan: hook, audience, comparables, goal, channels, beats on a calendar, and what you measure weekly.
• When should you start marketing your game?: Start marketing once the core loop can be shown: clips while you prototype, the Steam page once the look is settled.
• How much to spend on indie game marketing: Budget marketing by cost per wishlist: spend only where a dollar brings a wishlist you can afford.
• How to find your game's hook: A game's hook is the one thing players repeat to a friend: a familiar genre with one twist.
• How to write a one-line pitch for your game: A game's one-line pitch names the genre, what the player does, and the twist, in under twenty-five words.
• Indie game marketing tools, by job: Marketing tools for indie games, grouped by job: Steam data, the store page, video, social posting, press and creators, playtesting, websites, and AI tools.

• How to get YouTubers and journalists to cover your game: Find creators who play games like yours, write a short email with a key and a trailer, and follow up once.
• Key distribution platforms compared: Keymailer and alternatives: Keymailer, Woovit, Terminals.io and Lurkit put Steam keys in front of verified creators.
• How to make a press kit for your game: A game press kit is one page with the facts, a trailer, screenshots, logos and art, and a contact.
• How to write a press release for your game: A game press release states the news in the first line, then the hook, the facts, a quote and the links.
• How to get your game into newsletters, curated lists and streams: Indie game newsletters, curated lists, Steam curators and streamers each take submissions.

• How to build a community for your game, starting with a Discord server: A Discord server keeps the players you already found: how to set one up, when to open it, a newsletter beside it, and how to handle feedback.
• Which channels a game's Discord server needs: Start a game Discord with about six channels: welcome and rules, announcements, general, feedback, bug reports and media.
• How to grow your game's Discord server: A game Discord grows from links in the game, the Steam page and every post, and stays alive through playtests, early builds and a developer who answers.
• How to run a closed beta for your game: A closed beta tests a nearly finished game with a limited group.
• How to use your game's Steam community hub: Every Steam game gets a community hub: discussions, screenshots, guides, artwork and news.
• How to run a game giveaway that brings real players: Giveaways bring entrants, not always players.

• How to playtest a game: Playtest by watching new players without helping: one goal, stay quiet, note where they stop, ask a few questions after.
• How to find playtesters for your indie game: Find playtesters in genre communities, Discord, Reddit and meetups, through Steam Playtest or itch.io, by swapping tests with developers, or by paying.
• Playtesting questions to ask, and the ones to avoid: Good playtest questions are open and about what happened: what confused you, when did you want to stop.
• How to run a remote playtest: A remote playtest needs a build testers can install safely, a way to see what they did, a short form, and a few sessions you watch live on a call.
• Steam Playtest: how it works for developers: Steam Playtest is a free child app whose signup button sits on your store page.
• Using itch.io for playtesting: Run a playtest on itch.io with a Restricted page: hidden from search, opened by a password or per-tester download keys.
• Blind playtests or guided playtests?: A blind playtest gives a new player the game and nothing else; a guided one asks for set tasks.
• When should you start playtesting?: Start playtesting once the core loop is playable, in grey boxes, before art.
• Playtesting services compared: Playtesting options for indies: free (Steam Playtest, itch.io, Flockbay playtest links in beta) and paid recruited sessions (PlaytestCloud, Antidote).
• How to turn playtest feedback into fixes: Sort playtest feedback by what players did, count how many hit each problem, fix the most common first, then retest.

Flockbay's playtest links report crashes, frame times and play time back.

• What does a game publisher do?: A game publisher funds, markets and launches a game in exchange for a share of its revenue.
• Do you need a publisher for your indie game?: You need a publisher if you need money, console ports or a marketing team you can't build.
• How to find a publisher for your indie game: Find publishers through the games like yours they already sell: Steam store pages, submission forms, showcases and events.
• Indie game publishers on Steam, and what they have published: 48 publishers behind Steam's top-selling indie games of the last three years, listed A to Z with the games Steam credits them with.
• How to pitch a game to a publisher: A publisher pitch is a short email, a playable build, a one-minute trailer and a deck with a clear ask.
• What to put in a game publisher pitch deck: A game pitch deck in ten to fifteen slides: hook, gameplay, comparable games, audience evidence, team, scope, budget, schedule and the ask.
• What revenue share does a game publisher take?: Indie publishing splits run from about 70/30 to the developer with no advance to about 55/45 with one.

• How to fund an indie game: Ways to fund an indie game: savings and small scope, grants, crowdfunding, Early Access, Patreon, a publisher or investors.
• Game development grants: where to find them and how to apply: Game grants come from engine funds, platform funds and regional screen agencies.
• Does Kickstarter still work for video games?: About a third of video game Kickstarters succeed, per Narwhal; games raised $25.2M there in 2024.
• How much does it cost to make an indie game?: An indie game costs what its people cost for as long as it takes, plus art, audio, tools and marketing.
• Patreon for game developers: does it work?: Patreon funds game developers who already have followers from devlogs or a community.

• Do you need a website for your indie game?: A Steam page sells; a website collects emails, gives press one link and outlasts platforms.
• How to make a website for your indie game, for free: Make a game website in an afternoon: one page with the trailer, a wishlist button, screenshots, an email signup and a press link.
• What to put on your game's website: A game website needs the hook, the trailer, a wishlist button, screenshots, an email signup and a press kit.
• Game landing pages that work: the patterns: Good game landing pages share a pattern: gameplay above the fold, one call to action, a press page, fast on phones.
• The best website builders for game developers: Website options for an indie game: one-page builders, site builders, static hosting, itch.io and Flockbay.
• How to embed the Steam widget and your trailer: Embed Steam's store widget with one iframe from store.steampowered.com/widget/ and your app ID, plus a trailer from YouTube or your own video file.

Flockbay builds a website for your game with any AI and publishes it on flockbay.app.

• Should you run ads for your indie game, and how much to spend?: Ads work for games whose clips already get reactions for free.
• Cost per wishlist: how to measure it and what is normal: Cost per wishlist is ad spend divided by the extra wishlists it brought.
• How to run Meta ads for a game, and how to target players: Running Facebook and Instagram ads for an indie game: objective, targeting by genre and comparable games, vertical creatives, measuring wishlists.
• How to run TikTok ads for a game: TikTok ads for an indie game work when they look like TikToks: native vertical clips, hook in the first second, Spark Ads from posts that already did well.
• How to run Reddit ads for a game: Reddit ads can target the subreddits where your genre's players are.
• How to run Google and YouTube ads for a game: YouTube ads put your trailer or Shorts in front of people watching your genre.
• Which ad platform works best for indie games?: No ad platform is best for every game.
• How to make an ad creative for a game from gameplay footage: A game ad creative is gameplay that hooks in the first second, reads without sound and ends on one call to action.
• Boosting a post or running a campaign: which for your game?: Boosting a post is fast and keeps its likes; a campaign gives control over objective, targeting and testing.

Flockbay drafts campaigns on your own ad accounts; you press Launch.

• Steamworks reports, explained: What each Steamworks report shows: wishlists, store traffic, sales and activations, regional sales, players, and UTM-tagged links.
• How to read your Steam wishlist and traffic reports: Read the Steamworks wishlist report (adds, deletions, purchases) and traffic report (impressions, visits, sources), and the data tools that estimate the rest.
• How to estimate a game's sales and revenue from its Steam reviews: Estimate a Steam game's sales from its review count, then its gross and net revenue from price, discounts, regional pricing and Steam's share.
• How many copies do indie games sell on Steam?: Most Steam games sell a few hundred copies or fewer; a small share sell tens of thousands.
• What the median indie game earns on Steam: The median paid game on Steam earns a few hundred to a few thousand dollars; price changes that a lot.
• How many games release on Steam each year?: SteamDB counted over 19,000 games released on Steam in 2025, a record, up from about 18,500 in 2024.
• How many sales one Steam review means: Each Steam review stands for roughly 20 to 60 sales in most published estimates.

• GodotSteam: setting up Steamworks in a Godot 4 game: GodotSteam brings the Steamworks SDK to Godot 4.
• Steam achievements in Godot with GodotSteam: Create and publish achievements in Steamworks, then call Steam.setAchievement() and Steam.storeStats() from Godot 4.
• Steam Cloud saves for a Godot game: Two ways to put a Godot game's saves on Steam Cloud: Auto-Cloud, set up in Steamworks with no code, or the Remote Storage API through GodotSteam.
• Steam lobbies and multiplayer in Godot: Online play in Godot through Steam: GodotSteam lobbies, overlay invites, Join Game, then the game over SteamMultiplayerPeer, with no port forwarding.
• Making a Godot game ready for Steam Deck: A Godot game on Steam Deck: a Linux export or Proton, full gamepad input with matching glyphs, UI readable at 1280x800, and 30 fps by default.
• How to put a Unity game on Steam: Ship a Unity game on Steam: a standalone build, an optional Steamworks wrapper for achievements and the overlay, then upload with SteamPipe.
• Steamworks.NET or Facepunch.Steamworks for Unity?: Steamworks.NET mirrors Valve's C++ API in C#; Facepunch.Steamworks wraps it in idiomatic, async C#.
• Steam achievements in Unity: Create and publish achievements in Steamworks, then set and store them from Unity with Steamworks.NET or Facepunch.Steamworks.
• How to put an Unreal Engine game on Steam: Ship an Unreal game on Steam: package a Shipping build, add Online Subsystem Steam for Steam features, test with app 480, upload with SteamPipe.
• Setting up Online Subsystem Steam in Unreal: Configure Online Subsystem Steam in Unreal: the module, DefaultPlatformService, SteamDevAppId and the Steam net driver in DefaultEngine.ini.
• How to put a GameMaker game on Steam: GameMaker's official Steamworks extension: import it, point it at the Steamworks SDK, set your App ID, then build for Windows and upload with SteamPipe.
• How to put an RPG Maker game on Steam: Ship an RPG Maker MZ or MV game on Steam: deploy for Windows, add a community Steamworks plugin for achievements, match its NW.js version, upload.
• How to put a Construct 3 game on Steam: Construct 3 ships to Steam through its Windows WebView2 export, with Scirra's official Steamworks plugin for the overlay, user details and achievements.
• How to ship a web game on Steam: Steam installs desktop programs, so a web game needs a wrapper: Electron, NW.js, Tauri or WebView2.
• How to upload a build to Steam with SteamPipe: Upload a build to Steam with SteamPipe: depots and a launch option, an app build script, steamcmd's run_app_build, then set the build live.

• Steam's AI disclosure, explained: Steam asks how generative AI made what players see, hear or read, before release or live.
• Can you sell a game made with AI on Steam?: Yes: Steam allows games made with AI if you disclose the AI content players meet. 35% of 2026 releases in a sample did.
• Using AI to write your Steam store page copy: AI can draft a Steam short description and About This Game copy fast.
• AI capsule art on Steam: what is allowed, and what works: Steam allows AI-generated capsule art if you disclose it.
• An AI game marketing workflow, end to end: Where AI helps market an indie game and where it hurts: research, store copy, clips, posts, ads and playtests, the facts it needs and what to check.
• What an AI can do of a game publisher's job: A publisher funds, markets and launches games.

• Steam wishlist estimator: any game's followers and the wishlist range they suggest.
• Steam page checker: a store page scored against the Steam page checklist.
• Steam tag lookup: the tags games like yours share, ranked.
• Wishlist to sales calculator: first-week sales from your wishlists at the measured median.
• Steam revenue calculator: gross sales to what reaches you after refunds, taxes and Steam's share.
• Regional price calculator: what games at your US price charge in each Steam region.
• Short description writer: three Steam short descriptions from your pitch.
• Devlog title generator: ten titles from what your devlog shows.
• Marketing timeline generator: a dated plan from today to launch week.

All free, with no sign-in.