How do you make your game successful on the PC games store Steam? Benjamin Hardy from Bismuth Studios visited GameLab to share his story and lessons from publishing his game online.
Steam is the most important platform for indie developers. This online PC games store contains an enormous number of titles, with thousands more added each month. How do you make your game stand out and succeed?
The game Handy Harry's Haunted House Services was not intended as a serious attempt to make a major impact. Ben wanted to make good use of his time during the pandemic and decided to create and publish a light-hearted game in four months. Successfully, as it turned out. H4S, as he affectionately calls it, has already sold 40,000 copies and still generates revenue.
Steam tips
Ahead of the publication of his second game, Space Gourmet: Delivery, Ben used this masterclass to discuss what he had learnt and how he would approach publishing a game on Steam. He had plenty of useful practical tips.
He urged the students present to ensure their game contains more than 2 hours of content. If a Steam player finishes a game sooner, they can request their money back, and often will, even if they enjoyed it. H2S did not initially meet this requirement, and at first he saw 25% of games sold receive a refund . After introducing a career modethat increased average playtime, this fell to 8%.
These were valuable lessons that we hope students from the lab will soon put into practice. One crucial message was to avoid endlessly perfecting your game and instead work towards publication. First create the Steam page, then put a test version into early access and build your community.