Why I'll Always Enter my Games in a Steam Next Fest

As a solo game dev with no marketing budget the Steam Next Fest was critical to the success of my first commercial game Chess Survivors. As such, Next Fests have become a key part of my release plans for me next game Hexagod and likely all my future projects.

#steam #gamedev #aarimous

My Games:

Social Media:

How To Market A Game:

Steam Next Fest Docs:

00:00 Steam Next Fest
01:08 Wishlists Matter
02:14 Steam Algorithm
02:57 Support My Work
03:21 How to Join the Next Fest
03:55 Steam Page
05:02 Steam Demo
05:53 One One Next Fest
06:20 Deadlines are Nice?
07:10 Post Next Fest Release
07:55 Research other Demos
08:43 Good Luck!

[VSalgc]

Meet us on Februarys
next fest. I have hit the button to participate. Page is up and build was send to proove.🎉

[simmeringstudios]

Super refreshing hearing your take on entering into Next Fest even at only a few hundred wishlists going in. I entered my game into this October Next Fest (this week) and I started out at only 300 and I was kind of nervous about it since Chris Z says to have at least 6k. Now, I'm sure 6k is optimal, but it's still been really cool seeing how each day I've been getting 50-100 more each day so far.

[luckyknot]

Working on my first commercial little game, and I second about the NexFest date used as a deadline, it helps to push the project forward.

[TheMaJestic]

Awesome video, my game is in next fest and one thing that really sticked to me is the fact that so many games can have the same genre but just add an 18+ thing on it and it would skyrocket, that was simply so demoralizing lol.

[hawkgamedev]

Man I wishlisted your game, you are a great inspiration, specially now that Im looking into hexagons for the first time, what a fun-harsh learning experience.

[nephew_tom]

Thanks for the Steam Next Fest explanation.
Regards from Spain! 🙂

[adamprokop]

Hi Aarimous, great video as always :)
On question tho, Chris Zukowski often mentions how super important trailer is and how you should tell content creators ASAP, are you planning to execute that any time soon? I think its very important for healthy growth of the crowd that the game has.

[mightyn]

I've also heard from one of Chris's videos that the way NextFest works has changed with the current one, so waiting to hear from him an analysis of how this month's NextFest works compared to the old version. From what the people at Steamworks explained, it should actually be better for devs now?

If I strted making my demo a month earlier i could have made it in.

[JuicyBenji]

I honestly wouldn’t mind if you got sponsorships, as long as it’s relevant for the community. So I imagine like a skill share for learning game dev, same for Udemy, or other courses specifically for godot. Or products that specifically cater to a game dev. However I’m totally with you if you started doing raycon, any vpn service or the like. But then again even if you took those kinds of sponsorships, I wouldn’t be extremely against it