00:00 hello and welcome I'm your KMI a while
00:02 ago Val published a video titled seam
00:04 visibility how games get serviced to
00:06 players this is an absolutely excellent
00:08 video that provides a great insight into
00:10 how Sim actually works as explained by
00:12 Sim themselves so Straight From the
00:14 Source it covers what parts are
00:16 algorithmic and what parts are manually
00:18 curated so this is all some extremely
00:20 excellent info if you want to find
00:22 success as an indie Dev yourself then
00:23 knowing about Steam and how it works is
00:25 absolutely essential so you should
00:27 definitely learn about it as much as
00:28 possible this is really the kind of
00:30 video that every single developer should
00:31 watch it's kind of odd how it actually
00:34 has so few views the whole video is
00:36 really great so I highly encourage you
00:37 to watch it after this one however the
00:39 main part that I want to focus on this
00:40 video is a part where they talk about
00:41 the myths with the CM algorithm and how
00:43 it actually works so basically what is a
00:45 factor in getting visibility and what is
00:47 not a factor I think this part is really
00:49 interesting because some of the things
00:50 they actually say kind of go somewhat
00:52 contrary to what myself and several C
00:54 marketing experts have said although the
00:56 slide does contain some huge s risks so
00:58 let's go through it Point by point to
01:00 really see what is reality and what is
01:02 myth so what things affect your
01:03 visibility and what things don't
01:05 honestly if you're looking for a super
01:06 quick tldr then I'm pretty sure I can
01:08 sum up the entire steam algorithm in
01:09 just one word and that is simply money
01:12 that's really pretty much it the goal of
01:14 the entire algorithm is simply to get
01:15 players to spend money that's how seam
01:17 makes money and it's how developers make
01:18 money basically the more money you make
01:20 on seam the more seam promotes you and
01:22 helps you make more money if the
01:24 algorithm thinks that a game won't sell
01:25 or more accurately if they actually have
01:27 some proof that the game won't sell or
01:29 has already sold then they won't promote
01:31 that game however on the other hand if
01:32 the algorithm does not think that a
01:34 certain game will sell or if simply
01:35 there's no evidence that it might do
01:37 well or any significant interest in that
01:39 game if so then seam will simply not
01:41 promote that game now that sounds way
01:42 too obvious but it really is that simple
01:44 basically the more money that you make
01:46 for seam the more seam will help you
01:47 make more money although of course
01:49 simple does not mean easy getting people
01:51 to buy your games is extremely difficult
01:53 so here let's go through this list one
01:54 by one of each individual factor and see
01:56 in detail just how much they actually
01:58 affect and how much energy you s spend
02:00 on trying to improve each one of these
02:01 points starting off with store Page
02:03 traffic so basically the number of
02:05 people that visit your seam page and
02:07 like you says does stor page traffic
02:09 affect visibility on
02:12 Steam the answer is no so this does not
02:15 affect your visibility on Steam although
02:18 like we won see with pretty much every
02:19 single one of these factors there's
02:20 always a h risk involved and this one is
02:22 also no different from that so
02:24 technically store Page traffic does not
02:26 influence your visibility meaning if you
02:28 get 10,000 people to buy your game and a
02:30 thousand of those buy it and then for
02:32 another game if it gets a million people
02:33 to that page and a thousand buy it if so
02:35 then in terms of the same algorithm both
02:37 of them won't receive the exact same
02:38 visibility again when a doubt just
02:40 ignore all the numbers except for money
02:42 but of course the huge Sisk is simply if
02:44 more people visit your store Page then
02:46 chances are you are very likely to sell
02:48 more copies than someone with fewer
02:49 visits either sell more copies or simply
02:51 get more wishless and those two signals
02:53 those do impact visibility quite a lot
02:55 so technically store Page traffic does
02:57 not directly affect visibility on seam
02:59 so for for example don't think you can
03:00 set up some ad and buy some super cheap
03:03 views get millions of Impressions and
03:04 somehow hope that that won't trigger the
03:06 SE algorithm that will not happen that
03:07 will not work but just getting more
03:10 traffic genuine traffic that will inter
03:11 turn lead to more sales and wish list
03:13 which do indeed impact visibility then
03:15 for a really important one review score
03:18 so does it impact visibility or not
03:20 let's hear what they say next is review
03:22 score does review score have an effect
03:24 on your visibility on Steam well the
03:27 answer is it's not a factor and the
03:29 answer the video is that it's not a
03:30 factor with pretty much the only ass RIS
03:32 that he mentions being under 40% score
03:34 under that the game is mostly negative
03:36 and that apparently has an impact in
03:37 terms of seam visibility but as long as
03:39 you are above that limit then
03:41 technically it's not a factor and again
03:43 not let me expand upon this myself and
03:44 add some more asterisks once again we go
03:46 back to the only thing that matters to
03:48 the seam algorithm which is money so as
03:50 long as your game sells then yes that is
03:51 correct that the review score does not
03:53 matter that is how for example you can
03:55 see the fifas and the NBA 2K Games these
03:58 games almost every single year they
03:59 always have overwhelmingly negative
04:01 reviews and yet they've got thousands
04:03 which means they've sold millions of
04:04 copies these are indeed heavily promoted
04:06 on Steam by steam themselves and the
04:08 reason for that is simply because there
04:10 are tons of people who buy those games
04:11 every single year regardless of review
04:13 they just buy it automatically so the SE
04:15 algorithm simply sees okay this game is
04:17 selling well so let's promote it a bunch
04:19 more however I would highly caution you
04:21 against this type of thinking basically
04:23 this strategy only works if you have a
04:25 multi-million dollar marketing budget if
04:27 you do then yep you can pretty much
04:28 Brute Force the algorithm to giving you
04:29 more visibility because you can pretty
04:31 much force a certain number of sales
04:32 regardless of reviews but if you're just
04:34 a regular Indie then while technically
04:36 review scores don't impact your
04:37 visibility directly since you don't have
04:39 that massive marketing budget you are
04:41 much more dependent on General player
04:42 field and players are much less likely
04:44 to buy a game with mixed review score
04:46 than a positive one so technically yes
04:47 the review score is not a factor as long
04:49 as you can keep convincing people to buy
04:51 your game but again like I said if you
04:53 don't have a multi-million dollar budget
04:55 then having something under the positive
04:57 review score under that that will
04:58 actually impact your sales which which
04:59 will indeed be a very important factor
05:02 then with regards to review scores
05:03 there's always the issue with the first
05:04 10 reviews if you don't even get 10
05:06 reviews then you don't even get a score
05:08 so below that your game is pretty much
05:10 invisible to the team algorithm you can
05:12 browse the new releases page and see
05:14 just how many games don't even have a
05:15 score meaning they have under 10 reviews
05:17 so you can see how many of them there
05:19 are basically for all of these games
05:20 these are completely invisible to the
05:22 same algorithm that is why my advice to
05:24 you is ask your players to leave reviews
05:25 for your games you need to desperately
05:27 get above that 10 review score just get
05:29 a base bare minimum amount of visibility
05:31 from seam now something that myself and
05:33 various other seam marketing experts
05:35 have mentioned are the various review
05:36 buckets so like I said you've got the
05:38 one below 10 reviews then you got from
05:40 10 to 50 50 to 500 and above 500 now
05:43 these buckets do exist you can see
05:45 difference based on the actual titles
05:47 behind the reviews for example if you've
05:49 got under 50 reviews you cannot see very
05:51 positive and if you have under 500 you
05:53 cannot see overwhelmingly positive so
05:55 those buckets do exist but when it comes
05:57 to visibility that part is a bit more
05:59 questionable for some games they seem to
06:00 get a nice boost once they go past 50
06:03 and for others it doesn't really change
06:05 as long as they go past the 10 so these
06:07 two are a bit more questionable but
06:09 still my advice is try to get 50 reviews
06:11 as much as possible just in case it has
06:12 some sort of impact hitting 500 is
06:14 extremely difficult but hting 50 reviews
06:16 hopefully that should be duable so
06:18 speaking of reviews let me just say
06:19 thank you to everyone who picked up my
06:21 game and wrote the review I did
06:23 thankfully managed to get quickly past
06:24 the 10 Mark and thanks to all of you I
06:26 did manage to get past the 50 Mark so
06:28 thank you all so much okay to the next
06:29 point and this is the big one wish list
06:32 so how much do they impact your
06:33 visibility and you might be a bit
06:35 surprised to hear their official answer
06:37 next is wish lists do they have an
06:39 impact on your visibility on Steam the
06:42 answer is not a factor with a big
06:45 asterisk so technically not a factor but
06:48 like he says the big Aster risk is they
06:49 are a factor before release and that is
06:52 exactly what myself and C marketing
06:53 experts say wish lists are extremely
06:55 important before release they are an
06:56 excellent predictor of sales but after
06:58 the game is out they at that point wish
07:00 lists don't really matter then he
07:01 mentions how apparently it's a myth
07:03 where you need certain number of wish
07:04 lists to be invited to join a daily deal
07:06 or some special featuring and again this
07:08 is another one where it's true but once
07:10 again comes with an N risk simply
07:11 speaking games that have more sales they
07:14 get more visibility and more visibility
07:15 leads to more wish list so technically
07:17 no wish list numbers do not impact your
07:19 odds of being invited towards a daily
07:21 deal the number that I've heard and I
07:23 don't know if it's 100% accurate is that
07:24 you need at least 200,000 in Revenue so
07:27 once again that's a number that matters
07:28 the actual money if you sell over
07:31 $200,000 in Revenue at that point you
07:33 might be invited you might receive an
07:35 email from see themselves asking you if
07:37 you'd like to be on a daily deal but in
07:39 general yep just a amount of wish list
07:41 after the game is out that does not
07:42 matter also like he says wish lists are
07:43 extremely important because people will
07:45 get notifications so it happens when the
07:47 game launches and when you discount your
07:49 game more than 20% when that happens the
07:51 people who have wish list your game they
07:52 will get an email notification so again
07:54 technically not a direct Factor wish
07:56 list by themselves will not impact your
07:58 visibility but of course the more wish
08:00 list you have even after release the
08:01 more people will get that email which
08:03 might turn into more sales which again
08:04 impacts the visibility so if you just
08:06 look at this slide and you see not a
08:08 factor you might be confused as to why
08:09 pretty much every developer asks you to
08:10 weather game to your wish list and the
08:12 answer is simply because while
08:13 technically there is no direct impact
08:15 there is very much an indirect impact
08:17 more wish list means more people getting
08:19 notified when your game is out which in
08:20 turn hopefully leads to more sales on
08:22 release which leads to more visibility
08:24 leads to more reviews more sales more
08:26 visibility and so on so on this my
08:28 advice is really the same that I've only
08:29 said try to gather as many wish lists as
08:32 you can before release so that hopefully
08:34 you can have a successful launch which
08:36 hopefully starts the ball rolling so you
08:37 can get more and more visibility and
08:39 sell more and more copies you need to at
08:41 least have a strong enough launch so
08:42 that you separate yourself from those
08:44 hundreds or really thousands of games
08:45 that have zero reviews next up we have
08:48 Early Access and for this one it is not
08:50 a factor the one big asked risk is how
08:52 early access games don't appear on the
08:54 new and trending list regardless of how
08:55 well it sells so it is not effor but
08:57 again remember the only thing that
08:58 matters seam is exal sales and there is
09:01 a very large portion of players on seam
09:03 who simply do not buy Early Access games
09:05 no matter what so if you launch into
09:07 Early Access then chances are you won't
09:08 sell less than a full release which in
09:10 turn will affect your visibility
09:12 although when it comes to this when it
09:13 comes to Early Access honestly your
09:14 choice should be entirely based on the
09:15 game and not based on visibility at all
09:18 if your game is unfinished and you have
09:19 a nice road map to completion then
09:21 perhaps consider Early Access but if
09:23 your game is done and you don't have a
09:25 dedicated road map then don't go into
09:27 Early Access hoping for something
09:29 some people think that early access
09:31 technically means that you have two
09:32 launches The Early Access launch and the
09:33 1. launch and that is somewhat true but
09:36 really only true for very successful
09:37 Early Access games if your game finds
09:39 massive success in Early Access then
09:41 chances are that will translate into
09:43 extra sales for the full launch which
09:44 again will positively impact your
09:46 visibility but if not if your Early
09:48 Access launch does not sell a ton then
09:50 you are pretty much guaranteed to not
09:51 get any extra visibility when the game
09:53 launches a full release next up we have
09:55 localization and Y this is the one that
09:57 they do point out how it's very very
09:59 clearly a factor and yep it does make
10:01 sense especially when you go into the
10:03 seam sets and you scroll down here and
10:04 you go under language and you can see
10:06 how English is just 30% of the actual
10:08 languages on Steam so whil that is
10:10 obviously a huge amount 30% of something
10:13 like 200 million players that's a huge
10:15 amount but still that is only 30%
10:17 meaning there are two-thirds of the
10:18 audience on seam that do not speak
10:20 English so if your game is only in
10:22 English then it will never show up to
10:23 all those people who only play games in
10:25 their own language so for this point my
10:27 advice is definitely super simple
10:28 definitely make make sure to include
10:29 localization in your game I can
10:31 definitely recommend the unity
10:32 localization package it's what I use to
10:35 localize my game and it works pretty
10:36 great it's super simple to use and
10:38 supports pretty much any language you
10:39 want as for getting translators there
10:41 are tons of places to find them for me I
10:43 got translators from my game I found
10:45 them on Fiverr just sent them the
10:47 English text for the store Page and all
10:48 the text that I use in the game they
10:50 converted and then of course the big
10:51 question is Which languages do you
10:53 translate to now for that I would say
10:55 the answer really starts by looking over
10:56 here on the seats so I would say you
10:59 abely need to support of course English
11:00 and simplified Chinese after that it
11:03 kind of depends on the audence kind of
11:04 depends on what game you're making for
11:06 example if you've got a tycoon or a
11:07 simulation game then usually German the
11:10 German audience really likes those types
11:11 of games polish also seems to do well in
11:13 those types of games then if your game
11:15 is Anime then of course include Japanese
11:17 so basically pick the ones that make the
11:19 most sense for your game and then just
11:20 go through the list and pick which ones
11:22 are the most popular so in my case for
11:24 my game here are the ones that I picked
11:26 basically I just included English and
11:29 then I also picked German and polish
11:31 because those tend to like management
11:32 automation games and then I just picked
11:34 some more popular ones I picked French
11:36 Japanese Portuguese since I can kind of
11:38 do it myself and I had also picked
11:40 Spanish but I had some issues with the
11:41 translator for that so that one is still
11:42 upcoming but yep like he says
11:44 localization is definitely a factor for
11:46 getting more visibility on Steam so
11:48 definitely make sure you do it if you
11:50 use the localization package then it's
11:51 super simple to add so there's no reason
11:53 not to do it although like he says you
11:54 can always do it later so if you're way
11:56 too busy at lunch and maybe add it
11:58 afterwards in some some kind of big
11:59 update somewhat related to that is also
12:01 controller support again same thing if
12:03 you don't have controller support then
12:04 your game will not be promoted to any
12:06 players who pretty much just play games
12:07 with a controller and nowadays with the
12:09 seam deck the controller becomes even
12:11 more important there are tons of people
12:12 playing games on deck and those people
12:14 will definitely like your game and they
12:15 will only play it if it has controller
12:17 support and once again this is another
12:18 thing that is super easy to implement as
12:20 long as you're using the input system if
12:22 you don't know about it go ahead and
12:23 watch my tutorial on it it's pretty
12:25 simple to use and make it super easy to
12:27 support any game pad steam deck anything
12:28 you want now of course that is also
12:30 depend on what kind of game you're
12:31 making if you're making a game where you
12:33 control a character kind of like my own
12:34 game then it's super simple and makes
12:36 perfect sense to have that but if you're
12:38 making some kind of complex RTS and
12:39 maybe controller support might be quite
12:41 tricky but if you can't do it then
12:42 definitely go ahead and do it and in the
12:44 end he mentions pretty much exactly what
12:46 I said in my tldr basically steam can
12:48 help you snowball to success but it's up
12:50 to you to get the ball rolling meaning
12:52 that it's all up to you to give it that
12:53 initial push if you just launch a game
12:55 on Steam with no marketing nothing then
12:57 nothing will happen no one will know the
12:59 game exists and no one will buy any
13:00 copies nowadays launching a game soundly
13:02 on seam that does not yield any results
13:05 another great tip he mentions is
13:06 creating big events around the launch
13:08 major updates or a healthy discount the
13:10 algorithm does react to sales velocity
13:12 meaning if you sell a th000 copies in
13:14 just 1 hour that is much more important
13:15 to the algorithm as opposed to if you
13:17 sell 1,000 copies over the course of an
13:19 entire month so definitely keep that in
13:21 mind if you're planning a big update or
13:22 a big event on your game if you have a
13:25 big boost in sales in a short period of
13:27 time that won't help the algorithm give
13:29 you more visibility which gives you more
13:30 sales so in general technically all of
13:32 these things are supposedly not a factor
13:34 but in reality they are actual factors
13:36 the asteris over here are actually
13:37 pretty big basically went and out just
13:39 saying the only thing that matters to
13:40 see is money the only thing that drives
13:42 the algorithm is money so technically
13:44 all of these are not factors because
13:45 they directly do not lead to actual
13:46 sales but they indirectly do lead to
13:48 sales so in that case these are pretty
13:50 much always going to be some kind of
13:51 factor in terms of store Page traffic I
13:54 would say don't worry about that you
13:55 might think to experiment with some paid
13:57 advertising but I would say definitely
13:58 limit those experiments from everything
14:00 that I've seen that rarely Works unless
14:02 you have an expensive indie game
14:04 something above $30 in terms of review
14:06 scores my advice is to get those 10
14:08 reviews as quickly as possible and
14:10 hopefully of course your game is good so
14:11 that that score stays above 70% which
14:13 STS it positive and then try to get 50
14:15 reviews although again whether that has
14:17 an impact or not that is still debatable
14:19 then in terms of wish list they are a
14:20 great predictor of sales and that
14:22 matters quite a bit for the algorithm so
14:24 do make sure you get as many wish lists
14:25 as possible before release if your goal
14:27 is financial success than before release
14:29 you should probably have at the very
14:30 least 5,000 hopefully more than 10,000
14:33 but then after release at that point
14:35 don't worry about wish list anymore you
14:36 can pretty much just completely ignore
14:38 that number after release in terms of
14:40 Early Access this is a question related
14:41 to development of your game it is not a
14:43 visibility question so don't decide on
14:45 doing or not doing Early Access simply
14:47 based on visibility in terms of
14:49 localization do make sure to add at
14:50 least English and simplified Chinese
14:53 after that add as many languages as you
14:54 can and as many as make sense for your
14:56 particular genre like I said with
14:58 today's SE with the unity's localization
15:00 package is pretty simple to implement so
15:01 there's really no reason not to do it
15:03 also related to that is simply gam pad
15:04 support once again with the input system
15:07 that is super easy to add so if that
15:08 works for your game for your genre
15:10 definitely make sure to do it like I
15:12 mentioned in the beginning this whole
15:13 video is absolutely excellent so I
15:14 highly encourage you to go watch it I
15:16 hope that both that video and this one I
15:18 hope they both help you get a better
15:19 understanding of how the SE algorithm
15:21 Works which in turn I really hope helps
15:22 increase your odds of success
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