Official Group for Steamworks Development Support

Your burning Steam questions: Answered!

So far in 2024 we've hosted several virtual Q&A sessions with developers, and connected in-person with many of you in San Francisco at GDC in March through our talks and roundtables there. These discussions always encourage us to continue finding ways to make Steam even better, while also helping us understand the topics developers are hoping to learn more about.

We've compiled the themes we talked about across all of these events (along with most-commonly-asked questions) into one place to hopefully make it even easier to get the insight you seek! These topics include:

• Steam Visibility: How does it work? (Watch here on YouTube)
  
• Steam 101: Sessions that allowed us to focus on best practices for newer developers (Watch on YouTube: Session 1 | Session 2 )
  
• How to view marketing on Steam (Including best practices)
  
• Next Fest: How to optimize your participation (Watch the March Q&A session here on YouTube)

We find that these in-person (and virtual) events that we participate in throughout the year give us the ability to get even more detailed in how we connect; while also receiving valuable feedback ourselves. In addition to the below insights, you can find details on a lot of frequently-asked-questions in our Steamworks documentation pages.

Here is a quick summary of some of the biggest topics we covered, along with some of the most-asked questions (along with our answers, of course!):

Visibility and how it works on Steam is frequently one of the most common questions we receive at any event, and GDC was no different. We put together this video about Steam Visibility a few months back, and it does a great job of covering this topic and answering most questions.


[smalltext]Watch "Steam Visibility: How does it work" on YouTube[/smalltext]

We heard from some developers concerned with the refund rate on their game and wondering if that fed into the visibility system of Steam. The short answer is that refund rate itself does not impact visibility of your game, but lower sales of your game can impact your visibility.

A higher refund rate is most likely a symptom of mismatched expectations by your players, or potentially technical issues that prevent the game from working well. You can read the reasons players are citing during their refund request as a way to see if there are bugs you should address.

Also worth noting: Steam does not factor conversion rate into visibility. At all. Steam will not punish nor reward games for how successful they are (or aren't!) in turning traffic to the store page into a sale.
You can read more in our refund documentation on developer refund reporting.

A lot of folks asked different variances of this question, and it's understandable: There are a lot of different tools and features on Steam, and it can seem like their mere existence must mean you should be using them all; or using them in some secret combo that is the recipe for success! But that's not the case: We purposefully operate Steam as a platform that doesn't require developers use it in a specific way in order to be successful.

Every game is different, and every developer is different, which means there is no "right way" to use Steam. Even more importantly, the way each developer uses Steam (the tools and features they use, the way they use them, etc.) will look different for each one.

Instead, we often try to guide developers on what you can focus on as you think about which tools and features make the most sense for you and your game:

• Think about your game as a product. What does your game do better than other similar games? What stands out and is the key thing to describe to potential players? Practice this messaging, refine it, and use it on your store page.
  
• Apply all relevant tags to your store page, roughly in the order that they represent your game. For example, if your game has a racing mode in it, but your game is mostly not a racing game, then "Racing" tag should be pretty low on the list of tags for your game.
  
• Make trailers that show what it's like to play your game. Get to the gameplay quickly and be genuine in showing what the player will be doing in the game.
  
• Take screenshots that reflect your gameplay. Show the UI! Players want to know how they will be looking at your world and how they interact with the game.
  
• Be a student of the industry. Learn all that you can from other game developers, case studies, and by researching games similar to yours. What do those games do well? What features do they include? How do the developers talk about their games?

We put together a special presentation for this very topic, and hosted it live at GDC. BUT we also recorded a video version, which you can find here (hint: YOUR GAME is the best marketing tool you have on Steam).


[smalltext]Watch "Best Practices: Developing an audience while developing your game," a recording of the same talk given during GDC[/smalltext]

We are still learning a lot about how to best optimize fests, but so far our takeaway is that they overall are adding value to the platform, both for players and developers. For developers, a themed festival is a good opportunity to draw concentrated attention from players who love the genres being celebrated; and for players it's a great way to surface games they may not previously have purchased, but from a genre they already love.

Because of this, we try to choose themes that are interesting while adding variety and covering a number of games players are into.

Though we intend to occasionally return to certain themes, we haven't yet determined what that cadence might be; and in fact, we are wary of setting expectations that any particular fest will always run annually. This gives us the flexibility to plan themes based on overall interest as we go.

We host Steam Next Fest three times a year; February, June, and October, with the next one coming up this June. We recently hosted a virtual Q&A centered entirely around best practices for these events, and you'll find a majority of what you're looking for there.


[smalltext]Watch a recording of the latest Next Fest virtual Q&A session on YouTube[/smalltext]

We're pretty excited about Steam Deck, but the best thing you could prioritize would be to make a great game and make it play well with a controller; and you should be set. We recently showcased the top 100 most-played games on Steam Deck in the past year, and roughly a third of the games on that list aren't Steam Deck Verified.

We point this out to drill down on the fact that a "Verified" status is intended to communicate to players what we know for sure plays well on Steam Deck. There are lots and lots of games that either haven't been through the verification process yet, or that play just fine with a tweak or two, that have become favorites for Deck users.

We are always looking for ways to connect with developers around the world. We have a few events lined up in our schedule already but are always looking for feedback on additional topics to cover or places to visit. Let us know!