this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
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One problem: so many small/solo devs are terrible at listing their game.
I'm not talking about sophisticated marketing. I'm talking about extensive tagging, a flashy description, good well-framed screenshots, and taking a few minutes to search for and gift some YouTubers in your niche. Whatever their situation, the devs can do this.
And I'm shocked by how many don't.
It's... not hard. Not compared to game dev.
I don't know a solution either, as I don't understand why basics are skipped. Maybe they're kinda in a bubble/isolated?
Perhaps Steam should be more forceful about tagging and describing games before they can be listed. I get Valve don't want to be "restrictive gatekeepers," but that is not a high barrier.
That's pretty much all the feedback indie devs that barely get any wishlists on their steam pre-release pages get on the gamedev subreddit.
A lot of, "I have no idea what the game is supposed to be from the trailer. Is their a narrative? Can't tell from the trailer. Not much going on in the screenshots. That name isn't very google-able. You barely have a description and there's no media in the description either to flash it up. Do you not have any tiktok/Instagram/YouTube presence? YouTubers/Steam curators/Twitch? Did you submit for the Steam Indie Game/Next Fest? Have you submitted to any indie publishers and received feedback? You may be better off with a publisher if you're not willing to do social media and help with trailers and screenshot selection and writing your Steam page."