My first Wishlist Deletion. Probably some clueless person wishlist the game thinking it gonna be launch on Mac.

This post is just for the lols. I just want to say to you, man... Your game will probably sell 30, 50, maybe 100 copies at best. Maybe your marketing wasn’t amazing. Maybe you didn’t get that viral TikTok video. Maybe IndieGameJoe never touched your game with his magic wand. Maybe hundreds of other games got more downloads, more reviews, and way more people playing them.

But you know what?

You made that game.

You put hours into it. Care. Effort. You solved problems you had absolutely no idea how to solve when you started. There were probably days when you wanted to throw the whole thing away… and you kept going anyway. And you finished it. That alone is something a huge number of people who dream about making a game never actually manage to do.

And along the way, you learned things you didn’t know before. You got better. You can now do things that once seemed impossible. And all of that goes with you into your next project. And those 30, 40, 50, or 100 copies aren’t just numbers on a dashboard. They’re real people

People who decided to spend their money on something you created. People who have your game installed on their computer. People who are stepping into a little world that, not long ago, existed only inside your head. And do you want to know a secret?

I couldn’t even fit 100 people inside my house. Not even 50.

m not a millionaire, and I probably never will be. Maybe none of my games will ever change the industry. Maybe I’ll never get that massive success we all imagine at some point. But I’ll keep making games. Because every finished game is experience. Every player matters. Every failure teaches you something. And every new project can be a little better than the last one.

So if your game doesn’t sell thousands of copies, don’t immediately assume you failed. Look at what you built. Learn from what went wrong. Keep what went right. And make the next one.

Don’t give up. Keep making games.

(BTW my game has only 66 wishlists but i'm trying not to cry)

Cheers!

Do you have any advice on what to change next time?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4832270/Flipside/

This is how math works right?

But in all seriousness, the most helpful thing by far was participating in the Steam Cyberpunk Fest. Highly recommend you appeal if you fit the theme but weren't considered originally like I was.

Getting our trailer hosted by IGN on GamesTrailers gave another boost, but not actually as much as I had hoped (about 120). However, it has helped to legitimatize the game in a way, as I've been able to get better responses from journalists / creators.

Still working on getting streamer coverage, so if you have any tips on that happy to hear them.

I’m the founder of a three-person indie studio based in London. We shipped our first game on Steam last year — a survival action RPG built in Unreal Engine 5 — entirely self-funded on a shoestring budget. No publisher, no grants, just three people pouring their time and skills into something they believe in.

Since launch we’ve been trying to find funding and publishing support to grow the game — marketing, a content update, visibility. And honestly it’s been one of the most demoralising experiences of our lives.

Every funding route we’ve explored seems to want the same thing: traction. Reviews, sales, wishlists. But here’s the catch — we need funding to GET that traction. It’s a catch-22 that I suspect a lot of small studios know all too well.

We’ve been told our game “holds promise” but doesn’t fit criteria. We’ve been asked to revise applications and pitch materials, invested significant time doing exactly that, only to be rejected again on grounds that were present from day one.

We’re not giving up. We have pitches out to several publishers and we’re still pushing. But I wanted to ask this community honestly — has anyone been through this? How did you break the cycle? Are there funding routes or publishers out there that genuinely support post-launch titles with limited traction?

Any advice, shared experience, or even just knowing we’re not alone would mean a lot right now.

I am building a GTM plan statement of work for a client. The is the plan we created with two 2-hour phone calls. Used Claude to organize notes from the call and create the document. This is just the framework built on launch, resources and open spaces for his game to find coverage. If you need help DM me and or check out my free newsletter Game Developers Marketing Resource: [https://gdmr.beehiiv.com/\](https://gdmr.beehiiv.com/)

**STATEMENT OF WORK**

**Game Launch Marketing, PR, Community & Storefront Strategy**

**Client: Consultant:** / Strategic Entertainment **Engagement Term:** September 1, 2026 – November 30, 2026 **Strategic Calendar:** September – December 2026 **Engagement Type:** Three-Month Marketing, PR and Launch Support Engagement

**1. ENGAGEMENT OBJECTIVE**

Strategic Entertainment will develop and execute a focused three-month go-to-market program designed to prepare the game for Steam Next Fest, increase wishlist velocity, improve storefront conversion, generate media and creator awareness, establish a sustainable community presence, and support the transition from demo to commercial release.

The engagement will prioritize activity that can be effectively executed by an independent development team without creating unnecessary ongoing operational requirements.

The campaign will use September as the **foundation and audience-building period**, October as the **demo, showcase and Steam Next Fest activation period**, and November as the **commercial launch, PR and optimization period**.

A December holiday strategy will also be prepared during the engagement so the developer has a defined plan for maintaining momentum through the Steam Winter Sale and year-end promotional period.

**2. PRIMARY GOALS**

The campaign will focus on six primary goals:

1. **Increase Steam wishlists and wishlist velocity**
   
2. **Improve Steam and** [**itch.io**](http://itch.io) **storefront conversion**
   
3. **Generate awareness through targeted games media, creators and showcase opportunities**
   
4. **Create a manageable community strategy appropriate for a one-person studio**
   
5. **Maximize participation in Steam Next Fest**
   
6. **Convert Next Fest attention into launch sales, reviews and continuing visibility**

* Success will be measured primarily through changes in:
* Steam wishlists
* Wishlist velocity
* Demo downloads
* Demo-to-wishlist conversion
* Store page visits
* Store conversion rate
* Trailer engagement
* Social engagement
* Press coverage
* Creator participation
* Earned media reach
* Launch sales
* Steam reviews and sentiment

**3. SCOPE OF WORK**

**A. GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY**

Strategic Entertainment will create and manage a detailed work-back schedule covering all major marketing, communications and platform milestones.

Work will include:

Finalize launch positioning

Refine the game's elevator pitch

Establish core audience segments

Define key marketing messages

Develop launch messaging hierarchy

Establish demo marketing strategy

Develop Steam Next Fest strategy

Establish commercial launch strategy

Create holiday promotional strategy

Identify appropriate promotional beats

Establish campaign KPIs

Review campaign results and adjust strategy throughout the engagement

The strategy will prioritize frequent public-facing development and marketing updates rather than waiting for a single "perfect" launch moment.

**4. STOREFRONT OPTIMIZATION**

Strategic Entertainment will audit and provide recommendations for the game's Steam and [itch.io](http://itch.io) storefront presence.

**Steam Storefront**

Work will include:

* Steam store page audit
* Short description review
* Long description review
* Elevator pitch development
* Metadata review
* Tag recommendations
* Genre positioning
* Search discoverability recommendations
* Capsule art review
* Logo readability review
* Screenshot sequencing
* Trailer positioning
* Call-to-action review
* Demo placement strategy
* Pricing presentation
* Founder/launch discount messaging
* Wishlist conversion recommendations

Particular attention will be paid to improving the visibility of the logo and title treatment whenSteam capsule artwork is displayed at small sizes.

[**itch.io**](http://itch.io) **Testing Program**

The existing [itch.io](http://itch.io) storefront will be used as an experimentation environment before major Steamcampaign beats.

Current baseline metrics include approximately:

800+ page views

1.65% click-through rate

**Strategic Entertainment will review opportunities to test:**

* Metadata
* Tags
* Short descriptions
* Page headlines
* Screenshots
* Trailer placement
* Calls to action
* Pricing language
* Positioning
* Promotional copy

Insights from [itch.io](http://itch.io) performance will inform Steam storefront decisions where applicable.

**5. DEMO STRATEGY**

The recommended demo structure will utilize the game's first **two onboarding campaigns** as the public demo experience.

The third campaign will remain reserved for the commercial release.

Strategic Entertainment will review the demo from a marketing and onboarding perspective and provide recommendations regarding:

1. Opening player experience
   
2. Tutorial messaging
   
3. Demo length
   
4. End-of-demo messaging
   
5. Wishlist calls to action
   
6. Full-game teaser messaging
   
7. Steam page links
   
8. Community/social prompts
   
9. Survey or feedback opportunities

The developer will retain responsibility for implementation and technical stability.

Game-ending bugs related to localization and language settings should be resolved prior to campaign amplification.

**6. STEAM NEXT FEST STRATEGY**

The October 2026 edition of Steam Next Fest will serve as the central discovery event for the campaign.

**Recommended Campaign Structure**

* **October 1–8** Public demo launch and awareness campaign.
* **October 9–18** Demo optimization, PR follow-up, creator outreach and wishlist acceleration.
* **October 19–26** Steam Next Fest activation.
* **October 27 onward** Transition from wishlist acquisition to commercial launch conversion.

Steam Next Fest activity will include:

* Next Fest messaging
* Demo promotion
* Social content recommendations
* Press outreach
* Creator outreach
* Steam announcement planning
* Storefront optimization
* Wishlist calls to action
* Player feedback monitoring
* Mid-event adjustments
* Post-event conversion strategy

**7. PUBLIC RELATIONS**

Strategic Entertainment will create and execute a targeted earned-media campaign supporting the demo,Next Fest and commercial release.

**PR Development**

* Strategic Entertainment will:
* Edit existing press materials
* Develop approved messaging
* Review developer biography
* Review game description
* Refine elevator pitch
* Develop key talking points
* Create media positioning
* Review trailers
* Review screenshots
* Organize press assets
* Develop press outreach angles

No external communications will begin until materials and positioning have been approved by the developer.

**PR Outreach**

Outreach may include:

* PC gaming media
* Indie gaming publications
* Strategy/gameplay-focused publications
* Steam-focused outlets
* Gaming newsletters
* Indie discovery publications
* Relevant YouTube creators
* Twitch creators
* Podcasts
* Newsletter writers
* Appropriate regional or technology press

PR will focus on creating several discrete reasons for media to cover the game rather than relying exclusively on a single launch announcement.

**8. SHOWCASE & FESTIVAL STRATEGY**

Strategic Entertainment will identify relevant showcase, festival and promotional opportunities occurring during or immediately following the campaign.

Potential opportunities will be evaluated based on:

* Eligibility
* Audience fit
* Timing
* Submission deadlines
* Steam visibility
* Creator participation
* Press participation
* Expected development workload

Steam Next Fest will be the primary showcase event.

Additional independent or genre-specific showcases may be pursued when they provide meaningful exposure without distracting the developer from product completion.

**9. COMMUNITY STRATEGY**

The community program will be designed specifically for the operational limits of a small independent studio.

Becuase you're a solo dev, Strategic Entertainment does **not initially recommend building a high-maintenance Discord community** unless player demand justifies the moderation and management requirements.

Instead, priority will be placed on scalable channels including:

* Instagram
* Steam Community
* [itch.io](http://itch.io)
* Relevant Reddit communities where appropriate
* Creator communities
* Existing developer social channels

The objective will be to establish a consistent public presence without requiring the developer to become a full-time community manager.

**Community Content Pillars**

* Recommended content themes may include:
* Development updates
* Gameplay clips
* New mechanics
* GIFs
* Character or enemy reveals
* Behind-the-scenes development
* Developer commentary
* Player feedback
* Demo improvements
* Patch notes
* Milestones
* Wishlist pushes
* Review highlights
* Creator coverage
* Launch countdowns

Strategic Entertainment will advise on cadence, messaging and campaign timing.

**10. PRICING & COMPETITIVE REVIEW**

Strategic Entertainment will conduct a competitive pricing review based on comparable games including:

* Genre
* Scope
* Playtime
* Production quality
* Developer profile
* Player expectations
* Review performance
* Historical discounting

The working pricing strategy to be evaluated is:

**Launch promotional price:** approximately $9.99

**Long-term standard price:** approximately $15.99–$16.00

Final pricing recommendations will be presented following the competitive review.

**11. REPORTING & OPTIMIZATION**

Strategic Entertainment will review available campaign data throughout the engagement.

Metrics may include:

* Steam page traffic
* Wishlists
* Wishlist velocity
* Demo downloads
* Demo engagement
* Store conversion
* [itch.io](http://itch.io) traffic
* Social engagement
* Press activity
* Creator activity
* Player feedback
* Reviews
* Sales

**A campaign recap will be prepared at the conclusion of the engagement identifying:**

* Campaign results
* Highest-performing activities
* Lowest-performing activities
* Audience learnings
* Storefront learnings
* PR results
* Recommended December actions
* Recommended longer-term marketing priorities

Hope this helps the curious and the lost.

Hello everyone! We are tachyonFlux studios, a husband and wife team with big RPG dreams. We have been working on a roguelite game for several years which is finally coming together (hooray!), inspired by our love of 90s JRPGs and Sci-fi.

Our Steam page just went live, which is VERY exciting. Our concern is that we rushed our Steam page a bit, as we want to join the Steam Party-Based RPG fest which starts September 14th. We also want something to share publicly during the hype for Roguelike Festival in October. So we are trying to balance the importance of making a good first impression while also not missing these opportunities for engagement. Please help us to triage and improve as quickly as possible!

If you want to give unbiased feedback, please look NOW before reading more...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5142830/Vortex_Force/

Ongoing Work:

• Our gameplay is currently focused in Act 1 which is a fantasy setting, so we are pushing to finalize gameplay/screenshots in a post-apocolyptic horror setting to represent our game's breadth better
• We have a partner updating our sound effects and developing a simple gameplay focused announcement trailer which should be ready in September
• We have reached out to a professional capsule artist, but realize any new art will probably not be ready for the 14th. We produced the current art and logo and may be able to update it based on your feedback.
• Let me be blunt- we are not trained artists. We are resource limited and still learning, so some of our art assets started with AI generation and have been heavily hand edited. We are proud of our product and don't think it looks like "slop", but we may have blind spots! Please help us identify where to focus our improvement efforts. While we like the flavor of our current art, we do plan to keep replacing/upgrading as we go, potentially hiring professionals once we reach enough wishlists to justify that investment.

Thank you for your time and thoughts!

For a while, I’ve been sharing Hotel 13’s trailer and different scenes here, constantly improving the game based on your feedback. Some of the criticism was pretty harsh 😅, but most of it genuinely helped make the game much better.

Today, our Steam page is finally live. Since I’ve been sharing this journey with you, I wanted to share the news here as well.

If the game interests you, adding it to your wishlist would mean a lot to us. As always, I’d also love to hear your honest thoughts on the final version of the trailer!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5046340/Hotel_13/

Hey!

I have recently started promoting my game on tiktok, would love to hear some feedback, on what can be improved and how to get better at it.

I can also view yours and give my feedback.

Here is the link - https://www.tiktok.com/@redhorde11

Does it convey its arcade-y shooter horde vibe?

For more images/screenshots etc:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5122020/GNAP_GNAP/

Cancelling a game you actually care about sucks, but as an indie dev, knowing when to call it quits is easily one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn.

I was working on Warband Survival a 3D action bullet hell survival game where you drive a truck around, rescue soldiers, equip them to shoot from the back of your rig, and wipe out enemy military bases while dodging enemy cars. I had physics based chaos, explosions, and custom character models working. Honestly, I really loved the core vibe of what I was building.

So why did I pull the plug after dropping over $1,000 out of pocket on concept art ($50/hr adds up fast) and Steam fees?

First off, 3D performance is a sneaky trap. Horde survival in 3D is a completely different monster than 2D. I learned this the hard way on my previous game (Northend Tower Defense) when trying to render huge waves of enemies. With Warband Survival, scaling up the gameplay meant running straight into optimization walls that could’ve easily swallowed 1 to 3 years of my life with no guarantee it’d run smooth.

On top of that, I couldn't lock down the core hook. Even though driving around causing explosions was fun in short bursts, I just couldn't pull together a tight, killer gameplay trailer. I had to face the scariest indie scenario: spending a year in the dark, only to launch and sell fewer than 1,000 copies.

And honestly, 1,000 wishlists wasn't cutting it. I managed to cross that milestone on Steam, but looking at my burn rate and dev timeline, it just wasn't enough momentum to justify paying contractors out of pocket for localization, UI, and audio.

If there's anything I'm taking away from this whole experience, it's the 2-3 Month Test. Build the core loop in just one level, put a rough build on itch.io or social media, and see if real people actually care before sinking a year into it. If people won't play your game when it's free, they definitely won't pay for it on Steam. You also can't defer technical debt never build huge systems assuming you'll magically fix performance down the line.

It hurts, plain and simple. I haven't deleted the Steam page, and if there's ever crazy community demand down the road, maybe I'll revisit it. But right now, stepping away is the only move that keeps me going.

How do you guys handle knowing when to pivot versus when to keep pushing through a rough dev cycle?

(I put together a breakdown video showing actual footage of the build and talking through why I stopped, if you want to check out what the game looked like, the link to my YouTube channel is in my Reddit profile!)

I launched my game and started marketing it just one month ago.

Since launch, I've done a little over $200 in gross revenue, and grown a Discord community to just over 700 members.

I have roughly 1500 active players (active defined as anyone that has played more than once in the past week).

I did all of this with TikTok, purely organic with no ad spend at all. Early on, a few of my videos popped off and got over 300k views combined in the space of just a few days, since then, I have the odd one or two that get over 50k views each week, combined, just over 1M views since I started posting.

The key to posting on TikTok is relatively simple. TikTok looks at 4 main things:

1. Video completion rate
   
2. Average watch time
   
3. Engagement, likes, comments, shares, saves, etc
   
4. Posting consistency

I really learned this when those first few videos popped off.

My first videos were around 20-30 seconds long. People don't watch for that long, they scroll very quickly.

If you don't cut your videos down to 5-10 seconds, people will never finish them. Take out any dead air, especially at the beginning, your video needs to stop the scroll. People are just waiting for something to grab their attention, trim anything that's not useful off the start, put the viewer straight into the action, that's going to stop them from scrolling away immediately.

The early videos were full races from my game (the game is about drag racing), barely any editing, they didn't get much attention. The next videos were shorter, but also didn't quite hit the mark, retention for them dropped off wildly.

Then I posted the winners, in that 5-10 seconds range. Suddenly people were watching them all the way through, the average watch time grew beyond the length of the video, people were looping it, that was a strong enough signal for the algorithm to give it a good boost.

I posted a few videos pretty close to each other, once people saw the initial winner, they'd come to my profile and watch my other videos, this gave them a good boost too, then TikTok realised what audience wanted to see my content and pushed it out to more people.

Another thing I noticed, your text hook (the text over the top of your video), needs to be good enough that people stick around to read it. I spent a lot of time experimenting this past month with hooks and found a few that have a good enough success rate that I can re-use them.

I had a string of 20-50k view videos where I basically just re-used the exact same hook over and over.

Something I've been trialling recently is a series, where I post "Day 1 of trying to do x" in my game, with a running total, I had a 70k view video and a 50k view video off just those in the past week.

The point is, experiment with your text hooks, don't just default to one, play around with it, find hooks that work, and then exploit them over and over again.

These two tips alone will rocket your video completion rate and average watch time.

The other two are a little more manual.

Engagement is a harder one to hit, your hook somewhat needs to drive engagement, but I've found great success in just not mentioning the name of my game in my videos. Even though my profile has the game name right there in the title, you can just go ahead and not mention it, and you'll get decent engagement from people asking what the game name is. If your game looks good, people will save it by default. You can also experiment with hooks that really drive engagement too, ragebait works, or asking people what they want to see next in the game works, plenty of options for way to drive engagement with your hooks but very dependent on what your content is specifically.

The more important part, is to always respond to comments, even if they're negative, just respond, this blows your comments up massively because conversations get started in your comments and that signals to TikTok that you're engaged in your audience just as much as they are in you.

The last one is posting consistency, and nobody can help you with this one except you. I post probably anywhere from 1 time a day to 10+ times a day depending on how much time/energy I have available to me.

The main thing that lets me post a lot is that I built a content rendering flywheel right into my game, you can export a clip that's already optimised for TikTok right from the game. Any time you finish a race, you just click a button and boom, content. Minimal editing required, just go post.

Using this I'm able to easily post a few times a day, even on busy days. I had to drive 3 hours to an event one day, didn't really have a lot of time and certainly wouldn't be able to post at the event, but in the 10 mins I stopped to get fuel I made a post and by the time I arrived at my destination it was already popping off, that video did 40k views, and it was made in a petrol station. If you're struggling to make content, build something into your game that lets the content flow more easily.

Hope this helps someone. If anyone has any questions fire away, happy to help out.

Steam page for context - https://store.steampowered.com/app/4867910/Red_Lake/

Hello guys I'm working on updating my steam capsule i want your feedback

Steam Page: Last Cleanup

Hi. I'm working on my horror game, and I'd like to launch its Steam page soon. I just created this capsule art, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it. Does it look okay by today's horror game standards? Any feedback is appreciated.

I'm making my first game and I've avoided generative AI completely so far. No AI art, no generated assets, nothing in the actual game.

But now I'm making the trailer and I'm seriously considering using a generated voice for the VO.

And I'm wondering if this is just a terrible idea.

I'm not really in a position where I want to spend a bunch of money hiring a voice actor/actress for a trailer for my first game, which I haven't even released yet. I'm also living in a country where finding a native English-speaking actr locally would be pretty difficult.

The voice I've been testing actually works really well, which is why I'm tempted.

It's a licensed synthetic voice btw, I'm not cloning some actual person's voice. I, personally, woudn't even be able to tell its AI.

I guess my main concern is: if you hear an AI voice in an indie game's trailer, do you immediately assume the game itself is full of AI stuff? Or does the distinction between "used it for the trailer VO" and "used it to make the game" matter to you?

Basically, how much am I shooting myself in the foot here?

I am a YouTuber who has quite some experience playtesting/reviewing games live on my channel for developers. I do live sessions on my YouTube channel where I play their games with an audience through which, not only do I provide detailed feedback, but the developer also gets to see the viewers' reaction live in chat. I have recently done some very successful sessions with some devs in chat while I played their games live on my channel. Some very long yet successful sessions.

I also do giveaways at intervals during those long live sessions to keep the audience watching and active. Feel free to take a look at my channel's Live sessions where I have all the VODs up to understand my style better. I don't ask for much in return, maybe a gift card or two depending on our agreement and my session's length. I am open to all offers and do all I can to make sure your game gets all the reach it deserves! 🌸😊

After weeks of building, testing, and listening to your feedback! Waitlist members get 1 MONTH OF FREE PRO. 👀Create. Animate. Showcase. Get discovered.
Happy pixel! 🧡

Sorry in advance if this could be considered some type of SPAM. I just want to say that I made tons of changes in my steam page during this days after recieve a lot of tips and advices about it.

this is the game (you can Wishlist if you like it)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5100770/At_Once_My_Lord/

• First of all, I have a new capsule. On left the old ones and right the new.
• I remade my Trailer, before it has 10 seconds of traveling camera and text with a chill music. Now the trailer has a big punch at the beggining and is combining gameplay with some parts of lore.
• I rewrote all the descriptions in all languages as well. The english and spanish has the text wrote by me, the rest of languages are translations made with tools...
• The screenshots are new also. The previous ones were made in a early development of the game.
• Oh! And I added animated gifs to the descriptions! It looks much better in my opinion.

I guess this is all the changes I made.

Please, if you're interested in provide me your opinion, thoughs or concerns, you're wellcome! Thank you so much!

My demo went up nine days ago and the game itself is not out until January. I could leave the demo as the green button on the game's page, or publish a separate store page for the demo under its own App ID. I did both. The numbers surprised me enough that I would like to hear from people who chose differently.

What happened

On launch day the demo page saw about 520 visits. The full game page saw about 170, and it was already doing about 130 a day before the demo existed, so its lift was close to nothing.

The traffic was Steam's own doing, not mine. I got 5.702 impressions in the Free Demos Hub in a single day. Browse Search Results went from about 800 impressions to about 19,800. Steam now serves the demo roughly 50,000 impressions a day.

So far that reads as a straight win for the separate page. Two things I did not think about:

The demo page has no wishlist button for the base game. Valve auto-inserts a "check out the full game" card and that is all you get. So the surface receiving nearly all the traffic is not the surface that collects wishlists, and wishlists are what Next Fest keys off. Eight days in, my net wishlist rate is roughly half what it was before the demo existed: about 2.45 a day for the month before launch, about 1.2 a day for the five days after. The demo gave me a one-off bump of about 54 and no sustained lift.

It changed who plays the demo, and therefore my own stats. The launch cohort were followers and existing wishlisters. Everyone since arrives from the Free Demos Hub, samples for ten or twenty minutes and leaves. Same build throughout, but as the sample grew from 66 players to 207 my "played at least an hour" figure fell from 19% to 11%, far enough that Valve's own label on that page changed to "below average as compared to other Steam demos". The ten-minute figure never moved, 65 to 66% across all four readings, so it is not the opening that is losing them. I am now benchmarked against other demos on a number that a discovery surface I did not choose is pushing down.

For anyone weighing the cost: the separate page needs its own capsules and library art visibly marked Demo, five or more screenshots that are true of the demo build rather than the full game, its own trailer, its own content survey and age rating, a separate Valve review pass, and a re-publish of the base page once the demo goes playable. None of it inherits.

What I would like to know from people who have shipped one

1. Separate page or button-only, and would you do the same again?
2. If you went button-only, did you get any Free Demos Hub or free-chart placement at all? My reading of the docs is that those surfaces only exist once there is a separate page, and I would like that confirmed or corrected by someone who actually ran the other configuration.
3. Has anyone got a real wishlist prompt for the base game onto the demo page, beyond Valve's auto-inserted card? I ended up writing one plain sentence into the demo's description, because links in that section stopped being publicly visible in 2024.
4. If your demo page carries its own review score, has that ever hurt you?

The demo is ready so should i upload it a week after Steam page release or just at the same time as the Steam page goes live?

Thanks