How to Market Your Game on Steam
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- čas přidán 26. 06. 2024
- WISHLIST OUR GAME: store.steampowered.com/app/20...
Can experts Derek Lieu & Chris Zukowski help Danny fix up Stunt Derby's Steam page? The answer is hopefully yes by the end of this video.
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Produced by Danny O'Dwyer
0:00 - This Project
2:13 - Steam Page 101
5:02 - Trailer Tips
7:57 - Steam Graphic Design
9:56 - Fixing our Steam Page
11:20 - PHYSICS!
15:57 - Game Improvements
17:05 - Our New Steam Page
18:06 - The Trailer
20:00 - Outro - Hry
To me, the trailer feels like it's missing a 'protagonist car' for us to follow. What was being said about forming a narrative for the trailer. Going from the starting line to the finish line. Cut away to other cars, sure but ultimately pull it back to focus on your main car. Like a very condensed episode of Wacky Races.
Find this super interesting, after all look at how many racing games have that front cover "protagonist car", and how many of those are iconic to the people that played them. The M3 GTR from Most Wanted, the Lamborghini Centenario from Forza Horizon 3, the Ford GT from Gran Turismo 4, obviously these are all examples of games with licensed cars but still, a huge amount of games in the genre do this and I think it would def pay off
@@ginjais agreed, as long as the main car stays the same colour throughout it'd be great
@@ginjais cover cars are really important, forza horizon just had seasonal events for the current and all the previous cover cars, i really loved that
@@herekongato I also remember in Forza Horizon 5 if the player has played previous forza games with their Microsoft account, they'll be given free access to the cover cars from those games in Horizon 5. I haven't played Horizon 5 in many months but it's super cool to hear they were doing festive events where everyone can gain access to all the cover cars from the previous forza games.
I feel like the natural next step for the cars is to have crumple-models. In a vein similar to Wreckfest. No matter what condition your car is in, you can keep going. Even if it's a cube.
Yeah, I was going to say that some whacky damage model could be a core feature of the game. When you collide literally a quarter of your car could just fall off, but only affect the performance enough so that it's noticable, but not game-ending. Perhaps your final race score could be multiplied by the remaining percentage of your car. Your score is half off because your car is half off.
The steam page improvements really made this look a lot more approachable, great job
At 10:32 I instantly got the whole NES cartridge feel, it hit me in my gut and made me say out loud "Oh this is fucking lit". It's crazy how a professionally made capsule does a whole lot to make your game stand out as a passion project instead of an instant cash grab.
I know it's probably too early, but I think even a rudimentary damage modeling system would go a long way in a game with so many collisions.
It's also kind of wild how accurate that guy was in describing my Steam interactions. From the moment he mentioned all the quirks of spotting an asset flip to the priority I assign to each aspect of the presentation. It's weird to think people have such common tendencies even in isolation.
It more comes down to the norms set among most users, which can be similar due to a cultural continuity compared to what someone new to games would do
We are all individuals!
@@fireaza Not me
It’s putting a game on a sale that triggers a “maybe I’ll buy this to try it” mentality.
Btw I love that 80’s stunt derby capsule at 10:35, reminds me of old Commodore 64 games
I love the idea of the boxes allowing for a long jump style track!
Duuuude. From what I'm catching from this (and your previous) video, it seems like you're making a spiritual successor to Stunts, but as a physics party game? That's awesome!
As a kid I loved Stunts. I didn't have many games growing up, but Stunts on my old 486DX was the favorite game of not just me, but all of my friends and family who came over and wanted to play games. I think I spent hundreds in it. So call me invested in what you're trying to achieve here.
And yes, I totally get you having lots of fun while playing this game together, as we had tons of fun playing it back in the days.
I could give tons of suggestions of what to do based on my experience, but I don't want you guys to make a Stunts clone, but your own game. But still, based on my time with the OG Stunts, I can only suggest you may want to put focus on a few things in the future:
- The replay functionality. I already see you're working on that. Replaying your wins, but even more so your spectacular crashes was one of the most fun things in Stunts.
- Intro music. Making a good intro for your game probably deserves a video on its own. But it can be important. The Stunts theme music is stuck in my head for a reason after playing it for so long. Each time I see your cars drive in these two videos my memory triggers me with the OG theme song.
- The win/loss animations of the opponent avatars. I have absolutely no idea if this can work in what you're trying to build. But part of the fun of OG stunts were those enemy avatars. It felt good to beat the smug jerk or see the diva cry in tears. It triggered you to replay if they were boasting about how they beat you.
- The difference in terrain to drive on. I couldn't see if this was already present in your existing track builder, but OG Stunts had 3 types of track to drive on: regular road, icy road (white) and dirt road (brown). Each had a different interaction between car and road and could provide for interesting or weird shenanigans in your "modern physics" reincarnation.
Anyway, I will be putting this on my Steam wishlist. I will be looking forward to your progress.
Definitely need a Noclip x GMTK crossover at some point.
Both of you are doing game dev process series' that are very different but equally interesting and fun.
For the trailer, showing a few seconds of map creation and then playing the map, and then showing off the replay feature of that map could help. I did that in Roguebreaker and has a little bump.
Ngl I love the classical music slow mo trailer but maybe as a secondary trailer.
The 80s cart illustrated capsule art looks fantastic. Even if you didn't grow up with it, you can immediately feel what it invokes. Thanks 80s nostalgia media
It would be great to know how you are managing all of this? Jira boards? Project boards? Milestones? etc... Also I think the trailer is missing the fun from everyone laughing at funny things happening... 'no way.. hahahahaha' that type of thing. Great progress and series
Ahhh, I completely misunderstood the title.
I thought the focus of the video was a discussion about marketing strategies focused on "Steam Sales" (i.e discounts)
But this was actually a discussion on setting up your game to get sales on Steam.
Great content nonetheless.
Yeah, I was confused too. The term "Steam Sales" is kinda confusing indeed!
@@bertvandepoel yea fair point, we've modified the title
Some handy links...
Wishlist Stunt Derby here: store.steampowered.com/app/2026450/Stunt_Derby/
Chris website: howtomarketagame.com/
Derek's website: Derek-lieu.com
Here to let you know the trailer doesn't suck!
But since you asked for feedback here's my take. In terms of 'genre' like Chris said, I can't tell from the trailer if the game is supposed to be more like Trackmania or Gangbeasts. The realistic car physics and behind the back viewpoint evoke Trackmania and racing games that have crazy tracks but are otherwise pretty serious, but the cars going off-road and backwards and into boxes and into each other with different camera angles feels like the chaos of Human Fall Flat or Fall Guys.
If it's going to be more like a realistic racer, it doesn't look unique from the trailer. Other racing games have physics, and I don't see how this game's physics make it any different, even with loop de loop tracks. If it's going to be about weapons and damaging other vehicles, well that's not in yet so it's understandable.
From the trailer what would make me want to buy the game the most is if it was more of a party game to screw around in. Something like Mario Kart's battle mode, but with realistic cars where you do short driving challenges to pick up weapons (like a loop de loop, or sharp turn without a rail, or hit a tiny hoop off a ramp) .
In any case, it would be nice to show car customization. Showing some cars with some dumb looking paint jobs or physics objects glued on that react to all of the collisions and turns (like streamers or something on a spring on top of the car) would make the game look much more appealing, even if the cosmetics were very basic looking. If I'm playing a party game with my friends, we all want to pick the most ridiculous character options possible. Showing the drivers getting flung out of cars would be neat too, although I realize it's much easier to say all of these ideas than to implement them.
Thanks for the videos!
Just a bit of clarification, and maybe this was just for the video to flow and you are aware of this.. Chris said the trailer on the steam page doesnt matter that much not that the trailer does not matter. You still need the trailer for festivales, which is the biggest driver of steam wishlist.
I feel as called out as Danny about my Steam shopping habits.
I'm surprised there was no mention of including any famous names in the description. Knowing your game has the involvement of the guy who made _Gish_ certainly grabbed my attention!
Seeing grey cubes being hit still kind of give of vibes of the low effort asset flip. Maybe making a few more physics objects like cardboard boxes, rubber tires, beach balls, or even silly things like rubber ducks would be pretty easy to create and add a huge amount of value to the presentation of the game.
Great vid!
Sounds like it'll be quite easy to remake the trailer with the latest version of the game if you can use the same replay data to get updated videos and then just copy over your existing clips in the edit bin, which is really handy!
21:00 Discord ping.
dammit, another one gets through
One of the most played games on my Amiga back in the 90s was Stunt Car Racer. I will 100% be buying this especially if it's working on Steam Deck. Wishlisted.
This game is screaming for speed boosters. Both track-mounted ones like in Wipeout as well as one you can just trigger with a button like Rocket League. I feel like that really adds some fun chaotic elements.
Derek Lieu told you to show a goal at the end of the "loop" in the trailer and you put one at the end of the whole video. I think you kinda missed the point there a little bit :D
It is at the end of the trailer, but not at the end of a gameplay loop. I do not understand, WHY all these cars are driving around like they had one too many, even if at the end apparently one team won.
Up until that point I didn't even realise that there were teams, or that they were doing something specific, besides racing. Or well it looks like a racing game, but I am still not sure if they are even doing that. Why drive on the road sometimes and off it in others? Why drive through a loop and then around it?
A lot of other people commented with several ideas like telling a cohesive story, or putting dialogue into the video. That would help a lot.
You said you wanted to show gameplay and what the player will be doing. But in this case I think "what" is as important as "why". Because a mechanical "why" is quite different from a "story why", which you have rightly been warned not to do.
One of the things you can put more emphasis on is the team / game mode aspects here, as I think it sets this game apart from many/most indie racers. I anticipate that textually indicating this is not ideal for a trailer (it's not region-friendly unless you plan on doing translations/multiple trailers. And might be a bit cheap looking), so it will take some creativity to do it in a more visual and elegant manner. Red Team Wins! at the end was a good quick indication, but maybe another trailer can put some emphasis on the team play modes. You won't be limited to just one, anyway! And I am somewhat confident that people will click through multiple videos and shots in their 15 seconds of interest thing upon hitting up an unfamiliar game's store page. So, you can showcase more things, more trailers, and more types of videos this way.
I can attest to the accuracy of what your marketing guy says about associating your game with other recognizable games. Y'see, without any previous knowledge of your CZcams channel, I stumbled across Stunt Derby several weeks ago while searching Steam for upcoming racers, and what immediately caught my eye was its resemblance to Atari's Hard Drivin'. Anyway, I totally wasn't expecting to see the throwback racing game I had previously wishlisted when I clicked on this video. It was a nice little surprise, heh!
I don't look at Steam pages in the way Chris described. I always look for a trailer that features in-game footage first, to get a sense of what the quality, gameplay and feel are like. If I like what I see, I check the price. If it's within my budget and I'm eager to give it a try, I'll check the comments and look for reviews or no-commentary playthroughs on CZcams (I don't really do these things in a fixed order). I don't pay much attention to the screenshots or the short description at all, although I sometimes glance at the short description while waiting for the trailer to load. That said, I only buy about 3 games per year (ignoring all the free ones I get on Epic), so I'm never really in a rush to make a decision.
Great to hear this perspective. That makes sense.
For the trailer, I think you're really missing the 'vibe' of the game. Like some shots with audio from the patreon sessions and people laughing and chatting to convey to people that this is a lighthearted party-type game. With the way the trailer currently is you can't even tell it's real people driving the other cars! (any not CPU-controlled cars)
Well said. The whacky physics are there, but the multiplayer and unique game modes are not clear. Having players say things like, "cut off the flag car" or something like that which has been in these making of videos may help.
Really, really enjoying this series so far! The game looks like a blast, and the new steam page really communicates that a lot better.
Reminds me of a game I played on my 486.... "Stunts". Looking forward to this.
Loving this series. Looking forward to seeing more on the single player stuff. I remember being told that "you've got to have single player" but that was a while back so things might have changed / maybe your existing audience means that'll be less of a problem...
Trailer looks great! The music is nice too, nice slo-mo shots and physics clips etc. I dig it.
To me the trailer fails to convey the multiplayer magic, which seems to be the core fun aspect of your game. I would have gone for one of those "mic effect" trailers where you can hear people's excitement to play with friends, screw around and experiencing those close call wins. Basically, what you showed us all when you first pitched the game to us on this channel. It was more evocative of a fun multiplayer game. In this trailer, I could easily mistake it for a solo game with janky AI. But that's only my opinion.
The trailer should have sound effects from the game
Love this series! Idea: Noclip Crew sponsors/documents the next GMTK game jam
Are those giant Jenga towers? You could make a "Jenga mode" with single HUGE Jenga tower in the center of a map with a bunch of ramps aimed at different heights, that would be pretty epic, and would probably make for some interesting trailer clips and screenshots. Maybe put in code that varies the height of the block a little so they have different friction like in a real game of Jenga.
That awesome. Looking forward to the next video in this series.
I guess I'm not "visual-oriented," I go over the text box on the right first, description, the release date, those user tags at the bottom (a very good way to get the character of the game), review rates, whether I know the studio/publisher or not, then scroll down to the features - then if I'm still interested, I go over the trailer and screenshots, and finally reviews.
If yall plan to include the level editor in the game itself, I'd include that (early-ish) in the trailer too. that's a major aspect of the game imo, if so.
That OG classical music trailer, to me, hit the exact beats of “what makes you laugh about playing Stunt Derby?” that Derek mentions. I can understand how it fails to present the game, but I needed to leave a comment just because that little clip made me yell in hype as if *I* was the one who came up with that concept. Proud of y’all.
I don't think it's a bad trailer, it's just that the gameplay isn't finished. Once you've got that 2-3 core key features that define your game, the trailer will look much better instead of a sucession of short clips of the same cars and tracks.
sub rosa is criminally underrated, been following dev of that game for so long
I usually watch a trailer last or will pause it to watch after I look at screenshots, I rarely read the description of a game and head straight to the reviews. If a game has very positive or overwhelmingly positive then I have to know more about it.
I own about 2,000 games on Steam so I have a collection I’ll never get through, but if a game is on a decent sale and has a good positive rating and good reviews and I’m interested in the gameplay? I will def buy it.
First time I watch a trailer on Steam I skip through 90% of them just to get to the gameplay in a trailer.
If I like the gameplay I see I will watch the entire trailer, otherwise I’m pausing it and skipping that game.
Vermintide 2 and Darktide both have some of the best gameplay hype trailers I’ve ever seen. Those guys hired some bosses to make those trailers!
Also very strange I wrote this before I watched from 4:45 and on, and he’s describing what I do too.
This was really helpful! Just planning my Steam release!
Stunt derby replay system brought to you by the same technology behind the 80s classic oxs rising
Wishlisted! Good luck, I'll be following along 🎮
Seems like collision vfx and tire tracks would help.
Any racer, with a realistic physics model (whether it be handling, the environment, or both) has my attention. Wishlisted and best of luck!
oh man, the boxy lo-fi cars are starting to remind me of my time with Destruction Derby 64
Maybe it's the addition of objects or the slow-mo or just the chaos but I get big Rush 2 vibs from the stunt track level. Wishlisting now.
Great work. And thanks for all the great insights. I'd tell you, if this game had power-ups and abilities I'd be even more excited.
What a great series, No Clip Crew keeps on delivering !
Great vid and interest insight, thanks!
Very interesting and informative.. thanks guys
Dude, this series was made just for me. BTW, you should change the name of your game, because it's not a unique Google search. If I search for "Stunt Derby" I'll get all kinds of stuff, but if I search for "Monster Car Whipper," your game will be the first result. "Monster Car Whipper" is a terrible name for a game, BUT it's better than Stunt Derby, and sometimes 'bad' means 'difficult to forget.'
I was certain that the trailer was going to include a snippet of dudes laughing over their headsets while playing multi online.
You guys continue to do great work. The podcast is hard to get caught up on lol.
Love it giys keep up the good work with everything. I gotta catch up on some stuff.
In keeping with the arcade carnage nature of the game you could probably add randomised events in races such as a flood, blizzard, forest fire, oncoming taxi traffic, animal stampede, haunted ghost cars that phase in and out, road rage npcs or police chases including police spike strips so that every player is temporarily being hunted by a faster aggressive driver, maybe 2 dozen unique events that do not always occur but can occur and affect a section of the race or last for a limited duration. In this way if 3 or so of those events occur during a race each race should be very different to the last. Some vehicles may also be better and worse at different events. You could even speed buff or debuff a car based on performance in an event, ie driving through fire sets you on fire causes you to drive slower for 10 seconds but if you bump into other cars you can set them on fire too. Animals would slow or even ram cars knocking them around, blizzard may cause icey roads temporarily, floods may pool in sections of the roads creating slow pockets where water covers the road and disrupting steering when hitting a pocket of water so its ideal to hit them at speed but make sure you're aiming the direction you need to go as turning during wont be reliable. Eitherway the game seems to be about arcane carnage so you could do the most random things that make no sense and as long as its great multiplayer fun that's really all that matters.
Also, regarding engine noise, a constant drone of engines in racing games can get irritating. Perhaps some kind of "noise gate" could be crafted that slowly turns down the engine noise when its fairly continuous, but then ramps it back up when speed/gears change.
Having the ability to create your own levels for this to play with your friends would absolutely make it next level!
Ayyy, it's the Ready or Not reveal trailer music 18:29
Very useful info about the steam page
"4D Sports: Driving" for 2022? I'm in 👍
I'll lead with I thought that trailer was a lot better than most of what I see on Steam for Early Access projects. I try to clear out, ignore, most games on Steam, so I go through 10-20 a day.
That said:
I think the trailer ended up 5-10s too long when paired with that music. It started to feel repetitive.
I don't turn music on in Steam itself, ever, so I would probably never notice.
Watching it muted seemed fine, but still came off too messy (which could be intentional). Maybe mainly do 2 team stuff to tell a story, if 2 team is possible, then throw some more chaotic 4 team stuff as a bumper/stinger at the end?
Honestly it's a pretty good trailer, made me want to give the game a try. The shots that really capture the chaos are best-- cars going over a bridge like lemmings, flying multiple directions, good shit. I personally don't mind a supercut of crazy stuff and don't need a "story" to follow-- the vibe I got is that everyone playing would be too busy laughing to have any idea of what's going on lol
Gameplay videos. The very first thing I look for is a video of what the game looks like when it's being played. I hate trailers that hide gameplay. Screenshots are not enough information. I can tell so much more from a video that shows the gameplay.
Yeah, for me, that makes the difference between an impression that the game is good and the impression that it's a good game that I, personally, want to play.
I wonder if going for a cyberpunk neon look would give the visuals a bit more pop
I actually think the overhead view would be a fun way to play.. like RC mode.
It needs dubstep, at least one image of a large chested anime girl, a season pass and claims from unknown sources about being the best game someones played....ever. Sarcasm of course. Looks great! Reminds me not only of the old game Stunts, but also reminds me of another game from back then. Can't recall its name. I had it on floppy I think. It was even more basic then Stunts was. You could only see the track about 200 feet in front of you at a time as each section loaded in as you raced. Megarace? Hmm... maybe not.
Can't wait for early access!
You should totally make it so that the player that knocks down a jenga tower is eliminated from the the race. Like rocket league with jenga
I liked a lot the video and the video. I see it very fun for LAN, online mode with friends!! And in single player is cool too. The trailer is well done. It's sincere. A AAA trailer I usually see cinematic cameras, in GTA V for example the cinematic camera that kind of cameras can look cool I think. But your trailer is more sincere showing gameplay.
I gonna wish list or maybe buy a day, my dedicated gpu died last week and while I earn for one maybe I could play these kind of games. But also my hd 4600 run GTA V and Sea of thieve between other games.... But to ultra low resolution and settings.
This game I guess I would run with much better quality.
The UI elements look like they need a lot of work. It looks super wonky having padding between text and the top, but no padding between text and the left side, if you evened out that padding it'd feel immediately better.
Also I think for races in teams it'd be way funnier if both team raced the track in a different direction. Creates some ridiculous head to head action.
I like how this game cuts the crap. Just a simple game with simple controls and simple physics on simple tracks for good clean shenanigans.
This could be really fun if it was like; chaotic battle royale mario kart. could open the door for monetization through buying new car skins, tires, antenna toppers etc. obviously very feature creepy but would be much more appealing and have more virality. Who knows
I'm not a fan of the trailer's music. Stunt Derby feels like a wacky party racer, but the music makes it feel... sterile? Cold? Something like that.
Other than that, great work, huge improvement.
I do the screenshot then text description and they look up part 4 of it on youtube. Might be weird but the best advertiser a lets player in all cases they are usually in the main part of the game and having fun vs a heavily edited trailer. If they cant sell me the game i dont want it.
Replay feature? I'm in.
3D Skidmarks on the Amiga - spiritual sequel
What's the hook?
Finally sub Rosa driving game
Were you inspired by Broderbund's "Stunts" from 1990, or is this a coincidence? :)
Wonder how many people saw those brown bars on the game and said "CAR JENGA!!!!"
The camera looks very wobbly.
If I were to commission someone for cover/capsule art, what are the expectations of the artist in terms of pay and time to draw it?
I feel like if I'm a first time poor developer in a situation of scarcity, am I just fucked and should do everything myself?
Nowadays with AI tools like Stable Diffusion you can totally do it yourself if you put some time into it.
Well I did all that and got two wish listed so far lol
also, wishlists take a long time to stack up, 6+ months long. Chris said you should have at least 7000 wishlists at launch.
Babby’s First Game Release
This is the weirdest Twisted Metal sequel
Good trailer, odd choice of music. I would have gone with real heavy shredding metal track. DESTRUCTION!!!11!1! ;)
fun :)
Seems to me like you’ve remade Stunts, one of my all-time fave PC games from my childhood.
But despite getting excited by those features in this very video, you don’t sell any of that cool stuff in the trailer … !?
It just looks like fairly boring racing game right now based on the trailer. Show how easy and fun it is to do track editing and replays as well with some time lapse footage!
Recut the trailer with RACE … CRASH … REPLAY … EDIT as your headings and I reckon you’re on a winner.
Step 1: Call it "Flappy Bird"
Step 2: Make money.
Overall I think the trailer is ok, but I feel there are a few spots that make the game look very slow (and therefore boring): the falling at the end and the sequence when the car is driving in the loop, there's no feeling of speed imo.
a physics-based car game? oh dear danny, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into... (lol)
I didn't know this was gonna be a devlog when clicking on it. kinda clickbait
I'm sorry, but who is Chris Zukowski? Did he do anything anybody remembers?
Also, you do realize that you are in fact not allowed to share screenshots or even videos of the steamworks backend, don't you?
No offence but this game looks like it took 2 hours to make, i know thats probably not true, but you can download a lot of unity car demo assets that plays the same way
Please don't have your new features being the first video, as it auto plays and then I'm missing everything. I want to know what your game has, and the first video should be you best one
Why would anyone play this over what's currently available?
The trailer's not bad, but as others have noted the music isn't it. You gotta pick something with sass to match the mood i reckon, something closer to czcams.com/video/uICbhO-LggI/video.html