For The Devs · 2026-06-01
Heading Into Steam Next Fest: 10 Tips From the Audience Side
Steam Next Fest is only two weeks away. This is what I'd be looking for from the audience side, written for developers about to walk into fest week. Take it as one reviewer's perspective.
Steam Next Fest is only two weeks away. This is what I'd be looking for from the audience side, written for developers about to walk into fest week. Take it as one (old) reviewer's perspective.
1. Market before the fest, not on day one
First and foremost, I would be making sure that you're marketing. Now, obviously the meme of leaving marketing till the very last minute is pretty much a cliche at this point, but it's still worth mentioning that getting a good first or second day in Next Fest is key, so that you're across more pages and you make it into any articles or content that's released early. So get out there, start marketing, share loads of clips, share your content, reach out to people you know.
Recently I've been playing a few demos that I've not found directly via socials, but I've seen some of the content on socials, and when I'm browsing through the demos I'm more likely to pick up that game than others. I've had a couple where I've been influenced by the fact I've already seen some of that game's content come through.
2. Use the announcements and events feature for the demo going live
I would be making sure that you use the announcement and events feature for the demo going live, whether it's going live on your main game page or on its own demo page, so that you can show people that it's live and give a little bit of a spiel about what's happening in the demo for Next Fest and the idea of the demo.
3. The bar is playable, bugs OK, broken core not
Make sure it's playable, make sure the core loop's there. It doesn't have to be bug free, but at least have a core loop solid enough that people can play it.
4. Block out patch time during the fest, then announce the patch
Definitely block out some time for rolling out a quick fix, because you may start getting a lot of feedback that's almost game breaking and don't want to lose this chance. You should be ready to do the update to the demo there and then, so I would be very mindful to make sure you've blocked out some time for that.
I know personally I've had a couple of reviews where I'd finished playing, because I normally do most of my play on a game in one or two sessions, and I'd gone to look up the Steam page details for doing the review and saw in the announcements and events that they'd pushed a patch which specifically called out the bug I'd had issues with, which was key to influencing my review.
So definitely make sure you're ready to fix stuff on feedback if it's game breaking, and then make sure you tell everyone that you've fixed it. Make sure it's up on the announcement so people know it's been changed. Just in case they come in and see some old reviews that are from a previous build, make sure they can see that you've listened to feedback and you've changed that.
5. The page and the trailer have to grab in the first couple of seconds
As with a lot of the advice I've given previously, make sure that your page is looking good, make sure that your trailer is good. It's going to be really busy, so people probably have an even shorter attention span, so I would make sure your trailer's grabbing them in the first couple of seconds. I think people are going to be even quicker to scroll past things.
6. Early traction matters for Steam's discovery surfaces
The importance of an early first kind of pickup of people playing it means it gets you on the new and trending, which is going to be quite big, as well as into the suggestion for the different genres you're showing promise in, so you get thrown on those pages a lot more and get more visibility out of it.
7. Strip your Discord back, and use it as a funnel
Be active in the discussions on Steam, and make sure you've also got somewhere you're funnelling people to. Discord's quite a popular one, but I would strongly advise against having a Discord with a thousand channels. I've joined somewhere there's only me and like ten other people, and there's more channels than there are people.
I would give it really stripped back to just a few, maybe announcements, bug reporting, forum, and then just general chat, and just keep it low. Maybe even one for people to share their content, but then people could just do that in the general chat if you really want to. Just to keep it so you've got a way of engaging where people come through, going on to content.
8. Playable and enjoyable inside your genre is not enough
I'll be looking for ones that are interesting, so not only games I think I'll enjoy playing, but in some way have something that's more of a hook to them.
I think that's where we are with a lot of the genres at this point, that making a playable and enjoyable game within the genre is not enough to be interesting enough for people to take notice, you need something slightly unique, whether it's the art, or a slightly tweaked mechanic, or you've iterated on something to sort it out.
9. Treat content creators as a pipeline
Try not to obsessively search, but be searching for new content about your game so you can engage with it. Showing the engagement with it will mean a lot to the people creating the content, so they're likely to do more of it.
I would definitely recommend reaching out to anyone who streams it and seeing if you can get their footage, and if they would let you clip it into different sections for your own social content. Make sure to be clear that you would give credit to them as well, so you'd say the handle or the YouTube channel or wherever it is they want people to be funnelled to, and I think that'd be quite a good reciprocal relationship you can do with people, and then that's your content pipeline building.
This is key if reactions to your game are a huge thing, especially if yours is multiplayer or one of these kind of new co-op games, because if they've got a stream with both sides of the conversation recorded in it, being really proactive in reaching out and chatting to them about using that for clips could really expand your content pipeline down the way.
If you see anyone doing articles or anything like that around it, just reach out, give them a few good pointers about it, why it's worth looking at, what's slightly unique, what's different about it. Don't just say "we're doing it different", literally highlight what is different about it and what is the interesting hook, why it should make it into some other different articles.
And then going back again on the content side, if you do find someone who's covering it and you like their coverage, maybe it's performed, maybe it hasn't, but you can see a use for it, I would definitely recommend reaching out to see if there's interest to cover it when the full game comes out, because then they've got far more context in what the game is because they've already had a go on the demo.
10. Plan for after the fest, not just during
Be ready after it to capitalise on any momentum you've got. Whether that's continuing to push out a new version of the demo with some new tweaks in it, continuing to charm your newfound community to keep coming back to see what's being changed, or whether it's actually having a release date to push people towards. I think that'll be key.
My own plan for this fest
It's going to be busy. I'll be looking through the lens of a player but also a content creator. My plan is that I like to get an article out for the first three demos I've tried, within about 24 to 48 hours of the fest going.
Make sure to understand the kind of time that does go into creating this content. If you've got your eye on some specific creators, give them enough notice so they can plan it out. I'm quite sporadic with mine, I just pick what I fancy and then deal with the admin afterwards, but I'm sure some people are more proactive with the way they schedule out what content they're going to cover for each fest. So try and get in there early so they know to play yours and they've got space in their schedule.
I hope you have a great Next Fest. I hope I find a few games. And I hope you find the audience you are looking for.
All Steam demo reviews at todaywegame.gg. Play, Maybe, or Skip.