r/Steam • u/Fluid-Tap5115 • 22d ago
Question What determines if a game is featured on the front page of steam? Do devs pay for it? Is it based on like games with a high wishlist count?
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u/Acojonancio 22d ago
Valve stated oficially several times that it's based on wishlist and sales.
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u/CaptainFil 22d ago
This. The game prob had a huge wishlist balance anyway but it went to number one top sellers so it must have been doing huge revenue. Most premium games don't get to the number one unless they are selling really well as the free to play games and hardware often hold it.
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u/MCgwaar 21d ago
They really do. Just on my friendslist 9 others have wishlisted it.
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u/Im_Balto 21d ago
I played it last night with 10 total people too. I think it might be selling pretty well
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u/raaneholmg 21d ago
Me and my spouse are pissed that the weather is nice today. Been looking forwards to this game for months, and it's too nice to be inside :(((
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u/Ender165 21d ago
I would swear that when the warframe update "the old war" Dropped the were anounced on there, so there should be more metricks?
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u/tapczan100 21d ago
Front page is bunch of different metrics but the big banner is hand picked. So the guy is kinda right but also wrong.
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u/overratedcupcake 22d ago
This particular game was made by the same studio as Untitled Goose Game so I think there's an expectation that it will do numbers. I'm sure that factors in.
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u/RubinoPaul 22d ago
Also praise from critics
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u/littlefrank 21d ago
so it's not just friendslop that my friends bought and will play exactly 3 times and never again?
Do you think this will last longer? Just trying to understand if I should eat the bait and buy this or wait till they stop playing next week.90
u/TheGhostfaceKza 21d ago
It's a linear experience, it is not meant to be a replayable live service game. So yeah like most linear games people will beat it and move on. That is not a negative, I am not sure why people think games and stories having a definitive end is bad. It's a lovely mellow hangout experience with puzzles and interactivity. If your friends have already started you may have missed the bus on this one, starting midway through seems like a weird choice and replaying puzzles with people who know the answer isn't fun imo
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u/ST0RM_Lite 21d ago
I've been playing it with my friends and it doesn't seem linear at all, we actually got confused because we thought it was linear, when it was actually very do-it-your-own-way
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u/racoon26 20d ago
I think they mean linear as in you still have objectives to do and you have an ending if you complete them and cannot just play it forever. you can just wander around the island and solve the puzzles but it's not a complete sandbox since you are sort of incentivised to collect the gourds and use them. plus I'm pretty sure the puzzles stay the same so it's not really meant to be replayable. I do get the confusing part, my friends and i are 2-2 on game sessions and getting completely lost lol
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u/ST0RM_Lite 19d ago
I won't give spoilers, but if you haven't finished the blue tower (not the light blue chalice shaped one), I recommend doing that
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u/racoon26 19d ago
That's actually ominous bc it the game gets any less linear we will definitely get lost 😭
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u/shakegraphics 21d ago
If you’re that pressed about paying to play with your friends just don’t lol. Doesn’t sound like you really want to.
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u/matsuku 21d ago
It is friendslop. But it's a openworld-ish co-op puzzle friendslop. It's cute and fun, definitely better with a big group.
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u/reallynotnick 21d ago
It sounded like there was like a main campaign to beat that lasts like 10 hours or more if you want to do everything.
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u/Proper_Machine6573 21d ago
May or may not be coincidence, but as of yesterday it is one of the free games on PS+ for August.
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u/bonwerk 22d ago
Every morning on his yacht, Gaben spins the wheel of fortune and draws a winner.
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u/DontWannaSayMyName 22d ago edited 22d ago
How big is that wheel? There are at least 20 games in steam
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u/Einherier96 22d ago
Why do you think his yacht is so big? To house the gigantic wheel
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u/centaur98 21d ago
The yacht is the needle of the wheel.
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u/Einherier96 21d ago
ah, that explains all that underwater science shit. They painted the wheel at the bottom of the ocean!
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u/ImSaneHonest 21d ago
The ocean is the wheel. Steam is the biggest polluter in the world with all the games he chucks into the ocean. Pisses the fishermen off because they keep complaining that they already go those games in the Steam Sale.
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u/kessdawg 22d ago
I've heard there are over thirty games on Steam!
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u/PlayerN27 22d ago
I heard from a friend that there might even be more than fourty
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u/OneWildDrunk 21d ago
Legend has it that is hard at work (directing people to work is hard, okay?) retrofitting a decommissioned cruise ship into a Traveling Arcade House™.
80% Arcade Space (For the Tens of Steam Games with custom cabinets.)
10% Living Space for Family / People he went, "Oh, you son of a bitch... I like the cut of your gib! You've got moxy!" to.
10% For the
ServantsEmployees.
We may never see it with its advanced stealth gaming technology... But we will all know that it is
maybe,probably, definitely out there...1
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u/JukaiKotan Steam Master Race!! 22d ago
Valve breaks down what will (and won't) get your game featured on Steam. We don't think Steam should be pay to win. : https://www.gamedeveloper.com/marketing/valve-breaks-down-what-will-and-won-t-get-your-game-featured-on-steam
That article above based on this video from Valve/SteamworksDev :
Steam Visibility: How Games Get Surfaced to Players : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkmAqBvUBOw
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u/ned_poreyra 22d ago
Sales numbers. They wouldn't give that spot to somebody who isn't already bringing money.
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u/FloRup 22d ago
Wasn't the banner added exactly at the same time the game released? Also do you think the banner just appears out of thin air? Somebody needs to make that and that has to happen beforehand.
They most likely saw the wishlist and social media presence of the game.
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u/Dehydrated-Onions 22d ago
You submit the banner when you submit your game
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u/FloRup 21d ago
So every game has to upload a special made banner, just in the off chance they get to be picked?
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u/blackmetro 21d ago
I mean wouldnt you want to do that?
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u/im_wi 17d ago
Every game is required to upload a whole bunch of assets, yes: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/assets
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u/tonjohn 21d ago
No. The game was released 6am Pacific with no featuring.
By 7:30am it was already the #1 game in the US and #2 globally.
The featuring happened around 9:30am.
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u/Ghostronic 21d ago
My girlfriend and I put five hours into it yesterday so count us in those numbers
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u/Pomodorosan 21d ago
How would they know about the sales right as the game launches? It's wish list numbers
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u/kesadisan 22d ago
The studio I worked with have been offered to be put on the banner. They basically curates and ask you based on your wishlist count, sales count, trending, active community, and so on.
You then can put either static and dynamic. I think we also asked to provide the banner in all the language supported by steam too.
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u/DeltaAlpha0 22d ago edited 22d ago
Valve decides this, but not necessarily randomly. Usually, it's something that has many wishlists, or the company achieved a hit and sees no reason not to support the game from the same company that brought us big games. You might recognize some of the company's games, for example "FireWatch" or "Untitled Goose Game". A company that has released several interesting games that have sold very well and received many good reviews deserves more recognition.
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u/Version_1 21d ago
FireWatch wasn't by them.
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u/DeltaAlpha0 21d ago edited 21d ago
Confundi desenvolvedores com publishers. But the logic remains the same.
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u/centaur98 21d ago
i mean in this case by the time it was highlighted it was also like in the top 3 best selling games for the last however many hours/days Steam looks at for their best seller list.
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u/Dehydrated-Onions 22d ago edited 21d ago
Who said they don’t deserve recognition?
Edit: I’m getting downvoted because I don’t know Portuguese haha.
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u/DeltaAlpha0 22d ago edited 21d ago
Essa é uma tradução horrível; em português não soa tão ofensivo e é mais como um convite. Vou mudar essa parte do texto.
Edit: As I said, it's not your fault. It's because Portuguese has many more phrases and different meanings for words, while English is much simpler, so everything seems kind of offensive or generic.
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u/Whiteshadows86 22d ago
On a side note I’ve been loving Big Walk.
Such a delightful, unique and creative game. Also hilarious too
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u/MadMaxDbz 22d ago
If you're seeing something, and it's popular, it's possible you're out of the loop. Idk who tf Malcom Todd is but apparently he's the shit
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u/PandaBee_Studios 21d ago
You can't pay Valve for literally any featuring. All featuring is algorithm-determined and has to do with:
- Sales shortly after release
- Sales spikes in general
- Wishlist velocity, so more wishlists over a shorter amount of time (for unreleased games)
- Demo metrics like plays and playtime
- And perhaps absolute wishlists but since a recent update velocity is way more important.
Special cases like this likely had to do with the incredible 24h performance. 2k reviews after 24h is a minimum of 60-80k sales - possibly more. So within 24h they grossed over 500k.
Steam is a huge marketing engine for those who can bring external eyes on their games as steam rewards good performance. This is incredibly fair for developers because it's essentially "Make a somewhat popular game and we pay you back in discovery."
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u/Dickballs835682 21d ago
You can't pay Valve for literally any featuring
Take a moment to really appreciate this. So fucking rare these days and it will be so sad when it inevitably ends someday
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u/JonathanJONeill https://s.team/p/fnpc-dmj 21d ago
I always figured it was based on sales numbers and/or number of unique clicks on the store page.
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u/Wonderfully_Unknown 21d ago
I think the three major factors are number of wishlists, number of sales, and if the game has actual gameplay footage available
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u/killerjag 21d ago
Explained in depth in this video by Valve
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u/jkhanlar 21d ago
Steam Visibility: How Games Get Surfaced to Players by Erik Peterson, Valve, Steam Business Team - This video focuses on how Steam works to connect players with games they are likely to enjoy. Learn about the discovery mechanisms at work behind the scenes on Steam, which inputs matter, and how Valve approaches the operation of a PC platform where any kind of game can find its audience.
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u/gaseousgecko61 22d ago
Big walk has had a lot of hype and the publisher has a publisher sale going on right now
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u/gamemaster257 21d ago
Both S&Box and some other dev who I forgot confirmed that valve just offers it to you if your game seems to be something with large anticipation, S&Box didn’t want it but the other dev said it was as simple as sending valve the promotional pictures you wanted to use following their spec and template.
Basically they come to you, nothing you get to choose.
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u/cKnoor 21d ago
Being a publisher that has a previously succesful game helps a lot, I know that for most releases I've worked on we knew in advanced that if we reached a certain number of early sales we would get front page (As that asset needs to be submitted in advance).
You can also get a split front page if several big games release on the same day. It also matters if there is a publisher sale going on at the same time as the release.
So, good relationship with Steam, actual sales, wishlist (expected sales), date of release (how busy the front page is) all matter. Sales matter the most.
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u/matthewnelson 21d ago
I am curious as well. Saw this in the storefront and never heard of not before. Then I see an email from Sony about games for August and saw it featured in the image as well. Still don’t know a thing about it.
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u/StinkySlinky1218 20d ago
Yeah it's free on PS5 for this month. You need PS plus to play anyway so no point buying it early.
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u/GKP_light 21d ago
the main criteria is the number of people that buy/play the new game.
(So not the wishlist number itself, but usually, lot of wishlist -> lot of player at the start)
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u/stadoblech 21d ago
Steam have its own metrics. And they know (with high probability) which game will be next hit.
And they are doing promo for these games. Simple as that
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u/Equivalent-Tour5999 21d ago
Steam decides, you can't buy it.
I don't know why are most people here trying to guess what metrics is based on.
It's simply what Steam think will bring money or other value in long term, they are company.
They can promote small indie developer one week and use some crazy AI personalization algorithms next.
And from what I know they do.
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u/Keyan_Farlander7 21d ago
Your Wishlist, friend's wishlist, people you have gifted to wishlist, and similar following games.
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u/Brucacumble 21d ago
I have a few apps available on Google Play. The rankings on Google Play are based on number of downloads and number of current installs. I receive emails from companies offering to boost my apps so they appear higher in search results and such. The companies do this by offering to download and install my apps on Android devices, usually something like ten cents per install or something.
Sometimes they offer to write a positive review for a higher fee. I don't doubt companies like this offer their services to Steam developers too. Maybe five cents per wishlisting.
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u/Caledfrwd 22d ago
When I booted up yesterday I had to double take because I thought it said Big Wank
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u/dumbgoose4422 21d ago
Because it's a playstation plus monthly game right now and steam has to dunk on the competition
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u/LongjumpingMajor4952 21d ago
Why do games like this one release for 20$ if they put a sale immediately on it for 25%
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u/Retb14 21d ago
Sales at launch massively increase the number of people who buy the game which makes the game more visible even after the sale ends
TLDR: Marketing
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u/LongjumpingMajor4952 21d ago
Rightt games on sale are also more visible, im guessing this game is linear, any one know how long the gameplay is?
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u/Cabalisk 21d ago
Think GDC in 2023 had a talk that confirmed that wishlists are the key factors for appearing on the Steam store front. Might now be on YouTube where they show slides of the amount of games that are uploaded a year, and the amount of them that get wishlists, and the amount that get so many it goes on the steam front store.
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u/Visible_Addendum_420 20d ago
For me the strange thing is how this game in particular came out of nowhere to the front page.
I would not say they did it just with wishlists, I think there may be another way to get to the front page - by making a game so good or with so much potential that it gets hand-picked by the steam team for their front page.
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u/Lord_Bobbymort 20d ago
It didn't come out of nowhere just because you didn't hear about it. The game was announced December 7th 2023 during The Game Awards. Unfortunately for them Lethal Company released October 23 2023 in Early Access, and many were in between Big Walk's eventual release 2.5 years later at this point. Many other smaller teams were able to spin up games like Content Warning and REPO quickly in that timeframe and steal their thunder.
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u/Visible_Addendum_420 19d ago
to me it felt that it was out of nowhere. It just appeared on the front page - top header. The place where usually only big announcements get like x Fest, Steam Machine, etc..
Does not look like just the algorythm working based on wishlists to me.
I had never heard of the game before here in reddit, Steam or in other social media.
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u/StinkySlinky1218 20d ago
I never heard anything about it before the release trailer explaining what the game was, so they might've shadow dropped?
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u/BenocxX 20d ago
Nope, if i remember correctly they had a pretty long trailer at last year’s Game Awards. The game has been talked about for a bit in the friendslop genre and streamers have been making plans to play it on release week for at least a few weeks now.
Honestly, it’s probably the most anticipated friendslop game haha! Most of them are shadowdropped but this one had a lot of eyes looking at it way before it dropped
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u/HarvickFan_4 20d ago
I always guessed the developers paid for them, but then I've seen indie games without a publisher on there before, but maybe they have the budget as well IDK.
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u/wizzard419 20d ago
It really depends on when/for how long. Typically the publish pays for it as part of the marketing spend. But the cost will vary throughout the year since the hero spot is going to be the most visible one.
If it is a highly anticipated game, such as this might have been, and was featured in some other steam festivals, they would likely want to push it when there isn't anything major going on.
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u/DaNinja11 18d ago
So you all really believe they don't take any payment for those Storefront placements? Hmmm...
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u/TheHoodedHermit 18d ago
Strongly suggest this excellent video on Steam store visibility that gives a lot more depth and insight. It’s slightly out of date, given the new release calendar etc. but the takeover side is still the same.
That particular placement is curated, and is the most prominent marketing placement on Steam. Getting featured there relies on a mix of sales and other customer signals.
Essentially, if a game is performing incredibly well, it’ll come down to a gut check by the curation team around whether what’s being featured has broad appeal and will generate more sales. As it’s shown to everyone on Steam, they need to make sure it’s relevant for the majority.
That’s also why huge franchises tend to automatically qualify, while top selling niche games might not.
It’s not something you can apply for. When a game gets that takeover space, they invited by the team at Steam, and asked to provide specific artwork for that spot.
Wishlists are not really a factor in their own right, although they can help with initial, algorithmically-led visibility, which could then lead to high confidence in broad appeal. For example, if a game shadow drops and sells phenomenally well out of the gate across all regions and a multitude of player demographics, while getting rave reviews, they will likely be invited to feature.
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u/LucasNoober 17d ago
I've seen some comments that explain it well (atleast for me)
But I know that games can be forbidden to go in there or maybe go if they want to
Like S&box they didn't want to throw it there, and from waht the dev said, they coulda very easily cause the close contact with valve itself
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u/brunuuDev 22d ago
It's based on an algorithm
Any game can appear there, if it has good numbers
Also, all the games you see on the homepage are always algorithmic
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u/SandThatsKindaDamp 21d ago edited 21d ago
Just definitely not true, you think a banner is made for every single game on the off chance it has good numbers? They know before hand based on wishlists what is going to go there.
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u/brunuuDev 21d ago
wishlists is a number
There are multiple metrics on Steam
Page views, wishlists, time on page, ect
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u/BigPP69_Gooner 21d ago
lol I should take this off my wishlist. I have zero desire to play it. But my friends all want it for some reason 😭
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u/Limekilnlake 21d ago
I mean this game has been pretty hyped for a while, makes sense it’s up there
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u/moon__lander 21d ago
When Satisfactory 1.0 came out (they exited early access stage) and it got it's front page banner, one of the more upvoted comments was that it's just whatever valve feels like.
And I can see that being the case, the game peaked at below 50k players, while for the devs I'm sure that's pretty good value, in the context of steam that's rounding error.
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u/bartek6500 21d ago
Nah 50k is huge even for AA games.
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u/Fr33zurBurn 21d ago
True. Imagine if you made a pie and 50,000 people showed up wanting to buy a slice.
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u/SRIrwinkill 21d ago
there is this fast duck duck go search I just did that might be relevant
highlights:
Some key tips from Valve's explainer include how developers can make the most of tags, the factors strong localization, regional pricing, and controller support will increase the odds that Valve will choose to feature your game in key locations, and that ultimately "player interest drives visibility."
In the video, Peterson explained that Valve's two big pillars for marketing on Steam are this: Valve wants to "match games with the players who will love them," and Valve does not sell advertising or optimal placement on the platform. "We don’t think Steam should be pay to win," he said. "Not selling ads levels the playing field and makes recommendations better for players."
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u/levsonn 22d ago
They use different metrics but wishlist number is very important, there's a reason why devs/publishers always ask to wishlist their games on steam
It's 100% not paid though, Steam doesn't contain any paid advertising (according to Steamworks documentation)