Taking place three times a year, Steam Next Fest (SNF) is a week-long event during which Steam users can try out a bunch of free, limited-time game demos. In turn, the developers benefit from increased visibility on the platform and a chance to gain more Wishlists. Valve’s most recent Next Fest just ended on June 16, but a couple of Japanese indie developers have reported underwhelming results from it. Given that each game can only participate in a single SNF, it’s very disappointing to spend your “one shot” only to gain nothing from it – but there’s a lot to be considered about how Steam Next Fest functions.
“I don’t mean to be negative or try to seek sympathy, but I just want to get this out so it’s easier for me to process,” Indie developer Cuticle Nyan Co., tweeted on June 17. They report that, contrary to their expectations, participation in SNF yielded only a minor increase in Wishlists and close to zero secondary exposure (through social media or people streaming the demo). Cuticle Nyan is the creator of anime-style action platformer Magical Girl Critical DELUXE. Despite Next Fest ending, they’ve decided to keep their free demo live as the results were underwhelming.
In response, other independent Japanese developers have echoed the sentiment, as Sword Guild comments, “I was also thinking about how I didn’t get a significant boost in Wishlists nor any particular exposure, but I guess that’s the case for many of us. Maybe I had my expectations too high after reading that the median increase in Wishlists was 1,000 to 2,000.” Developer Mugen Bit adds “I got the same impression. I heard Wishlists grow significantly during Next Fest, but it was only in the double digits for me.”
Steam Next Fest is indeed known for helping create breakout hits, and adjustments to its algorithms from 2024 have supposedly made it so that smaller titles stand on a more equal footing with big projects. However, there’s a catch – based on survey responses from 208 developers who participated in the February 2025 Next Fest, HowToMarketAGame points out that SNF’s algorithm only “works its magic” when you already have a significant number of Wishlists to begin with.
The correlation between the number of Wishlists a game has before participating in SNF versus how much it earns during the event is strong – to the point that “It really seems like you don’t get any sort of lift from Steam Next Fest unless you have at least 2000 Wishlists.”
HowToMarketAGame advises game developers not to treat Steam Next Fest as a means of getting their games noticed for the first time, but rather, as a way to ramp up their game’s visibility after they’ve already gained some momentum through other efforts like marketing. In other words, launching your demo with Next Fest is potentially a big mistake – instead, a more beneficial approach would be to have it out months before – polished and with some amount of reviews and Wishlists already accumulated.
While achieving this initial pool of Wishlists is a high hurdle for small creators with limited means to market their games, knowing how to time your participation in Steam Next Fest – a golden opportunity for developers, can make a big difference.
