Steam expert and indie game advisor Chris Zukowski returned to GDC this month to pry open the wall of Valve's PC gaming empire and peer into its machinations. His panel, attended by GamesRadar+, focused on "golden goose games" which clear, in his estimation, $150,000 in sales within six months of release, and "generally" have around 500 user reviews. This would also push a game into what he's previously called "real Steam," or the point where Valve's many feeds, tools, and promotions truly start to push a game to players.
In his advice to game devs who find themselves with a golden goose, Zukowski also offers some interesting insights into what moves the needle on Steam and how Valve interfaces with developers. Valve wants games to sell well so that it can take its cut (30% at base) and ultimately reach more Steam users who'll spend more money in the future, but 20,000 games a year can't all get special treatment, so Valve also follows momentum and employs algorithms.
Steam will promote your game, but you have to get the game started. The rich can, indeed, get richer on Steam, with high-performing games dipping into unique store discoverability and visibility offers that snowball their audience. And the architecture behind it all remains interesting.
"Your relationship with Valve will change overnight," Zukowski says of these golden geese. "Gabe [Newell] cannot buy yachts with wishlists. And you will have so many wishlists after you launch a golden goose game. Gabe will need you. He needs you and your golden goose, and that's a nice thing to have. You have power now ... all of the sudden you're like a little goblin that has a magical power to turn straw into gold. And Gabe needs you to convert those wishlists into gold. Gabe needs the gold. He will say to you, 'oh god, please spin these wishlists into gold.' And it is up to you to do it. He cannot do it for you." And Newell certainly does buy yachts.
I feel the need to add that, at this point, Zukowski's presentation is graced by a blonde medieval princess with the face of Gabe Newell. One of the greatest shames of my 13-year career in game journalism is not pausing my note-taking to take a picture of it.
This conversion boils down to what Zukowski calls "the breath of Steam," in which games "inhale wishlists, exhale money." Cashing in on wishlists is pretty simple, and if you're an avid Steam sale spendthrift, it will sound familiar: put the game on sale. Discounting a game gives people the push they need to jump in, because virtually nobody buys games on Steam at full price. Zukowski's data suggested that one or two discounts per month led to higher sales for hit Steam games on average.
Valve also allows special deals like the once-a-year daily deal – another exclusive option for games that clear the soft "real Steam" threshold. Mid-week deals and weekend deals can be similarly huge for games. "I think Valve uses weekend deals to really juice up the games that are going viral," Zukowski speculates. He also shares an anecdote from an anonymous golden goose dev: "Every day of my weekend deal earned more money than my launch."
The trick with a golden goose is to keep it healthy, Zukowski emphasizes, by feeding it regular discounts (spacing out new historic-low prices), bundles and collabs, updates, Steam festivals, small or potentially large DLCs, and anything else to keep the lights on and keep that game in Steam's orbit. These act as entry points for new players, especially those who've had a game dry aging on their Steam wishlist, and can keep existing players plugged in. There are commercial hands at play here, both from Valve and from developers, but the end goal is purportedly long-term support and more sustainable development processes, which ain't bothering me.
The DLC strategy raises one concern: is it too cringe to pump out a lot of DLC? "Some people seem to cringe at this," Zukowski acknowledges. But he points to the developers of Spirit City: Lofi Sessions: "They do tons of DLC, and they asked the community, are we doing too much DLC? And the community's like, oh please, give us more." Here, too, many Steam users love to shovel money, like hours, at their favorites.
