Indie developers are enjoying a surge of early success this week, all thanks to this year's Steam Next Fest, which offers a ton of free demos for upcoming indie games.
I've long said that covering indie games is my favorite part of the job here at GamesRadar+, and so it's been a delightful week shining a light on games that aren't getting nearly enough attention. Personally, this brutally difficult Dark Souls and Princess Mononoke-inspired boss rush horror game and this unimaginably dark narrative-driven space spookfest are my favorite demos so far, but GamesRadar's Hope Bellingham is finding oodles of warmth in decidedly more cozy demos, while Hirun Cryer is chilling out with this Studio Ghibli and Wind Waker-influenced sandbox adventure.
Point is, we're all finding new indie obsessions we might've never come across without Steam Next Fest, and naturally, the studios involved are loving the exposure. In a lovely change of pace, my Twitter feed has been flooded with encouraging posts from indie developers celebrating the attention.
One very measurable metric of early enthusiasm for an indie game is the amount of people wishlisting it on Steam, and in some cases, results are far exceeding developers' "lofty" expectations.
I'm completely blown away by the response to SUMMERHOUSE! Over 4k people wishlisted it yesterday for a total of 50k 😵💫My (lofty) goal was 20k wishlists before launch! Thank you all so much for playing my game and all your support and kind messages! it means the world 💙🌻 pic.twitter.com/51GSd4myf1February 8, 2024
The response to the Minami Lane demo for the #SteamNextFest has been amazing so far! We just reached 20K wishlists on Steam, insane! Thank you to everyone who tried the demo and especially streamers! It's feels amazing to see people playing the game you spent months to craft 🥰 pic.twitter.com/xGgKS2gP4QFebruary 7, 2024
The #SteamNextFest is sooo big for tiny devs like us! Thanks @_wholesomegames and all content creators, big and small, who picked the game and led to this. These figures feel wild 🫢✨🦝 https://t.co/YWeKOkkI60 pic.twitter.com/5X8wgXYJqsFebruary 7, 2024
Wishlists go brrrrr pic.twitter.com/GYMkVANKolFebruary 7, 2024
Thanks to You amazing people we’re so close to the magic 7000 Wishlists & got picked by Steam to be in their Next Fest promotional materials 🤯Try out the demo and Wishlist on Steam ❤️:https://t.co/i1h21U4H01February 4, 2024
Other indie developers are celebrating the event and its potential for outreach more generally. In fact, indie marketer and long-time enthusiast Ryan Brown called the showcase "probably the single most important pre-launch campaign beat for an indie title now."
Steam Next Fest is becoming increasingly bigger and more important for indies - it's probably the single most important pre-launch campaign beat for an indie title now. Seeing a *lot* of great indies get buried by the algorithm, many due to not knowing SNF best practices. 🧵February 8, 2024
Btw, the new Toree Saturn Demo is part of #SteamNextFest , so feel free to test out the game and leave a wishlist if you liked what you played. :) Helps me out a lot! ❤️https://t.co/N8bxuWgLNYFebruary 7, 2024
It’s #ShowcaseThursday & #throwbackthursday! 🫵🏼 Showcase your #indiegame🩶 Like this post🔁 Repost to show supportThanks to everyone who has taken the time to play The Unknown demo during #SteamNextFest! I appreciate every single wishlist.🤩https://t.co/Ibqoprfi70 https://t.co/8X6Rzgom3vFebruary 8, 2024
Thanks to all of you that have tried @ArcoGameDev these days on #SteamNextFest ✌️it means the world to us 🫂Enjoy some Arco music improvisation ✨ pic.twitter.com/l2K70xRD9qFebruary 7, 2024
It's genuinely hard to think of a single considerable downside to Steam Next Fest. We get free demos, developers get hands on their games, Valve naturally benefits from the engagement, and even us journalists get to break up our daily routines with some fun indie action. Truly a win-win-win, at least until the event ends on Monday, February 12.
For more, here are some upcoming indie games we have on our games radar.
