How the launch of my first Steam page went after 1 month
Hey fellow devs,
I finally opened the Steam store page for my first game, SinsKiller, exactly one month ago. I’ve been lurking on this subreddit (and others) for years, quietly reading launch reports and gathering advice. Now that I have my own page live, I wanted to give something back to the community with a fully honest update: what happened in the first 30 days, what I tried, what worked, and what didn’t. Quick context
- Genre: Action top-down shooter bullet-hell (not exactly a genre that goes viral easily)
- Started completely from scratch: 0 social presence, 0 Discord, 0 email list, 0 followers, literally nothing.
What I tried in the first 30 days
- Posted almost daily on X and Bluesky
- Reached out to press contacts I gathered from helpful posts like this
- Made targeted posts in different subreddits
- Tested Reddit ads and X ads
- Posted on Bilibili and Rednote
- Applied to several showcases and festivals (still waiting)
All of this effort in the first 30 days resulted in 205 wishlists as of today.
What actually worked (and what did not):
Press outreach was by far the biggest win.
IGN reposted my trailer and I got coverage from several outlets.
Here are the articles:
This alone brought in 100-120 wishlists.
X (Twitter) has been the most useful social platform. The blue checkmark helps, and by interacting with devs + using hashtags (including other languages) I gained ~60 followers and average 1-2 wishlists per day.
Bluesky only brought 2 wishlists, very hard to get discovered.Reddit ads ($5/day): Poor results (only 2 wishlists). I just repost X posts because it's low effort and contributes to online presence.
X ads ($25 spent): Brought 22 wishlists (1 wishlist per dollar basically but hard to track because people tend to save the post and wishlist later). Better than Reddit but still not great ROI since it should be less than 1$ per wishlist.
Bilibili + Rednote: Basically zero traction.
Biggest lessons so far
- My Steam page needs improvement. I feel like people clicks on videos i post because of the realistic art style, but many leave without wishlisting. The page doesn’t clearly communicate what makes the game fun or unique. I’m working on that now.
- Localization is really important! Only 1/3 of my total wishlist count comes from English speaking countries, localizing the page was one of the best investments so far.
- The trailer did its job for a first attempt (got me press + early wishlists), but it lacks visual variety and has too much lore for a gameplay trailer (or just explained poorly). Next one will be better.
- For a niche bullet-hell game, completely solo, and starting from zero, this feels like a decent result. But I still ask myself: Is the game just hard to market, or am I missing something? Probably both, maybe it is just a game people do not want? idk
Where I stand now & next steps
I’ll keep posting on X while I focus on:
- Polishing the Steam page
- Preparing a playable demo / playtest
- Making a stronger trailer
Overall I’m happy with the progress for a first-time solo dev. It’s been a great learning experience.Thanks to everyone who shares their experiences, this is my small way of paying it forward.
TL;DR:
Launched my first Steam page (SinsKiller, action top-down bullet-hell) exactly 1 month ago, starting from absolute zero (no followers, no Discord, no nothing). Sitting at 205 wishlists. Press outreach was the clear winner (+100-120 wishlists), X worked okay, ads were mediocre, Steam page & trailer still need polishing. Honest solo dev report from scratch.