I have not released a game on PC by myself for a decade, instead focusing on consoles, where the space is less crowded, and on work-for-hire.
Back 10 years ago, I released a game named "Bombing Bastards" on Steam. There was a process called Steam Greenlight by which you had to demonstrate that your game generates public interest (through what was not yet called wishlidting) before Steam would allow you to publish it. Soon enough, the system was gamed by people who would sell those wishlistings, so later on, Steam eventually took the process down and replaced it with a submission fee.
Epic Game Store did not exist yet. GOG was very picky, and rejected games that were not already popular. They rejected my game.
Today it is much more open. Steam and Epic Game Store will accept your game as long as you pay their $100 submission fee. Gog, which is much smaller (10 millions MAU against 75 for EGS and 140 for Steam), will even proactively help you get your game on their store.
Here are the store pages for our new game, "Whacking Hell", open for wishlisting:
- Steam: Store.steampowered.com
- Epic Game Store: Store.epicgames.com
- GOG: Gog.com
The thing, though, is that just being on the store does not give you any significant vilibility. You still have to collect wishlists in order for the platform to decide to give you any visibility, and you cannot purchase those anymore.
You have to manage to promote your game through 3rd party channels, which can be tough. I saw a number of indie studios and publishers buy paid ads on social media such as Facebook and Reddit. I tried that, it turns out to be very expensive and inefficient.
It is probably more efficient to maintain an active presence on social media so that your non-paid posts generate interest. But then it requires a lot of time (which, when converting time into money equivalent, can be even more expensive than paid ads) and editorial know-how. You cannot just self-promote, you have to bring value to readers.
As it stands, I have low expectations for the PC version, due to my shortcomings in marketing and promotion. My hopes are rather on the console versions. Let's see how it goes!
Whacking off to hell?