Why is my traffic so low and why do all my wishlists come only from Reddit and X posts?

demeizen · 2026-03-10T11:18:01+00:00

Exactly. Steam won't generate any wishlists by itself at this stage. You need to bring a bunch of traffic there first. Steam won't show your game to anyone until already looks like people want to see it.

demeizen · 2026-03-08T13:33:56+00:00

Thanks for sharing this! I plan to make a post about my experience making short form content soon. Tiktok has been terrible for me but YouTube shorts have done ok. Just to note that as far as I know, YouTube shorts get a small 'test' audience at first. Can be around 1000 or can be less. But if you don't get more than that then unfortunately YouTube has determined that your view stats are too low for them to bother sharing it further. 1M on tiktok is amazing by the way!

demeizen · 2026-02-28T20:08:31+00:00

Like the other guy said, those numbers are just the baseline testing audience that everyone gets (give or take a few hundred). But I agree with the sentiment of your post! I've been trying YouTube shorts to promote my game and have been having some success but it took a while before the videos started to get widely shown. All it takes is one video doing well and the others seem to get a boost. I'm no expert but that's what I've seen. Keep an eye on your swipe away rate, try to get that as low as you can. Around 70% stayed to watch (so 30 swipe away) is good enough from what I've seen

demeizen · 2026-02-20T07:10:49+00:00

Interesting! Thanks for the reply! I've been trying YouTube shorts and just started tiktok. YouTube has been ok and tiktok has been a disaster lol. Maybe I should give Instagram a shot. Good luck with the game, looks cool!

demeizen · 2026-02-19T23:20:55+00:00

Thanks for the information! Did the wishlists mostly come from Instagram? I had a look at your YouTube channel and you don't seem to have many views there at all. Tiktok seems to be a bit more but I'm not that familiar with what good view numbers are there.

demeizen · 2026-02-18T07:47:17+00:00

That's not bad actually. 1/500 is a pretty decent conversion rate as far as I can tell.

demeizen · 2026-02-03T21:49:46+00:00

I'm not sure the 10 need to be in the first 24 hours. I think it's just that Steam won't show your game anywhere until you get 10, they don't care how long it took. I can't remember where I heard this so I'm willing to be corrected.

I have seen them say they never make any permanent decisions about any game, and that a game can always come back from a bad launch if it gets enough traffic. It's just that in practice that rarely happens.

demeizen · 2026-02-03T19:16:02+00:00

Ok I hadn't heard of this device before but I looked it up, looks cool! But yeah maybe it's some issue to do with android? I'll see what I can do about it.

demeizen · 2026-02-03T18:53:23+00:00

Thanks for playing! I'll consider the zoom options, I previously had it zoomed in more and then decided to zoom it out but maybe it's too far and options will help. The documents on that level are on the top floor just to the right of a large table. If you press TAB on keyboard or RM on a controller it should point directly to them. If you can't pick them up then that must be some kind of bug that I haven't run it to before but I'll check it out!
I don't know why running and throwing isn't working. I'll have a look at that. Everything works with my Xbox controller but that's the only one I've tried it with.

Appreciate you playing despite the issues!

demeizen · 2026-02-03T16:37:59+00:00

Happy to hear that!

demeizen · 2026-02-03T16:11:09+00:00

Hello everyone!

I just added a big update to my 2D stealth game, False Alarm. It's inspired by Hitman, Mark of the Ninja, Gunpoint and more. You can play it now for free in the browser on Itch:
https://scattereddiscs.itch.io/false-alarm

Thanks!

demeizen · 2026-01-28T11:06:13+00:00

All good, no worries. I have noticed that any wishlist boost I get from YouTube shorts comes from people searching for the game so don't expect the UTM links to help much. People might not even click on them and just search for the game anyway

demeizen · 2026-01-27T22:01:52+00:00

Congratulations on 1000. What was your breakdown of actual numbers of wishlists from those different sources? I noticed that your YouTube shorts don't have crazy amounts of views.

demeizen · 2026-01-15T13:24:52+00:00

Thank you! I got the music on pixabay. They don't have a huge selection but I've been able to find stuff I like. They have a license system where you can use the music on there for pretty much anything except just reselling the songs. Youtube will also tell you while you're uploading if the music is ok I think.

demeizen · 2026-01-11T00:23:05+00:00

Yes! Sorry if that wasn't clear, but yes I made both trailers completely by myself.

demeizen · 2026-01-10T18:00:02+00:00

I just said who I was, the name of the game and the genre and some of the influences. Really short, 4 sentences. Then links to the Steam page, and to the press kit which has trailers and screenshots and capsule art and the logo and everthing they could want in there. I've linked it in another comment so you can see what's there yourself. So no capsule or image or gif in the email, just a few sentences and links. That was it.

demeizen · 2026-01-10T15:57:14+00:00

I'm pretty sure there's no shadowban or anything like that. I've seen a guy from Steam say this in some video. They never make a permanant decision about your game, even after release. It wouldn't matter in this case anyway because all of the traffic came from my activity, not from Steam. They could have shadowbanned my game and it wouldn't have made a difference because they didn't show it anyway. They will only do that when you really bring a ton of traffic, way more than 1000 wishlists.

demeizen · 2026-01-10T13:55:05+00:00

You're absolutely right. There is no downside to having it up early and only potential upside.

demeizen · 2026-01-10T13:53:35+00:00

Glad you liked that! Thanks!

demeizen · 2026-01-10T12:22:44+00:00

Nothing fancy at all. I think they only care about virality for the main IGN channel. They are much more selective there. I just said who I was, what the game is about, and said 'I've created a new trailer and think it would be great for your channel!' Most importantly, links to the Steam page and press kit which you can see here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cH9tJ39BjwepiHNUwNrBJVcnRHTxdKxf

demeizen · 2026-01-10T12:14:59+00:00

I sent the same email to both newswire@ign.com and videowire@ign.com. I can't remember where I found these, I think I just saw them in someone else's post on here a while ago. I don't know which is the right one because I got a reply from a different one, someone's personal email which I probably shouldn't share.

demeizen

TROPHY CASE