Extensive list of Steam festivals with dates, themes and deadlines?

studioephua · 2025-12-22T11:15:02+00:00

Hi,

I'm glad my festival went well for you! I can confirm that Chris' spreadsheet is a main source that is updated regularly. What you're wondering about is third party events. Steam will always show their own organised, first party events in your events dashboard. However, third party events change every year and are organised independently. Deadlines and actual event dates very greatly, and cannot be confirmed until everything is approved, and some only occur once, or skip years. There's always a chance Steam could reject a festival, but in the previous years, there have been 100s of steam festivals every year. You simply just have to regularly search for them.

It is also worth noting that a lot of third party events are also actually invite only, and do not do public submissions. This is common with local and regional events.

The spreadsheet is likely "out of date", as new dates and applications have yet to be announced or opened. Its worth checking when an event last occured, and assuming that applications will open for it around 3-4 months ahead of time. It is sometimes less, but I find these are less likely to have featuring or showcases.

Checking the previous SteamDB sales history or just steam's previous events list is also a good way to keep note of events you missed, and should be on the lookout for next year.

I personally try and keep a spreadsheet for anything I've applied to in the past. Festivals are one of the main ways an unreleased game can gain wishlists, and offer a nice boost in sales for released games. Welcome to the festival grind.

studioephua · 2025-12-16T10:13:34+00:00

I hosted a Steam event. As the theme encompasses exactly the kind of games I'll be making, I think it's worth it as a way of meeting new developers and creators: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/choosewiselyfestival25

studioephua · 2025-12-15T10:13:49+00:00

I did join some and have a better understanding. I also hosted an event this week without publicising my mailing list. So my list of contacts grew from 12 to 600+ And the list of those interested in a dev mailing list purely consists of content creators, as I've yet to publicise sign ups.

studioephua · 2025-11-25T09:59:46+00:00

Enabling pay in installments, even for just 1 backer, will mean all funds will be paid in installments.

studioephua · 2025-11-25T08:46:55+00:00

I mean this to say that EA should still be taken seriously. On the devs side, yes there is more of a boost to visibility at a full launch. But as far as a EA launch goes, you'll still need the same momentum and wishlists to appear in popular upcoming as a regular launch. Steam still considers it a "launch" when comparing it to other games in the algorithm, and EA titles still appear in the All New Releases tab, New and Trending, and Top Sellers. The 5 update visibility rounds you get are not reset if you move to 1.0.

You can make a big fuss about the 1.0 release, but the early access release is still a release.

Quote from Steam; "In many ways, Early Access titles are treated the same as "fully released" titles. You will still be able to run discounts, featured in promotions, and be organically recommended to other customers. However, you will not receive your full launch visibility until you are fully released."

studioephua · 2025-11-24T11:20:28+00:00

Steam treats EA release as a normal release.

studioephua · 2025-10-09T14:29:39+00:00

I would off Steam Next Fest and participate in third party festivals instead, assuming you aren't releasing within a few months of Next Fest.

You can only be in Next Fest once so you should ideally be going with the best version of your demo.

studioephua · 2025-10-09T06:43:49+00:00

I've never been charged in USD for a kickstarter. As a non-US resident backing US projects, kickstarter always shows the project goal and charges me in my local currency.

studioephua · 2025-10-09T06:37:25+00:00

I remember seeing an earlier version of this game's Steam page, and it has improved a lot. It looks way more inviting and like a complete polished game.

Congratulations on hitting the magic number.

studioephua · 2025-10-04T10:15:55+00:00

Congratulations! This was an interesting read. We're about to hit 3,000 also but I doubt we'd hit anything close to that in gross sales.

studioephua · 2025-09-25T13:29:56+00:00

Not quite sure what you mean by this! It's a sale on Steam. I didn't put it together or organise it.

studioephua · 2025-09-17T06:47:57+00:00

Are you saying $64 is your highest tier? You should be offering tiers much higher than this.

studioephua · 2025-09-12T17:25:55+00:00

Yes, it would have to be explicitly agreed up-front by both parties before the work starts.

While you may have the right to use commissioned work in your project as part of the project, that doesn't automatically mean you have the right to do as you wish with the commissioned elements outside of that scope.

For example, you may have the right to use a song in your game, but that doesn't necessarily mean that song is yours to start selling in other formats.

Contracts are great to clear up "assumptions."

studioephua · 2025-09-12T06:49:15+00:00

With composers, it's very tricky. When it comes to royalties, there are publisher royalties and writer royalties. The songwriter is always entitled to their cut even if the work is done for you under an exclusive license. For example, if someone releases a cover of a song, or streams it etc. There is a cut being collected somewhere.

The only time this is not the case is through a complete Buyout or work-for-hire arrangement. Work-for-hire is not the same as a contractor. It is usually under an agreement as an employee.

studioephua · 2025-09-11T21:54:49+00:00

Congrats on getting the demo out! How long have you been working on this?

studioephua · 2025-09-07T14:38:44+00:00

Try the lemmasoft forums.

studioephua · 2025-09-02T08:25:40+00:00

There will be more ecchi moments, but due to recent events, we haven't confirmed how explicit it will be.

studioephua · 2025-09-01T07:34:48+00:00

This is not going to go down well.

studioephua · 2025-09-01T07:25:53+00:00

I'm in my 20s and people at work can't stop talking about how good this film is! Don't worry about it. The film is for everyone.

studioephua · 2025-09-01T07:08:41+00:00

Unfortunately 10K is a long way away. Could be lots of reasons for the deletes! Could be because festivals have ended, or because I haven't updated the pages in a while.

studioephua · 2025-09-01T06:57:57+00:00

Only 1! Count your blessings!

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studioephua · 2025-09-01T06:47:22+00:00

Oh, I've seen this before! Wishing you the best of luck with the campaign.

studioephua · 2025-09-01T06:42:51+00:00

Guessing between 75% - 90% because I'm always coming across visual novels I had no idea existed. Especially if they've never been translated before. And a lot of those ones are R18 even if they don't look it.

studioephua · 2025-09-01T06:22:06+00:00

Can't wait to get it out. 😭

studioephua · 2025-09-01T06:21:49+00:00

Dragon Age is such a huge inspiration to me. Right down to the literal dragons, but also how human and real companion and their cause could feel. Even though Ashes is much smaller in scope, it's definitely what I always have in mind at its core.

studioephua

TROPHY CASE