How Many Followers Do You Need To Make Money

Original Post (#1) (with full methodology!) | Next Week: (coming soon)

Intro

Hi folks, welcome back to Steam Follower Count analysis. I took a few weeks off to focus on the launch of my own game.

The datasheet is here, though it has a gap for about a week - I've set aside 30 minutes each Sunday to update it from now on: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HzJWXOvWhyH0hTaARD5-6JbKsDY1HeCwFC6ZE6fMeHw/edit#gid=1080383976

Methodology

I'd highly recommend reading Post #1, which covers the methodology and rationale behind analysing Followers: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/cv4t0k/steam_follower_count_analysis_september_26_median/

Analysis:

This week will be more of a qualitative analysis, based on something people ask consistently: how many followers/Wishlists do I actually need before launching on Steam?

I'm going to start with a big, controversial statement: followers/wishlisters don't matter, as long as you're above a minimum level. What is much more crucial is your ability to get an initial burst of sales, enough to propel you into New and Trending - and then let the quality of the game take you from there.

My own title was able to get into New and Trending, with 666 followers 24 hours before launch. Check out the impact on Visits:

r/gamedev - How Many Followers do you Actually Need? (Steam Follower Count Analysis #4)

As you can see getting into this section dwarfed all of the other promotional activities and internal traffic I had received since then (which were not insubstantial).

So, how many followers do you actually need? Well, the result varies week by week. From my tracking of New and Trending over the last few weeks, my conclusion is that getting into the Top 20 games launching that week (ordered by # of followers) matters more than raw follower count. This translates to about 400-800 followers, depending on the level of competition that week.

Discussion:

I've been harbouring this theory for a while, but I'm now convinced that returns on Steam are non-linear. That is: putting your effort into creating something with a 'value' of 10, will yield you about a 10x greater level of sales than something with a 'value' of 5, even if the extra effort was only twice as great.

To put it more bluntly, getting your (full-time professional) Indie game onto New and Trending should be a core aim of all studios. If you cannot do that, you should upscale your operations until you can - and launch fewer and bigger games. Its unfortunate that the current Steam Direct programme doesn't encourage that kind of activity, with the $100 fee and lack of any curation or quality checks encouraging more and smaller games!

How many games will get into New and Trending each week anyway? Sticking with the Top 20, and based on about 100-150 launches per week, this means that 13%-20% of games will get into this category.

It also raises an interesting question: does this huge reliance on New and Trending hurt Indie games? Possibly... yes. New and Trending is by its nature mostly unfiltered, so your game is going to be shown to everyone on Steam. You may wish to design games with very broad appeal, including ensuring your titles have extensive translation and LQA. Your 1.00 launch version has to work absolutely flawlessly as well!

Conclusion/Summary:

Your game should have 400-800 followers right before launch, and specifically be in the Top 20 titles launching that week.

That's all for this week, discussion and questions welcomed.