Just a little quickie about Steam Direct...

[jack_norton]

They also changed the policy regarding content though. When I put Loren on Steam in 2014 I had to do crazy workaround patches even if the game only has nudity (not really 18+ stuff). Nowdays I could do the same thing just marking the game as having "adult content". A simple checkbox they added only around last year, before they were requiring an official rating which was impossible for an indie to get (just the PEGI one, the european, costs thousands of euros).

[Katy133]

Do we have some kind of statistics detailing about what really sells in Steam?

Ecchi or Non-Ecchi? Full Porn?

BxG? GxB? GxG? BxB? Some other kind? Parodies?

Honestly, I am new to Steam. This is actually first time hearing about the time when visual novel are prohibited in Steam. Can someone enlighten me on this? And also now that they have specifically said that visual novel are sleeper success in Steam, do you think we'll be able to get more support from them?

edit: typo

Searching VNs on Steam Spy may be what you're looking for in terms of game data and stats.

[SinaAzad]

well i think what ever you make and put on steam for .... let's see something like 4-5 $ will get enough download to cover that 100 $
so i don't think it is gonna make much of difference , i'm glad that they didn't go for 500$ per game haha.
30 downloads * 4 $ profit from each game = 120$

[Imperf3kt]

To get $4 profit you'd yave to ask more like $8 for the game (Steam cut, taxes etc)
Suddenly your game is a lot less desireable

[SinaAzad]

To get $4 profit you'd yave to ask more like $8 for the game (Steam cut, taxes etc)
Suddenly your game is a lot less desireable

then you just need to sell 60 games....
number of people that buy a game on steam will pass 60 for sure xD
even just considering people that buy the game to write a review could be enough.

[Imperf3kt]

I've seen plenty of VNs on steam that go years before they reach three sales.
Its a daunting prospect for a new dev.

If you haven't got at least one bikini on the page, you can forget 'selling' it
This could be of use:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.red ... _on_steam/

[jack_norton]

It's interesting, but I'd take the numbers in that reddit thread with a grain of salt: they're all "old games" (LLTQ was launched at end of 2013 if I remember correctly).
Things have changed GREATLY in the recent years, and a more useful info would be games release in the past 3-6 months.

[Katy133]

I've seen plenty of VNs on steam that go years before they reach three sales.
Its a daunting prospect for a new dev.

I actually don't see how this is possible. A lot of Steam users will binge-buy games, so selling three games on Steam seems relatively quick (even if the game's pricey).

I tried searching non-sexual-themed VNs, and I couldn't find any that didn't sell over 500 copies within a day.

I even tried Steam Spy-searching games made by one-person developers who have become notorious for trying to sell "fake games." I won't name-drop the game, but it cost less than five dollars, had a playing time of under five minutes, and sold over 200,000 copies within 24 hours.

I also searched a Steam game that has been reported to not have an executable file (it literally just contained an empty folder). The "game" cost less than three dollars and has sold over 1,000 copies within 24 hours.

Could you possibly reference the VNs your talking about? It's okay if you'd rather not name drop, but are these "unsellable" VNs on Steam Spy?

If you haven't got at least one bikini on the page, you can forget 'selling' it
This could be of use:
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.red ... _on_steam/

Hatoful Boyfriend anyone? XD Also Cinders. And the next CAVE CAVE installment seems to be greatly-anticipated. (Also, please note that the reddit article is over 2 years old.)

Steam Direct was supposed to start today? Why are there no new updates about it?

[Imperf3kt]

Isn't hatoful boyfriend about romancing parrots?

Anyway, I should probably drop this here before digging myself into a hole; my experience with Steam is limited to ~4 -5 years ago when VNs were almost unheard of on Steam.
More recent experience comes only from random finds - VN is not a genre I actively follow. I barely have 200 hours on my Steam profile.

Take my opinions with a grain of salt as I don't really have numbers to back them up (nor the time to seek it)


I apologize if I mislead you with that.

[Katy133]

Isn't hatoful boyfriend about romancing parrots?

Anyway, I should probably drop this here before digging myself into a hole; my experience with Steam is limited to ~4 -5 years ago when VNs were almost unheard of on Steam.
More recent experience comes only from random finds - VN is not a genre I actively follow. I barely have 200 hours on my Steam profile.

Take my opinions with a grain of salt as I don't really have numbers to back them up (nor the time to seek it)


I apologize if I mislead you with that.

Ah, that makes sense. That would have been way before Steam Spy (which started in 2015).

Yeah, Steam Spy is not totally accurate (it's still in beta), so it should also be taken with a grain of salt.

[jack_norton]

I also searched a Steam game that has been reported to not have an executable file (it literally just contained an empty folder). The "game" cost less than three dollars and has sold over 1,000 copies within 24 hours.

Steam Spy doesn't report SALES - just "users". I could do a giveaway of 1M of copies of my games if I wanted and not earn a single cent, but show as 1M of users on Steam Spy

[papillon]

I've seen plenty of VNs on steam that go years before they reach three sales.
Its a daunting prospect for a new dev.

I actually don't see how this is possible. A lot of Steam users will binge-buy games, so selling three games on Steam seems relatively quick (even if the game's pricey).

I tried searching non-sexual-themed VNs, and I couldn't find any that didn't sell over 500 copies within a day.

I even tried Steam Spy-searching games made by one-person developers who have become notorious for trying to sell "fake games." I won't name-drop the game, but it cost less than five dollars, had a playing time of under five minutes, and sold over 200,000 copies within 24 hours.

Please don't cite steamspy numbers as "sales", especially if you don't know how to read them.

SteamSpy does NOT report sales. It samples a number of steam accounts, looks at how many of those accounts contain a copy of the game, and from there uses a bunch of math and guesswork to extrapolate a rough idea of how many people own copies of the game.

As Jack mentioned, this is 'contains copies', not 'bought'. They have no way to tell whether people actually bought a game, or were given a free key, or were playing on a free weekend which would make the game temporarily show in their library. (I'm also not sure whether playing family-shared games would show up that way.) Actual fake games often give away vast numbers of keys.

More importantly, though, if you think about the math involved here, they can't be accurate at all with games that have few owners. If they poll 1000 accounts and 900 of those accounts contain Big Game X, they can make a safe guess that Big Game X is pretty popular. If only ONE out of those 1000 contains VN Y, it's much harder to say that this is a correct ratio. Do one out of every thousand steam users own this game, or did we just happen to catch the only person who owns the game at all?

Because of the way the math works, around-500-sales is the lowest number that steamspy can ever report for a game. Either they find NO copies in their sample and report that the game has sold ZERO, or they find like one copy and guess that it sold 500 maybe. And there are many VNs that several days after launch will not show up on SteamSpy at all, because it has yet to find ANY copies in anyone's library. That doesn't mean it's actually sold zero copies, just that SteamSpy can't verify that anyone owns it at all.

This is not because they are "in beta". It is the basic nature of how the whole thing works. They CANNOT be accurate, especially with smaller games.

When you see "500 +/- 1000" this does not mean that it's sold 500 copies or even that it has 500 owners. It means that they have no confidence in the number at all, but that someone somewhere probably owns a copy, and probably less than 2000 people own copies total.

I also searched a Steam game that has been reported to not have an executable file (it literally just contained an empty folder). The "game" cost less than three dollars and has sold over 1,000 copies within 24 hours.

Games containing empty folders on launch is common, it just means the developer misconfigured something. It's usually a very easy fix. Happens to all kinds of games, not just VNs. I used to check new releases daily to find new devs and tell them how to fix this. Since this is a very minor thing that's quickly sorted out and Steam does have a refund option, it's not really relevant when it comes to sales.

[Katy133]

SteamSpy does NOT report sales. It samples a number of steam accounts, looks at how many of those accounts contain a copy of the game, and from there uses a bunch of math and guesswork to extrapolate a rough idea of how many people own copies of the game.

As Jack mentioned, this is 'contains copies', not 'bought'. They have no way to tell whether people actually bought a game, or were given a free key, or were playing on a free weekend which would make the game temporarily show in their library. (I'm also not sure whether playing family-shared games would show up that way.) Actual fake games often give away vast numbers of keys.

Ah, got it. My mistake.


It's now been announced that Steam Direct is open. I'll be keeping an eye on what results come of the changes.

[Scribbles]

https://partner.steamgames.com/steamdirect

they've got a lot more info out now...
I wonder if they work with paypal or if you need an actual brick and mortar bank account...
Still it doesn't seem so bad

they say no porn... I thought hunie pop was porn but guess... not?

[Zelan]

https://partner.steamgames.com/steamdirect

they've got a lot more info out now...
I wonder if they work with paypal or if you need an actual brick and mortar bank account...
Still it doesn't seem so bad

they say no porn... I thought hunie pop was porn but guess... not?

It's censored on Steam so that the most you'll see is breasts, which I guess is enough to give it a pass. Still, though, getting the girls in bed is most definitely the main focus.