Don't wait for Steam Next Fest: release your demos early, says Oro Interactive producer

Valve’s Steam Next Fest is a demo festival held several times a year on Steam. While the event has its perks, Hans Haave, a producer at the publisher Oro Interactive, believes developers shouldn’t rely solely on it.

Haave shared his thoughts on social media, posting a thread explaining that Steam Next Fest is highly unpredictable when it comes to boosting a game’s visibility and wishlists. He noted that the festival constantly changes its design and format, making it “simply pointless” to plan around something so unstable.

Moreover, competition skyrockets during the festival. It becomes much harder for demos to land on Steam’s “Popular Free Games” list, and bloggers’ and streamers’ inboxes get swamped with requests from countless teams asking them to play their games.

That’s why Haave recommends that developers try to “push” their demos themselves. He suggests releasing them not during the festival, but three to four weeks earlier, or even on entirely different dates. For example, a demo could be launched as part of a themed event or a third-party presentation. Another option is to publish it on itch.io to gauge initial audience reactions, which can be useful for refining the game and its future promotion.

Simon Carless, founder of the analytics service GameDiscoverCo, partly agrees with Haave’s stance. He shared the Oro Interactive producer’s thread in his latest newsletter, adding that he typically advises a “marketing push” for demos twice: once during a quieter period and again during Steam Next Fest. Carless also emphasized that a demo isn’t just a snippet of a game for players to try before buying; it’s a tool for the audience to discover the project as a whole.

As a reminder, the next Steam Next Fest kicks off in just two weeks, running from June 9th to June 16th.