Steam Next Fest gave developers a '500%' increase in converting wishlists to sales

Impossible, everyone knows that valve is doing nothing but taking the 30% cut for no reason whatsoever.

Impossible, everyone knows that valve is doing nothing but taking the 30% cut for no reason whatsoever.

In Tim Sweeney's imaginary universe.

Wow, having demos available increases sales?!? Who'd've thunkit??

I've definitely bought a few games after trying their demos at previous Next Fests (Webbed and Per Aspera, off the top of my head, and I'm waiting for Terraformers to release).

Wow, having demos available increases sales?!? Who'd've thunkit??

I've definitely bought a few games after trying their demos at previous Next Fests (Webbed and Per Aspera, off the top of my head, and I'm waiting for Terraformers to release).

Oh, Terraformers had a Next Fest demo? What's it like?

Wow, having demos available increases sales?!? Who'd've thunkit??

I've definitely bought a few games after trying their demos at previous Next Fests (Webbed and Per Aspera, off the top of my head, and I'm waiting for Terraformers to release).

Oh, Terraformers had a Next Fest demo? What's it like?

It plays lot like a boardgame (it even has even theme common with Terraforming Mars). You basically build improvements, more cities and balance between different kind of resources.

PS: prologue doesn't seem to be time limited: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557040/Terraformers_First_Steps_on_Mars/


Last edited by Anza on 2 Dec 2021 at 7:55 pm UTC

I appreciate these events that go beyond "sales and discounts". It is a nice opportunity to find out and try cool new stuff, especially stuff that isn't necessarily going to get a huge coverage in press and streaming... and without any commitment to buy, just a "if it's cool, maybe later".

Shame they didn't call it Steam Demo-nic Festivals, but oh well.

Next Fests are good excuse to try out demos. Way I approach them is that I try to play as many native Linux demos that I can, which means that I might find gems that I might have not otherwise tried. This time around I wishlisted Terraformers, Woodland Empire and Neverlooted Dungeon.

Woodland Empire has interesting premise, though based on demo it still has long way to go. I'm just interested in nature simulations. Demo is still available.

Neverlooted Dungeon is immersive simulation starting more from the interaction with objects perspective. Somehow it has managed to make the interactions somewhat natural, so opening chests needs bit more effort than just pressing the interaction button. Demo is still available in case you're interested.

There are few others that might be interesting, but didn't cause enough reaction for me actually to wishlist. Maybe if I would have found time to try them bit more when the demos were actually available.

Does Valve know what a median is? Because this white line in that graph does not look like one to me. Which leads me to wanting to see their calculations on the 30% cut. Maybe there is a mistake too and it should have been 50% all the time!

Does Valve know what a median is? Because this white line in that graph does not look like one to me. Which leads me to wanting to see their calculations on the 30% cut. Maybe there is a mistake too and it should have been 50% all the time!

I think the bars are the median increase for each event, and the white line is not the median of the bars but the median for all events combined.

Does Valve know what a median is? Because this white line in that graph does not look like one to me. Which leads me to wanting to see their calculations on the 30% cut. Maybe there is a mistake too and it should have been 50% all the time!

I think the bars are the median increase for each event, and the white line is not the median of the bars but the median for all events combined.

Maybe but it really feels like it's actually the mean or something.

Oh, Terraformers had a Next Fest demo? What's it like?

I found it quite engaging, to the point where I went back to play it probably some 20-30 times by now (the demo is a 30-turn limited slice of the gameplay). It's definitely got a very board game-like feel to it; you play in turns which are one Martian year long, and each turn you get production of resources and your choice of two "projects" (basically buildings, though some can be built in cities and some can be built on the surface of the planet). Some turns also have random events that can get you extra free resource production or an additional project or stuff like that. The game is a fun balance of building things to increase your resource production, with one resource being the happiness of your people, who come to expect more of it over time as Mars becomes more terraformed. Terraforming buildings are in the demo, but they have fairly long-term effects such that there's not much point to building them with only 30 turns, and while that limit makes for fairly quick games (<1 hour), I'm really keen to get a longer game like 100–200 turns (not sure what the optimum length will be) where the terraforming has a chance to stretch its legs and I can actually spread cities over more than just ~1/10 of the planet.

Oh, Terraformers had a Next Fest demo? What's it like?

I found it quite engaging, to the point where I went back to play it probably some 20-30 times by now (the demo is a 30-turn limited slice of the gameplay). It's definitely got a very board game-like feel to it; you play in turns which are one Martian year long, and each turn you get production of resources and your choice of two "projects" (basically buildings, though some can be built in cities and some can be built on the surface of the planet). Some turns also have random events that can get you extra free resource production or an additional project or stuff like that. The game is a fun balance of building things to increase your resource production, with one resource being the happiness of your people, who come to expect more of it over time as Mars becomes more terraformed. Terraforming buildings are in the demo, but they have fairly long-term effects such that there's not much point to building them with only 30 turns, and while that limit makes for fairly quick games (<1 hour), I'm really keen to get a longer game like 100–200 turns (not sure what the optimum length will be) where the terraforming has a chance to stretch its legs and I can actually spread cities over more than just ~1/10 of the planet.

Well, maybe I'll wishlist that.

Well, maybe I'll wishlist that.

So I just realized the Terraformers: First steps on Mars free "prologue" released a few days ago, and having given it a go it's basically like the demo (a 30-turn limited game) with some updates and differences (you used to be able to sell resources to get money which you in turn could use to buy resources, now all trading is strictly between resources, and is limited per-turn by the number of "trade routes" you have, how you build on the planet is a little more constrained, some rebalancing, etc.). You could check it out to see if you want the full game.