We had zero marketing budget. So I spent six months studying how Steam actually works.
When I joined Cathedral Studios to help launch The Bornless, we had a problem. No money for ads. No existing audience. Just a game that needed to find players.
I'd done marketing and growth hacking long enough to know: when you enter a new territory, you don't start with tactics. You start with the platform.
For PC gaming, that platform is Steam.
Going deep into distribution
I treated Steam like any growth problem. Before worrying about trailers, social media, or press kits, I asked: how does Steam actually decide which games to show people?
I spent five to six months studying it. Reading everything I could find. Testing hypotheses. Big shoutout to Chris Zukowski and How to Market a Game — his work was a huge help and he became a valuable sparring partner.
The more I learned, the clearer it became: most game marketing advice misses the point entirely. It focuses on creating attention when the real leverage is understanding how Steam distributes attention.
The results
Within a month of applying what I learned, we crossed 100,000 wishlists.
In the first 48 hours of our visibility push, we added over 40,000 wishlists. No paid ads. Just understanding how the algorithm works and building our strategy around it.
We've since used the same approach for our next game. Different title, different genre, same underlying principles. It works because we're not fighting the platform — we're working with it.
What most publishers get wrong
I talk to publishers all the time who still approach Steam like it's 2010. Fixed marketing budgets. Big launch campaigns. Traditional PR timelines.
They're playing checkers while Steam is playing chess.
Steam's algorithm doesn't care about your press release. It cares about signals: wishlist velocity, engagement patterns, tag relevance, conversion rates. These are the levers that determine whether your game gets surfaced to millions or buried in the store.
You can't see everything under the hood. But you can see a lot. Enough to make informed decisions instead of guessing.
The key signals Steam watches
From my research and experimentation, here's what actually moves the needle:
Wishlist velocity — Not just total wishlists, but how fast you're adding them. A spike tells Steam something interesting is happening.
Tag strategy — Your tags determine which players see your game. Get them wrong and you're invisible to your actual audience.
Conversion signals — Steam tracks how people interact with your page. Do they wishlist? Do they click through? Do they bounce immediately?
External traffic quality — Not all traffic is equal. Steam rewards traffic that converts, not just raw visits.
Engagement patterns — Reviews, discussions, community activity. All signals that your game has momentum.
The algorithm is constantly asking: "Is this game worth showing to more people?" Your job is to give it reasons to say yes.
Why I built the playbook
I've been sharing this knowledge with other studios, publishers, and indie devs for a while now. Eventually I thought: why not turn it into something more useful?
So I built the Steam Algorithm Mastery Playbook.
It covers everything I learned:
- How Steam's algorithm actually works — The mechanics behind visibility
- Critical widgets and placements — Where your game can appear and why
- Algorithm signals deep dive — What Steam tracks and how to optimize for it
- Going viral on Steam — What triggers those massive visibility spikes
- Designing for the algorithm — How game design choices affect discoverability
- Interactive calculators — Tools to model wishlist velocity, conversion rates, tag strategy, and localization ROI
- Master checklist — A step-by-step launch preparation guide
It's not a shortcut. But it's a map.
Who this is for
Indie developers who want to understand Steam before they launch, not after.
Publishers who are tired of traditional marketing approaches that don't translate to algorithmic platforms.
Anyone curious about how modern distribution works — because these principles apply far beyond gaming. TikTok, YouTube, the App Store — they all run on similar logic.
Reverse-engineer the gatekeepers
Here's what I keep coming back to: the fastest way into any market is reverse-engineering the biggest distribution platform.
Don't start with tactics. Start with distribution. Go as deep as you can into understanding how attention flows in your industry. That's where the real leverage is.
For PC gaming, it's Steam. For short-form video, it's TikTok. For mobile apps, it's the App Store. The specifics change, but the principle doesn't.
In the meantime, the Steam playbook is live. Go study the algorithm. Then build something great.