How to Avoid the 30 Biggest Indie Game Launch Mistakes

Launching an indie game in today’s market can feel like navigating a minefield blindfolded. It’s an intricate puzzle where one misplaced piece can jeopardize years of hard work. Thousands of developers pour their hearts and souls into creating unique experiences, hoping their game will find its audience, but the reality is that the digital shelves of platforms like Steam are more crowded than ever. How do you stand out? How do you turn a passion project into a sustainable success? Let’s learn it in this 30 Biggest Indie Game Launch Mistakes!

Chris Zukowski, the creative director of How To Market A Game, has dedicated himself to solving this puzzle. His weekly blog, which he aptly calls his “five novels about Steam” written over the past five years, has become an indispensable resource for developers worldwide. Drawing from extensive data analysis, hands-on consulting, and countless developer interviews, he has identified the common threads of failure and success. He recently shared 30 of the most common and damaging mistakes indie developers make when launching a game.

This guide is an expansion of that wisdom. We will delve deep into these pitfalls, complementing them with additional perspectives, actionable advice, and insights from across the industry. Think of this not as a list of rules, but as a collection of lessons learned, often the hard way, by those who came before you. By understanding these mistakes, you can save yourself immense trouble, optimize your strategy, and give your game the best possible chance to find its audience and thrive.

We’ll structure these lessons into four critical areas: irreversible decisions made before launch, the crucial setup of your Steam page, the art and science of communication, and the often-overlooked business choices that underpin your entire project. Let’s begin the journey of turning potential mistakes into powerful lessons.

The 6 Most Important Indie Launch Lessons

If you only remember six things from this guide, make them these. Avoiding these specific mistakes will give you the greatest chance of a successful launch.

1. Treat Early Access as Your True Launch. The moment players can buy your game, your one major visibility spike begins. Do not use it as a public beta; use Steam Playtests for that. Be fully prepared with a polished, stable, and content-rich build for your Early Access debut.
2. Start Marketing 6-12 Months Early. Success is built on momentum. Get your Steam page live long before your game is finished to build a crucial foundation of wishlists and community. You cannot create an audience in the final month.
3. Hire a Professional for Your Capsule Art. Your capsule is your game’s book cover, billboard, and YouTube thumbnail all in one. It is the single most important visual asset you will create. Do not do it yourself unless you are a professional illustrator.
4. Your Trailer Must Show Gameplay in the First 5 Seconds. Players on Steam have no patience for logos, lore, or slow pans. Your primary trailer must immediately answer the question “What do I do in this game?” with clear, exciting gameplay footage.
5. Communicate Your Genre Instantly. Players look for new experiences within genres they already love. Your store page—through its trailer, screenshots (with UI visible), and short description—must clearly signal what kind of game it is without ambiguity. Focus on verbs (player actions), not lore.
6. Always Have a Way to Capture Interest. Never show your game publicly—on social media, at an event, or anywhere else—without a clear call to action directing people to a Steam “Coming Soon” page or a mailing list. Wasting viral potential is a tragic, unforced error.

Part 1: Mistakes You Cannot Take Back

Some decisions are like concrete: once they set, they are incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to change. These foundational choices dictate the trajectory of your launch, and getting them right from the outset is non-negotiable.

1. Using Early Access Incorrectly

The single most misunderstood feature on Steam is Early Access (EA). Many developers view it as a paid beta, a “soft opening” to gather feedback while finishing the game. This is a catastrophic misunderstanding. For all intents and purposes, Early Access is your one and only launch.

The moment a “Buy Now” button appears, Steam’s algorithms and the market at large render their judgment. Your game gets its primary visibility spike, enters the discovery queue, and is exposed to a wave of first-time players and reviewers. As Zukowski states, once the public can buy your game, “you cannot ‘re-launch’ your game. The press considers it old news. Streamers have already played it. Your visibility is spent.”

The data brutally supports this. Zukowski’s analysis of thousands of games reveals a grim reality: games that garner only 10 to 50 reviews in their first month of Early Access have a less than 1% chance of ever reaching the coveted 1,000-review milestone by their full 1.0 release. Even games that start strong with 250 reviews in their first month only have a 30-35% chance of hitting that 1,000-review mark later. The initial momentum is everything.

The Player’s Perspective: Players buying an EA title expect a playable, enjoyable game now, albeit an incomplete one. They are not QA testers. If they encounter a buggy, content-light, or frustrating experience, they will leave a negative review and are unlikely to ever return, no matter how much you improve the game later.

• Key Takeaway: Treat your Early Access launch with the same gravity and preparation as a full 1.0 release. If your primary goal is to gather feedback on core mechanics, use Steam’s free Playtest feature, run a closed beta with a dedicated community, or release a polished vertical slice as a demo or on platforms like Itch.io. Reserve Early Access for when the core game is stable, fun, and has enough content to justify the price tag.

Interactive Element: Is Your Game Ready for Early Access?

2. Starting Marketing Too Late

“If you build it, they will come” is a beautiful fantasy and a terrible business plan. Many developers work in a cave, perfecting their game, only to emerge a month before launch wondering where the players are. It’s too late.

Valve’s own data has shown a strong correlation between the length of time a “Coming Soon” page is live and the success of the game. A lead time of at least six to twelve months is ideal. This period is not for sitting idle; it’s for actively building wishlists, growing a community, and creating awareness.

A common fear is that wishlists will “go stale” or “rot” over time. Zukowski’s research has thoroughly debunked this myth. His analysis of multiple successful games, like Zero Sievert, showed that wishlists added a year before launch converted at nearly the same rate as those added a week before. A wishlist is an expression of interest in a concept; as long as the delivered game matches that concept, the interest remains potent.

• Key Takeaway: Your marketing timeline and your development timeline must run in parallel, not in sequence. Get your Steam page live as soon as you have a solid vertical slice, a great trailer, and compelling screenshots. The moment you have something worth showing, start showing it and give people a button to click.

3. Delaying Your Steam Page Approval

This is a simple procedural mistake with devastating consequences. You should never wait until the last minute to submit your “Coming Soon” page for Valve’s approval. The review process is not instantaneous and can unearth unexpected problems—trademark conflicts, build review issues, or content that violates guidelines—that can take days or even weeks to resolve.

The best practice is to get your page built, polished, and approved by Valve months before you plan to reveal it. Once approved, it can sit hidden in your Steamworks backend. You retain full control over the exact moment you make it public. This allows you to coordinate its reveal with a big announcement, a trailer drop, or a festival presence, ready to go live with a single click.

• Key Takeaway: Eliminate this unnecessary stressor. Prepare and submit your store page for approval as a major milestone early in your marketing process, long before your intended public reveal.

4. Talking About Your Game Without a Place to Capture Interest

Imagine this: a GIF of your game’s amazing physics system goes viral on Twitter or Reddit. It gets millions of views. But you have no Steam page, no mailing list, no Discord. All that incredible, fleeting attention dissipates into the ether. You’ve wasted a lottery ticket.

Any time you share your game publicly, you must have a “call to action” (CTA) and a funnel to capture that interest.

• Best: A mailing list is the gold standard. You own this list. It’s a direct, unfiltered line to your most dedicated potential fans, immune to algorithmic changes or platform collapses.
• Second Best: A Discord server is excellent for community building and fostering deep engagement. It’s a place for fans to connect with you and each other.
• Acceptable: Social media platforms like Twitter, TikTok, or Bluesky are good for discovery, but terrible as primary capture mechanisms. Their reach is unreliable. Use them to drive traffic to your Steam page, mailing list, or Discord.

The case study of a game with 458,000 views on Itch.io but no link to a Steam page is a painful lesson in lost potential. Every one of those views was a potential customer who had nowhere to go.

• Key Takeaway: Before you post your first public GIF, have your interest funnel ready. At a bare minimum, set up a simple landing page with a mailing list sign-up.

5. Not Updating Your Release Date on Steam

This is one of the most insidious and easily avoidable mistakes. Within Steamworks, you set a planned release date. This date is critical because it determines when your game appears on the “Popular Upcoming” list, one of the most powerful organic visibility drivers on the entire platform. Your game gets one shot at this list.

Production delays are a fact of life in game development. If you set a date for, say, October 2025, but then realize you need to delay to February 2026, you must update this date in the backend. If you forget, your game will appear on the “Popular Upcoming” list in October, generate a brief flurry of interest, and then vanish. When you actually launch in February, that opportunity is gone forever. Valve will not reset it for you.

• Key Takeaway: Vigilance is key. Watch for an automated email from Valve that asks, “Is your launch date still correct?” This is your final warning. Add Valve’s email addresses to your safe senders list and use a primary email address you check daily. A safe strategy is to set a placeholder date far in the future (e.g., “2099”) and only update it to the true, confirmed date about 3-4 weeks before you intend to launch.

Part 2: Steam Page Mistakes

Your Steam page is your digital storefront, your first impression, and your most important conversion tool. Customers will decide in seconds whether to wishlist, buy, or click away based on what they see here. Every element must be meticulously crafted to communicate your game’s appeal.

6. Launching Without a Trailer

This should be self-evident, yet it happens. A game needs a trailer. It’s your primary tool for announcing your game, for press to embed in articles, and for players to understand your game at a glance. Even a simple, well-edited 30-second gameplay clip is infinitely better than nothing.

7. Forgetting Gameplay in Your Primary Trailer

Worse than no trailer is a bad trailer. On Steam, the first video in your page’s media carousel holds special significance. It’s used to generate the “micro trailer” that auto-plays when a user hovers over your game’s capsule in the store. If this trailer is filled with logos, slow pans, and lore text, that’s what Steam will show, and potential players will see a boring, confusing mess.

As famed game trailer editor Derek Lieu advises, the first few seconds are paramount. In his GDC talk, he stresses, “Get to the good stuff. The first shots need to communicate genre, what the player does, and what makes the game unique.”

• The “5-Second Rule”: Your trailer must show clear, compelling gameplay within the first 5 seconds.
• Cut Immediately:
  • Studio logos and publisher logos (put them at the end).
  • Slow, atmospheric pans of empty environments.
  • Vague “In a world…” text or voice-overs.
  • Anything that is not direct, understandable gameplay.

8. Hiding Your Game’s Genre

Players on Steam are not typically looking for “something totally new and unlike anything you’ve ever seen.” They are looking for new variations of genres they already love. They think in terms of comparisons: “It’s like Slay the Spire meets Hades,” or “It’s a cozy farming sim like Stardew Valley but in space.” Your page must instantly communicate its genre.

• The Stranger Test: Show your Steam page to someone unfamiliar with your game for 10 seconds. Then, ask them to describe the genre. If they can’t, or get it wrong, your page is failing.
• Show Your UI: A huge mistake is to use “cinematic” screenshots with the UI turned off. The UI—health bars, ammo counters, skill trees, inventory slots—is the language of genre. It tells a player whether they’re in an RPG, an FPS, or a strategy game. Embrace your UI in your screenshots; it provides critical context.

9. Too Much Lore in Marketing Copy

You may have spent years building a deep, intricate world with a rich history. That’s wonderful for the game itself, but it is terrible for your store page description. A short description that reads, “The world of Aethelgard teeters on the verge of destruction as the ancient prophecy of the Shadow’s Return tightens its icy grip,” tells the potential player absolutely nothing about what they do in the game.

• Focus on Verbs: Your description should be about the player’s actions. Instead of the above, try: “Hack and slash through corrupted beasts, craft powerful enchanted weapons, and explore a vast, decaying world in this challenging Action RPG.” This immediately anchors the player’s understanding.

10. Accidentally Looking Like an Asset Flip

Steam players are savvy and have a well-tuned detector for low-effort games, often called “asset flips.” Even if your game is a labor of love, you can accidentally trigger this detector by using pre-made assets in a way that looks generic or repetitive.

• Show Variety and Scope: Your screenshots are your evidence of work. Ensure they showcase a wide range of content. Display different biomes (forest, desert, lava cave), a variety of enemies, different weapons or character abilities in action, and diverse UI states (e.g., the inventory screen, a map, a dialogue box). This proves to the player that your game has depth and that you’ve invested significant effort beyond a single asset pack.

11. Having a Quiet Steam Page

An inactive “Coming Soon” page feels like an abandoned project. It erodes trust. You must signal that your game is alive and development is progressing.

• Post Regular Events: The easiest way to do this is by posting a Steam Event roughly once a month. This can be a dev diary, a feature spotlight, a character reveal, or even a Q&A. These posts populate your page with activity and show potential wishlisters that the project is in good hands. If you go more than two months without an update, Valve may even hide the events section, making your page look even more barren.
• Pro Tip: Use high-quality, clean-bordered animated GIFs in your event posts. They are eye-catching and look far more professional than static images.

12. Not Cross-Promoting Your Old Games

If this isn’t your first game, your back catalog is a powerful marketing asset. Your older, established games likely receive more daily traffic from Steam’s organic visibility features than your new, unreleased title.

• Method 1 (Simple): In the description boxes of your old games’ store pages, simply paste the URL of your new game’s “Coming Soon” page. Steam will automatically convert this into an attractive wishlist widget.
• Method 2 (Powerful): When you have a major announcement for your new game, create a cross-promotion event and post it to the news feeds of all your previous games. This notifies everyone who follows those titles.
• Method 3 (Professional): Create a Steam Franchise Page (also known as a Creator Homepage). You can find instructions in the Steamworks Documentation. This adds a special widget to all your game pages that showcases your entire catalog, creating a powerful network effect.

13. Not Ensuring Your Publisher Cross-Promotes You

A publisher’s primary value proposition is their existing audience. You are paying them to leverage their back catalog and fan base to promote your new game. Players often associate games with the publisher, not the individual developer, so they’ll see your game as the “new game from the people who brought you X.”

• Actionable Step: Audit your publisher’s Steam pages for their other, similar games. Is your game being featured prominently? If not, have a firm conversation with them. It is their job to set up these cross-promotional links.

14. Letting Your Publisher Steal Your Credit

On every Steam page, there are links for the “Developer” and the “Publisher.” It is common for some publishers to set the developer link to also point to their own publisher page. Do not let this happen. This is your credit, your brand, and your future fan base.

• Take Ownership: Set up your own Developer/Creator Homepage on Steam and ensure it is correctly linked from your game’s page. This ensures that when players like your game and click your name, they are taken to a page that shows your other games, not your publisher’s.

15. Not Translating Your Steam Page

The English-speaking world is only a fraction of the Steam market. A game Zukowski consulted on, Chill Aquarium, received 53,000 wishlists from a single festival event. Of those, only 38% came from English-speaking countries. Neglecting localization is leaving a huge amount of money on the table.

While localizing the entire game can be expensive, translating your store page is a cheap and incredibly high-impact first step.

• Language Priority: If your budget is limited, prioritize translation based on Steam’s audience size:
  1. Simplified Chinese
  2. Other Asian languages (Japanese, Korean)
  3. Portuguese (for the massive Brazilian market)
  4. FIGS (French, Italian, German, Spanish)
  5. Russian, Polish, Turkish
• Tools: For your store page text, a high-quality machine translation service like DeepL is a perfectly acceptable starting point. For text-heavy games like RPGs or visual novels, hiring a professional translator is essential for the in-game text to ensure quality and avoid negative reviews.

16. Not Keeping Your Tags Up-to-Date

Tags are the lifeblood of Steam’s discovery algorithm. They determine which “More Like This” sections your game appears in, what niche sales you’re invited to, and how players find you through browsing.

• Monthly Gardening: At least once a month, use the Tagging Wizard in Steamworks to review your tags. Fans can apply tags that may be inaccurate or unhelpful. Remove these “weeds” and ensure your top tags perfectly reflect your game’s genre, sub-genre, themes, and core mechanics.

17. Making Your Own Capsule Art

This is one of the most critical investments you will make. Unless you are a professional graphic designer and illustrator, hire a professional artist to create your capsule art. Your capsule is your game’s face to the world.

Streamers and YouTubers, your most powerful marketing allies, depend on compelling thumbnails to get views for their channels. When deciding between two similar games to cover, they will almost always choose the one with the better, more professional capsule art because it makes for a better thumbnail.

The case of Clanfolk is a perfect illustration. The game’s developer-made capsule was functional but generic. After hiring a pro, the new capsule was dynamic and intriguing. A streamer who had covered the game saw his views on subsequent videos jump from 74,000 to 174,000. Same game, same streamer—the only significant change was the capsule art.

Part 3: Communication Mistakes

Beyond your Steam page, how you talk about your game and equip others to talk about it can dramatically amplify your reach.

18. Not Including Your Capsule in PSD Format in a Press Kit

You’ve hired a professional and have a beautiful capsule. The next step is to make it as easy as possible for content creators to use it. They often need to create custom thumbnails, which might involve adding their own face, a logo, or rearranging elements for better composition.

• The Frictionless Press Kit: Create a public Google Drive or Dropbox folder and link to it from your website. This press kit should contain:
  • The capsule art as a layered Photoshop file (.PSD).
  • The game’s logo with a transparent background (.PNG).
  • A selection of high-resolution screenshots and gameplay GIFs.
  • Trailer files available for download.
  • A simple text file with your game’s description and contact information.
• When you email a streamer, explicitly offer them this kit. You are not just asking them to cover your game; you are giving them the tools to make a better video, which benefits them directly.

19. Not Having a Clear Announcement Strategy

The original text ended here, but this point is crucial. “Forgetting to announce your game” can be interpreted as failing to create a distinct, impactful “announcement moment.” Just quietly setting your Steam page live is not an announcement.

A proper announcement is a coordinated marketing beat designed to make a splash. It should involve:

• A Trailer Drop: A world premiere of your announcement trailer on a major platform like IGN, or at least on your own YouTube channel.
• Steam Page Launch: The “Coming Soon” page goes live simultaneously.
• Press Outreach: A press release is sent under embargo to your list of media contacts, timed to go live with the trailer.
• Social Media Blitz: Coordinated posts across all your social channels, using optimized video clips and a clear call to action: “Watch the trailer and Wishlist on Steam!”

This unified push creates a sense of an event, concentrating attention and maximizing the initial wave of wishlists.

Part 4: Business Choices & Other Mistakes

Making a game is art; selling a game is a business. Ignoring the business side is a fast track to failure, no matter how good your game is. This section covers common mistakes in pricing, post-launch strategy, and business acumen.

20. Mispricing Your Game

Many indie developers, suffering from imposter syndrome, drastically underprice their games. While a lower price can reduce the barrier to entry, pricing too low (e.g., $4.99) can signal a lack of confidence and be perceived as low quality, paradoxically deterring sales.

• Pricing Framework: Consider these factors:
  • Competitor Pricing: What do similar, successful games in your genre cost?
  • Content & Replayability: How many hours of gameplay does your game offer?
  • Production Value: Does your game have high-quality art, music, and polish?
  • Regional Pricing: Use Steam’s recommended regional pricing. It is essential for affordability and sales in international markets.
• It’s generally easier to have a higher base price and participate in deep discounts during sales than to start too low and try to raise the price later.

21. Ignoring Post-Launch Support

Your work is not done on launch day. The first month post-launch is critical. Players will find bugs you never imagined, and your initial reviews will hinge on how quickly you respond.

• The Post-Launch Plan: Have a plan for day-one patches and be actively present in your Steam forums and Discord to answer questions and acknowledge bug reports. Continued updates and even small content additions can revive sales and encourage players to change negative reviews to positive ones. The redemption arc of No Man’s Sky is an extreme but powerful example of how long-term commitment can turn a disastrous launch into a beloved success.

22. Not Planning a Discount Strategy

Steam’s seasonal sales are massive, traffic-driving events. You need a plan. According to the Steamworks documentation on discounting, there are cooldown periods between discounts, so you can’t just be on sale constantly.

• First-Year Strategy:
  • Launch Discount: A 10-15% discount for the first week is standard and encourages early adoption.
  • First Major Sale: Wait for a major seasonal sale (Summer or Winter) for your first significant discount (e.g., 25-33%). This creates a new marketing beat and brings in a wave of price-sensitive buyers.
  • Themed Sales: Keep an eye out for themed sales events (e.g., “Roguelike Celebration,” “Metroidvania Fusion”) that Valve organizes and opt-in where appropriate.

23. Choosing the Wrong Launch Date

Don’t launch your charming indie puzzle game on the same day as Grand Theft Auto VI. Check the release calendars and be aware of major AAA releases, other big indie launches, and massive industry events. It’s also generally unwise to launch in the middle of a huge Steam sale unless you are part of it, as player attention (and wallets) will be focused elsewhere.

• Good Launch Windows: Historically, February-April and September-October are solid windows with fewer blockbuster releases. Tuesday and Thursday are often cited as good days of the week to launch, allowing time to get visibility before the weekend.

24. Neglecting Legal and Financial Basics

This isn’t glamorous, but it’s vital. Understand the basics of forming a company (e.g., LLC, Sole Proprietorship), read your publisher/contractor agreements carefully (hire a lawyer if you can), and keep track of your expenses and revenue. Tools like YNAB or a simple spreadsheet can save you a world of pain come tax time.

Conclusion: 30 Biggest Indie Game Launch Mistakes – The Path Forward

The journey of an indie developer is fraught with challenges, but it is not a game of chance. Success is rarely an accident; it is the result of creativity, hard work, and, crucially, smart and informed decision-making. By understanding the 30 mistakes outlined here—from the irreversible choices in your timeline to the nuanced details of your Steam page and the business acumen that holds it all together—you are arming yourself with the knowledge to navigate the market effectively.

Every mistake is a lesson. But the wisest developers learn those lessons from the experiences of others rather than from their own failures. Use this guide as a checklist, a sanity check, and a strategic handbook. Treat your marketing and business planning with the same passion and dedication you pour into your code and art. Your game deserves more than just to be made; it deserves to be discovered.

Now, go forth and build, market, and launch your game with the confidence that you are avoiding the pitfalls that have snared so many others. Your audience is out there, waiting.

Matthew Dogherby

Game Developer | Designer | Creative Storyteller

Matt Dogherby is a passionate game developer and designer based in Brisbane, Australia. With a career spanning over 15 years, Matt combines technical skill with a deep love for storytelling to create games that captivate and inspire. His unique perspective is shaped by the laid-back energy of Brisbane and his lifelong connection to the ocean, where he often trades coding sessions for surf sessions.