{"id":98570,"date":"2019-08-16T22:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-16T22:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/348862"},"modified":"2019-08-16T22:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T22:04:00","slug":"steams-follower-counts-a-discoverability-gem-hidden-in-plain-sight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/steams-follower-counts-a-discoverability-gem-hidden-in-plain-sight\/","title":{"rendered":"Steam’s ‘Follower’ counts: A discoverability gem hidden in plain sight"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra\u0092s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. <\/small><\/i><\/strong> <\/p>\n

\n

In the interests of focusing on one particular part of game discoverability, I\u2019d like to concentrate this piece on one particular hidden gem of a statistic – Steam\u2019s follower count.<\/p>\n

Most people making games for Steam are aware of – and closely monitor – their game\u2019s wishlists. As discussed in my first newsletter \/ column<\/a>, your wishlists at your game\u2019s launch are a key indicator of how it might sell.<\/p>\n

(In addition, the amount of wishlists your game accumulates after launch are a key indicator of its long-term popularity. This is particularly because Steam users may get emailed about your game if it\u2019s on sale and they have wishlisted it.)<\/p>\n

Anyhow, wishlists are golden – but they are also private. Only people with access to the Steam back end for their particular game can see them. However, a statistic that is public is the \u2018Steam follower count\u2019. (You have less followers than wishlists, by the way – wishlists are around 4.5x<\/a> follower counts.)<\/p>\n

On each game\u2019s Steam page is the ability to \u2018Follow\u2019 a title to see announcements about it in your Steam Community Activity Feed. It\u2019s right next to \u2018Add to your wishlist\u2019 (see below pic from Steam website!), and is basically a light expression of interest:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Excitingly, if you go to the Steam Community Groups search page<\/a> and look for the name of a particular game, you can see how many followers the group attached to a game has, before you click on it. (There\u2019s probably a better way to do this, that\u2019s just how I do it.)<\/p>\n

This follower count – as the wishlist count – changes drastically (upwards!) after launch. But if you\u2019re checking very close to a Steam launch, here\u2019s a basic rule of thumb<\/a> from the ever helpful Jake Birkett: “Basically followers x 2.5 = week 1 sales. But of course it can vary quite a lot for different games, and probably for different reasons.”<\/p>\n

(Side note: read the rest of Jake\u2019s excellent post<\/a> on the economics of making indie games, if you didn\u2019t. It goes further than my earlier posts into the complexities of making money in this space.)<\/p>\n

Anyhow, back to exemplifying. Let\u2019s take Within The Cosmos<\/a>, which has 1,600 Steam followers<\/a> and is launching on Friday, August 16th. Perhaps it adds a few more followers by its launch hour.<\/p>\n

Even so, via Jake\u2019s basic formula this implies it should sell just over 4,000 copies in its first week – and perhaps 20,000-25,000 copies in the first year, but not all of those at full price. Not bad! Not bad? (Depends on how much it cost, if there\u2019s other platforms, etc.)<\/p>\n

Is this completely accurate, I see you scoff? Absolutely not. It may be off by a factor of 2 or 3, even. But it\u2019s unlikely to be off by a factor of 10 or 100.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re seeing a game about to launch with 10 followers – it\u2019s really likely to be a flop in commercial terms. And if you\u2019re seeing an upcoming title with 20,000 followers – it\u2019s going to be at least a medium-sized hit. (BTW, Cyberpunk 2077 has 430,000 followers already – you may want to buy stock in CD Projekt now.) Anyhow, the same essential truths for wishlists extend to followers.<\/p>\n

Until recently, it was kinda rough to find follower counts all in one place. You just had to look them up manually, or there was a custom spreadsheet or two created for Ryan Clark of Clark Tank<\/a> (& Crypt Of The Necrodancer\/Cadence Of Hyrule!) fame.<\/p>\n

But now, as pointed out<\/a> by Lars Doucet:<\/p>\n