<aside> 💡 Tip: Start a Steam page with screenshots, a trailer if available, and a game description. Do this first, without a demo or game. Also you can only release the prologue first, and keep it as coming soon, for years, to gain wishlists, you can open a short-term campaign event, as playtest,on Steam Next Festival, and then remove it, also, on the events, don’t forget to stream in the loop with https://robostreamer.com/ .

You can also create events on Steam such as a giveaway contest, you will win a Steam key for an unreleased game, by registering in our Discord community, don’t forget to add a ticket bot, in Discord. You can make the giveaway on Gleam, too, or socials, promoting the post.

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<aside> 💡 Tip: Use Google Search Console to verify ownership for the domain, then index your game page on it, Google Developer Console, to take all the metadata for your game title, screenshots ,name of the game, any other information, like developer name, publisher ,release dates etc.

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<aside> 💡 Tip: use https://www.codecks.io/steam-bot/ to get your steam reviews into your discord community.

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<aside> 💡 Tip:

Why? Because the pitch deck is meant for funding. Press kit, to have it ready, after the funding is in, and prologue for a good entry on the forums, blogs, news + press kit, etc. The cover will be used everywhere, on socials, and for the events The trailer will be used too, at the events, and give it to influencers to post it on their socials, building the hype. Also, it can be used to stream in the loop, every day, on multi-streaming, on multiple platforms at once.Even on Steam But before all, you need a pitch to get some $ , incubators, accelerators, investors, and grants.

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<aside> 💡 Tip:

change game tags every 1 week

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<aside> 💡 Tip:

change game tags every 1 week

1. Set the ‘franchise’ on each game - In the ‘edit store page’ section for any of your games (right below where you set developer and publisher), you'll need to specify the franchise name you want to use and then switch to the 'publish' tab and publish your store page changes. You only need to do this for base games--any DLC will automatically inherit the franchise name from its parent game.
2. Create a group - You'll first need to be an owner or officer in a group that you wish to serve as the foundation for your franchise homepage. As with developer homepages, you'll want to create a group with the name of your franchise. Create a new group or use an existing group you may have set up in the past with your franchise name. Learn more about Steam Community groups
3. Link your games to a homepage - Then you can use the homepage linking interface to link your franchise name to your community group to create a homepage. </aside>

https://youtu.be/qkmAqBvUBOw?si=3HC_4CgvK-f6zHeo

Internal Testing Options You will need to test your application yourself before release and you may have other employees that you wish to grant access to help test. The best way to enable these employees to test is by adding them to your Steamworks account. By default, the first user created in a Steamworks account is granted administrative permissions and access to the default application being worked on. That user can then add more users to help develop and test the application. You can read more about adding new users in Managing Your Steamworks Account.

Dev Comp Packages - Important Configuration Note As a Steamworks developer, you have a special type of packages attached to your publisher group. This package is called a Dev Comp Package, and it controls what App IDs and Depot IDs your developer accounts will own automatically when logging into Steam.

You can see the contents of your Dev Comp packages by selecting the application from your Steamworks home page, selecting the "All Associated Packages, DLC, Demos And Tools"

External Testing Options - Setting up closed or open testing Setting up pre-release testing is easy and free on Steam, and can be configured to small private tests or large public tests, or any combination.

There are two common ways of setting up testing for external audiences:

1. Using the Steam Playtest feature.
2. Using the main game's App ID with release override keys.

Steam Playtest

Steam Playtest is a free, low-risk solution to gathering playtest data without the stress of managing email lists and Steam keys or worrying about user reviews, or wishlists. By using a specific associated appID that is linked with, but separate from your main game, you can do the playtesting you need without interfering with your main game.

Steam Playtest lets you easily gate access to your playtest. You can let in as many or as few players as you need, and deactivate the playtest app when you wish.

A Steam Playtest appID has access to the same Steamworks technical features as your main game - but with reduced store and community setup. Instead of having its own separate store page, your Steam Playtest signup will live right on your main game, so that customers can sign up and access the playtest but still Wishlist or Follow the main game.

Check out the Steam Playtest documentation for the full set-up instructions, configuration scenarios, best practices and FAQs.

Release Override Keys While Steam Playtest is the preferred method of enabling closed betas on Steam, release override keys are available if you want to manage your playtest off your main game's App ID and have things like NDAs in place. 3. First, upload a build of your game for your beta testers to play. Next, is strongly recommend setting up your Coming Soon page. 4. It also provides the Steam Community Hub as an easy place for your community to discuss the game and provide feedback, and makes it easy for users to Wishlist your game. 5. Request keys from your “Beta Testing” release override package.

6. Keep track of the keys you hand out. By default, users who activate a key will own the game forever, but if you want to end beta access or revoke the game from beta testers, that’s fine too. When you’re ready to end beta access, revoke the keys using the key-banning tool.

Note: If you’d like to provide a different version of the game to different audiences, that’s easy to do. For instance, you might have beta testers playing one branch, but provide Press/Influencer access to a separate branch. Learn more about enabling separate beta branches.

Consider using “steam curator connect” on Steamworks to get reviewed by them, before early access.

Testing DLC

Testing a DLC is very similar to testing a game. The DLC has an AppID, and that AppID needs to be in a Dev Comp package that you own (or acquired with a Key) to test. Some DLCs contain content and others are just used as a license check by the game to determine features to unlock.

You can toggle the ownership (license) on and off using the Steam Console (launch Steam.exe -console), and then using the command enable_license

Testing Game Demos

Testing your game demo works a little differently from testing a game since Steam will not show the demo if the account already has access to the full game in the library. Considering that your development accounts will already have access to the full game, the demo will not appear on the accounts.

To get around that, request release override keys for the demo to activate on a second Steam account that is not associated with your developer account. That will give you a clean install and the ability to test the demo in the same way that a new user would.

Adding Friends to Test

If you need to add brand-new Steam accounts to your friends list to test the multiplayer functionality in your game, you will need to take an extra step.

By default, new accounts are limited in how they can participate in the Steam Community 7. You can activate a Dev Comp type key for your game on one of the new accounts, which will grant the game to that account and will de-limit that account and allow you to send friend requests from it. potential testers will be able to request access to your Steam Playtest if they're interested.

You can deactivate your Playtest app when you're ready - or leave it available if you want to keep experimenting with upcoming features.

How do I set it up? 8. Create a new Playtest app from the Associated Packages & DLC page for your game. 9. Configure your application in Steamworks.

10. When you're ready, complete the release process for your Playtest app. This will include a simplified store page and build review.

Note: Your playtest will not have its own unique store page, it will only show up as a section on the base game's page. The store review checklist for a Playtest only consists of capsule images and icons. You can start allowing Steam Playtest signups by making them visible on the store page of your main game.