Neon Doctrine co-founder Vladislav “Vlad” Tsopljak gave a talk to indie game developers today, sharing how to get your games seen on Steam.

During the Level Up KL presentation, Vlad gave an insight into how Steam algorithm works and recommended developers take note of various aspects of their games to improve their visibility.

First, Vlad gave a brief explanation of what is Steamworks, a service designed to help developers and publishers distribute their games on Steam and get the most out of it.

He then presented the audience with the Store Pages of published games and advised creators to pay attention to various elements on the page in order to improve their games’ visibility.

Vlad greatly emphasized that localization and appropriate tags will help a lot with the algorithm.

If developers have a localized Store Page, they need to make sure that the interactive GIFs on the page are also appropriately translated.

Additionally, Vlad noted that creators should take full advantage of both the developer page and the discussion board on Steam, as the former allows them to promote their games to followers with updates, while the latter helps them to engage with the community.

To add, there are also community features such as livestreams, announcements, festivals, and more, which are all advisable to use for increasing game visibility on Steam.

“The more you use all these Steam community features, in moderation of course, the more traction your games are going to get,” said Vlad.

In the presentation, Vlad also highlighted various tools and opportunities that developers can use to further enhance their game visibility such as the Steam Next Fest and Points Shop.

Before ending his presentation, Vlad advised game creators to give the Steamworks documentation a read-through to further understand how the distribution works on Steam.