‘’Why do I need to make a checklist – I have everything in my head!’’
Because a checklist will keep you focused, and save you tons of time, and you know the time is money!
All Marketing efforts done before the official release of your indie game will define the size of the audience you manage to bring up on the launch day.
But, even though marketing in the early phases is so important, the official release day should not be neglected, as on the launch day there are tons of activities you should not forget to do!
Steam algorithms will be focused on how your game is doing in the first few hours – so if you’d start selling your first copy after 4-5 hours, that would be an alarm for Steam. You want to bring as many players as you can within the first hour (if possible!). Use automation services to send out emails, schedule your posts, and do manual stuff – all with a main goal to bring as many players as you can right after the game is officially released on Steam!
On the release of one of our games SimPocalypse we worked on approx. 16 hours on the launch day – preparing the last texts, and campaigns before the release, and after the game got released, chatting with the community – we didn’t even talk between coworkers on the project right on the release hour as we were so busy doing stuff every one of us was responsible for.
All the activities and hard work paid off as the game was featured at the top as new and trending for about a day on Steam.
So, a checklist helps to remind you what all needs to be done on a specific day, and spares you time thinking of what you missed/what still needs to be done, a way checklist keeps you motivated and optimally productive for not only the launch day but also for other days as well.
Here’s a quick template/ Checklist you can use for your next game release, feel free to adjust it, and add any of the specific activities you have with your game.
Download Steam Launch Day Checklist (with blank template)
- Update the official website/development blog
- Update your Roadmap
- Release & pin the news on Twitter and other socials you might be using
- Update your Steam Developer/Publisher pages
- Post a fresh/ Launch Trailer on YouTube
- Update & Post your Launch trailer wherever you find the most appropriate
- Make sure your Press Kit is updated
- Update your forum threads
- Release the announcement on your Discord
- Release a pre-prepared release announcement on Steam!
- Start a Developer Stream on the Release day
- Re-check your Steam page (make sure all the links are working, etc.)
- Release the news/launch trailer/gifs on Reddit
- Re-check your paid advertising campaigns
- Post the most interesting gifs of your gameplay to Imgur
- Send emails to your playerbase -notify them of the launch
Gamex Studio has been developing, marketing & publishing games for the last 6 years, and learnt tons of stuff when launching games on various platforms. Read more about the studio here.