Went from 20 wishlists to 60 in a week after posting my trailer. Small numbers, big lesson.

Summary · qwen2.5:32b

A solo game developer saw their Steam wishlist numbers triple from 20 to 60 in a week after posting a trailer for their game, Dark Workshop Simulator. This outcome underscores the significant impact of having a gameplay trailer on player engagement, even with limited marketing resources. Notably, the trailer consisted simply of gameplay footage with text overlays and music.

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Marketing success through trailers

Excerpt

<table> <tr><td> <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1unzhom/went_from_20_wishlists_to_60_in_a_week_after/"> <img alt="Went from 20 wishlists to 60 in a week after posting my trailer. Small numbers, big lesson." src="https://external-preview.redd.it/8EXtpfk08HwTPVfpZoZ9w6PY-25bBAElYKWVg2q9KZM.jpeg?width=320&amp;crop=smart&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=44317c1bda7cdf5a3ff60f65c843a474d4b3d150" title="Went from 20 wishlists to 60 in a week after posting my trailer. Small numbers, big lesson." /> </a> </td><td> <!-- SC_OFF --><div class="md"><p>I know 60 wishlists is nothing compared to what some of you are pulling. However, as a solo developer with a zero marketing budget and no audience, tripling my wishlists in a week felt worth sharing.</p> <p>I've been working on Dark Workshop Simulator, a first-person dark-fantasy shop sim built in Unity, and had the Steam page up for a while, sitting at around 20 wishlists.<br /> Then I posted the trailer. That's it. No ad spend. No influencer outreach. Just the trailer on Steam and a few posts on social media.</p> <p>Within a week: 43 new wishlist additions. The previous week was 3.<br /> The takeaway for anyone sitting on a playable build without a trailer: just make one. It doesn't need to be cinematic. Mine is gameplay with text overlays and music. But it gives people something to actually react to instead of a description and two screenshots.</p> <p>Happy to answer questions about the process. Still figuring most of this out honestly.<br /> And a big thank you to everyone who told me to focus on the trailer and page optimization!<br /> Love you all!</p> </div><!-- SC_ON --> &#32; submitted by &#32; <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Tough-Bag-8494"> /u/Tough-Bag-8494 </a> <br /> <span><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/4730290/Dark_Workshop_Simulator/">[link]</a></span> &#32; <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1unzhom/went_from_20_wishlists_to_60_in_a_week_after/">[comments]</a></span> </td></tr></table>