I've watched this happen more times than I can count. A developer spends eight months building hype before launch — posting devlogs, running a Discord, cultivating wishlists. Launch week goes okay. Maybe even great. Sales come in, the reviews start building, Steam's algorithm gives a small boost. And then, by week three, they've moved on. Started working on the next game. Stopped posting. The Discord goes quiet. Within 60 days, daily sales are in single digits.
They treated launch day like a finish line. It's a starting line.
The games that find audiences six months after launch, that get picked up by YouTubers who weren't paying attention at launch, that show up as recommendations on "hidden gems" lists — those games have post-launch marketing strategies. Most indie devs don't. That gap is your opportunity.
Why the Post-Launch Period Matters More Than Most Devs Think
Steam's algorithm works on momentum. The more sales velocity you have, the more Steam promotes you — in "More like this," in "Popular upcoming," in recommendation emails, in the genre charts. The algorithm doesn't care when you launched. It cares what you're doing right now.
This means there's no expiration date on your game's discoverability. A game that sold 800 copies at launch and then went quiet will stay at 800. A game that sold 800 at launch and then maintained a consistent 20-30 sales per day for three months will hit 3,000-4,000 — and at that point, the algorithm starts to take notice.
Reviews also compound over time. At launch, you might have 40 reviews. Not enough for Steam to show a review score prominently. At 60 days post-launch, with some active marketing, you might have 80. At 90 days, 120. That "Mostly Positive" or "Very Positive" badge becomes visible in a way it wasn't before, and it converts browsers into buyers on its own.
The First Two Weeks: Don't Stop, Accelerate
Launch week adrenaline is real. You're checking sales every hour, reading every review, posting updates. That energy is good. The mistake is letting it dissipate after week one.
Two things to prioritize immediately after launch:
Chase your first review milestone
If you launched with fewer than 50 reviews, getting to 50 is your number one job. At 50 reviews, Steam starts showing your score more prominently in search results and recommendation widgets. The fastest ways to get there:
- Email your list and ask directly. One sentence: "If you've played the game, a Steam review helps more than you know."
- Post in your Discord with the same ask. Pin it temporarily.
- Add an in-game prompt (tasteful, dismissible) after a natural completion point.
A 10-20% conversion rate on a genuine ask to engaged players is normal. If you have 200 Discord members, that's 20-40 reviews from one post.
Fix the things players are complaining about
Your first patch should come within 7-10 days of launch. Not because your game is broken (hopefully), but because patch notes are a marketing event. Every time you push an update, Steam sends a notification to everyone who owns the game and everyone who has wishlisted it. That notification drives re-engagement and, sometimes, purchases from fence-sitters who've been waiting to see how the developer responds to feedback.
Read every review, positive and negative. Read your Discord. Build a simple list of the top 5-10 things players mention. Fix the ones you can fix quickly. The patch notes become proof that you're an attentive developer, which converts future buyers.
Month One: The Content Engine
After the first two weeks, you need a sustainable content cadence. Not daily — that's not sustainable. But consistent. Here's the framework I recommend for solo devs:
One devlog per week
Document what you're working on — patches, new content, the things you learned from player feedback. Post it on Steam (under News), in Discord, and as a shortened version on social. Devlogs do two things: they signal to Steam's algorithm that your game is active, and they give players a reason to stay engaged. A game with regular updates feels alive. A game with no news feels abandoned, even if nothing is wrong.
Two social posts per week
Not promotional. Conversational. Share a funny clip from the game. Post a piece of fan art if you have any. Share a metric milestone ("We just crossed 1,000 wishlists" or "500 people have beaten the final boss"). These posts cost you 20 minutes each and keep the algorithm showing your account to people who haven't converted yet.
One community event per month
This can be small. A screenshot contest with a $20 gift card as the prize. A community vote on the next piece of DLC. An open Q&A in your Discord. Community events generate organic social content (people share what they made or how they voted), extend the event lifecycle of your game, and give your most engaged players a reason to recruit new ones.
Month Two: Strategic Content Seeding
By month two, your game has enough reviews and players to support more deliberate outreach. This is when you go after the distribution channels you couldn't access at launch.
Mid-tier YouTubers and streamers
At launch, you probably reached out to large creators and got ignored. That's normal. By month two, you have something you didn't have before: social proof. You have reviews. You have player clips. You have a community. Mid-tier creators (10K-200K subscribers in your genre) pay attention to games with existing communities because it means their video will get engagement from an existing fanbase.
Your outreach email at month two should lead with that proof. "We launched eight weeks ago, we're at 450 reviews, and our Discord has 800 active players. I think your audience would love this" is a different pitch than "I made a game, please play it."
Target 15-20 specific creators. Personalize each email. Attach a free key. Follow up once after two weeks. Expect a 10-15% response rate. Even two or three videos from mid-tier creators can meaningfully move your sales chart.
Press revisits
Some games get ignored by press at launch and then covered later. This happens more than devs realize. Journalists discover games through other journalists, through streamer coverage, through their own backlogs. A short "post-launch update" pitch to the outlets that didn't cover you at launch — especially if you can point to player response — sometimes lands when the original pitch didn't.
Keep it short: one paragraph on what the game is, one sentence on its current standing (review score, notable coverage you got), one sentence on why you're reaching out now. That's it.
The "hidden gem" ecosystem
There's an entire ecosystem of content creators, curators, and communities dedicated to surfacing overlooked games. Subreddits like r/patientgamers and r/SteamDeals actively seek out games that got missed at launch. YouTube channels specifically cover "hidden gems" — and they're always looking for material.
By month two, your game qualifies as a hidden gem candidate. Make a list of 10 YouTube channels that do hidden gem or "overlooked games" content in your genre. Reach out to each with a key. These videos often perform better than launch coverage because the audience is specifically looking for games they haven't heard of.
Month Three: Lifecycle Events
The third month is about creating artificial momentum when organic momentum has stabilized. You do this through events that give players and browsers a reason to engage right now.
A sale
Running a 20-30% discount around day 60-90 post-launch is standard practice and almost always generates more revenue than the lost margin suggests. The sale creates:
- A reason for fence-sitters to convert
- Steam notification to everyone who wishlisted your game
- Content for your own social posts and Discord
- Increased sales velocity, which boosts your algorithm ranking during and after the sale
Important: don't run a sale in your first 30 days post-launch. It devalues your game for early buyers who paid full price. 60-90 days is the sweet spot — early buyers have had time to feel like they got in first, and the sale feels like a reward for new buyers rather than a panic move.
A content update or free DLC
If you have bandwidth, a free content update at the 60-90 day mark is the single most effective post-launch marketing move available to indie devs. It gets you:
- A Steam news update that notifies all owners and wishlisters
- A legitimate reason to re-pitch press and creators ("We just added X")
- A renewed social posting cycle ("Here's what we added")
- A reason for players who bounced at launch to come back
The content doesn't have to be massive. A new level. A new character. New cosmetics. New game mode. Players respond to the signal that you're investing in the game, not just to the size of the content itself.
Entering a Steam festival
Steam runs genre-specific festivals throughout the year — the Next Fest (primarily for demos), the RPG Fest, the Strategy Fest, and others. If your game is eligible for any upcoming festival, opt in. Festival pages generate browsing traffic from players who wouldn't have found you otherwise, and participating is free.
The Metric to Watch That Most Devs Ignore
Everyone watches daily sales. The metric that tells you whether your post-launch marketing is working is wishlist conversion rate — the percentage of current wishlisters who buy during a given event (sale, update, festival).
A healthy wishlist conversion rate during a sale is 3-8%. If you're running a sale and converting at 1% or less, the problem isn't the sale price. It's that the wishlists are cold — people added your game months ago and have forgotten about it. The fix is the content engine described above. Warm wishlists convert. Cold wishlists don't.
The Honest Expectation
Post-launch marketing won't save a game that launched to crickets. If you had 200 wishlists at launch and your core loop doesn't work, no amount of outreach fixes that.
But for games that launched with genuine player interest — some positive reviews, some organic community, a Discord with real conversations happening — post-launch marketing is the difference between "that game I heard of once" and "that game that's been quietly selling for two years and somehow everyone I know has played."
The devs who build those games aren't doing anything magical. They're just still working after launch day.
Set a calendar reminder right now for 30 days after your launch date. Another one for 60 days. Another for 90. Those are the checkpoints where you execute the phases above. The game doesn't end when you ship. It's just getting started.