Steam Next Fest Demos Provided A Major Boost To Game Sales

Valve shared news of how it generated sales from their successful digital event with a reminder to developers and publishers to register their games since October's Steam Next Fest is upon us.

With the absence of in-person game demos and events in 2020, Valve created the Steam Next Fest to offer multitudes of game demos for fans to download. Several developers used it as an opportunity to talk about their games via livestreams during the event. The Next Fest garnered hefty player participation that led to increased engagement and profit, according to Valve's data.

Last year, "The median game saw daily wishlist additions jump 421% during the fest, compared to the two weeks leading up to the event," Valve explained. About a month after Next Fest, the rate of daily wishlist additions was still 15% higher than it was two weeks before the event.

Valve concluded that the median released game noticed an increase of 292% in turning the Next Fest wishlist additions into sales "compared to converting wishlist additions made in the two weeks leading to Next Fest."

Earlier this year, Steam Next Fest June edition partnered with ID@Xbox Summer Game Fest Demo Event after E3 2021. Next Fest offered over 700 new demos for players to test out from the comfort of their homes. It included the 40 game demos from ID@Xbox such as Tunic, an isometric adventure game with an adorable fox protagonist, and Sable, a mesmerizing open-world game set in a Moebius art-inspired desert landscape.

The week-long Steam Next Fest October 2021 edition will run from October 1 to October 7.