The game is done. Now it earns back.

Game dev's not paused. It's finished.

Quick state check, since this is the part that matters: the game is built. The work this phase isn't continued development — it's getting the finished product in front of buyers. That's why the focus has moved to launch + creator outreach + the studio brand polish.

Steam gives you one launch window. We're sequencing for it.

Real fast on the Steam side, since this is what's been driving the timing: Steam runs a 7-day visibility window for each new release. The "Popular Upcoming" and "New & Trending" placements key off launch wishlists and first-week sales velocity. Once that window closes, organic visibility drops to near zero and doesn't come back.

Couple other things worth knowing while you're reading the rest of this:

• It's a one-shot. Steam treats relaunches and reskins as the same SKU — the day-one wishlist count and review velocity define visibility for the lifetime of the title.
• Reviews compound after sales. Steam's badge thresholds are 10 → 50 → 500. Hitting 50 in week one unlocks the recommendation widgets. Below 10, the page just reads "No user reviews."
• Median Steam game earns under $1,000 lifetime. 19,000+ games shipped in 2024 — the gap between the median and the top quartile tracks launch-week traffic, not game quality.
• Influencer CTR runs 2.5–4.5% on micro creators. Once they hit the Steam page, wishlist-to-purchase conversion takes over — GameDiscoverCo's published median is 10–15% in launch week alone, growing across the 12-month tail.

Sources: How to Market a Game (Chris Zukowski), GameDiscoverCo (Simon Carless), Steamworks Visibility Documentation, Cloutboost — Steam Wishlists & Gaming Influencers.

Every rate below is industry-formula. Sources cited.

Most YouTubers don't publish rate cards, so for the lists below I used the standard industry formula: subscriber count × average views × gaming-niche CPM. Same model the agencies use. Sourced everything inline so any number is checkable. Actual quote per creator only locks in after direct outreach.

Wave 1 — micro creators in the VN niche.

Starting here. Small channels in the VN/narrative-indie space. Reason being: micros in a tight niche convert better per dollar than larger creators outside the niche — a 5K-follower channel with 6%+ engagement out-pulls a 200K channel with 1%. Running these in parallel gives me real conversion data to size up Wave 2 against, instead of guessing.

Wave 1 sources: Social Blade — SuperAnge128, Fuwanovel VN-creator directory, Cloutboost — Key Distribution, Lurkit Pricing.

Wave 2 — mid creators, sized against Wave 1 data.

Listing these so you can see who's on the radar. These go out once I've got real numbers from Wave 1 to size the spend against — not before.

Wave 3 — bigger creators, fired after Steam launch metrics confirm.

These come last, once Wave 1 + 2 have actually moved wishlist numbers. Including them here so the full picture is on one page.

Wave 2 & 3 sources: GameDiscoverCo, HowToMarketAGame, Social Blade, Cloutboost.

Conservative 12-month net revenue projection: ~$50,000.

Built on GameDiscoverCo's published 2024 median wishlist-conversion data (10–15% week-one, growing across the 12-month tail), Steam's standard 70% developer payout, and industry CTR benchmarks for indie creator placements. No assumed over-performance. The 12-month conversion range used below is 12–18% — that's the published median (15%) with a 3-point cushion on either side.

Calculation: wave wishlists × 12–18% conversion (GameDiscoverCo 2024 median ±3pts) × $17.49 net per sale ($24.99 retail × 70% Steam payout). Each wave is independent — sized against the conversion data the previous wave produced.

The honest read: at GameDiscoverCo's published median conversion (15%) and the mid-bound of each wave's wishlist accumulation, the full plan projects roughly $50K in net revenue over 12 months. At the floor of every input, it still produces $16K. At the upper conservative bound, $74K. The right comparison isn't "marketing vs no marketing" — it's "earn back $50K vs earn back $0." Without distribution, the dev returns nothing.

Sources for every input: GameDiscoverCo — State of Steam Wishlist Conversions (2024 median data), HowToMarketAGame — Do wishlists matter any more, Cloutboost — Steam Wishlists & Gaming Influencers, Steamworks Wishlist Documentation, iqfluence — Indie Influencer Strategy.

Rebuilding candid-bay.com end to end while I'm at it, so the studio site matches the rest of the launch.

Order of operations — paced against real data, not a rigid calendar.

Marketing is iteration. Each step's pacing is set by what the previous step's data shows — not by a calendar I'm guessing at. Here's the order:

Everything in motion right now — across the launch and the studio brand.

Candid Bay is the name attached to The Solarium. Every press hit, creator video, and curious player who searches the studio after seeing the game lands on the studio site — so we need to be ready from all angles. The Solarium's art outshines 99% of VNs in this market for what it cost to build. The marketing, the studio brand, and everything around it should match that by default.

Net revenue projection is a conservative mid-case estimate using GameDiscoverCo's published 2024 median wishlist-to-purchase conversion (15% applied across the 12-month tail), Steam's standard 70% developer payout, and a $24.99 retail price. Projection is for the full Wave 1 → 2 → 3 plan executed across the next 12 months. Lower-bound floor (12% conversion + low-bound wishlists): ~$16K. Upper-conservative bound (18% conversion + upper-bound wishlists): ~$74K. Excluded from the projection: Steam seasonal sale events (typically +30–50% lifetime), itch.io revenue, sequel/DLC compounding, and creator over-performance.