Putting your game in a showcase? 5 key Qs to ask...
We have opinions on that. Also: lots of discovery news & the latest GDCo Show...
[The GameDiscoverCo game discovery newsletter is written by ‘how people find your game’ expert & company founder Simon Carless, and is a regular look at how people discover and buy video games in the 2020s.]
We’re back - and reminding you that GDCo’s head of biz dev Matt Styles will be at Gamescom 2026, and has made the requisite LinkedIn post to attract yr attention. Plz interface with him if you’d like to learn more about our ocean-deep data goodness?
But before we start, here’s legendary Bubble Bobble/Rainbow Islands creator Fukio Mitsuji talking to aspiring devs in a 1989 Japanese game mag & imagining a AI/robot-controlled game design era (!): “When ordinary game designers are laid off en masse thanks to the arrival of the ‘Rip-O-Bot’… will you still have enough drive and originality left in you to beat robots like those?” (We’re not living those days…. yet.)
[THE DEEPEST PC/CONSOLE DATA? You can get a free demo of our GameDiscoverCo Pro company-wide ‘Steam deep dive’ & console data, inc. MCP, by reaching out today - >110 orgs have it. Or, signing up to GDCo Plus gets extra newsletter and Discord access, plus more.]
Game discovery news: Warrior Cats is, uhh, back?
Time to kick off the week with a little rummage through the garage sale of game discovery & platform news, as follows:
Looking at GDCo Pro's estimates of 'trending' unreleased Steam games, Aug 3rd-Aug 10th (above), planeslopper Dear Passengers is still #1, with ‘twisted fairytale' Bayonetta-like action-er Swords & Slippers new at #2, and an ARPG based on the hit '00s Warrior Cats young adult novels (!) has quite a bit of initial interest at #3.
Also trending? Bloody human-angel action-er Crimson Moon (#4), which confirmed its upcoming release date, as well as cyberpunk pawn shop sim (good angle!) Probably Stolen (#5), and just-launching first person colony builder Pax Autocratica (#6).
Intriguing times here: “A third-party app called Asobi: Remote Play is now available through a Steam Playtest for Steam Deck, Steam Machine and other Linux systems. The software supports standard PS4 and PS5 Remote Play, but its more interesting feature is PlayStation Plus cloud streaming without requiring a PlayStation...”
Steam had an unfortunate third-party data leak, as Valve “sent an email about a cybersecurity attack on CEVA Logistics, a shipping company for their Steam Hardware products to European users, that happened between July 29 to August 1st.” Exposed? Personal info like your email/address, but not Steam pw or digital wallet access.
2K’s boss Strauss Zelnick is signaling excitement about an expanded possible audience for games like GTA 6, which is launching solely on next-gen PlayStation & Xbox to start, expressing “optimism about streaming services over the next three years”, as well as praise for the rise of PC, saying: “We think the audience for our console and PC games could [in the future] be 10X or more the size of the business today.”
Paid mods? Mod.io is making a bigger push into the space, with PC/console games like BMX Streets claiming a $10 ARPPU. (There’s also been The Sims’ move into paid UGC and Curseforge’s previous work with ARK, tho hardcore community reactions can still be mixed at times?)
Thronefall co-creator Jonas Tyroller is being honest on YouTube again, this time on spending 6 months on - and then canceling - chill co-op game Dodo Derby: “When Paul and I made [Thronefall]… we spent way too much time prototyping random game ideas that weren’t backed by a proper fantasy.” (You don’t wanna be a dodo?)
Which business is doing nicely at Xbox? That’d be Blizzard, according to a leaked internal memo: “In FY26 Blizzard ended the year as the top-performing studio in Xbox’s studios division” & the third-highest ever. “FY25 and FY26 were our first back-to-back years of growth since FY17”, led by Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and Overwatch.
GameDiscoverCo (it’s us!) looked at the popularity of Insomniac & Sony’s Spider-Man 2 game after that new Spider-Man movie launch: “We have the game at 404,000 daily active users (95% of them on PlayStation, thanks to the game being added to PS+ recently) as of July 25th, and a whopping 954,000 DAU (and rising) as of Aug. 8th.”
Mobile platform news: “Starting with just a single option, Aptoide Games, the Google Play Store will host and install third-party app and game stores on Android. This applies solely in the United States and third-party stores won’t show up everywhere – they’re only accessible via links or direct searches.” Not that obvious at all, then….
Culture microlinks: author Hugh Howey (Silo) on why he thinks most readers won’t care about AI-infused books; why even ‘established’ lifestyle influencers have to adapt constantly to the social video algorithm; this op-ed on why America is ‘atomizing’ talks about the “countless smaller tribes” we often reference here.
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5 key things to ask before putting your game in a showcase!
At GameDiscoverCo, we’re bullish on devs putting their PC/console game in a streaming game showcase - especially when you announce it for the first time. Why? You’re trying to break through ‘filter bubbles’ that divide you from your audience, and the right ‘appointment viewing’ showcase can boost your reach very effectively.
That’s why we’ve built a new Streaming Showcase Explorer (above) into our GDCo Pro data platform - more on that shortly. But first, we wanted to talk about the kind of questions you should be asking before committing to being in a showcase. And we’d focus on these five:
How many games are there in the showcase? Some showcases such as the PC Gaming Show & Future Games Show have up to 80 - tho more recent ones are more like 60-70. Galaxies seems to hit ~50, The Game Awards & Summer Game Fest about 50, and Triple-I Initiative 35-40. (Less is probably marginally better?)
What’s the situation around co-streaming? There’s been some startling reach increases of big showcases when influencer (or outlet) Twitch & YouTube channels allow rebroadcast with live reactions & commentary. This mainly happens with the big boys - but all showcases should articulate a strategy for it.
What percentage of debuts/reveals are planned? Even if your game isn’t a debut, the % of ‘memorable reveals’ in the showcase matters. This year’s Triple-I Initiative, for example, which skews more scrappy, had Graveyard Keeper 2, Don’t Starve Elsewhere, Machine Party & more. (And SGF/The Game Awards excel at this.)
What’s the cost - or is it free for the right game? Some of our ‘top’ tracked showcases have inclusion costs from ~$1,000 to, uh, many hundreds of thousands of dollars. So you do need to do some math(s) on ROI here. But it’s also worth noting: if you have a v.strong reveal as an indie, you might get into a big showcase free. (Showcases need hot reveals, otherwise the audience will rebel…)
How long is the showcase, overall? Partially related to number of games, but shorter, sharper showcases are getting much preferred by players nowadays, after one or two outliers (inc. a three and a half hour doozy!) The barrier to entry for streaming showcase is v.low - so the execution needs to be on point.
Before we go on, a word on ‘ranking’ of showcases: we foolishly did tier-ranking of showcases back in 2023, - we’re not going to make that mistake again! What we can say: our ‘top’ tab in GDCO’s Showcase Explorer includes the following event types:
“Day Of The Devs, Future Games Show, Galaxies, Gamescom/Gamescom ONL, Nintendo Direct, Nintendo Indie World, PC Gaming Show, PlayStation State Of Play, Summer Game Fest, The Game Awards, The MIX, The Triple-I Initiative, Wholesome Games, & Xbox Showcase.”
That’s 68 showcases since the start of July 2024 - and we’re tracking 385 (!) overall, including a lot of publisher and studio-specific showcases (Bandai Namco, 11 Bit, THQ Nordic, Capcom & more) - some of which obviously do decently.
And if you’re still interested in top ranks, we can do this - the showcases of the last 12 months with the highest median Steam wishlist gain in the 7 days after the show:
Footnotes on this: wishlists are estimates, games with no Steam page won’t register, already-released games won’t show wishlist increases ‘cos people can buy them, we can’t monitor console wishlist additions for Xbox or PlayStation. (Enough footnotes?)
But you get the idea: the Keighley-verse (Game Awards, Summer Game Fest, Gamescom ONL, w/Day Of The Devs), PlayStation/Xbox platform showcases, and the highly curated insurgents at Triple-I are the obvious leaders in the last year, followed by PC Gaming Show and Future Games Show/Wholesome Direct just below the fold…
The other advantage of having this data in our system is that we can make auto-annotated wishlists, such as the below one for co-op musou-like Tears Of Metal, which we’re estimating at >150k PC units sold since its July 22nd Steam release:
It looks like this game will eventually gross >$10m, and its showcase appearances reflect its promise - ranking above average (#14/81 in PC Gaming Show Most Wanted 2024, #12/35 in the 2025 Triple-I Initiative showcase) even before it released a demo in Oct. 2025 which hit #9/2966 (!) in Next Fest. (We also have ranked annotations for NF.)
A couple of caveats to end: first, not all games fit in all showcases, and each has a ‘flavor’. So maybe don’t be: ‘I just need to get in the one with the highest wishlist adds’, but rather understand how your game’s vibes intersect best with the audience.
And secondly, I do see some hints that the showcase market might eventually get overcrowded, just due to how easy it (mechanically!) to gather games and do a stream. Honestly, some parts of the year (not-E3?) feel overcrowded, and others (Gamescom, TGS, non-physical event times) feel sparser. So there’s still room for more interesting showcases here, if they’re shorter, sharper, and less ‘fourth trailer for X game’-y?
GameDiscoverCo Show: Miyamoto’s 2c re: console specs?
Finally this time, it’s The GameDiscover Show - fresh from going microviral on YouTube - with myself (Simon) and Post Games’ Chris Plante talking about game discovery goodness - sub to the podcast via Apple Music, Spotify & elsewhere (audio), with a video version on YouTube (above).
On this episode, we talk about Roblox's market-disappointing financial results, how to think about Steam 1.0 CCU peaks vs. Early Access, Shigeru Miyamoto's recent comments on console tech specs being less relevant, and get into Simon's 30 years (!) in the game biz. (Along the way, ‘discovering’ what Notch’s GDC party was really like.)
[We’re GameDiscoverCo, an analysis firm based around one simple issue: how do players find, buy and enjoy your PC or console game? We run the newsletter you’re reading, and provide real-time data services for publishers, funds, and other smart game industry folks.]