The question is in title - i wonder if i can ever make a game become popular on steam, let’s say popular like hollow knight or stardew valley, if i had zero marketting and public reviews before i have the game working - i ask cuz for the next months i have terrible situation for any marketting before the game’s release, and only thing i can really do is to develop the game itself
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You gotta get SUPER LUCKY. Like, lottery grand prize or good weather in Ohio lucky.
You can share your game here. You’ve already made this post. Why not post something in Showcase > In Development? It’s a great start, as there’s many people here willing to support you (including myself).
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To make? Not really. To have it happen? Plausible, but nowhere near reliable enough to be your primary option.
You haven’t really explained what your situation is, so there’s only so much that could be suggested. If nothing else, you could participate in a steam next fest with a demo - already a huge step above no marketing. Setting up a separate store page for the demo is some extra work but is generally worth it for reviews.
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Good games get popular. Make a good game. Don’t chase popularity.
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What @Demetrius_Dixon said. And to be blunt, I would say that even WITH a devlog and marketing, you STILL need to get good weather in Ohio lucky. And I’m speaking from personal experience, having worked on (in my opinion, anyway) a pretty good, well devlogged game that almost nobody has heard of. Chasing popularity is the wrong attitude as @dragonforge-dev said. 
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While I broadly agree with the general sentiment of doing your own thing and doing it well, I’d say “good games get popular” in a vacuum doesn’t hold up well at all - have you actually never encountered great yet obscure games? Heck, this implies that entire niche genres just suck, which is quite a questionable assertion - unless you define popular as popular within their niche, but this isn’t “Hollow Knight popular”. IMO the more accurate formula would be closer to popularity = target audience * quality * marketing * luck, with the last three variables being in range of zero to one, maybe except for luck. That’s obviously still missing a lot of additional multipliers - and converting popularity into money is a separate matter - but IMO still makes for a much better approximation.
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I was just being terse. I agree with your equation in principle. But my point was that the inverse of my statement is also true:
Bad games do not get popular.
If your response to that is, “I see lots of bad games that are popular,” then you are missing the point - which is not everyone has the same taste in games. If a game is popular, lots of someone’s think it’s fun, regardless of one’s personal opinion.
But if a game is not fun to play for someone, no amount of marketing or luck will change that.
I’ve worked on games with multi-million dollar advertising budgets that just didn’t get off the ground because they weren’t good games. Even when they were in a very popular existing franchise.
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That’s the perfect formula.
Although, finding your target audience is pretty hard. I’m still not sure what Monkanics’ target audience is after all this time.
Unlike your original statement, I actually fully agree with the inverse one. Marketing won’t save a bad game or one nobody is interested in, but it’ll still be invaluable to a good one.
There are actual bad games that are popular, eg. The myriad copies of the mix of Clash of Kings with gacha mechanics on mobile.
They are inherently bad games, as they’re built for pay2win, which is anthetical to good games…1
The target audience is always YOU. If you don’t like playing your game, no one else will either.
Then people who likes games like you do will like your game. Or, they will hear from other people that it’s fun, try something new and like a new genre because of you.
Stardew Valley is a perfect example of this. ConcernedApe made a game with love and care that he liked. I bought it like two years ago because someone recommended it, and only started playing it like a month ago. It’s really good. That game opened up the idea of cozy games and brought a lot of people to the genre.
Yes, but my original statement stands. Good games get popular. I think you interpreted that as “All good games gt popular.” Which is not what I said. Nor did I intend to imply it.
That’s your opinion. And on a personal subjective level, I agree with you. F those games. But I also don’t think watching other people sports is fun. Nor do I think gambling is fun. But for lots of people those activities are fun, and subjectively to them “good” and entertaining.
Subjectively I agree that P2W games, microtransactions and loot boxes are antithetical to what makes a game good. However I have been sucked into those games before and found them good - until I didn’t. And there’s lots of people out there who enjoy them. Just like there’s lots of people out there who think mass produced pop music is good, and don’t understand the artistry of jazz.
So while we can be elitist and say those games “aren’t good”, that’s a subjective opinion IMO.
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Except Undertale… and Minecraft.
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Ok, that made me laugh. I got like 30 minutes into Undertale. But I love Minecraft. I’ve been playing it since beta. I just like building and crafting. I love going in and creating some crazy house in a way I never have. To my point above, it’s all subjective. But if a game is popular, a lot of people think it’s good.
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Fantastic insight.
I freaking love playing Monkanics because it’s inspired by the Plants vs Zombies shooter games, which was my autistic special interest before the series died and Monkanics took it’s place.
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Counter point on bad games: Sometimes bad games can have good soundtracks. I’ve personally never played Anthem, for example, but the soundtrack absolutely slaps. 
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Thanks.
One of the things we said in the early days of MMOs is “The player is always wrong.” I literally watched Star Wars Galaxies die (from the sidelines, I never worked on it) because people who knew better tried to appease the players. They put out the Wookie expansion to tweak the combat because of player complaints and a month later they were shuttering the studio.
As your game grows, trust your gut. If it isn’t fun to you, don’t listen to other people’s opinions. It can quite literally kill your game.
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Warning heeded.
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I suppose it was a misunderstanding, then. Although I’d nonetheless say the inverse statement still gets the primary point of “you need a good game to have a shot at it becoming popular” across while avoiding the possibility of being dangerously misunderstood as “if you’ve made a good game you’re already all set”.
I realize it’s a touchy subject, but I’d say we absolutely can criticize games without criticizing people for enjoying them and thus becoming elitist, much like it’s possible to criticize a food company for using unhealthy additives that people find tasty. When a game is purposefully designed to be exploitative it deserves to be called out without putting the blame onto those being exploited. As a side note, I find it good for myself to occasionally criticize games I enjoy, and I’m fairly sure that isn’t slowly making me elitist towards myself.
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I’ve also played fantastic games that never got launched due to internal politics. I once watched one of the best games I’ve ever played get killed by a multi-million dollar deal between two large companies. They traded something unrelated and part of the deal was to kill a rival game that was getting more press and better reviews.
But yes, games can have great parts, but if they don’t make up the whole, it doesn’t matter. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in game jams is that gameplay trumps everything.
I did the Metroidvania Game Jam, which is a month long. I’m really proud of the game I created, Eternal Echoes. It had cutscenes, great music, good graphics, fun gameplay, and really polished IMO. It came in 20th. I didn’t get as much of the levels planned and it was my first time really doing enemy AI.
There was a game that came in 8th called Infernumeral that had the worst graphics, but it was stupid fun to play. It took the guy two days to make it, while I had worked on mine 12-16 hours a day for a month. I voted him high because I had fun. (It was also a Godot game.)
I’ve spent most of the last two years trying to make money using Godot, and I wish I’d learned earlier that making games I like would get me farther than guessing what would make me money.
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so in short - due to complicated problems and lack of time - i found out how i can create games with this small window of opportunity, sadly i wouldn’t be able to make any youtube videos that are well made for next few months until i’ll get more time and options, that’s why i wonder if i should even attempt making game i could release now if i won’t be able to promote it through youtube nor tiktok i think
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