Steam's Next Fests have grown into humongous battle royales, and June 2025's was no different

Aggressively gaining Steam

The champion happening astir Steam's Next Fests nowadays is that determination are truthful galore games. The astir terrifying happening astir Steam's Next Fests nowadays is that determination are truthful damn galore games. It's nary astonishment then, that according to calculations by developer Chris Hanney and the GameDiscoverCo newsletter, the latest summertime Next Fest continued a inclination of important year-on-year demo fig growth.

Hanney, a dev connected Space Pirate Trainer and Shredders among others, has had a spell astatine pulling the numbers connected the numbers of demos uploaded to Steam during each adjacent fest moving backmost to 2019's Game Awards-adjacent archetypal edition.

According to Hanney's findings, that December 2019 Steam Game Festival saw conscionable 44 demos spell live, whereas the latest June 2025 Next Fest included 1994 of them, each vying for your eyeballs, keyboards, mice, and firstborn children. On the different hand, GameDiscoverCo's latest newsletter cites the second fig arsenic being successful the portion of 2,600 demos. As GameDiscover's Simon Carless points out: "It’s hard to get an nonstop demo count, due to the fact that tons of games driblet retired precocious oregon don’t taxable valid demos and person to beryllium culled."

Hanney's graph cites the numbers arsenic being beauteous unchangeable betwixt 160-ish connected the debased extremity to 300 demos connected the higher extremity per fest passim astir of 2020 to 2022, with immoderate fluctuation up and down. Then, things deed June 2023, which had 344 demos, and haven't stopped expanding since then. The biggest leap it cites is from 1079 demos successful 2024's October Next Fest to 1710 successful this February's edition.

Meanwhile, GameDiscoverCo's information has October 2024's Next Fest astatine an adjacent higher fig of demos than June '25, putting it astatine 3,008. The happening some sources person successful communal is pointing to a wide year-on-year summation successful demo numbers from June 2023 to this month, aligning with the thought that Next Fests are mostly getting much crowded arsenic clip goes on.

So, what benignant of boost did the apical performers get retired of this latest Next Fest, with each of that competition? Well, taking Stellar Blade retired of the equation arsenic GameDiscoverCo cites it arsenic a spot of an outlier since it afloat launched during this June's Next Fest, 2 games are cited arsenic having gained implicit 100,000 wishlists. ARPG Vindictus: Defying Fate was the champion non-SB performer, adding 151,605 wishlists to propulsion its pre-fest full of 592,569 up to 744,174. Meanwhile, 3rd spot Dispatch gained 110,239 to spell from 434,671 to 544,910.

Most of the apical titles saw their wishlists multiply by akin origin successful proportionality to their pre-fest total. The biggest growers, and the exceptions to that trend, were the likes of Mr. Billion: Idle Rich Tycoon - which went from 864 pre-fest wishlists to 22,788, multiplying its wishlist full by 26 successful the process. Topping that maturation was slug hellhole roguelike TerraTech Legion, which the information cites arsenic having grown from 1 solitary wishlist to 20,715, multiplying its full by, er, 20,715.

I looked astatine the publication's information connected 'Not-E3' showcase play wishlist bumps, and Next Fests are inactive lagging a spot down those numbers astatine this point, though it is worthy noting Vindictus: Defying Fate's Next Fest wishlist summation would person enactment it conscionable wrong the apical 10 of that ranking of 'Not-E3' games' wishlists successful the 5 days aft they made their showcase appearances. Just down Grounded 2 astatine 168,409 and up of the likes of Nioh 3 and Final Fantasy Tactics, though each of those games' totals were stating from zero.

GameDiscoverCo noted successful its February 2025 Next Fest investigation that comparing that iteration to February 2024's Fest illustrated the apical demos benefitting by a tiny spot more, portion determination was overmuch much involvement successful the games further down the work apical 100 rankings, with the caveat that the important year-on-year maturation successful the full fig of demos successful the Next Fest arena is apt making it a batch tougher to get adjacent to the apical 100 spots.

This is the constituent that inspired Hanney's post, with the maturation of Next Fests changing what they correspond from the perspectives of crippled makers looking to usage them to get eyes connected their works. "The champion worst portion of this is ever - each GDC speech [on launching games via Steam and gaining traction] is already retired of day by the clip it is given," wrote erstwhile Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek successful a reply to the post, "You person to beryllium ever moving, ever trying caller things."