Steam just released a change today that could really hurt future indie games.
Popular Upcoming used to be chronological by release time. If your game had enough wishlists to make the cut, even a smaller indie could get time near the top when launch was close.
That mattered a lot for 10k to 15k wishlist games.
Those games were not shovelware. They had already proven real player interest, but they were not big enough to compete with major publishers on a fully algorithmic list.
Now Popular Upcoming seems more algorithmic, with far more huge games from big publishers showing up weeks before release.
So instead of small and mid-sized games getting a short discovery window near launch, that visibility now goes more to games that are already massive.
For us, the golden age was Steam Greenlight. We got 56,000 wishlists in a WEEK through that system. It has never been that easy again.
Now people consider it a huge success if you get 10k to 15k wishlists in a year.
Times have changed, and not for the better.