Making a game has never been more achievable. Engines are free or cheap, distribution requires no publisher, and the knowledge is documented in enormous detail.
The result is that dozens of games are released daily on the major storefronts, and the constraint moved from making one to being noticed.
How the algorithms work against new releases
Storefront recommendations are driven by engagement signals – wishlists, playtime, reviews, sales velocity. A game with none of those has nothing to feed the system.
This produces a loop where visibility requires success and success requires visibility. Games that break out usually do so through something outside the storefront entirely.
What actually works
Wishlists before launch, accumulated over months. The first-day algorithm response depends heavily on them, and a game arriving with a large wishlist count gets surfaced in a way one arriving cold does not.
A visual identity legible in a still image. Most discovery happens through a thumbnail, and a game that looks like other games is invisible in a grid.
Festivals and curated events, which remain among the few mechanisms that place unknown games in front of large audiences.
And other people talking about it. Streamers and video creators drive a share of discovery that dwarfs advertising, and it cannot be bought reliably.
What does not work
Advertising, for most budgets. The cost of acquiring a customer usually exceeds the margin on a fifteen-unit game.
Press releases to outlets that receive hundreds daily. Coverage happens through relationships and through the game being interesting, not through the release reaching an inbox.
The uncomfortable conclusion
Marketing has to start roughly when development does, and most developers begin thinking about it when the game is finished. By then the wishlist window has closed and the launch depends on luck.