Theory of Growing Waves: Increase the Player Count and Beat the Steam Algorithm

As an individual who has worked in game publishing for a year, I am delighted to share my latest experiment in the industry with you. My team and I have already published six games as Next in Game, including our well-known tower defense game, Planet TD. With each game, we strive to acquire valuable insights and expertise that we can pass on to other developers in the industry.

A New Theory
When publishing games, we recognize that the success of a game is not solely determined by its initial sales figures, but also by how long players stay engaged with the game. With this in mind, we recently tested a new theory to extend the playtime of Planet TD. Our objective was to beat the Steam algorithm and be visible to more users by gradually increasing the number of active players in the time zone where the game is most frequently played. And, I am excited to share that our experiment was a success! In this article, I will walk you through our thought process, the steps we took, and the results we achieved. So, sit back, grab your favorite snack, and let’s dive in!

Before delving into detail, I’d like to clarify some concepts that we will be utilizing in this article:

Daily Active Users: The total number of players who played the game in a day
Peak Concurrent Users: The maximum number of players who played the game simultaneously in a day
Below is the chart of Planet TD player counts between February 1st and April 1st:

Planet TD player counts for February and March 2023
Planet TD player counts for February and March 2023
It all started when I spotted a game called Tofas Sahin on the New & Trending page of Steam while scanning the store as usual. Despite the fact that the game had very few comments, it had made it onto the list of trends. When I wondered how this could be possible, I was drawn to the detail in the game’s concurrent player number graph. Even though the change was small, each day saw more concurrent gamers than the previous day. As a result, the player graph resembled growing waves.

Tofas Sahin player counts for February 2023
Tofas Sahin player counts for February 2023
Thus, the first seed of my ‘Theory of Growing Waves’ was planted. All I had to do now was pick a game with several simultaneous players. Luckily, our six titles, which were launched on sale on HumbleBundle on March 1st, had 5–10 concurrent gamers. I chose Planet TD for being the most promising of them all, and we began our trial on Thursday, March 2nd.

Rise of the Waves
For four days, we added 5 to 15 extra players to the game. We aimed to make these additions at the same time. We simply instructed five people who had the game to open and play at the same time. And the results were outstanding:

The first week of the experiment with Planet TD
The first week of the experiment with Planet TD
We successfully created growing waves for four days! Although we did not add any players after Sunday, the game continued to be played in a completely organic way. With this approach, the first eight days were completed effectively. We boosted the number of players with play-together events between Friday, March 10th, and Sunday, March 12th, just when the decreases began. With the help of the hype we generated earlier, we shattered our concurrent player record! As of Monday, March 13th, no new players had been added from our side. As the chart below shows, even as the number of players gradually decreased, it continued to draw players above a certain level.

The first two weeks of the experiment with Planet TD
The first two weeks of the experiment with Planet TD
Results
So, what did we learn from this experiment, and what type of results did we achieve? First and foremost, we can declare that we were successful in achieving the growing waves that we had hoped for at the start. The comparison of the first two weeks of the two games mentioned above is as follows:

Comparison of Tofas Sahin (green) and Planet TD (blue) in terms of player count
Comparison of Tofas Sahin (green) and Planet TD (blue) in terms of player count
By assessing the number of players in February and March for Planet TD, we can clearly see how beneficial our efforts were:

Number of players for Planet TD on February and March 2023
Number of players for Planet TD on February and March 2023
The minimum values in March are higher than the maximum values in February, indicating a significant surge in user activity. This difference becomes even more striking when looking at the average user counts, which were almost 200 daily active users, ten times more than in February.

Considerations and Limitations
One question that arises is whether HumbleBundle is solely responsible for this surge. Although we were included in the bundle with a collection of six games, only the game we worked on achieved this level of success, despite all of them receiving an early boost. While HumbleBundle did create a buzz, it is not the only factor contributing to this achievement.

One thing to keep in mind is that this strategy was implemented on Planet TD when it already had around ten concurrent players. Therefore, it may not be useful when there are zero concurrent players. It is also uncertain if this strategy will be effective with games that have a larger player base, as it has not been attempted before.

Key Takeaways
We conducted an experiment to extend the playtime of our tower defense game, Planet TD, by gradually increasing the number of active players.
The goal was to beat the Steam algorithm and be visible to more users.
The experiment was successful, and we achieved growing waves of players, resulting in a significant surge in user activity.
I encourage game developers to consider this strategy but note that it may not be effective for games with zero concurrent players or larger player bases. https://bit.ly/100percentIntelligentCryptocurrencyVIP
Overall, The Theory of Growing Waves may increase player engagement and extend the life of your games.