Insights for studios — playtesting, community, creators, and growth.
FirstLook's new Analytics + Engagement brings player analytics, surveys, segmentation and automated messaging onto a single player record that spans inside and outside your game.
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Product
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Studio StoriesPodcast
The Gaming Founders Podcast
Founders who shaped the gaming industry, in conversation with Eden Chen and Kevin Zhang.
By FirstLook Team
A practical process for growing Steam wishlists before launch: know your baseline, fix your store page, pick a few channels, run a weekly plan, and measure honestly.
By FirstLook Team
A repeatable creator outreach process for game studios: decide if you're ready, find the right streamers, pitch them well, track it, and turn wins into a program. Includes a free outreach kit.
By FirstLook Team
The indie game marketing tools that actually matter, organised by the job to be done, with honest notes on when a free spreadsheet beats paid software.
By FirstLook Team
How to prepare for and run a Steam Next Fest that actually converts: the demo, the store page, creator outreach, tracking, and reading the results honestly.
By FirstLook Team
How to tag your Steam campaign links, read Steam's UTM report, and tell which creator or channel actually drove wishlists, with a free campaign tracker template.
By FirstLook Team
A global, regularly useful directory of gaming influencer marketing agencies across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, plus how to choose one and when to run creator campaigns yourself.
By FirstLook Team
A practical guide to playtesting: where to premiere your trailer, how to recruit and reward the right players, capture real sentiment, and turn testers into a launch community.
By FirstLook Team
Everything indie devs need to know about Gamescom 2026: dates, ticket types, indie showcases still accepting submissions, and how to get real value out of the week in Cologne.
By FirstLook Team
How public chatter on X and Instagram acts as an early market signal, and the three metrics studios should track to turn social discussion into a real launch predictor.
By FirstLook Team
Games marketing agencies and PR firms for indie studios in 2026: verified directory with focus areas, what they do, and how to pitch each.
By FirstLook Team
A complete directory of indie game festivals and digital showcases for 2026, with application windows, focus areas, and prep tips for your game.
By FirstLook Team
A month-by-month playbook for turning a brand-new Discord into a wishlist-loaded Steam launch. Build a launch community for your indie game in 12 months.
By FirstLook Team
A practical live ops guide for game studios. Learn how to retain players with ongoing engagement, run win-back campaigns, and turn one-time installs into a lasting community.
By FirstLook Team
How many Steam reviews does your game need at launch? 10 unlocks your visible score, but velocity and community are what really drive launch-week visibility. A practical breakdown of the thresholds, the myth of the 'algorithm trigger', and how to earn those reviews on purpose.
By FirstLook Team
What publishers really want from your playtest data: retention curves, sample quality, sentiment with context, and the wishlist intent that closes deals. A practical guide for studios pitching publishers.
By FirstLook Team
How ReLU Games, KRAFTON's internal label, launched MIMESIS to 1M+ copies and 91% Very Positive on Steam using FirstLook to validate demand, run multi-region playtests, distribute Steam keys, and stand up Discord, all in weeks.
