Yogscast Games on Its Publishing Approach, Roguelikes, & Indie Hits

Yogscast Games was established in 2017 as an extension of The Yogscast's massive YouTube and Twitch presence. Can you walk us through the origin story of Yogscast Games and how your arrival shaped the publishing division's evolution and strategy?

Yogscast Games started as a natural extension of what The Yogscast was doing better than anyone else at the time: making great content around great games. Yogs had this huge audience, hungry for content, and the idea was to put that behind a publishing company that could find games that both the network and the audience would enjoy.

Yogs Games had a good start – its four initial signings were all great games, from local, Bristol-based developers. So when I joined in 2021, it was basically more of the same, but using the expertise I’d gathered at Curve to grow the games publishing division into a proper standalone outfit.

My background in journalism, communications, and marketing gives me a pretty good nose for what makes a good game, so the idea was to combine this with the passion and intelligence of the Yogscast network, signing games that they would love to play.

We initially signed a range of genres, but always games which we’ve thought would be as fun to watch as they are to play, and that’s something we’ve tried to stick with as the publishing side has grown.

You famously said you're "almost too realistic" with projections, typically forecasting 100,000-120,000 units over two years, yet PlateUp! sold 200,000 copies in its first month alone and has now surpassed 2 million copies on Steam. How do you balance conservative planning with the potential for breakout success, and what did PlateUp!'s performance teach you about identifying hit potential in indie games?

The big secret about publishing is that no one knows how a game will launch. One of my frustrations these days is how people try to distill a game into a science – if you do ‘x’, ‘y’ will happen. Wishlists don’t predict the future. There is no direct correlation between pre-launch wishlists and sales. You simply have no idea how many copies your game will sell at launch, which makes planning a bit of a predicament.

So with everything we do, I think it’s more responsible to plan around an outcome you can survive than a dream outcome you can’t.

Typically, we model scenarios around selling 100k units over a couple of years, and be transparent about what that means for both us and the studio. That 100k is in no way guaranteed, but we feel it’s a good initial target – though in the case of PlateUp! we were significantly out as it sold 201k units in the first month. Ooops.

What did we learn from it? Well, it showed that a game that is a hit with the network can really break out – but ultimately it was a reminder that no one knows how a game can do until it’s in the hands of players.

Yogscast Games has a clear focus on "games that are as fun to watch as they are to play," leveraging The Yogscast's 40 million YouTube subscribers and 10 million Twitch viewers. How does this content creator-first philosophy influence your game selection process, and can you share specific examples of how you've used the Yogscast network to successfully launch games?

Having access to a network of creators is a huge help, of course – but it also dictates the type of games we realistically think we can make a difference with. We want people who watch a creator play the game to then be able to have a brilliant time when they play it themselves, so that tends to rule out linear puzzle games (you’ll have a solution spoiled) and walking simulators.

We also look to harness that network expertise. Early creator feedback helps us understand what works and what doesn’t – not just within the game itself, but how it could appear on streams.

Both PlateUp! and Trolley Problem, Inc. benefited hugely from early creator feedback and helped them live on Twitch far beyond their launch. Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers had a massive creator following as we were building up to release. Knowing that our network will enjoy and play the games we’re signing gives us optimism that they’ll break out into the wider world and potentially become ‘that’ game everyone is playing.

Your portfolio leans heavily into roguelikes, roguelites, and deck builders with titles like Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers, PlateUp!, Dicealot, and the upcoming Infinity Sweeper and The Gate Must Stand. Some say there are too many roguelike games, but you've said, "You can never have enough." What is it about this genre that resonates with both players and your publishing strategy?

We love them. Our network loves them. And they suit the type of systemic, emergent gameplay, which can mean that everyone who plays it can have a different experience, be that on their own or when playing it to an audience of thousands.

They create infinite stories from small interlocking systems, encourage repeat play without having to individually create massive amounts of content, and, most importantly, create moments of specific, important decision-making, which can make or break a run, which, when happening on a stream, can have viewers commending the action or screaming in chat.

They can also create communities that stick around. Discord's becoming hubs of discussion about builds, meta, runs, and game-breaking synergies. When we were bringing The Royal Writ to market, I loved hanging around in the Discord, seeing how players were breaking it – and that, in turn, encouraged me to go back and try to do the same. You don’t get that sort of conversation with many other genres.

You've established a unique partnership with Chinese publisher Gamersky Games for co-publishing titles like Border Pioneer, Stray Path, and The Gate Must Stand. How does this East-meets-West collaboration work in practice, and what advantages does it give developers trying to reach both Western and Chinese markets?

It was Human: Fall Flat that first highlighted the importance of getting it right in China. At Curve, in the year and a half after it initially launched, we’d sold 180k copies of Human: Fall Flat. But over Christmas 2017, it got picked up by a Chinese creator, and on one day, it sold 105k copies. I left Curve in 2021, but if memory serves, almost half the Steam copies sold were to players in China. It took us almost three months to unpick exactly what had happened back then – so from that point on, it’s always been a priority to work with experts in the region.

The Gamersky relationship came from working together informally first. We very quickly realised we liked and respected each other, and I admired their ethics. The co-publishing partnership was a natural extension. They’d show us games they were signing, and we’d be really impressed. I’m a firm believer in only working with people who can make a difference, and we both believe the expertise we have in our respective markets is something worth celebrating.
For developers, it’s a great opportunity. You get real support in both markets without having to become experts in two completely different ecosystems overnight.

Yogscast Games champions solo developers and tiny teams through initiatives like the annual Tiny Teams festival. What's your approach to working with these small studios, and what specific support do you provide beyond traditional publishing services that helps these developers succeed?

Some publishers don’t like working with developers who’ve never made a game before – I’ve even heard it listed as a firm pass, no matter what the potential. But how can someone write a second game if they don’t get the chance to make a first?

Hopefully, both mine and Yogs Games’ collective experience enables us to offer guidance on what works and what doesn’t – we’ve got the scars, so they don’t have to.

During my first three years at Yogs, I think over half the games we released were from first-time game developers – and that included PlateUp! and Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers. We absolutely love helping new developers bring their games to a global audience – and the hope is that they’ll stick with us on their third and fourth games, too.

We’re a small publisher ourselves, so my hope is that the team that coalesces around the game is tiny but passionate. Everyone involved cares about the game, its quality, and its success.

When evaluating potential games to publish, what are the key criteria you look for? Walk us through your decision-making process from initial pitch to signing, and how do you assess whether a game will find its audience in today's crowded indie market?

The hook is the most important thing – can you communicate what the game is in one sentence, and will the final game deliver on that promise?

Let’s take the signing of D&DG as an example, because I think it showed us at our best. Mike (Purple Moss Collectors) got in touch with a really early prototype. Roguelike casino games weren’t a thing back then – this was before anyone had ever heard of Balatro – indeed, D&DG was on Steam before Localthunk had set his page live. We loved the idea, felt there was something very special about the core loop, but knew it would require some support in bringing it to market.

We had long conversations with Mike about how we could help, and eventually decided not just to fund the development, but also provide additional art from the Yogs art team. Together, they helped make that game a huge hit, but I know plenty of other publishers would have skipped past the initial demo because they were judging how it looked, not how it played.

One thing we don’t do is judge a game’s Steam metrics at the point of signing. If a game has loads of wishlists or followers already, of course, that helps – but if it doesn’t, that’s no sign the game’s a dud at all. It just means they haven’t found an audience yet – and that, generally, is a publisher function. It’s like games that fail Kickstarters – again, that’s not necessarily down to the pitch, just the audience.

As one example: Hello Neighbour failed its Kickstarter originally – and look at what that game went on to do. I have a particular interest in that one – I was about to sign it at Curve until the higher-ups got cold feet. You’re welcome, TinyBuild.

I digress. Once we’re all aligned, I’ll work with the developer to outline clear examples of what a deal could look like, what we’ll be contributing, and be very clear about what that will mean financially to them. I know there’s a lot of discussion about the morality of publisher recoup – we do recoup our external costs, but part of the diligence is making sure the developer is fully aware of the various scenarios.

Then we sign, and it all goes brilliantly.

Distribution and marketing have changed dramatically for indie games. How does Yogscast Games approach getting games in front of players in 2026, especially on platforms like Steam, where discoverability is increasingly challenging, and what role does your connection to content creators play in cutting through the noise?

Yeah, it’s the biggest problem facing all indie developers and publishers. What’s clear is that the old routes to market no longer work as well as they used to. The press used to be able to tell its readers what was going to be big, but now the mainstream sites are chasing clicks for things that are already big. Content creators have become a great form of discovery, but they are absolutely overwhelmed with games to play and people hassling them to do so.

We try to focus on a couple of things – Steam as a platform, and building community. In the indie sector, over 90 percent of your traffic comes from those already on the platform, so doing what you can to keep Steam users engaged is vital. Treat Steam like it’s social media – post regular updates, engage with potential players on the community forums, and continue to update your playtests and demos. If you can capture attention or a moment, that’s when you can see a huge uptick in visibility through word of mouth or seeing what friends are playing or have wishlisted.

Demos and playtests are vital and can give you valuable insight into how players could respond to the full release. If the median playtime starts nudging towards an hour or more, that’s a huge endorsement – players generally have no vested interest in giving a demo more time than they want to. They’re paying with their time, which is the most valuable commodity. So we put a huge amount of importance in getting demos and playtests out there, growing a community which begins to champion the game as it evolves through their feedback – and hopefully create fans around launch who can really champion your success.

At launch, content creators are arguably your biggest opportunity. That can be through organic relationships developed (ideally) ahead of launch, or paid activations which guarantee a minimum number of hours streamed – though hopefully you can get more if they really take to the game.

Having an inbuilt relationship to a network of creators is, of course, an asset here – but it’s not just like we can ‘make’ them play any game. They are quite rightly protective of their channels, so ensuring our content is right for their channels is a huge part of our new signing process.
 

Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers grossed over $1 million in its first month, featured as a top 25 most-played demo at Steam Next Fest, and even received praise from Balatro's creator. Can you share the story of how you discovered this game from New Zealand's Purple Moss Collectors and what made you confident it would resonate with players?

Like most publishers, we get a lot of inbound pitches. But we also spend a lot of time watching what’s happening organically – games appearing on social media, demos going live on Steam, or projects coming through initiatives like Tiny Teams.

One such game appeared on May 27th, 2023. At the time, it was built around what felt like a completely unheard-of concept: taking a traditional casino game and turning it into a roguelike. On paper – and, crucially, at the time – it sounded like the sort of crazy idea we loved. The early prototype, even in its very primitive state, was very special. The core loop was strong. Internally, our reaction was probably best summed up in one deliberately cautious message exchanged between Alex Turner and me on Discord: “I sorta really love this.” There was huge potential, but clearly a lot of work to do.

Literally the day after we started properly discussing the game internally, someone posted on Reddit about the poker-themed roguelike they were working on. Clearly a coincidence, but it reinforced the sense that this strange hybrid idea might actually have legs.

I’ve no idea what happened to that other project.

Back to D&DG. We really wanted to find a way to work together, so we explored something we hadn’t done before: taking a brilliant core idea and giving it what the internet would call a “glow-up.” We felt a little awkward about it at first, but the discussion approached collaboratively, driven by shared enthusiasm for the game. We brought in Yogscast’s art team - Jack, Nina, and Harry - to work with Mike on visual direction and presentation, and over the coming weeks, excitement really started to build. This clever core idea was evolving into something much more confident and distinctive.

There’s a common piece of advice developers hear when talking to publishers: don’t announce your game, don’t put a demo on Steam, don’t do anything publicly until you’ve secured a deal. The idea is that if early numbers aren’t huge, publishers will see that as a lack of interest.

I hate that. First up, marketing is generally a publisher function, so if there’s some work to be done there, the publisher should relish it. Secondly, community building in the earliest stages is incredibly valuable. Between uploading the demo in May and speaking to publishers over the following months, Mike kept refining the game in public on Steam. Content creators were picking it up and sticking with it.

We eventually signed the contract on November 3rd, 2023. It took slightly longer than I’d have liked, largely because the timing coincided with us spinning the publishing business out into a separate company. But the wait was worth it. This became the very first contract we signed as the new company, which made the game feel even more special.

Looking at the indie publishing landscape as we move through 2026, what trends are you seeing in terms of player preferences, market dynamics, and developer needs? How is Yogscast Games positioning itself to adapt to these changes, and what types of games or partnerships are you most excited to pursue in the coming years?

We’ve known for ages that the majority of players spend the majority of their time in games that are many years old. So we aren’t just competing with all games coming out that week, but all games ever released.

Competing for that attention is hard. You need to come up with reasons players need to play now, not stick it on a wishlist and wait for a sale. The big breakout indies tend to offer a couple of things: a huge depth, but which can be played in short sessions, often with friends. Clearly, roguelike/lite structure helps here, as system-rich games can offer a huge amount of playtime without placing similar demands on art, levels, etc.

You’ve got to embrace substantial demos and playtests. The old theory used to be that you should pull back on your demos when the game releases, but my view is that restricting the opportunity to sample can work against you. And in any case, players can use the first couple of hours on Steam as a demo if they are in two minds – and if you’ve not offered an opportunity for them to sample for free, that increases the rate of refunds, which count against you when it comes to store featuring.

Of course, the other way of getting code into the hands of players is through price – and I’m definitely seeing a general trend towards lower SRPs. Not across the board – but, again, many of the breakout hits have been $15 or less, sometimes a lot less. Aggressive launch discounts really help create that ‘must-play now’ moment we’ve seen capture the attention.

For us, we want to grow, but specialise. Whilst we do publish a lot of roguelikes, I don’t think we’re quite yet known for them, so I’d like us to double down on those whilst also growing into other genres, probably through specialist labels. We’ll see – the industry itself is still super turbulent, so we still need to keep an eye on the pennies.

Overall, though, I’d like to 2026 to continue in the same spirit that founded Yogscast Games: finding games with personality – the ones that make creators want to play them – and giving those teams a real shot at becoming hits.

Simon Byron, Managing Director at Yogscast Games