Making an indie game is difficult. Getting anyone to notice it may be harder.
That pressure is behind a growing discussion among independent developers about paid promotion packages offered through Best Indie Games, a YouTube channel run by creator Clemmy. Developers posting publicly have questioned the value of the packages after sharing purported price information and describing modest results from past placements. The claims have prompted a broader conversation about marketing transparency, audience metrics and the unusual vulnerability of studios approaching launch with limited money and little promotional experience.
The important caveat is that many of the central figures being circulated come from developers’ posts and reported rate cards, rather than a public price list. They are allegations and personal accounts, not independently verified evidence of a universal outcome for every campaign. Still, the consistency of the concerns matters, particularly in a market where a developer can spend years making a game before committing a meaningful share of a tiny marketing budget to one chance at visibility.
The numbers behind the anxiety
SteamDB estimates that 18,933 games arrived on Steam during 2026, an average of roughly 72 releases a day. The distribution of attention is extremely uneven: more than 2,600 of those games reportedly had no user reviews, while more than 7,600 had between one and nine. By contrast, 978 had surpassed 500 reviews.
Reviews are not a complete measure of sales, quality or commercial success. Players may buy a game without reviewing it, and review behavior differs by genre and audience. But the figures are a useful proxy for a problem indie teams know well: a storefront can contain an overwhelming number of games, and most will not generate much visible public engagement.
By those estimates, around 60% of 2026 Steam releases had no more than nine reviews. Of the 978 games above 500 reviews, 364 were tagged as indie. That tagging is itself imperfect; “indie” can mean different things depending on a studio’s funding, ownership and publishing arrangements. Yet the overall picture remains clear. A comparatively small slice of releases captures a very large share of attention.
That unequal attention helps explain why a large subscriber count or a claimed combined social-media audience can feel so compelling to a first-time developer. A promotion offer does not just sell a post or a short video. It can appear to sell relief from the possibility that nobody sees the game at all.
What developers say they were offered
Developer devoriahub posted an unconfirmed breakdown of packages attributed to Best Indie Games. The lowest listed tier was said to cost $2,228 and include a YouTube Short, a roughly one-minute segment in a larger YouTube video, an X post and a newsletter mention. Developers replying to the post said they could corroborate similar pricing, while comparable figures had also appeared in discussions on the r/IndieDev subreddit.
Related coverage includes Indie Developers Raise Concerns Over Costly Best Indie Games Promotion Packages.
Best Indie Games has more than 190,000 YouTube subscribers and presents itself as a channel focused on overlooked independent games. Subscriber counts, however, are not the same thing as views, clicks, wishlists or purchases. This distinction is at the heart of the disagreement.
Reach is the number of people a platform says were shown content. Impressions generally count how often content was served, which does not necessarily mean it was watched, read, clicked or remembered. Engagement can include reactions, replies, shares, comments, clicks or watch time, depending on the platform. For a developer, the more meaningful commercial question is whether attention turns into wishlists, demo downloads or sales—but a post’s performance cannot prove that conversion by itself.
BitQuest Studios said it paid $177 for promotion last year and shared an image showing 1,622 impressions. The studio said that being included in a featured-games category did not produce a noticeable wishlist increase and described the placement as poor value.
Bag Track Games reported paying about $217 after tax for a Best Indie Games Fall Showcase placement in 2026. Its concern was not only the result but the format: the studio said its trailer appeared among hundreds of trailers in a YouTube video running two to three hours, with social posts similarly grouped closely together. In practical terms, a placement can technically occur while still being difficult for an individual game to stand out within a crowded compilation.
Why selection language can be powerful
Marketing consultant and developer Indie Game Joe argued that this kind of model can be especially persuasive to inexperienced creators. His concern is that phrases such as “officially selected,” accompanied by a large audience figure, may sound like an editorial endorsement or a major breakthrough to a team already anxious about launch.
Selection language is not automatically misleading. A showcase can have a genuine submission process, and paid advertising is a normal part of media and creator work. The key questions are much more specific: Is payment necessary for inclusion? What does a developer receive? Is the content clearly marked as sponsored? What historic performance can be demonstrated for comparable posts? And is the audience figure presented in a way that distinguishes followers from actual campaign delivery?
Joe said the Best Indie Games website did not publish a price list and that pricing became clear after an enquiry or game pitch by email. He also said a rate card highlighted an aggregate audience of around 306,000 across YouTube, X, Facebook and Instagram, while individual social posts could receive far lower engagement. He cited a $380 charge for a single X post as an example he believed was not aligned with typical results.
Aggregate audience figures deserve careful interpretation. Adding the follower counts from several platforms can be useful context, but it can also count the same people more than once. A creator’s YouTube subscribers may overlap substantially with their X, Facebook and Instagram followers. And even a non-overlapping follower base is not a guarantee that platform algorithms will distribute every post to those accounts. Developers comparing offers should ask for platform-specific recent performance, not just a combined total.
Disclosure is a separate question
The debate also includes sponsorship disclosure. Joe noted that some X posts included “#ad” in replies, but he said many did not, and he could not find YouTube Shorts on the channel that expressly identified whether they were paid placements.
That observation alone does not establish that any particular undisclosed post was sponsored. Without knowing which posts were paid for, it is not possible to infer that every promotion lacked disclosure. But the uncertainty is meaningful for both audiences and developers. Viewers should be able to distinguish editorial enthusiasm from paid placement, while developers should know exactly how an advertisement will be labelled before paying for it.
Clear disclosure also protects creators. It makes the commercial arrangement understandable, limits confusion over whether a feature is a recommendation or an ad, and gives a client a concrete deliverable that can be checked after publication.
What a cautious developer can ask before paying
No marketing channel can promise success, and a weak campaign does not automatically mean bad faith. Even an excellent piece of coverage may not connect with a particular game’s intended players. But the accounts shared by developers point to sensible due diligence questions before money changes hands:
- Ask for a written description of every deliverable, including video length, posting dates, platforms and whether the game will be grouped with other titles.
- Request recent, platform-specific performance examples for comparable paid campaigns. Followers and lifetime subscriber totals are context, not campaign forecasts.
- Clarify whether the fee is for advertising, editorial coverage, showcase consideration or a combination of those things.
- Ask exactly how sponsorship will be disclosed in the video, post, caption or description.
- Establish which metrics will be shared afterward, such as impressions, views, clicks and watch time, while recognizing that not every metric proves sales impact.
- Consider whether a large compilation or a brief segment gives players enough time to understand the game’s hook.
- Set a fixed marketing budget that the studio can afford to lose. Visibility is uncertain, so promotional spending should be treated as risk capital rather than a guaranteed route to revenue.
None of these steps makes promotion safe or assures a return. They do make the agreement easier to evaluate on its actual terms instead of its biggest possible audience number.
The bigger problem is not one channel
The dispute is also a symptom of the difficult position many independent developers occupy. Some teams seek publishers for funding, marketing, distribution support and expertise. Yet developers have publicly criticized publisher agreements they view as overly aggressive, including revenue splits and the treatment of games that fail to become immediate hits. Self-publishing avoids some of those arrangements, but it transfers the work of promotion—and its financial risk—back to the studio.
That is why the conversation should not collapse into a simple claim that paid creator marketing is inherently suspect. It is a legitimate service when the terms, performance expectations and disclosures are clear. Nor is free coverage the only ethical option for creators who cover games. Producing videos, running communities and evaluating submissions takes work.
The problem emerges when a small team cannot tell what it is buying, cannot reasonably estimate the likely delivery and feels compelled to spend because obscurity is the alternative. For a team that has funded development from savings, even a few hundred dollars can be a meaningful decision; a multi-thousand-dollar package can be far more consequential.
Indie Game Joe said that roughly 20 to 30 developers had contacted him privately over recent months about their experiences with Best Indie Games showcases and paid packages. He characterized the reports as a recurring pattern rather than a pair of isolated disappointments. He also said most material on his own consultancy site and many of the games he has helped have involved free assistance, while acknowledging occasional paid advisory work for larger studios. Those statements describe his position and should be weighed as such; they do not independently settle the criticism directed at Best Indie Games.
The deeper reality is that discoverability remains brutally competitive. As the industry continues to argue about fair publisher terms and responsible influencer promotion, the immediate practical need is straightforward: developers deserve transparent offers, comprehensible metrics and clear labels around paid endorsements. In a storefront filled with thousands of new games, clarity may not create an audience—but it can prevent a desperate search for one from becoming another costly gamble.
For more on the business pressures and debates shaping games, read our coverage of AAA innovation and the industry conversation around it.
