AlterLab GameForge -- Market Research Workflow
Making a game nobody wants to play is easy. Making a game that finds its audience requires understanding where that audience lives, what they are already playing, what they wish existed, and how saturated the space is. Market research for games is not about copying what sells -- it is about finding the gap between what players want and what currently exists, then positioning your game to fill that gap.
The indie games that succeed commercially almost always have a clear answer to "who is this for and why would they choose this over the alternatives?" Hollow Knight launched into a crowded Metroidvania market but differentiated on atmosphere, difficulty curve, and sheer content density. Vampire Survivors created an entirely new micro-genre by stripping the bullet-hell formula down to its most addictive core. Balatro took the poker roguelike concept that nobody knew they wanted and executed it with such precision that it outsold games with 100x the budget.
None of these were accidents. Each team understood their market position, even if informally. This workflow makes that understanding systematic.
Purpose and Triggers
Use this workflow when:
- A developer has a game concept and wants to validate its market viability
- A team is choosing between multiple game concepts and needs data to decide
- A studio wants to understand the competitive landscape before committing to production
- A solo dev wants to know if their niche has an audience large enough to sustain them
- After
game-brainstormproduces a concept and beforegame-startcommits to building it - A game is approaching launch and needs positioning against current competitors
Problems this solves:
- Building a game in an oversaturated genre without differentiation
- Underestimating or overestimating the target audience size
- Missing competitor moves that change the market during development
- Pricing the game incorrectly for the genre and audience expectations
- Launching without a clear positioning statement for store pages and marketing
- Spending 2+ years on a game concept that has no viable commercial audience
Critical Rules
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Research is not validation bias. The goal is to find the truth about the market, not to confirm that the developer's idea is brilliant. If the research reveals a saturated market or a tiny audience, that is a valuable finding -- not a failure of the research.
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Quantitative where possible. Steam revenue estimates, player counts, wishlists, review volumes, and similar games' performance data are more useful than subjective market assessments. Use tools like SteamDB, itch.io trending, and App Store charts to ground the analysis in numbers.
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Recency matters. A genre that was hot 3 years ago may be oversaturated now. A genre that was dead 3 years ago may be experiencing a revival. Always check the publication dates of market data and prioritize data from the last 12 months.
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Indie scale, not AAA scale. Market sizing for a solo dev making a $15 game is fundamentally different from market sizing for a 200-person studio making a $70 game. Always contextualize findings to the team's actual scale, budget, and timeline.
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Positioning is not features. A game's market position is defined by what it does differently, not by what it does at all. "A Metroidvania with combat" is not positioning. "A Metroidvania where every ability is a musical instrument" is positioning.
Workflow
Phase 1: Genre Analysis
Define the genre space and its current state.
Questions to answer:
- What genre(s) does this game concept belong to? (Primary and secondary)
- What are the defining characteristics of this genre that players expect?
- What is the genre's current lifecycle stage? (Emerging, growing, mature, oversaturated)
- What sub-genres or hybrid genres exist within this space?
- What was the last major commercial success in this genre? How recent was it?
Research methodology:
- Search for "[genre] games [current year]" to find recent releases
- Check Steam tag pages for the relevant genre tags -- note total game counts
- Look at itch.io genre categories for indie-specific saturation data
- Review recent gaming press coverage: is this genre being talked about?
- Check YouTube and Twitch viewership for the genre: are people watching?
Output:
GENRE ANALYSIS
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Primary genre: [genre]
Secondary genre(s): [genre, genre]
Lifecycle stage: [emerging | growing | mature | oversaturated]
Key genre expectations: [what players assume the game will have]
Recent notable releases: [game (year), game (year), game (year)]
Genre health signals: [viewer interest, press coverage, release volume]
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Phase 2: Competitive Landscape
Map the competitive field using three tiers of competitors.
Direct competitors -- Games in the same genre targeting the same audience with similar mechanics and price points. These are the games your potential players are already playing or considering. A direct competitor to a cozy farming sim is another cozy farming sim.
Indirect competitors -- Games that satisfy the same player need through different mechanics or genres. An indirect competitor to a cozy farming sim might be a cozy life sim or a relaxing crafting game. These compete for the same emotional niche.
Aspirational competitors -- Games that achieved the quality bar or market position you are aiming for, even if they are not in the same genre. These set the benchmark for execution quality and help calibrate expectations.
For each competitor, analyze:
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
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Game: [name]
Type: [direct | indirect | aspirational]
Platform: [Steam, console, mobile, etc.]
Price: [$]
Release date: [date]
Review score: [Steam %, Metacritic, etc.]
Review volume: [total reviews — proxy for sales]
Estimated revenue: [use SteamDB estimates or review-to-sales multipliers]
Differentiator: [what makes this game stand out in the market]
Weakness: [what players commonly criticize]
Relevance: [why this game matters for your positioning]
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Analyze at least:
- 3-5 direct competitors
- 2-3 indirect competitors
- 1-2 aspirational competitors
Reference @templates/competitive-analysis.md for the full competitive analysis template.
Phase 3: Market Sizing
Estimate the addressable market for the game concept.
Total Addressable Market (TAM): All players who play games in this genre on any platform. Use Steam tag player estimates, mobile download data, and console install bases.
Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM): Players who play this genre on the platforms you are targeting, at your price point, in your supported languages. This is TAM minus the players you cannot reach.
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM): The realistic subset of SAM you can capture given your marketing budget, launch visibility, and competitive positioning. For most indie games, this is 0.1-1% of SAM in the first year.
Estimation methods:
- Review multiplier method: Steam reviews x 30-80 (varies by genre and price) gives approximate unit sales. Apply this to similar games to estimate genre demand.
- Wishlist conversion method: If you have wishlist data, typical conversion rates are 10-20% within the first week of launch.
- Comparable title method: Find 3-5 games most similar to yours. Average their estimated sales. Discount by 50% for a conservative estimate (survivorship bias).
Output:
MARKET SIZING
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TAM: [estimate] players across all platforms
SAM: [estimate] players on target platforms at target price
SOM: [estimate] realistic year-1 capture