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[J-Snake]

Which weekday is the best to release a game on Steam? And which month? I would appreciate any advice on that subject.

[ProgramGamer]

I would imagine that a Friday would be pretty good since people just tend to want to lay back and relax then, so that would be the day on which people would be the most excited about your game coming out. All of this is IMO though, since I have nothing backing this up other than dumb logic.

This also implies that you've done advertising for it, which if you didn't, the day of release will matter not. Cause you'll get no sales.

[Ashedragon]

Definitely not any time where a sale is going on, or the few weeks before an anticipated sale.

[joe_eyemobi]

I read a while ago on various articles for Kickstarter, the optimal times were around mid-afternoon mid-week (for the US if that is your target audience).  I imagine the same principles apply here. I agree with Ashedragon that during sales isn't a good idea.  It might be good to check to see what are games are due under the Upcoming section as well.

[Schrompf]

Back when Steam still had a real "new releases" list we counted the releases and found that Wednesday is the least crowded. That does not say anything about user attention, though. If you don't have a good following at this time, you're lost anyways.

[J-Snake]

Do you think a 10-15% discount for the first week has a positive impact on sales if the game is priced only around 5$?

[DanglinBob]

There's BASICALLY two camps of philosophy here.

1) If you are sure you'll be in the Popular New Releases (IE: You have done the marketing work and are expecting solid sales numbers) releasing on Friday makes the most sense as you'll be in the Popular New Releases all weekend.

2) If you are unsure the argument tends to fall on all kinds of weekdays. I'm yet to see any real solid data that confirms one day over another, but here's the arguments for the various weekdays:

Monday - Wed = Low competition means higher chances of being seen. Monday, tends to be the least popular to launch on because people coming back to work dont have as much time to browse Steam and journalists coming back from a weekend are playing catch-up. Tues and Wed tend to get the popular vote for this approach.

Thursday - Almost every week the games that are popular new releases on Thursday are STILL on the most popular list on Saturday, meaning why fight the huge launch group that happens every Friday when you can get nearly as good visibility and launch on Thursday. (Similar argument is sometimes made about Wed).

Dunno if that helped or gave you more questions!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i've heard tuesdays are best. i'm about to release immortal defense on steam and considering going for a tuesday. i suspect it's largely just superstition though; it may affect things in a minor way, but it's not the primary determinant in whether a game sells well or not, it might change sales by like 5% plus or minus or something negligible like that

*except* for the sale thing, it's true that you should not release a game when a big sale is going on. but since the summer sale just ended and the next one isn't for a few months, we should be safe

[J-Snake]

I have set the release on next Thursday 23:00 (July 9th) and submitted the game now to Valve for review. I expect more people will play on Friday and weekends so I might get more eye balls. There are only few upcoming games at the moment, or so it seems:

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?filter=comingsoon&os=win#sort_by=Released_DESC&sort_order=DESC&filter=comingsoon&tags=122&page=2

[J-Snake]

Actually next is week is looking bad, too many releases on 9th and 10th. The week after looks more promising. I have no experience to estimate how much the list can change until then though.

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?filter=comingsoon&os=win#sort_by=Released_DESC&sort_order=DESC&filter=comingsoon&page=7

btw, it's crazy to see quantities of new games arrive daily. We are only 7 Billion people, and it's like everyone is making games.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

Greenlight is getting crazier everyday. I see at least 10~15 new games everyday , most of them are like really bad.
And yet they get greenlighted. It's just not easy to notice them being greenlighted now. Bad games seems to appear in 2nd and 3rd page of new greenlighted games.

No wonder people jump on the band wagon.

[J-Snake]

So I released Trap Them on Friday evening after most of the other games were released on that day. It has to be the best option since Valve doesn't work on weekend so the game remains visible on top under "new releases" during the whole weekend:

http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/Casual/#p=0&tab=NewReleases

Of course Valve won't suggest to prefer a day over the other since we are in a paradox situation; we search for advice to avoid competition by competing with each other. If everyone would release on Friday we would have a problem again. But there you have it.

Regarding the initial sales. A well selling game on Steam makes the amount of sales in an hour I have made in one day so far.
But I cannot complain. I haven't invested in presentation and marketing side of things. So my presentation isn't very polished, and the game isn't for everyone.