400,000 Wishlists in a Month: Dead as Disco's Steam(ing) Playbook

Why It Matters

Integrating playtesting with a player‑relationship platform like Firstlook can turn early feedback into massive pre‑launch momentum, dramatically lowering acquisition costs and improving launch success for indie games.

Key Takeaways

• Early playtests should double as community‑building, not just QA.
• Firstlook enables seamless beta sign‑ups directly from the demo.
• Removing NDAs accelerated user growth before Steam Next Fest.
• A focused “golden cohort” drives organic wishlist spikes.
• Open testing mitigates launch‑day retention risks for indie titles.

Summary

The interview tackles one of the toughest problems for modern game studios: how to turn playtesting into a full‑fledged marketing engine. Eden Chen of Firstlook explains the shift from traditional closed testing to a player‑relationship platform that spans pre‑pre‑launch, production, launch and post‑launch phases, while Adam Gershowitz of Brainar Games shares how his indie title Dead as Disco leveraged that playbook to explode on Steam.

Key insights include the three‑phase framework that treats early testers as a “golden cohort” to generate organic growth, and the practical tools Firstlook provides—instant beta sign‑ups, Discord integration, and real‑time survey loops. By pulling an NDA ahead of Steam Next Fest, Brainar doubled its outreach, moving from 25,000 wishlists to over 400,000 in a month, and ultimately surpassing one million unique players.

Illustrative examples punctuate the discussion: the High Guard launch, which burned through influencer spend but failed to retain users, versus Dead as Disco’s community‑first approach that turned beta participants into evangelists. Eden’s analogy of “building a viral flywheel” and Adam’s anecdote about arguing over NDA removal highlight the cultural shift needed within studios.

The broader implication is clear: indie developers can achieve launch‑scale engagement without massive marketing budgets by embedding community‑building into the development pipeline. Larger publishers may soon adopt open playtesting and CRM‑style platforms to mitigate launch risk, making player data a core asset for funding and publishing decisions.

Original Description

Dead as Disco went from 50,000 Steam wishlists to over 750,000 in less than a month, with over a million unique demo players and a 98% Overwhelmingly Positive rating. Host Jen Donahoe sits down with Eden Chen, founder of Pragma and the FirstLook player relationship platform, and Adam Gershowitz, COO of Brain Jar Games, to break down exactly how they did it.

Adam walks through Brain Jar's journey from a 300-person closed playtest to pulling the NDA and watching TikTok explode their community overnight, racking up over 200 million views on the Dead as Disco hashtag. Eden explains how First Look helps studios build a "golden cohort" of core fans, use in-game surveys and sentiment analysis to track player feedback at scale, and create organic referral loops that drive 10-25% community growth.

The conversation also covers Discord bots as a community engagement and advertising channel, why TikTok beat Twitch for a music-based game, and how Eden is building paid inventory for core gamers in 2026 through creators, Discord servers, and player utility sites.

Packed with specific tactics and real data for anyone rethinking their publishing platform and capabilities.

Firstlook.gg and Dead as Disco https://store.steampowered.com/app/3404260/Dead_as_Disco/

Adam Gershowitz - https://www.linkedin.com/in/agershowitz/

Eden Chen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edechen/

Jen Donahoe - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferdonahoe/