Game Dev Podcast | Coffee with Butterscotch

In episode 593 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers debunk common myths about Steam wishlists and how they influence game success. They explore how external marketing, timing, and understanding Steam's algorithms are crucial for indie developers aiming for success. "How Many Dudes?": https://howmanydudes.com 00:00 Understanding Steam Wishlists 10:08 The Myth of Accumulating Wishlists 17:32...

In episode 592 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers welcome their first ever podcast guests Nick and Dominik, the team behind IRON NEST. Seth and Sam walk through the entire dev cycle with them, from how they chose the name and built a thriving Discord community to the marketing decisions that drove nearly a million wishlists. It's a candid conversation about pivoting on data, leaning into...

In episode 591 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers dig into what actually makes a small studio function well over the long haul. Using Butterscotch Shenanigans as the through line, they walk through how their team structure has evolved, how they think about hiring, bottlenecks, and unexpected skills and what it looks like to keep a small team functioning well through years of shipping game...

In episode 590 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers work through every flavor of people messing with your game, from hackers and exploiters to pirates and outright clones. They dig into what's actually worth losing sleep over, how to think about customer support when players break things on purpose, and why piracy and knockoffs might not always be the disaster they feel like in the moment....

In episode 589 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers make the case that understanding your own workflow might be the most underrated skill in game development. They dig into how invisible bottlenecks and unchecked error rates quietly drain productivity, why most studio problems trace back to work that nobody can see, and what it actually looks like to map, measure, and improve the way your t...

In episode 588 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers get into the weeds on Steam store page optimization and what the data from How Many Dudes is suggesting. They break down what swapping screenshots and micro trailers appears to have done for visibility and conversion, where players are actually coming from, and why your visual hook might be doing more work than you think. "How Many Dudes?"...

In episode 587 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers point out that right now might actually be the best time to be an indie developer. They dig into why smaller, faster games are resonating with players, what the data from How Many Dudes tells them about market dynamics and visibility, and how studios can build sustainable businesses without burning themselves out in the process.  "How Many...

In episode 586 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers discuss the current state of game sales, post-launch support strategies, and how community engagement and critical mass influence a game's longevity. They explore the strategic considerations behind post-launch game updates, including when to update, what kind of updates are effective, and how updates influence marketing and player engagem...

In episode 585 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers dig into the post-launch data for How Many Dudes, unpacking what Steam review scores, wishlist ratios, playtime histograms, and demo numbers are actually telling them. From there they get into the harder question of what to do with negative reviews, how to tell the difference between feedback worth acting on and noise worth ignoring, and h...

In episode 584 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers are fresh off the biggest launch in Butterscotch history, and they're breaking down exactly what happened. They dig into the numbers behind How Many Dudes hitting 100,000 sales in two days, what drove the momentum, how it compares to their previous launches, and what the long tail might look like from here. They also get into the emotional...

In episode 583 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers are one day out from the How Many Dudes launch and walking through everything still in motion, from wishlist momentum and embargo management to Steam Deck verification and what the algorithm might actually do. They share how they're thinking through best and worst case scenarios, what lessons from Crashlands 2 are shaping their expectation...

In episode 582 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers share what they've learned about designing games that are easy to talk about before they're even finished. With How Many Dudes days from launch, they dig into how scope, platform focus, and building around shared human experiences can set a game up to market itself. Support How Many Dudes! Official Website: https://www.bscotch.net/games/ho...

In episode 581 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers recap the full year-long journey of How Many Dudes. From a GMTK game jam entry to a bean burrito short that hit 900k views, blowing past 100k wishlists by January, and everything in between. They break down what actually moved the needle, what the numbers looked like along the way, and what the final push to July 30th looks like from the i...

In episode 580 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers pull back the curtain on exactly how they're launching How Many Dudes, covering everything from timing, influencer outreach, trailer creation, to post-launch strategies. They discuss how they navigate the complexities of game marketing, with a reminder that most of what determines a launch's success was decided long before launch day. Supp...

In episode 579 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers dig into the pricing on Valve's new Steam Machine and how much of today's hardware costs comes down to components, inflation, and tariffs versus companies testing what the market will bear. From there, they turn to the cost of making a game like GTA6 and whether player expectations have kept pace with what it actually takes to build at tha...

In episode 578 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers discuss whether Steam Next Fest is becoming a victim of its own success, as AI-generated slop and asset flips make it harder than ever for games to get noticed. They explore what Steam can realistically do about it, why the economics of publishing are shifting under everyone's feet, and what it actually takes to build the kind of studio tr...

In episode 577 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers dig into Steam's new personalized calendar feature and what it means for how indie games get discovered, wishlisted, and surfaced to players. They break down the difference between following and wishlisting, why launch timing still matters so much, and how Steam keeps finding new ways to put indie games in front of the right people. Then t...

In episode 576 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers kick off the closed beta for How Many Dudes and dig into what they're actually trying to learn from it. Then the conversation pivots hard into the AI hype cycle, unpacking why GitHub Copilot's switch to usage-based billing just handed a hundred-times-larger bill to the developers who went all in, and what that says about where this whole t...

In episode 575 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers are 60 days from launching How Many Dudes and find themselves juggling the final stretch of dev alongside the tedious reality of cloud saving, achievements, and store integrations. They dig into why every platform manages to turn straightforward tasks into elaborate obstacle courses, and what that actually costs developers in time and sani...

In episode 574 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers check in on the new How Many Dudes box art with some real click-through numbers, then dive into Far Far West, a co-op shooter where you're a robot cowboy fighting skeletons and it somehow all works. They dig into what makes it click, why the Joker system is smart, and whether it can stay fun as the min-maxers inevitably show up. Support Ho...

In episode 573 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers walk through the evolution of the How Many Dudes box art and what YouTube thumbnails taught them about what actually resonates with players. Turns out the answer wasn't to make something epic but to make something gloriously dumb. They close out with a look at trademarks, what they actually protect, and why registering one might matter mor...

In episode 572 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers check in on their Steam tag experiments before diving into the tricky problem of designing boss fights. They get into why bosses are less about difficulty and more about spectacle, and what it actually takes to make a culmination moment feel earned. Support How Many Dudes! Official Website: https://www.bscotch.net/games/how-many-dudes Trai...

In episode 571 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers dig into whether Steam has quietly become the discovery engine that keeps mobile gaming afloat and what that means for indie devs trying to build a cross-platform strategy. They walk through the realities of mobile pricing, broken app store algorithms, and why chasing discoverability on Google Play or the App Store often feels like shoutin...

In episode 570 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers get into the messy final stretch of shipping How Many Dudes, where winding down development and winding up publishing have to happen at the same time. They break down why localization turns a simple task like screenshots into a sprawling multi-platform nightmare, and what it actually takes to coordinate QA, store pages, and platform partne...

In episode 569 of 'Coffee with Butterscotch,' the brothers dig into how Steam tags actually drive discoverability for indie games, and what tools like GameDiscover.co reveal about whether the right players are finding your game. The conversation turns on a deceptively simple question: not what your game is, but who it's actually for. Support How Many Dudes! Official Website: https://www.bscotch.ne...