Why Hajimé exists.
Why we built a performance agency instead of joining one. Why a studio no longer has to give up a share of its game to succeed. Why the next decade of indie marketing belongs to whoever reads the algorithm better than the rest.
1. The name, first.
Hajimé (始め) is Japanese for the beginning. The starting point. But it is not a passive word. In the dojo, hajime is what the referee calls out to start the fight. It does not describe a moment, it triggers one. Everything before it is preparation. Everything after it counts.
That is the job, and it is the whole reason for the name. The game is yours: your talent, your years, your craft. Hajimé is the word that sends it into the market.
"The market doesn't punish bad games. It punishes approximate marketing. Shipping a great game is the entry ticket. Selling it is the science."
2. The market changed. The advice remains.
In 2017, Steam released around 5,800 games. In 2025 it shipped close to 19,000, an all-time record, and nearly half of them drew fewer than ten reviews. Heading into 2026, the pattern only sharpens: more games than ever chasing the same finite attention. The studios that learned to surf the algorithm doubled. The studios that prayed for a miracle press hit disappeared.
The economics swung with it. 80% of games on Steam sell under 5,000 units in their first year. Most of them are good. Some are great. Only a few of them did the marketing work to stand out.
At the top, the big publishers have narrowed to a handful of franchises: rising costs and Steam's uncertainty pushed them toward the safe bet and away from the new. That strands a lot of strong games in the middle, with no one built to sell them. And most of those games don't need a miracle to work, just some common sense, reliable data, and a budget that fits the real size of their market.
Yet the default playbook hasn't moved much: sign with a publisher and let them carry the marketing. For plenty of studios that's the right call, and great publishers add real value. But a publisher spreads its attention across a whole slate, and no one will ever care about your launch the way you do. The studios that also build their own go-to-market edge are the ones that tend to travel the furthest.
3. The publisher problem.
We're not a publisher. Think of us as publishing-as-a-service: you pick what you need, we frame the objective and the challenge together, and we make it happen. Modular, on your terms, built around your game. Made for the studios that self-publish, at least to begin with.
The model is already shifting. Publishers are figuring out they don't need a giant permanent team for every title, they need flexible partners they can bring in when a project calls for it. A middle ground is reappearing between the indies and the giants, and the studios that can move fast when a game takes off beat the ones running a plan they wrote a year ago.
What it needs is a partner who knows Steam inside out: the tags that get you seen, what makes a page convert, what makes a game click. A partner who works from data, not gut feeling.
4. The science of selling games.
Marketing on Steam is no longer a creative exercise. It is a precision science.
The two-year hype build is over too. In a store this crowded, short, sharp, reactive campaigns beat a slow drumroll nobody remembers.
Tags can be optimised. Capsules can be A/B tested. Hooks can be scored. Wishlists can be forecast. Festivals can be planned ahead, the algorithm can be worked, the community too.
We pull those levers along four axes:
Data sovereignty
First-party emails, pixels, audiences. Captured under your name, on your domain. The studio owns the relationship at the end of the mandate.
Algorithmic engineering
CTR, tag stack, capsule conversion. The page is engineered to give the Steam algorithm every reason to recommend you.
AI as force multiplier
Eight agents automate 80% of the operational load. The human team spends that time on strategy and community.
Affinity engineering
The relationship with your community is what matters most: a direct, loyal base earns you credibility and healthy foundations to grow on, not just a spike at launch.
Eight specialised AI agents, one human war room, and a founder who has shipped 60 AAA and indie games from the inside. Hajimé is not a consultancy. It's a marketing operating system.
The AAA marketing playbook. At indie scale.
5. Six lines we won't cross.
Zero revenue share. 100% of your IP. 100% of your data.
Every engagement is fixed-scope, scoped quote. You pay for outcomes. You keep everything else. Six things we never take.
No revenue share
100% of what your game earns stays with you, the moment the engagement ends.
No IP claim
The game stays yours. Sequels, ports, derivatives, all yours. We make the asset valuable, not owned.
Not a bank
We don't write a cheque into your production. We write the business plan that unlocks one elsewhere.
We set the window together
Your launch window is yours. We work it with you and never shift it to protect another title, because we don't have a catalogue.
Your community
Discord, mailing list, Steam group, Steam forums, Reddit, all run as yours. At the end, the relationship belongs to the studio.
Your data
Pixels, emails, audiences, behavioural signals. Captured under your name, transferable to your next title.
6. The door is open.
If what you've just read resonates, book a call and we'll give you our honest read on where we think your project stands, plus a few first inputs to act on. No commitment.
Hajimé · Paris
Sources: SteamDB, Gamalytic, GameDiscover.co, Howtomarketagame.com
If you've read this far, thank you, let's talk.
Book a 30-minute call. We'll give you our honest read on where we think your project stands, plus a few first inputs to act on.