The fields every Steam fest organizer should 100% have in their submission form

SunnyDemeanorGames · 9 hours ago · Announcements

So you've decided to host your own Steam festival? Great!

That means you'll need to set up a submission form for people to submit their games to your festival. I will walk you through exactly what questions you should consider putting in your submission form.

But first, here are the things YOU should tell THEM at the top of the form.

What YOU Should Tell Applicants

The name of your festival (and who it's hosted by - e.g. your company name)
Dates for when submissions must be in, when you will notify applicants if their game is included, and when the festival will take place (this will help applicants figure out their marketing plans, including those with released games who would need to plan out the discount timing)
Should applicants expect to receive rejection emails if not selected? (it's become increasingly common for festival organizers to state up front that due to high expected submission volumes, only the games that are selected for inclusion will be notified)
The boundaries of your festival theme (what types of games are included? And what types of games are generally excluded?)
Contact info for potential applicants to get in touch in case they have a question (e.g. an email address where you can be reached)

Okay, now - What Questions You Should Ask Applicants

Their email address (so you can contact folks after deciding on the games in your fest, and ideally also for sending a confirmation of submission to applicants at time of submission)
What organization they represent (it's good to know who you're doing business with. For example, is the developer or publisher submitting the game?)
Link to their game's Steam page (so you can review their game)
Their game's Steam AppID (although the Steam page URL does contain the AppID, you'll need to provide Valve with a list of AppIDs for games in your festival, so it's a good idea to ask this as a separate question so you can gather a list of the AppIDs. Also, some applicants will have acquired a Steam AppID - it only takes the game name and $100 - but don't yet have their store page live; therefore, they won't have a Steam page URL to share but can still supply you with the AppID)
If they don't have a Steam page yet, where can you find info about the game? (This can be an itch.io page, a dedicated website for the game or company, a social media account, a press kit, or something else)
Release date (or expected release date) so you can tell if the game will be for sale at the time of your festival
Genre and/or sub-genre (for categorizing games in your festival)
Do they expect to put the game on discount during the festival? (If you're doing a sales event, Valve will expect plenty of games in your festival to be on discount)
If selected for the festival, would they be interested in creating any of the following assets for the festival on a volunteer basis?: festival logo, character serving as the festival mascot, background art for the festival page. I have not tried putting this question in the submission form, but I asked participants after they had been accepted and realized that I probably should have put this directly into the submission form to make my life easier (although I do generally prefer using some character from my own game as the festival mascot, if you want a custom mascot for your fest, I think it makes sense to put this check-box on the submission form to see if anyone volunteers to do it)
Please explain their game and how it fits the festival theme (it's not always obvious exactly how a game fits the festival theme, so it's good to give the applicant a chance to explain in their own words)
Is there anything else they'd like to say? (just a free-form field where applicants can say whatever they like. There are always games that have unique situations, so a place where the applicant can tell you whatever relevant info is good to have)
How they heard about your festival (so you can tell where people found out about your festival and therefore where to focus your efforts getting the word out when holding this festival in future years)

And Some Things You May Want to Consider Asking

Do they have something newsworthy like new game announcement, releasing a demo into the fest, releasing the full game into the fest, etc.? (only for larger fests; if this is you first time hosting a fest, you probably don't want to scare off those without a big marketing beat)
Would they like to have a trailer included in a showcase/Direct tied to the festival, if selected for participation in the festival? (if you're thinking about collecting trailers into a showcase/Direct, might as well get applicants thinking about this upfront rather than trying to track participants down later to gauge interest)
How many reviews does their game have (if released)? (for determining a "hidden gems" category in your fest)
Any other categories you want to create (e.g. Is the game set in the past, present, future, or some otherworldly fantasy locale? Is the game Steam Deck verified, playable, or neither? And similar questions)
Various boilerplate check-the-box type things (e.g. "I consent to having a festival banner on top of my store page," "I acknowledge filling out this form does not guarantee a spot in the festival," etc.). Personally, I find this sort of thing overkill, but I can see why festival organizers include this - for some applicant, this could be the first time being accepted to a festival (or even first time applying to one), so this covers your bases by explaining how some things work

Other Miscellaneous Items

What if you're not sure your festival will come to fruition, and you want to signal that to applicants to manage expectations? I have seen organizers use the term "Interest Form" rather than "Submission Form" to get this point across
Google Forms is the industry standard tool to use for your form, but anything similar should work fine (such as SurveyMonkey). There is likely no need to get a paid product for this purpose, as free tools do the job just fine
Should you split up the submission form into multiple pages or keep it all on one page? I prefer to have the submission form all on one page so the applicant can see all the necessary info before deciding whether to apply or not. A pet peeve of mine is filling out say 3 of 4 pages, only to then find out on the 4th page that there's some deal-breaker that makes my game ineligible for a festival. Better to have all the fields on the first page so the applicant can preview all necessary info before deciding to fill out the form. On the other hand, there are benefits to spreading the questions out over multiple pages - e.g. making it more digestible/less overwhelming or presenting only certain questions to relevant people (such as gathering additional info from those who indicate they want to participate in a corresponding Direct/showcase)

Where You Can See Example Submission Forms

Worthy festivals for Indie games: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NGseGNHv6Tth5e_yuRWzeVczQkzqXXGF4k16IsvyiTE/edit?gid=0#gid=0 (throughout the year, festivals are constantly cycling between submissions being open and closed. A festival's submission form is typically only open for 1-2 months, so I can't pint you to any individual submission form given that submissions will be closed - and the form inaccessible - for most of the year. However, this spreadsheet contains a large list of festivals, and at any given time, there's always some festivals with an open submission form. Therefore, if you want to see examples of others' submission forms, you can go to this spreadsheet and check out the submission forms that are currently open. In particular, look for any of the cells colored in green, yellow, or red; cells without any of these three colors are not open)

There you go! Now you can set up a submission form for your festival! But that begs the next question:

Where Do You Actually Share Your Submission Form to Get the Word Out and Get People to Submit Their Games?

Post a link to your submission form in the HTMAG #general-event-channel and tag @eventmod: https://discord.com/channels/724755317677621308/752944264044085320 (there are thousands of game devs in that server and they're interested in joining festivals, based on the best practice advise given by the server owner Chris Zukowski. The worthy festivals spreadsheet is crowdsourced by members of this server, and posting your festival in that Discord channel while tagging @eventmod is how you can get your festival added to the spreadsheet for all to see and apply)
Join the Steam Festival Organizers Discord and post about your festival in the #share-your-festival-news-and-announcements channel: https://discord.com/channels/1431093536639549490/1431096669331525693 (this is a Discord server I run for Steam festival organizers like you, and this channel is specifically for fest organizers to inform fellow fest organizers about festival announcements. This allows fest organizers to signal boost each others' festival announcements)