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The Devlog. A powerful audience building tool.

Building a loyal audience happens through connecting with people. For game developers, devlogs are one way to start forming that connection early. Let’s explore how devlogs help and whether they’ll still matter in 2026.

By Tim UhlottFounder|Last updated: August 27, 2026|11 minutes read
game development
The Devlog. A powerful audience building tool.
If you're a game developer, you've probably heard, “Start a devlog.” A devlog (short for development log, also written dev log) are regular updates that creators, usually game developers or software creators, share to show their progress, ideas, challenges, and behind-the-scenes work. So let us explore what a devlog is, and why it still matters in 2026.

What is a devlog?

The devlog meaning is quite simple. It is an ongoing log of development. Neither a trailer, nor a press release. Just a regular look at the work. People write devlogs for the same thing. They might post a short text update, a screenshot of a new room, a clip of a bug you just fixed, or a longer video that walks through a week of work. Some people post daily. Some post once a week. The format is less important than the habit: you show the project while it is still unfinished. Game developers use them the most. Software builders use them too. You can share a devlog on YouTube, TikTok, Discord, Reddit, X, a blog, or a forum. Pick the place your players already hang out. There is also a counterpart to a devlog: the postmortem. A postmortem looks back after a launch or a big milestone. A development log happens while you are still building. Some developers treat a public log as a waste of time. They would rather stay in the editor. That is fair, because you have limited time. But it is worth it. Let us explore what it does for indie game developers in 2026.

Why devlogs matter in 2026

Steam is crowded. Chris Zukowski counted 20,282 Steam releases in 2025, and only 608 of them hit 1,000 reviews. That is 3%. Most new games made a few hundred dollars and then disappeared. Valve told GDC 2026 that 5,863 Steam games earned over $100,000 in 2025 (opens in a new tab). That slide includes old catalog hits, not only new launches. Simon Carless (opens in a new tab) ran the same data and put the share of 2025 launches in that pile at about 1,700 games, or 8.5% of new releases. Older games did the rest of the work. So most games unfortunately launch to silence. A public log will not fix a bad game! But it can give a good one a chance to be seen before launch day. That is not a new idea. On May 17, 2009, Markus “Notch” Persson posted an early Minecraft build to the TIGSource forums (opens in a new tab). Guinness (opens in a new tab) later recorded that post as the first public Minecraft forum update. PC Gamer (opens in a new tab) walked the thread: people were playing within minutes, and the community formed in public, one reply at a time. You cannot copy that ending. You can copy the method. Show the work. Let people follow along. Newer studios still use the same move. Pounce Light posted Tiny Glade prototypes in public and pointed people to a mailing list. Zukowski said they built that list to 25,000 subscribers (opens in a new tab), then converted it when the Steam page went live. In 2026, Iron Nest mixed short-form video with a Steam Next Fest demo. GameDiscoverCo (opens in a new tab) reported more than 700,000 demo plays and more than 250,000 copies sold in under three days. Wishlists are the number most teams are trying to grow. GameDiscoverCo’s 2024–2025 study (opens in a new tab) put the median first-week sales-to-wishlist ratio at 0.15x for games with 25,000 or more wishlists. For games priced above $10, that median dropped to 0.10x. The same report said conversion itself is not falling. Gathering the wishlists is just getting harder, because more games are competing for the same attention. A development log will not hit those numbers by itself. It is one cheap way to stay visible while you still have months of work left. Here is why that still works.

1. Devlogs show the human behind the game

When you share what you are building, what you are learning, and what is going wrong, people connect with the journey. They are not only following a project. They are following you. That is what turns a casual viewer into an early supporter. They see a real person making the game, and they want that person to finish it.

2. They build trust and transparency

One of the biggest fears in indie development is silence. A player gets excited, then the posts stop, and the project feels dead. Regular updates show you are still here. Players want to know which features you are building, what is hard this week, and where the game is heading. Steady progress builds trust. It signals that the project is alive.

3. Devlogs turn your progress into content

Every task in game development can become a post. A new animation. A UI pass. A level test. A bug fix. A small quality-of-life change. Those moments can feel boring to you. To someone who loves games, they are the story of how the game is made. Players like watching a game come together piece by piece.

4. Devlogs create a feedback loop

When players see the game early, they start to help. They share ideas, request features, and point at art or controls that feel off. They often notice things you miss. That feedback can make the game better. It also makes people feel included. When a player sees their idea land in a later build, they stick around.

5. They boost motivation and accountability

Building a game is hard, especially as an indie developer. The work can feel lonely and slow. Posting a log gives you a simple schedule. Each update is a small milestone. You can see how far you have come, even when the week felt messy. People start cheering you on. That kind of pressure is useful. It is the kind that makes you open the project on a bad day. A public log will not finish the game for you. It can make quitting a little harder, because other people are watching the next step.

6. Early fans become marketers

People who follow your development log often treat the game like it is partly theirs. They have been there from the ugly builds. So they share posts, answer questions, and talk about the game in places you never posted. They are usually among the first to wishlist and the first to buy. That kind of support is hard to buy with ads. Ads can get clicks. A follower who watched you build the game for a year is more likely to care when it ships.

7. They build momentum before launch

Most indie games launch to silence because no one knew they existed. You can build a good game and still vanish into 20,000 other releases. Devlogs help before launch, sometimes months in advance. People follow the progress, join your email list, and show up for Steam wishlists, demos, or a Next Fest build. By launch day you are not starting from zero. You have people already waiting. That is the point of the wishlist math above. A log is not a sales chart. It is how you keep filling the list while you still have time.

8. Devlogs work on every platform

Different platforms do different jobs. YouTube is good for longer, story-driven logs. TikTok and Shorts are good for one clip of a bug, a before-and-after, or a new mechanic. X is good for a screenshot and a sentence. Discord is where the same people talk back. Reddit is useful when you want both reach and honest notes. Instagram is for the pretty shots. You do not have to live on all of them. Chris Zukowski’s advice (opens in a new tab) is to treat social as the outer rim and keep the hub on something you own: a newsletter, a blog, a mailing list. Platforms change. Your list does not. One week of work can still feed more than one channel. A feature can become a longer YouTube log, a short clip, a Discord note, and a Reddit post. Reuse the work. Do not rebuild it from scratch each time.

9. Devlogs attract collaborators and opportunities

People who like your progress will sometimes reach out. Artists and writers may want to help. Other developers may share notes. A journalist may find the project because the log showed up in a search. Publishers look for teams that already have a pulse. Plenty of indie developers found a composer, an artist, or a publisher because someone saw a public update at the right time. You cannot plan that. You can make it possible by showing the work.

Conclusion

A devlog is a public development log: a simple record of how you build a game. Keep one, and you share progress, build trust, and give people a reason to stay. Those people can give feedback, spread updates, add a wishlist, and show up on launch day. In a year with more than 20,000 Steam releases, that is the difference between shipping into silence and shipping to people who already care. It may be hard at the beginning, you might not directly see the return, but keep going. What counts is the habit. Like everywhere else. Keep going and ship and share your great game. If you want to see where your game stands, and why marketing moves like a development log matter in that kind of market, try the Market Insights calculator.
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