Most devs treat subreddit hunting like a numbers game: collect 40 gaming subs, blast the trailer, hope something sticks. That's how you burn karma, eat shadowbans, and convince yourself "Reddit doesn't work." The subs that actually move wishlists are usually the ones you've never heard of, and finding them is a repeatable process, not luck.
Start With The Game, Not The Audience Size
The instinct to find the best subreddits to promote an indie game is to chase subscriber counts. Resist it. A 12,000-member sub built around your exact mechanic will out-convert a 3-million-member generalist sub every time, because the people there are already primed to want what you made. Subscriber count measures reach; relevance measures intent. On Steam, intent is what becomes a wishlist.
Begin by writing down the three things your game actually is at a mechanical level not the genre label, the verbs. "Deckbuilder" is a label. "Build a deck, then auto-battle while you watch the math play out" is a verb cluster, and it points you toward specific communities that argue about exactly that loop.
Build A Seed List From Where Players Already Talk
Don't brainstorm subreddit names from memory. Mine them. Open the Steam pages of the five games most often compared to yours, grab their titles and key tags, and search those terms on Reddit. Then sort the results by "top" over the past month to see which communities are alive versus archived ghost towns.
- Search each comparable game's name directly players post screenshots and questions in the subs where they hang out, revealing those communities.
- Check the subreddit sidebars of the obvious big subs; they almost always link to smaller niche cousins.
- Read the comments on Steam reviews and Reddit threads for phrases like "this reminds me of" those mentions are subreddit signposts.
- Look at which subs your wishlisters already moderate or post in if you run any community of your own.
Score Each Candidate Before You Post
A seed list of 25 subs is useless until you've graded them. Spend ten minutes per sub and score three things: relevance (does my game fit a recurring conversation here?), permissiveness (do the rules and mods actually allow dev self-promo?), and liveness (are top posts from this week pulling real comments, not three upvotes and silence?). Drop anything that fails two of the three.
Read the rules tab and the wiki, not just the banner. Many gaming subs allow developer posts only on a specific day, only in a pinned megathread, or only after you've contributed comments first. A sub that requires a flair like "[Devlog]" or "[Self-Promo Saturday]" is telling you exactly how to not get removed follow it literally.
Match The Sub To Your Account's Karma And Age
The best subreddit in the world won't help if it auto-filters your post. Many active gaming communities set minimum account age (often 30 90 days) and comment-karma thresholds that quietly send brand-new accounts straight to the spam queue, where no one ever sees them. If you're posting from a freshly made studio account, the high-value subs are temporarily off-limits until you've earned standing through genuine comments.
Tier your list accordingly. Post early-stage devlog content in smaller, lower-barrier subs while your account matures, and save the strict, high-traffic communities for when you've cleared their thresholds and have a polished Steam page ready to receive the traffic. Sending interested players to a half-finished page wastes the one impression you get.
Validate With A Small Post Before Going All In
Treat your top three subs as hypotheses, not certainties. Run one honest, non-promotional-feeling post in each a GIF of a single satisfying mechanic, a genuine question, a behind-the-scenes problem you solved and watch what happens in the first two hours. Upvote velocity and comment quality tell you whether this community will care on launch day far better than any subscriber number.
- Did upvotes climb steadily in the first hour, or stall instantly (a sign of filtering or low fit)?
- Are comments asking questions about the game, or just "cool" questions signal buying intent.
- Did anyone ask where they can wishlist or follow it without you prompting them?
- Did the post survive still visible 24 hours later, not silently removed?
Keep the three or four subs that pass this test and build your launch cadence around them. If you'd rather hand the vetting, posting, and timing to people who do it weekly, our Reddit Launch Support can run the campaign for you and if you want to sanity-check how many wishlists that traffic needs to translate into a strong launch, the Steam Wishlist Calculator is a good next stop.