If the goal is to publish on Steam to earn some money, at what point during development do you seriously have to consider "will my idea actually be worth publishing"? If that's your goal then that has to be the focus from day 1. Picking the right game idea is absolutely crucial if you want to find success. You have to pick the right genre right from the start. You cannot really start from an unmarketable idea and make it marketable afterwards. Then once you have what you think is a solid idea, you need to validate it. That's when you make a prototype or some gifs, post them on Reddit / Twitter to get some playtesters, and try to figure out whether the idea has potential, or whether you should go back to the drawing board. If you get absolutely no traction then it might be wise to kill the project right then and move on to a new idea as opposed to trying to salvage and idea that apparently players don't seem to want. But the most important thing is being very clear about your goal. If you're doing it for fun then do whatever you want, but if the goal is financial success then you need to treat it very seriously right from the start. Treat it like a professional, like serious job, because it is. Best of luck!

@UnityCodeMonkey We are making small games, yet in the beginning of the journey there’s this trap: - I probably have poor idea AND poor marketing AND poor execution, but I’m very disciplined, so it’s also easy to procrastinate killing and creating new games for a new shot. Anyone been there?

@UnityCodeMonkey Maybe I've gone insane, but I feel the key to making a successful game is to not think about money. Every time I think about money the game just sucks and isn't any fun. Game dev is an energy transfer from the dev to the player. If your heart isn't in it, players can tell.

@UnityCodeMonkey In business, the faster you fail, the faster you get to success. Glad I have a day job so that I can just have fun making a game that I want to make without having to consider how I am going to pay the bills.

@UnityCodeMonkey How to know on Reddit if it's a lack of visibility or a bad idea? (Please stop using IA generated pictures ...)

@UnityCodeMonkey there's a difference between "Worth" and what people "Value" You could work hard and not be valued. You can have a decent Idea and not be valued.

@UnityCodeMonkey Honestly, I'm still at the point where I'm making games to learn the engine and get better at game design. Marketability is not my primary focus but I'm still going to release my first game on Steam, even if only to learn the ropes.

@UnityCodeMonkey Right. You can't just pick an idea and then, when you're done, decide "it's not worth it." "Would I be happy with buying and playing this" needs to inform EVERY decision, from the idea, to the structure, to the assets, to the playflow, to the coding.

@UnityCodeMonkey 100% this. Our game went viral on Itch, that's why we decided to pull the trigger and make the full version for Steam. We had multiple validation points during the development too, to make sure we still had something that was worthy.