If a game is truly fun, does it even need marketing?

I've been wrestling with this question for months as I work on my own project.

There's this romantic idea that "great games market themselves" — that if you make something genuinely fun and polished, players will naturally discover it, streamers will pick it up, and word-of-mouth will do the rest.

But then I look at Steam's "new releases" page. Dozens of games launch every single day. Many look solid. Some even look incredible. And most of them? Vanish without a trace.

So here's my question: In 2026, with algorithmic feeds, influencer gatekeeping, and players drowning in options, can a truly great game still succeed with zero marketing?

Or is "fun" simply not enough anymore?

I'm not talking about AAA budgets — I mean even basic things like:

- Building a community before launch

- Reaching out to content creators

- Running a Steam page with regular updates

Have any of you seen games blow up purely on merit? Or is the "build it and they will come" philosophy just survivorship bias from the few lucky ones?

Curious to hear your experiences — especially from devs who've shipped something.