Most articles will tell devs that it’s vital to get reviews in gaming media outlets, but all I ever see from gamers themselves (and some devs) is “gaming media is dead / pointless / absurd / corrupt” (etc). Here’s Notch himself saying “Nobody has cared about games media for years.” in a recent post on Twitter (and see the replies from gamers) : x.com
What does everyone think about this? Obviously it can’t hurt to get reviews if the reviews are positive, but is it that important? What percentage of gamers read these media sources?
My own view is that Youtube gameplay videos are probably the most important means of getting exposure, if you look at the numbers of viewers (some individual videos have over 50 million views). But that raises the question : how do these Youtube guys pick which games to play?
Just my opinion here… I think basically there has been a big shift over recent years in terms of where gamers (and consumers in general) get their guidance.
These days the “little” guys and gals are much more empowered. Things are very fragmented as a result. There are YouTubers out there for example that have less than 50 views on their videos and even less subscribers but the subscribers they have are much more likely to listen to their recommendations.
I am pretty much the same way. I don’t watch much corporate stuff (i.e. big / formal company video productions) and am much more interested in what the random little Jane and Joe YTers who are obviously true down to earth gamers think. I have a few I check for reviews and they change often.
It is very empowering for us all I think. Basically people just find one or more people out there who like the things we like and those are the people whose content we check out. I mean I also checked out TB and Jim Sterling videos but again I still see them as basically just the neighbor next door. Kind of. Not so much these days but at one time anyway.
I do think all of the exposure you can get is a good thing even if it some “official” gaming news channel. Because that increases the odds that many Janes and Joes will find out about your game and cover it. And that is the ideal I think. To have your game covered by hundreds or even thousands of these Janes and Joes who absolutely love your kind of game with each one reaching just a tiny number of people but the people they reach are much more likely to check out your game.
About a decade ago, I used to get emails telling me I could make lots of money by purchasing a sheet of paper that would explain how to sell the same sheet of paper to other people. This was the big thing before the Nigerian Prince emails became a thing.
Yes, but what’s the most efficient way for a small, poor developer to get the word out reasonably quickly?
It is impossible to answer mainly because the moment someone answers it on a forum visited by many thousands of people who would jump on it and start doing it that method suddenly becomes much less effective. Unless there is some barrier to entry such as requiring a huge amount of set up work or a very large financial investment that will make it so only very few (a very tiny %) of all of the people who see it can actually do it.
This is the thing many don’t seem to get. All of the items out there in lists as to what to do for marketing were at one time very effective. But the vast majority of methods only remain effective until a certain number of people are all doing it and each new person who does the same thing reduces the effectiveness more and more until finally it is near 0.
Pray to the elder gods. It has about as good of odds as spamming a thousand press releases out there.
If you don’t want to play the eldritch lottery, then you need to spend years building a community… or look for a publisher that can actually advertise.
Definitely agree with neginfinity. Regardless of the value of the content, people ARE reading these websites and thus are exposed to what the websites promote. It doesn’t even matter if they’re all going “Kotaku is trash” or whatever. They’re still seeing the content.
Your “what’s the best way for a small developer to get exposure” is another question entirely, however. I imagine one of the best ways is to get a following. Social media, your own website and blog or whatever, maybe a weekly/monthly email talking about your game, that kind of stuff. Getting on these websites is important for sure, but if your game isn’t out yet these users aren’t able to buy, and thus you need a hook.
Word of mouth, but the game needs to be the most amazing thing ever for that to happen. Like best-in-class in its niche.
People easily forget that all professional marketing advice for games assumes you have a product that people would want to buy if they just knew about it to begin with. If a game has no audience that wants that kind of game, marketing can’t create one. That might work for other types of products where you can exploit fear or greed to get people to buy stuff they don’t need, but it’s hard with games because no one really needs new games.
I agree definitely build a community. That is a given. Need that and that should be the goal of all of the marketing. But the “how to do that” down to the specifics of methods is up to each person because again once someone says this is what I did… those “channels” will become flooded by a lot of people trying to do the same thing and get mediocre results because of that. And then people say “that was bs I tried it and it didn’t work” well yes because you and 5,000 others tried it and your efforts were lost in all of that noise.
If you are thinking about marketing then exposure is as vital as it has always been. You need reviews, you need let’s plays and you need to get it out there.
I sense the OP somehow wants to avoid all that but I’m sorry, there is no avoiding all that.
Exposure and marketing is as necessary as it ever has been. Perhaps even more so, with the increasing number of competitors that you have to stand out amongst.
But game-specific media itself has changed radically over the past decade and change. It no longer has any centralization. There are no more monolithic organizations that you can go to for promotion. Magazines are dead. Television never covered games properly in the first place. And most of the major media web-sites have declined significantly. Short form blogs like Kotaku and Polygon are more relevant, but the chances of you actually getting a review on those are scarce. They don’t review games as often as they used to, and the volume is only increasing.
One of the best ways to get media attention these days is to simply make some manner of controversy in order to get attention. But this is a very risky approach, and can easily backfire.
At the end of the day, the current nature of games media means that most of the responsibility for promotion falls on the developer. You’ll get much better results from founding your own community around your company, and reaching out to independent media personalities like popular Twitch streamers and You Tube content producers.
I think that looking for the most efficient way is a mistake, because it limits your option and waste your time.
It is like looking for the most efficient way to learn programming.
I think that a good idea is to use all the options available.
Please note that this is an opinion and I might be wrong.
This, or getting someone on board who can do it for you. The issue is that past success is not a reliable indicator of future success unless you can work at significant scale. Looking at what’s worked for other indies is somewhat useless for us, unless we abstract what we learn to generalised truisms like “spend time building a community”. I mean, that’s great advice, but it’s missing the critical factor of how you do the building, and that’s going to vary based on target markets and current trends.
If you don’t have time to try and measure things until you hit something that works for you, then try to work with someone who’s already doing that. You’ll have to give them a slice of your pie, but I personally don’t have a problem with that - if they’re worth their salt then the pie should grow far more than enough to cover their slice!
I’m assuming you have a product worth playing? And by worth playing I mean better then all of the competition in the same vertical.
Once that hurdle is passed, its a case of getting the product out to as many influencers as possible. Focus on the people that are going to encourage others to play your game. That includes game media, YouTubers, early adopters in your community, and storefront curators. Make it as easy as possible for those people to get at your game, and share it with the world.
And of course send me a Steam key. I occasionally review games on my channel.
(Disclaimer: I’ve never got past the product worth playing stage, so the rest of this is theoretical.)
Controversy probably. Everybody seem to enjoy listening to people react, yell, condemn, chastise and opine on others. Depending upon your flavor of controversy - might be risky for any type of future internet business.
