Marketing your game

News & General Discussion
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Howdy boys,

I know a lot of you (including myself might never get to the end product.) But let’s just say you do, and the reviews so far are awesome. How do you get it out there?

For example, why is it that some games go viral, how do you get it out to popular youtubers (can you just email them a link with a key or something) that can give it a massive publicity boost?

Put your game on steam and if it passes greenlight it is barely on the front page for longer than a day if that. I would have thought. So what are the tricks to successfully market your game.

What about a custom domain and site, how do you get it up there on the SEO rankings?

Or is the recipe much simpler.

Just create an awesome unique game and it will get noticed?

Thoughts?

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Trying to go viral is like trying to win the lottery. Sure some people do, but millions and millions more simply buy cheap dreams. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen and nothing you or anyone can do to make it happen. Just make games and get them out there. They don’t even need to be that good or original to go viral if that is your only goal. Just look at flappy bird.

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You gotta build a community from the ground up… Not easy at all. But build it parallel to the game building. This is not a plus, or an extra. It’s the only way to reach enough people on release.

Steam actually gifts you a lot of exposure. More than a million icon views. So… cross advertise would be good.

But even Steam exposure is not enough. Don’t rely just on that. You need moar!!

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And how do you build a community from the ground up? Did you do that with Felis? By the way, any news on a mac build yet? :smile:

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I have not, lol! And see the result? Making the game was too much on my plate as it is. Marketing seems like a full time job by itself. Doing both is insane. All the more reason to aim for a small game at first.

I have never built anything that has followers. But, I think the basics are pretty straight forward…
Start a dev-blog, facebook, twitter, youtube, webpage, and anything else you can think of.

Add an entry at least weekly. Post and get involved on multiply forums. That commitment is a challenge by itself, but the real work is to know what people you target actually like.

I think tutorials are a good way to start. Show what you do as you go. Show your progress. Give free stuff. That’s off the top of my head.

Is it time consuming? Yes. Will it get in the way of learning and making your first game? Yes. But it’s the only way to ensure sales… I mean you’ll know before hand… if by the time you finish the game, no one’s interested, you’ll know how it’ll fare. If there’s a lot of interest, you’ll be way more confident.
Your community will be your thermometer for how popular your game will be.

Otherwise it’s like playing the lottery.

No mac build yet. Currently working to get my game submitted on iOS.

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If you’re thinking about sending keys to let’s players (many of who are also twitch streamers), this list will come in handy:

http://videogamecaster.com/big-list-of-youtubers

Related to that (he mostly talks about how to write an email to interest youtubers):

As far as devlogs go, a lot of people seem to advertise their game through indiedb, and I’ve seen some dev logs here on the unity forums, and on tigsource (in the devlog section; but be careful to read the guidelines first). And of course the usual haunts like facebook, twitter, tumblr, and reddit.

You might also want to look at making a presskit. And give review codes to some gaming news outlets.

But of course, most of the things I listed here are only for bigger games and things you have spent a long time on. And at the end of the day, your game has to be good in the first place to garner any kind of attention, and even then success is not guaranteed.

Edit: Oh, I forgot! Thunderclap is also a thing, but I don’t know how effective it is.

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This is one case where working on a game for months or years has value (or added value). With a solid blog / dev log that is updated consistently throughout that time you have the opportunity to build up a community eagerly anticipating release of the game.

For smaller game projects I think a person just needs to accept they need to spend about 50/50 time on marketing and game dev. OR of course just have at least 2 people and one person’s job is marketing.

Right now what we have is a massive number of people all focusing on making their games and then posting in a forum or two at the end or otherwise only thinking about any marketing at the end of development. So each day many games are released most of which nobody has ever heard of before and are unaware of unless they accidentally stumble upon one of them.

For the dev who doesn’t want to do marketing or do as little as possible I think keeping one or more dev logs is the best option. Of course, the more you do the better. Even in that case of dev logs at the least you should put links in your signature or otherwise provide a way for people to know your dev log exists.

And another thing is in my view at least it is never too late. If people aren’t aware of your game it is the basically the same as you never made it to begin with.

This means you can complete your game, release it to the sound of crickets and then focus on marketing to increase awareness. It just seems like it would be easier / more natural for most devs to do that during development when they are making updates adding features and easily know what to write about.

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One thing to keep in mind when marketing a small, unknown game is to focus on a bunch of smaller media outlets (including YouTube, Twitch, websites, etc). The larger media outlets need to focus on games that are widely popular (such as AAA titles), since they have very large audiences. Smaller media outlets will be much more likely to cover unknown indie titles, because they need something fresh to try to grab new viewers and/or readers. Small, unknown indie titles offer a huge opportunity for small, unknown YouTubers.

To market a small, unknown indie title, you need to reach out to hundreds of lesser known YouTubers instead of hoping one of the top YouTubers will make your game an instant hit. Obviously still reach out to big YouTubers, but design your marketing strategy (and spend most of your time) on the lesser known YouTubers.

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Actually, the recipe is really simple :slight_smile: Make a game which someone would like to play it more than once, or/and make him smile, or challenging him in a way.

Awesome Unique Game, might be hard to determine, Awesome game, yea, but what is an awesome game? :slight_smile:
Unique Game? Not really. Making Unique game does Not guarantee you that it will be a hit. I haven’t seen any Zombie Motorbike driver whose tires are about to explode as he drives pass humans, but when I think about it, is that a something I’d like to play? I hope you understand me :slight_smile:

Thoughts:
Back on the start on my point. If you make a good game which has replay valuable, or/and brings some sort of emotions on people (happy, sad, scared, excitement, etc…) You are one step closer of making a popular game.
Then, spreading that game to web portals/studios where there is enough traffic, its highly likely that many people will play it, and if they like it, start distribute it on their own, the game or the game brand (video). This is how the Flash Games were working good for the past 10 years, on self distribution and self promotion.

However, with the loads of spammy, clones, decent and great games out there, your chances are really low. As suggested above, do contact people for reviews (although all Youtubers are busy and “demanding” of highquality nowadys), write in forums, showcase your games whenever you can, redit, facebook, etc, and back on the first thing, if the game is good, it will continue its distribution.

I myself have bought loads of games, and while high-polished popular genres (multiplayer, or/and strategy, RPG, etc…) games of xx,xxx budget can’t spread on their own, its more common to see low-budgeted games going in viral madness.

Good luck!

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The big thing is time. You have to reach the conclusion that marketing will be a huge chunk of your time…some say 20-50%. People who wait until the end and then try a quick blitz technique usually don´t do well.

My hints.

  1. Hit up the lesser known Youtubers and Twitchers, especially if they are new. You never know when one of them catches fire and then their viewers start checking out their older videos. You are also much more likely to get them to actually review your game than the big guys.

  2. Post as a gamer in popular forums and be a valuable member of the community. Get a good reputation, and then just casually drop a link to your game in your signature and profile. Do not actively promote your game ( that will seem spammy and probably against the rules)… but just be a good member of the community.

  3. Slow, steady and consistent - Again, anti-blitz. Consistently update your dev log, consistently appear in forums, Make marketing a part of your daily schedule.

  4. Don´t show ugly graphics - Players and promoters are getting bombarded with games so even though you have done a lot of coding and have great ideas, you need to at least have a slice of your game with polished graphics before you can start getting a real following. And if you do get an article about your game put up… the last thing you want is ugly screenshots to be floating around the web long after you have upgraded them. A large chunk of players will dismiss your promotion at the first screenshot. Make it a focus to at least get a small sample of the real graphics done as early as possible so you can use ´almost final´ screenshots for your early marketing. I would say never show any graphic that you are sure won´t be in the final produce.

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How are the reviews awesome if the developer hasn’t put the game ‘out there’ yet? I’m guessing the reviews spoken of are from relatives, friends and other ‘nice’ developers who can’t provide critical, honest, feedback.

Anyway - thought I’d give a suggestion.
An indie developer named Bryan Fisher has sought out a ‘different’ approach to game development and marketing.
Long story short - he researched for about 2 years (and possibly still does) on how best to market/advertise himself as a developer and the games he creates. Note: I think he has only created one game.

I can’t provide my own opinion about his process except to say he has some interesting marketing/advertising suggestions and planning techniques for getting his name and his game out there.
Applying his process/ideas about getting his name out there - towards marketing a game - could potentially be a viable option to doing marketing/advertising and development at the same time.

Here is the link to his blog. For best information I suggest start reading/researching when he first started out and see the progression he went through while performing his own research.
http://lionroot.com/

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He made $2 on his game. Probably very little to learn. I think most people could make more than $2 just announcing your game on these forums.

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I made $2 with a PWYW prototype of a movement system for a game I never even released. I made $2 and didn’t even make a game.

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I wish I had started posting devlogs sooner. I think you should do it as soon as you start making the game and have something to show. For Sportsball Party (name will probably change) I started after I had six of the mini-games done. I’m hoping to launch a Kickstarter and Greenlight soon and have almost no following. I don’t know whether people just aren’t interested in the game, or if it needs to really be out there for a while, but I’m getting no replies on here, Tigsource, or IndieDB. I got a few retweets on twitter, a like or two here, and 1 watcher on IndieDB. So the more devlogs you post, the more fresh faces will see them and hopefully provide feedback or follow the game. Perhaps more importantly, you’ll stress out a little less every time you post something and it gets little to no response if you don’t wait until the last minute when you really need those excited would be customers / backers.

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Yes however the results of his sales are not related to his marketing/advertising plan and efforts.

His profit results are directly related to the #1 rule - the game must be good.
And his game is not.

All the best marketing efforts can not fix a crappy game.

The point of my post was about his marketing process to structure a plan to handle all that is needed to successfully market a game, at the same time developing a game.

Although you make a unintentional good point - maybe the best plan and process to successfully market and develop a game is just too much for one person to handle - resulting in a crappy game.

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To put it bluntly the way I see it “no one cares” is the default reaction to any new game these days. It is our job as designers to make people care. I made a rambly thread about that once, but it didn’t develop quite as I hoped:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/making-people-care.400484/
I never really played Mario Party or any kind of party game really, because I’m more into the grimy FPS kind of social gaming, but at a glance I would say the game fails to capture the “charm and atmosphere” of games like mario party. For all I know it could mechanically be a perfect clone or even better than the original, but if I was to gather with 3 other people around a screen and have silly fun, I’d rather pick something like:

Genital Jousting
http://store.steampowered.com/app/469820/
Or Mount your Friends
http://store.steampowered.com/app/296470/
Or Screencheat
http://store.steampowered.com/app/301970/
Or Octodad
http://store.steampowered.com/app/224480/

And that has nothing to do with my general preference for art styles, I’d normally prefer the clean PBR aesthetic you’re going for over “silly and colorfull”. But for a Party Game I’d consider what get’s us laughing first and foremost. And there your game doesn’t look like “that kind of fun”. (Sports-)balls are nothing I can identify with or laugh about. Skins or hats wouldn’t change that either. If other people that are actually into that genre of game disagree, by all means, please disregard what I said and listen to them. I’m not your target audience (not even close!). I just have a hard time coming up with reasons why your target audience would pick your game over the competition, and I think you need to create more of these reasons with your design.

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And I think if you want to promote your game with $0, then it is better to follow games like Eve, Rust, Minecraft or The Forest and see how they did things very early… and very early it was all about making a fun game and not worry so much, or taking yourself too seriously with self-promotion. Nobody wants to read, or will read the dev blog of a game from a no-name developer who is just getting started. People take themselves too seriously.

Make a fun first game
promote it while you polish it.

I have no idea why people need pretend that they are Blizzard when all they have is ideas for their first game written on napkins. Get your game to a marketable state before you worry about marketing it.

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Compare Ittel Dew 1 to Ittel Dew 2, the first one didnt appeal to me (I never played the original zelda) but the second did (because I played orcania of time). The first one sold 150k untis, and the second one only sold 3k units, so you cant know.



https://steamspy.com/search.php?s=Ittle+Dew

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I think this is very important to keep in mind. And is a major part of why I don’t understand people taking on overly ambitious projects, modeling AAA games or some of the biggest Indie game projects.

It’s just not reasonable. It may “sound good” and impress many developers to say “I’m making my own Witcher 3 [other AAA or very impressive popular Indie game]”.

And what I am about to say isn’t about bashing graphics… I know whenever I speak of graphics I fail to get the real message across. So I will try to word this super carefully and maybe what I mean won’t be lost in forum communication.

Reasonable from a business standpoint. And so many people want to focus on either graphics almost exclusively or games of a massive scope (all AAA games and many Indie games made by large teams) or even BOTH and it is not reasonable from a business perspective for one or even a couple of people working part-time.

Things have to be scaled back to become reasonable & realistic. Realistic as far as being able to not only COMPLETE a great game (as in the play experience) within a reasonable amount of time so it is profitable or at the very least covers all of the time and other expense that went into making the game… but also reasonable as far as being able to handle all of the marketing and general business side of things.

If that means scaling scope back from a pipe dream of Skyrim, No Man’s Sky or even Axiom Verge to a modernized version of Space Invaders or something like Downwell then that is what has to be done.

Likewise, if it means scaling graphics down from Witcher 3, City Skylines or even Zombie Night Terror to something like Bit Blaster XL, Thomas Was Alone or even much simpler then that is what must be done.

There is a huge difference between dreaming & doing. Between what a person may want to make and what they can and should be making. IF it is to be approached as a business and looking at everything involved. The whole picture is more important than any one of the parts. And it is that whole picture… design, development, marketing, customer support, etc that has to be focused on.

A person needs to determine the size of the scope for the business as a whole they can manage and then each piece within that needs to be scaled back accordingly.

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You mean the oranges sold for 20$, for only 3 months, on sale once, lowest recorded price 15$, sold less units than the apples sold for 10$ for 3 years, on sale at least a dozen times and lowest recorded price 5$ (according to what I could find)? Who would have thought ^_^.

https://steamdb.info/app/395620/
https://steamdb.info/app/241320/

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