Thread 712583852

Is marketing really that hard for an indie game?
>in reddit you may have hundreds of upvotes but no one will click the damn link
>twitter only works if you already have a base of followers
>/v/ will accuse you of shilling and shit in your game and tell you to buy an ad

erm maybe just make a good game?????

The best thing for an indie dev with no prior audience to do is make some kind of ARG or other marketing stunt to draw attention. If you just post, "Hey guys, new game here!" on all the usual platforms (that every other fucking indie dev is similarly using) you'll just be drowned out by the deluge of slop. Find something your game does interestingly or gimmicky and then use that to draw intrigue, even if you have to shamelessly samefag a bit to draw attention.

But in reality, if you're worried about exposure and "making it big" with your game, then you're probably already doomed to fail. Most indie darlings who have rabid fans came from humble beginnings with passion projects that had jack shit for audience, and they grew from that. If you're trying to skip over the struggle period and go straight for stardom, then just hang it up right now.

ame

>>712584326
this. all of this

>>712583852 (OP)
Just create something honest that people will enjoy and you will get your word of mouth marketing
Of course, if you just shit out some random normalfag garbage, no one will even acknowledge your existence

>>712583852 (OP)
>>twitter only works if you already have a base of followers
Get those by being able attention whore drama queen. Post about how John Blow has never made a good game and Phil Fish cancelled fez 2 because he didn't even make fez 1. Say that final fantasy was never good. Say that people who buy annual sports franchise games shouldn't be allowed to vote.

>>712583852 (OP)
Every time someone starts complaining about “marketing” for their “indie games,” I look at their games and it’s clear that the games themselves are the problem.

>Put a demo of the game up for free on itch.io and Steam
>Make a bunch of short videos to post on Youtube, TikTok, Twitter, etc that show bite-sized, interesting moments
>Send out free codes to smaller Youtube creators rather than big name ones

And the most important, rarely utilized method:

Make a good game that isn't just another mindless card game, roguelike, early access trash heap.

>>712584326
>>712584714
>>712584704
>>712584592

I didn't make the game to "make it big" or have exposure. I just think it's a shame that i'm making a game I think it's good and original but I don't know how to reach the people that would like it. The original version of my game was published to newgrounds and itch.io and it has good reviews and was received well. I am now making a steam version with more features and content and so far I think it's really good but idk how to market it. And I'm scared I will release it on steam and no one will buy it. Since this is the first game I ever publish to steam I have no idea how much exposure Steam gives to you.

>>712583852 (OP)
This is why having an already popular artist on your team is so important. They have the social media presence that nobody else on your team has. Without one, the best you can do is bribe D-tier content creators to promote your game for a cheeseburger.

>>712585405
Steam numbers are generally a lot better than those places, to the point where I would advise serious developers to skip the other platforms altogether. That $100 Steam submission fee gets you way more eyes on your game than it probably deserves. So if people played your game on those shitty platforms, rest assured, it’s going to do much better on Steam.

>>712584592
>if you just shit out some random normalfag garbage, no one will even acknowledge your existence
random normalfag garbage becomes famous all the time you massive retard

>>712583852 (OP)
There were nearly 19000 games released last year on Steam alone. You have to advertise and market and all that gay shit just to make people AWARE that your game exists so they can try it. And you have to compete against tons and tons of others in the process.

I spent zero effort on promoting my game when I put it on steam and I got way more sales than I deserved, and for some reason, real genuine fans.

>>712585731
maybe I am one

>>712585731
Now compare that to all the time I spent posting on social media when the game was on itchio. Crickets. At some point I stopped checking the itchio metrics page because the silence was loud.

I think the generally prescribed promotion route isn’t as effective as it used to be. This isn’t just me saying this, serious industry veterans who shipped multiple successful games are saying the same thing.

So I think the best thing you can do is just make a good game and get it on Steam as soon as possible, because that’s where your players are. They’re probably not on twitter, because twitter likes don’t convert to sales. People who use twitter or social media in general are doing so on their phones. So when they see your post about your game, there’s already the barrier that they can’t immediately download your game. They have to wait until they get home so they can use a real computer. By then they will have possibly forgotten about your game.

This is advice based on the experience I’ve had. Everyone’s situation is different and your game is unique.

>>712583852 (OP)
Sex with ame.

I think the bigger problem is that indie devs have a massive self inflated ego and think the game they made is the next coming of jesus. When in reality it is pretty meh in nearly if not all respects.
Either that or they asking for too much money

>>712583852 (OP)
>>/v/ will accuse you of shilling and shit in your game and tell you to buy an ad
But it is true that many are shilling here. Including Toby Fox and the Coffin of Ashley and Leyley dev. They almost don't hide it even.

>>712583852 (OP)
After reading the thread im curious give me the name. I either say something positiv or nothing atall, considering you posted Ame-chan i have hopes.

>>712586653
search "recursion newgrounds game" it's the one in uppercase. it's a puzzle game and has nothing to do with nso unfortunately...

just send a message to a let's player to please check out your game
it's really not that hard

>>712587002
Oh yeah dude good luck with that game, unless I clicked the wrong one but what I saw does not look promising.

>>712586502
Proof?

>>712587110
I find it strange that this actually works. Knowing that this is an actual thing in the industry, it’s impossible for me to see a youtuber or streamer play a game and not see it as the paid advertisement that it probably is. Once the illusion of organic interest and enthusiasm is broken, you can’t unsee it.

Now I just watch no-commentary play through and decide from that footage alone whether or not the game looks interesting enough to try.

You have to make multiple games. I know this is hard and will take a long time, but the good news is as you make more games you'll make better ones. When you put your shit up on steam, you are somehow going to get some random sales. Just listen to those people, and keep making more games, and you'll get a bigger and bigger audience. There are hundreds of devs doing this and they don't post on /r/gamedevs or whatever because they're just working making an average living instead of dreaming of being concernedape.

>>712587002
did you get influenced by the early arcane kids stuff with the atmosphere and framing, if not research their stuff and take pointers. Is this your first game?

>>712587625
> There are hundreds of devs doing this and they don't post on /r/gamedevs or whatever because they're just working
Fucking this. In this age of digital self promotion it’s almost become a lost art to just focus on making a good game instead of trying to trick people into thinking your game is good.

That’s what I think when I see these threads. You’re trying to trick people into thinking your game is good? That’s going to last for 30 minutes maximum after they play your game and realize how shit it is.

“How do I market my game?” is code for “How do I trick people into thinking this junk is not junk?” That’s what you’re doing.

>>712587765
>Is this your first game?
Yes, at least first publicly shared game, i did a couple of experiments / prototypes before

>>712583852 (OP)
Ame sex

>>712588013
for my own projects i pull inspiration from this guy
https://www.youtube.com/@BrianLancaster/videos .He has two published games, his 'loveletter to deus ex' and his 'sexletter to baldurs gate I+II' his exact words btw he does what he does because he loves games and being a dev. Also he is a pretty chill dude when you can get a hold of him, he's usually up for a talk. Anyways my point is that you maybe has your priorities a bit mixed up.

>>712587625
This is the best advice in the thread

Literally just make games, hell look at certain other indie devs did it back before steam even existed. They just kept making random freeware games eventually they built a bunch of people who actually like thier stuff, jank or not eventually they hit it big

If you're worried about never being as popular as Toby fox or concerned ape you already lost

>>712587964
>is code for “How do I trick people into thinking this junk is not junk?"
Retarded way of thinking, without visibility you're dead, it's why just by putting your game on steam you get 10000 times more people looking at your shit than anywhere else. You're confusing marketing as a whole with false advertising.

>>712588040
yes!

>>712589032
Getting eyes on your game isn’t hard. You can pay a negligible amount of disposable income to put up ads on various sites. Making people stop scrolling and clicking on those ads? And then remembering your game well enough to look it up again when they get on a real computer because they were probably on a phone when they saw it? Well, your game has to be good for that to happen. That’s not going to happen when your game is this >>712587002

>>712588717
Toby having access to the Homosuck audience from the beginning sure was a natural indie game success story. So much blatant just world naivety in this thread too.

>>712589684
I never said anything about Toby's success being natural or not. I'm think of literally every other indie dev who managed to have a big audience without worrying about marketing

>>712589032
Nah if your game is good then buy ads and pay youtubers. That’s the “secret.” You make the product and then you advertise it. This is just basic business to the point where I almost can’t simplify it more than that. You wouldn’t be making this thread if the game was good.

>>712589887
*thinking

>>712589650
>>712589904
It's amazing how confident you are yet wrong.
>Getting eyes on your game isn’t hard.
Yes, it is, indeed, hard.
You probably never made a game in your life, much less tried to market one.

You guys are all chumps and don’t realize that this thread is secretly an advertisement. OP is unironically a master and baited all of you into looking up his game (he didn’t even have to link it.)

>>712589904
>You wouldn’t be making
You're confusing me with the OP

>>712589981
No it’s not. Social media shows you how many people see your posts. If it’s in the single digits, your account might be shadow banned.

>>712589981
But anon, think of all the other indie devs who magically shat out big audiences without doing a bit of marketing because I said so.

>>712590019
But I don't even know ops game

>>712585405
Depending of the genre of the game. It may catch the attention of some youtuber or something similar.

>>712590150
t. Bitter adgd fag
Your game sucked bro

>>712590264
I'm not a game dev. I hope you work on that psychosis before you put your hands on somebody in real life.

>>712590337
OK

*t bitter no game dev too blackpilled for his own good

>>712589981
Nibber you can get 100 views on a single text-only tweet. Add an image and you might even get some engagement. Even more so with videos. Make it interesting and people will share it. Maybe you’re just crying because you’re not getting a million likes or views on your posts? That’s not guaranteed to happen in life instantly and only happens to either established entities who got there through years of slowly building up to it, or people who won a lottery. If you’re banking on the latter to happen then good fucking luck.

>>712590468
100 views :O
Are you trying to outretard this trust fund baby who has never had a job? >>712590459

>>712583852 (OP)
Yes but it becomes much easier if your stuff is actually good-looking or interesting instead of playing follow the leader or being a shitty version of the games you played when you were twelve.

Posting the ol' classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_L6ysOSEb0

>>712590538
>Aieeeee I'll never have a million tweet views!!!
The only retard here is you, if you're a total nobody and expect the red carpet treatment that's entirely a (you) issue

>>712589981
Lol what
You get a huge boost in visibility on Steam just by virtue of it being a new and upcoming title. Now imagine how much more you would get if you also bought some ads and posted on social medias to link to the Steam page. And then imagine further that the game actually looks good. Maybe it even is good so you have a free playable demo to prove it.

This shit isn’t rocket science, but making a good game is.

>>712590538
Start small nibber. It gets better

>>712590973
its nigger, the word you are trying to say is nigger

>>712590019
I didn't lol. The guy who asked for my game wasnt me

>>712590468
I think I'm shadowbanned... >>712590089 I may get like 30 views per post or less.

>>712587002
I'm currently halfway through it, level 10. I'm enjoying it so far, good game anon.

10% of everyone who sees your content will engage with it (click on it, watch it, read it, whatever.) Out of those 10% if the content requires a purchase, only 10% of that 10% will purchase it. Further out of that 10% who bought it will actually enjoy it. So if you want 1000 diehard fans, you need to make your game appear in front of umm. Uhhhhhhhhh unmmmm. Uhhhh lol.

atleast post more ame

>>712585731
How many wishlists did you get before releasing your game?

I think I will do the same as you. No promoting whatsoever, and see what happens. I will send some keys to content creators and try to build an audience over time. Seems more logical than trying to build an audience before the game is even released.

>>712590738
>there can only be 100 and 1 million views
100 is nothing.
>>712590973
>Mommy told me I can do anything I want if I just try hard enough
Typical 14-25 year old trust fund baby newfag nigger.

Unironically buy an ad here, most /v/ posters are disgusting mobile shitters and don't know how to block ads on mobile so they have no choice but to look at your game

It worked for wolfrush

>>712591620
But 100 is something. But your ego is bigger than the sun to ever accept that.

you want to succeed? then make slop the more the better, gam*rs are pigs that love the slop, and deserve nothing but slop.

>>712591702
>dude 100 views :OOOO
lol

>>712591484
No no after reading the rest of the thread I thought about it more and I think there is something to the “every situation is different and your game is unique” thing so I think you should at least try to make people aware it exists. I do still feel that social media is just shouting into the void if you don’t already have an audience. But it might be better than nothing.

For reference my game appeared to a little over 20k steam users and I got almost 1k wishlists. Only a little over 100 people bought the game. So like I said, more engagement than I deserve for basically doing nothing. I am not even trying to brag about my small shitty numbers I am merely saying that I got way more engagement going straight to the source than I did making posts on social media that in the end only appeared to other developers who weren’t the demographic who typically enjoys my kind of game.

>>712583852 (OP)
Make something unique like Ame's game. Menhera was unknown to a lot of normalfags and now it's way too popular, more than it was before.

>>712591928
>He's given up now
Concession accepted. I pray that you get your ego checked out before you blow your brains out while writing a suicide note about how nobody appreciated you

>>712592073
>anybody who disagrees with me should kill themselves!
Typical narcissistic trust fund baby. You have never held a full-time job or paid monthly utilities to take care of yourself.

>>712592000
In fact don’t even listen to me. I’m crazy and deleted all my social media because I got mad at it.

>>712592000
>For reference my game appeared to a little over 20k steam users
How?? And how did you get 1k wishlists doing absolutely nothing? Is that normal numbers?

>>712592000
There have been all sorts of threads about games that do poorly where they mention getting lots of wishlists but little sells (high wishlists obviously mean nothing.) Of course these conversations are usually shut down with "uhhh that game wasn't GOOD" by out-of-touch sheltered children.

>>712592312
Well for starters Steam’s algorithm shows your game to people in its new and upcoming categories for reasons I don’t fully understand but is probably related to whether or not it has tags similar to other games they played, so utilize tags to be as close as posssible to a popular game in your genre. I copied every tag in order from the Rabi Ribi Steam page.

With regards to wishlists, they’re cheap (free) and don’t cost the user any more than a click. From my singular experience, they don’t equate to real interest (sales.)

>>712583852 (OP)
just make a good game

think about the kind of game that you really want to play but no one seems to get quite right and then make it. if you do it right people will beg you to take their money. of course you have to be not shit at games in the first place

I don’t think I have what it takes to make a good action game. I think I’m better at telling a story.

>>712592180
That's a lot a projection there champ, sorry but I'm not your boogeyman.

>>712583852 (OP)
4chin ads are cheap

>>712592773
>projection used incorrectly
sasuga newfag

>>712592873
>Projection occurs when an individual unconsciously projects their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors onto someone else.

>>712592940
>no u
exactly

>>712592969
No u

>>712583852 (OP)
i dont know ask one of the niggas who put up ads for their games on here. every now in then you can find them in game dev threads, but i imagine it probably is

talk about your game directly to your target audience
example:
if i made a game about girls with guns i should shill my game in online gun communities (my target audience).
the worst error you could do is shill your game in game developers spaces because they'll only check your game out of politeness and vice versa, it'll go nowhere.
same with music, same with everything. have a target audience in mind then go shill it to them.
if it's good it'll spread from ear to mouth and if it's really good it'll maybe reach the normiesphere

>>712591375
fine

>>712593293
>the worst error you could do is shill your game in game developers spaces because they'll only check your game out of politeness
If you're unlucky then something worse can happen, they'll target you and gang up on you because they feel threatened. Crab mentality is more prevalent than you think in game dev communities where all the people there are already entrenched in the communities and then suddenly you the newcomer comes along and threatens the order of things.

That's not just game dev communities though that's online communities in general. There is a whole lot of ass kissing and politicking you have to do to not become a target, but then you become someone's bitch instead by essentially becoming their groupie in their community discords and things, pretending to like them and their game because you don't want the community to turn on you.

I could never fit into game dev communities because I'm not able to fake myself like that.

OP help I can't get past the title screen lol
I tried clicking and also pressing Enter and then all the random keys but nothing works except for the arrow keys

Tried on both itchio and newgrounds

>>712585589
That is, IF your game can get on Steam, which if it's Japanese or Japanese-style, it probably can't.

>>712593958
Hi. Have you tried clicking inside the game first? (the game may be unfocused)Try with Z or Space, Enter doesn't work

babies crying in this thread about marketing while I am going to just sell my absolute garbage game on steam and get real reviews & real money. literally nothing matters as long as you have 2 hours of gameplay minimum and pay a pajeet to make you capsule art.

8===D - -

>>712594067
I'm sorry. I just need to press Space. lol

>>712594012
There's at least one reviewer troon that just despises anything that's remotely Japanese inspired, even if it looks like WEG from a mile away to a not mentally ill person.

>>712593729
Thank you.

Good game OP. Deceptively simple-looking at first in terms of sprites and artwork, but games like Baba Is You are popular so I imagine you could get away with just a little more visual polish.

I still remember the crystal project threads. Worked out because the dude played along, ate the shit flung at him, then the game turned out pretty good.

>>712594898
Well, thanks. The steam version has better visuals :)

>>712593729
Good

It's funny people respond with buy an ad, when the usual person browsing here has an adblocker installed.

>>712597971
That's a good point. But buying an ad comes in many forms. For example most of the youtube "game reviews" you see are paid for. There are other things, like paying people to "discuss" your game in online communities. "Building social communities," or in other words trying to get people to join your discord server so you can force them into a community where your game is discussed. And more.