Indie game marketing is one of the most crucial parts when launching your indie game. It determines if your game has the power to stand out from the fierce competition or not!
There is no fixed prescription on what the game needs to have to be successful. But, if you manage to prepare a quality game in combination with effective marketing methods then you are on the right path. Sharing the awareness of the game with potential players, while keeping them engaged, are one of the crucial parts of your way to succeed.
Indie developers, solo developers, smaller studios are mostly limited with funds or time they can invest in the project. Decisions before they start developing a game, during the development and decisions on the launch day/week, determine the results at the end.
In order to prepare an outstanding game, indie game developers should understand their strengths and weakness. But, are they familiar with both sides?
Indie Gaming Industry
The indie gaming industry is challenging to work within. Especially for those who plan to make a decent living out of it. Still, everything is possible, there are some special indie games out there, that have outperformed AAA studios with their premium titles.
Yet,
– Do indies have enough funds to develop the game for years? Not?
– Do they have a team that is big enough to be able to cover all the tasks during the development of the game and on the launch day?
Indies need to find and focus on their strengths, set and track goals, optimize the development process, constantly improve skills, and work hard to catch bigger studios or more experienced developers.
As a lot of indie developers and indie studios fail on their way to creating a sustainable business around their games, we (as the game developers ourselves) decided to write up this Guide, to help indie game developers come closer to achieving their dreams!
TOP 5 Recommendations for your first game:
1. Limit the scope of your game
2. Check the interest in your idea in the very early development stages
3. Focus on unique and interesting mechanics
4. Run various playtests on the biggest changes
5. Do not lose your focus!
1. Why limit the scope of the game?
- if I still have tons of ideas on content updates?
To keep expanding the scope of the game, will not get you anywhere.
With your first game, you need to pack a smaller scope at first and expand it further if you see any bigger interest from players after that.
The number one reason why hobby and indie developers never finish their games is that they want to build the next hit game following the example of AAA games. The biggest studios consist of a larger team of hundreds. Sometimes thousands of members, where every single part of the team can focus on little details, which indie developers just can’t compete with.
But, that is ok!
Indie developers need to stay aware that they have smaller costs on developing a game. For that reason they don’t need to hunt an outrageous profit, to cover the full costs of development.
How to check players’ interest in my game?
Before deciding about the main mechanics of the game, indies can deliver different prototype versions and offer them playtesting before they pick the most interesting mechanics/ prototype they’ll use to develop the full game.
Make sure to not focus on every small polish detail when prototyping your game. Instead of this rather deliver a basic prototype, as you’ll end up scrapping some versions and use only one.
Basic game mechanics picked – what next?
After the basic mechanics of the game are picked, you’ll need to sit down and brainstorm about the next options. Basic mechanics need to be developed on a higher level now, so here is the first point where you should put the development into a higher gear.
Before you start working on any polishing or extensions, write down the ideas on paper. Organize your work well, think about different cases that might happen. And include the community in a process of development where possible.
Share your work & get feedback.
The next development phase is here – not sure how to further improve the game?
The biggest updates need to be playtested urgently. Collect as much feedback as you can. Talk with the players who have been thrilled with your game, and those who have been disappointed by it. Also, run surveys if possible, and prepare your list of possible improvements.
Losing motivation
This is completely normal.
During the development of the game, you’ll encounter days you will be glued to the screen while working on some interesting mechanics, you’d want to finish. However, there will also be days, when you’ll encounter a wall.
In such cases take some pause, go out in nature, park, city, and come back filled with new energy. Stay aware of what you want to achieve, set goals and various milestones, to stay motivated during the whole development path.
Developing a game is a long process. But in the end, you’ll be grateful when you’ll see your game listed on Steam or on some other platform you aim to release.
2. Understanding Game Marketing
A game without successful and cost-effective marketing has zero or small chances to succeed in this competitive world.
But, why do you need to share the word around?
Do you think the traffic from the platform does its magic on its own, and word-of-mouth will do the trick as you have developed the best game possible? Stop right there and re-think this!
Putting zero work into marketing before & after releasing the game won’t do the work. Or might do the work, but the chances are similar to winning on a lottery. Word of mouth won’t do the work if the game is not exposed to a targeted audience, general public, journalists, …or with other sources where your audience is hanging out!
Do you want to share the word about your game, but don’t know where to start?
Lots of smaller indies are developers only, and they don’t like to market their games, as they just don’t want to be that person speaking about the product they developed, they just don’t feel comfortable in that role. Or they are lacking knowledge in marketing, but no one is the best in all fields at a time!
In cases when indies want to achieve more with their games, they mostly decide to hire a marketer who is open to sharing knowledge and experiences to help indies boost their games and get it in front of as many potential new players as possible.
Less input = Less output!
A belief that a solo developer can do all the work on the game himself is mostly just overwhelming, and it may take years of work, learning tons of new skills to finish the game at the end.
But, we all do want to finish our games and publish them, right?
Solo developers might experience a lack of motivation, or a blockade to work further on some points in the development process, and once this happens they are significantly closer to a death cross, where you can’t find the best solution anymore, and when this happens, is in most cases too late.
Also, small developers or smaller indie studios usually don’t have the budget to hire anyone, and don’t have enough time to do proper marketing, or worse even hate marketing, and still asking how can they build a community?
Sorry, you can’t, not really!
In case you want your indie game to succeed you need to invest some resources!
The quality game should be the main focus, but if indies forget to market their games, the results won’t come. So, either indies invest more time in marketing their games and learn important stuff how to do it properly, or they hire a game Marketer who has experience in that field and can increase the chances for the game to succeed on the Launch day.
You can’t just be silent and expect things to happen!
If you count on less input, you will get less output or in other words, the game you will be releasing won’t reach the success it deserves, or the players won’t recognize it as a valuable game to purchase!
If your game was a new product in WallMart…
If a new product gets in Wallmart and you haven’t done any marketing, haven’t invested in additional exposures within the store to get your first customers on which you can build and scale up, you just might get lost between all other products.
Soon you end up losing your business, as it didn’t survive the production costs or the time you invested to develop a product.
Available resources to develop a game
It’s ok if you have zero resources available to develop the game and investing only your time to build a game so that you can afford yourself and your family something nice after the game is fully released.
But,
if you count all the hours you invest in the project and later on see what the results are, you might soon see that your work per hour rate hasn’t been as valuable as you thought it was even though you were fully scheduled with the development of the game trying to figure out the marketing secrets, trying to find the right audience,… Not everyone is the best in all fields, and the development of the game and marketing are two completely different aspects, which are hard for one person or a smaller team to handle.
Even if you do the marketing on your own, consider expanding it further – and ask yourself how you can reach out to a wider audience?
Wider audience = Increases the opportunity to sell more copies
Do you have a limit of copies your team needs to reach when releasing a game to cover the costs of development and to cover the salaries?
In that case, you’ll need to focus on marketing a lot, as it might be a crucial game-changer, which will decide if your game will succeed or not.
The basis for great Marketing is a Great Product/ Game!
A lot of things have to be put together (like a puzzle) – for your game to succeed! One puzzle is the gameplay, the second puzzle is Game mechanics, the third puzzle Fun, the fourth Marketing, …etc., so if any of the puzzles are missing, the chances of releasing the next big Hit are falling sharply.
3. Understand the market, and other developers
Always make sure that you understand the gaming platform to which you are publishing the game.
Do a research on your own. Check what players expect to see from the newly released games, and what they’d like to see integrated in-game? For example Steam players love to see Steam Achievements integrated in-games.
Developers who listen to player’s expectations and wishes are getting better chances to launch successfully on the chosen platform.
Also, you need to understand that every game developer wants his game to succeed. AAA games have even higher expectations – to fully dominate the gaming market around the date of their game release.
So, if everyone is doing their best, where can an indie developer stand out from the rest?
Find your direct competitors, research their activities
Research on your direct competitors will help you better understand what kind of games are currently successful in the niche, and which types of games are not accepted that well.
Also, check the marketing activities of the most popular games in the niche. Where do they concentrate their promotions around the game, how they communicate with their community on social media, discord,…?
Take action! Write down the best practices, and brainstorm on the marketing actions you should take. Keep this list updated on every next research you make.
4. Indie Game Marketing – when to start?
It is never too early to start marketing your game.
A lot of indie developers do not take the marketing seriously and are taking it as something necessary after they finish the game. And, when they are a week before the launch, or even worse almost on the Launch day, they decide that it is the right time to start promoting the game to boost the sales on the launch day.
Such a marketing approach is doomed to fail. So, if you are responsible for Game Marketing – start early!
In the early phases of game development, you will also start building a community around the game, and those that stick around until the full release will probably become your most faithful fans. Especially, if you manage to include them to engage with your game, share thoughts, give ideas on improvements, playtesting various versions,… etc.
In the early phases, you’d also want to define an available budget, to which you’ll adjust your Marketing Strategy.
5. Setting up your Marketing Plan & Strategy
Set your budget
Do not allocate the whole budget in one type of advertising, or especially do not allocate all funds as soon as you have your alpha or a prototype ready. This will probably kill your game.
Distribute a bigger chunk closer to the full release of the game, as the engagement rates and Click-Through-Rates (CTR) will probably be much better when you have the game polished and your budget will be way better spent.
Decide about the channels from where you’ll communicate with your audience:
1. Website
(official presentation of the game – press/ media/ players)
2. Development blog
(write up update notes, share your thoughts on game development)
3. Build Landing Page
(collect emails)
4. Build Discord Server
(community)
5. Social Media
(community, fans)
Which channels you will use to share the word about your game?
Have in mind that going on every social media possible, especially if you don’t have much time available to invest in your posts, communication, is not the best idea. Rather than being present on every possible platform, pick the ones you believe your players will hang around and where you feel great.
Reaching out to PRESS / Media
At some point in the production of your game, you’ll have to announce your game and tell the world what you are working on.
The best way to share the word with the media is by writing a Press Release (PR) or contacting the Journalists directly. If you are contacting journalists directly make sure to follow their manuals, and don’t just cold-send the emails.
Build Relationships with the Press, influencers, and other developers.
Community matters – focus on fans, not followers
Fans of your game are those that will be sharing your game with others. A few supporters that like your work will also help you get the word about your game out.
Followers will be less engaged with your content, and will just ‘spy’ about your game and work. It is better to build a ‘real fan base’ instead of focusing on gathering masses of followers that are not interested in your game at all.
6. How to reach more people if you are Marketing your game on a zero budget?
Start Marketing your game early, build a welcoming environment for playtesters and those willing to join you during the early development phases. Establish your Discord server for your game, get exposure on Twitter – build relationships.
8 Sources to gather extra exposure for your game
- Youtube
- Gaming Forums
- Game Development Groups
- Discord
- Blogs
Exposure dilema: Quantity over quality?
If you are a smaller indie game developer with limited budgets to put in, quantity over quality is not the best possible idea at all.
By focusing on quantity you’ll reach a wider audience, which is less targeted, the costs of reaching them might be bigger, and you will spend a lot of time and money. Still, the CTR and engagements on your messages might be way lowered than when targeting your main crowd of niche players.
Niche targeting will mostly get you the best results. For example, a player that loves playing racing games will be far more interested in playing your ‘Hot Racer’ game. What is up to a marketer is to find where niche players hang out mostly and reach them via those channels.
By Marketing your game early you’ll manage to share the awareness of your game, and be able to increase the chances of your game succeeding on the Launch day.
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7. Game Marketing Funnel
How do players decide of buying your game?
In the floods of new games released every day, why someone would decide to pick your game and not the one from the other developer?
Is your game unique and attractive? Have you built a decent community around the game before the game was fully released?
Here’s an example of how a potential player decides to buy your game or not…
To sell your game, your customers will first need to go through different phases.
Most of the players that will end up purchasing your game won’t buy it just right after they hear about it. Some percentage of compulsive buyers will end up buying it on the first shot, on the Launch day mostly, but not the majority.
When players first hear about your game, they are in the phase of awareness, they now know that your game exists and they might be following you on Twitter now. But, they are not willing to buy your game at this point yet.
Your goal is to move as many players as you can to the last phases where they end up purchasing your game. The percentages drop with every phase down the funnel. A very few percentages of players will go from awareness to consideration, and even fewer will go deeper than that. This is a fact and is not something you can change with your work. But, you can change the percentages in the groups, to increase the rates on sales at the end.
But, how to do that?
Try to keep players engaged with your content. Try to share interesting news, keep them updated, include them in development decisions (where appropriate). And let them leave a seal on your game.
You also need to consider the channels, they can get your content at.
Example: You’ve got video coverage!
Let’s say you’ve got coverage from a Youtuber, who shared your website in the description of the video.
A player clicked on the link, got to your website, where he found the trailer of the game, screenshots, but no call to action to follow you further on social media, discord, no mail subscription options to stay updated about the news of your game.
He closed the website and forgot about your game.
As expected, the news about the release of your new game didn’t hit him, as you haven’t find the way to reach him on your first interaction. He ended up NOT buying your game even though he was interested in it.
Always try to think about how to reach players that are aware of your game. If you can’t let them know that your game is releasing, then all of your marketing efforts in the early phases will go to waste. Or will be just too expensive for too smaller results at the end.
8. Game Launch Day
As mentioned before, do not count on the platform where you release your game to bring you enough traffic and sales on the Launch day. It just won’t be that easy! Instead of counting on others to do the work for you, take action!
Follow your pre-arranged Release Plan of Marketing actions that can have a significant impact on your game sales on the first day.
Also, make sure to reach out to all the groups and communities where you’ve been actively working in the early development phases. Let them know that your game is now finished and available for purchase.
In case you are not doing your utmost on the Launch Day, you might miss out on a great chance to Hit the Top Rankings on the platform, which can bring you out decent organic traffic to your game, and increase the chances for your game to succeed!
Conclusion
Indie Game Marketing requires a lot of work from the early game development phases onwards. It doesn’t only take time but helps you build a community around your game, share the awareness in the early phases, keeping players of your game engaged with your content and news, and building relationships with influencers and press/ media, to ensure your game is a success on the Launch day.
If marketing is done right, and you have managed to build an attractive, unique, and outstanding game – the chances for the next hit increase a lot!
You only have one shot with your game. Set your Launch date only when you are fully confident with it. You don’t want to disappoint the players with some annoying bugs, which you already knew about, and haven’t found the time to resolve.
10% of all published games generate over 90% of the revenues!
It pays out to come into TOP 10% of games, but for completing big dreams, the game should be outstanding in every specific field. Those spots are usually filled for AAA game studios and their games, but some indies also managed to slip inside, with interesting mechanics and themes.
Everything is possible if you work hard and smart to achieve your dreams.
The Battle for the attention of platform’s algorithms for TOP spots
When your game launches, the real battle in action for the TOP spots begins. Games that are getting the most attention, and have the best sales stats on that day, will usually get into the Premium TOP spots on the platform.
Players love to buy games that rank high. Therefore, if your game managed to get into those spots, then you will get quite some additional organic traffic to your game and your Marketing activities won’t be effortless.
You want to get your game into trending pages, right?
Prepare Materials for the Launch Day!
If you will be writing the announcement about your game release on the Launch day, then you might not just be best prepared for it.
You know the Date and the Hour of Release of your Game. So, you can easily pre-set the posts to go out on the release hours, you can automate your emails and schedule them to publish, or whatever suits your marketing strategy best.
Pre-prepared materials with the combination of automated posting will help you keep the focus on other stuff. Remember, there is a lot that can be done on the launch day! For that reason, we recommend you create a Plan of Work for the Launch Day!
A quality Guerilla Marketing Plan for the Release day can make a significant difference to your game sales!
Visualize what you need to do, where you need to share the news about your game, and prepare a plan with a checklist, so that you won’t miss something out. Also, take into account the increased number of players on the Launch day – you’d want to answer their questions.
Guerilla Marketing Plan for the Launch Day – Checklist:
1. Social Media
(what to post, prepare texts, images, gifs, videos)
2. Send out Emails to your userbase!
3. Post the news
an Announcement on the Platform where you are releasing your game at
4. Discord Announcement
(use @everyone to make sure all members of your Discord Server get the news about the release)
5. Run pre-arranged cross-promotions
6. Announcement on your Website/ devblog
7. Involve your community
to help you share the word about the game out
8. Announce on every channel where you’ve been active
during development phases
Struggling with Marketing your Game?
- Development of the game takes too much time, no time for Marketing?
- Don’t know how to start promoting your game effectively?
- Not getting enough traffic to your Steam store page?
- Not getting enough wishlists to your Steam store page?
- Almost 0 coverage from the Press, Youtubers, streamers,…?
Gamex Studio has been developing, marketing & publishing games for the last 6 years, and learnt tons of stuff when launching games on various platforms. Read more about the studio here.