As a new indie developer, I've been reading about and talking with other indiedevs facing the same problem: it's hard to be noticed. The ease of self-publishing your own game online today (especially at itch.io, which is far easier to publish through than Steam) means that new developers have a chance. But the double edged sword is that it's also easy to be lost in the crowd.
I'm writing this thread for those of us who are struggling with marketing. I know I am. I'll start with some things I've been doing that have maybe helped a little, but I'm still trying to spread the word about my scifi visual novel.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
- Follow lots of people with similar interests on social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. They might follow you back, so they might see your posts, and even if they don't, if you have similar interests, chances are they are searching for the hashtags you're already using.
- Use #hashtags! I know there is a dispute about whether they really matter on Twitter or not, and you shouldn't overuse them there, but find your target audience and maybe figure out what some bots like to retweet to your target audience. Things like #indiedev and #gamedev work well.
- Use lots of images in your posts. Most of us scroll through social media quickly until something catches our eye. So make sure you're putting out content that is eye-catching, instead of text-only.
- Get on Discord. I'm horrible at this. I don't like to spend my time chatting online, and I find it difficult to create an engaging discord--I'm too busy with my other projects. I wish I knew someone that was good at it that might help in discord with their own presence, but, that likely costs money (and since we're indiedevs, we probably poured all of that into our projects, right?) But you can find other Discords related to your game genre, in addition to a lot of indiedev Discords that are available. I'm not sure if their "self-promotion" channels are actually read by anyone other than indiedevs posting their own self-promotion, but...it's worth a shot.
- Use Reddit. This is tricky, because some subreddits are extremely strict. Since my game is a visual novel, I found a great visual novel reddit, but any mention of my game got me flagged by the moderators, so I learned quickly that you have to be careful about self-promotion. Still, there are opportunities there in the indiedev subreddits. Sometimes people are looking for a certain type of game, and if that's yours, don't hesitate to let them know--you can talk about your game easily if you're not the one making the post.
BUILT-IN FANS:
These are things that can be done online without cost. There are a few other things I've done to build up a small fan base (that I'm still trying to grow). I've mentioned my scifi VN in other products of mine, and advertised to people that have supported those products. For instance, my VN was inspired by a scifi tabletop RPG I created, and over the years (pre-pandemic) I played my game at conventions. A lot of the fans from those conventions gave me their emails, so I let them know about my scifi VN release.
KICKSTARTER
If you've run a Kickstarter, whether it was successful or not, you have a built-in fanbase from people who supported you there. So make sure to use the "Update" section on your Kickstarter page. I ran a Kickstarter over a year ago that failed (I made it to 67% of my goal), but I still use it to send updates to my fans there. Through a Kickstarter update, I let them know my VN released and suddenly I had an increase in sales.
USER PROMOTION:
Friends and family are helpful, but you need people who have played your game and are excited about it. If someone lets you know how much they enjoyed your game, tell them that you'd love it if they could help by telling others how much they enjoyed it, maybe through a review or just posting about it in their social media. Sadly, it seems that people who write reviews more often are those that have something negative to say, but hopefully you can get some positive reviews from fans--just don't be afraid to ask them.
ADS:
If you have extra $ for marketing, ads can be helpful, but keep in mind that a typical marketing outlook is that less than 1% of those who see your ads will actually follow through and purchase. This is why AAA games have huge marketing budgets of millions of dollars to market to millions of people. We indiedevs obviously don't have that kind of $ to work with, so keep that in mind when paying $100 for an ad on Facebook. It might help, though?
Yes, it can be depressing--after spending months or years on your game, you might be hoping it will go viral. That's like figuring out where lightning is going to strike, though, it's very random. You may also think that your product speaks for itself because it's so awesome, and while it may be just as awesome as you think it is, it's buried under everyone else's awesome games--the insane number of releases makes it nearly impossible for most of us to stand out. My advice (that I'm trying to take myself, too) is to go out there and try to reach the people that you know will like it--your target audience. My target audience includes anyone interested in adventure, choice-driven stories, science fiction (aliens, starships, new worlds, space), tabletop RPG's, science/astronomy, comic art, and techno music. Your audience might be completely different. But make sure you can list the types of people who will like your game, and then...go tell them about it. You just want them to be aware that your game exists and it's something they might be interested in checking out.
If you have other marketing tips and experiences to share, please mention them in this thread. I'm definitely looking for more ideas and I'm sure a lot of other indiedevs are, too.
-Andy
Corefun Studios