Hello, I recently transitioned from working at a game company to becoming an indie game developer. I'm currently working on a 2D pixel art RPG, but I'm feeling overwhelmed about how to market the game before its release.
How do you promote your games, and when do you usually start marketing before launch? I'd love to hear your strategies and experiences!
Many people think the first people to play your game should be strangers. That's like doing marketing in hard mode. Getting strangers to play your game is always going to be more difficult than getting people you have already formed some type of relationship with to play it.
Ask your friends and family to play it. Go to your Discord servers and talk about your game (with mod approval oc). If you have an online presence on TikTok or YouTube, talk about your game there.
Use the network you already have to find people to play the game. Those people will help you reach others outside of your network
Thank you for your insightful advice! I completely agree that leveraging my existing network is much easier than trying to reach complete strangers from the start. I'll make sure to involve my friends, family, and online communities in the early stages of marketing. I really appreciate your perspective!
It is extremely difficult to market an indie game without already having a following and a good game. It mostly comes down to luck, first impressions and resilience. It's difficult to get noticed on places like YouTube but the advantage is you can post as many videos as you want without being considered spam. You can post in game development communities, including specific ones (e.g. game engine, genre, itch.io) but you're very unlikely to get more than a couple people interested. If your game is Let's Play-friendly, you can try politely sending download keys to smaller YouTubers since they will do the marketing for you and give valuable feedback.
Thanks for the honest and detailed response! I completely understand that marketing an indie game without an existing following can be really tough. I'll keep in mind the importance of first impressions, persistence, and maybe even reaching out to small YouTubers for exposure and feedback. Your advice is incredibly valuable!
