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How to Contact Streamers about your Visual Novel

arimia

Or, “I’ve sent too many emails the past 2 weeks and need a break”.

Getting streamers & press to play your game can be a really fun albeit nerve-wracking experience. It’s more personal than just asking players to try out your game on social media–you’re asking a stranger to not only play your game but give it a review, opening yourself up to that vulnerability. But it can also be a rewarding experience, to see people enjoy your game live and connect with it.

A lot of streamers find games organically, by seeing what other streamers are playing and what their friends have told them about and what they see on social media. But streamers also take suggestions for games occasionally, especially if you’re the developer of the game. So how do you reach out to streamers?

First, if you’re on the fence about if you even want streamers to play your game, let’s look at why it can be a good thing.

why should I reach out to streamers?

There’s a lot of great things that can come from not only reaching out to streamers but watching streams of your games live.

creating connections

Reaching out to streamers helps you create connections in the industry. It can be a step towards making new acquaintances or even friends. I’ve met several streamers at conventions (like OffKai Expo) because I reached out to them first about playing one of my games. (and yes, I will be back at OffKai this year)

getting live feedback

We’re so in the weeds in our own games that sometimes we don’t realize our games don’t make sense to other people! Watching people actually play your demo can highlight a lot of small problems players have in real time, both from accessibility and story perspectives. Do the menu buttons make sense? Is the audio too loud or jarring for a scene? Does this character’s motivation fit in with the overall story?

wow people actually like my game

Again, we’re stuck in the weeds. We’re in the Ren’Py mines. It can be easy to forget we’re not making games in a vacuum but instead the real world where real people will eventually play them and talk about them. It’s nice to see people engage with the art you’ve created.

how to find streamers

So the thing a lot of people don’t like to reckon with is that marketing consists of 2 things:

  1. Research
  2. Conversing

And contacting streamers requires both of these things! Scary, I know. But let’s go step by step.

1. find games similar to yours

I’ve talked about this a lot because it’s just so, so important. You have to understand that any piece of art—including your games—is not made in a vacuum, so you have to engage with its contemporaries. For us, that means looking at what our fellow developers are making.

Ask yourself these key questions:

  1. What story genres does my visual novel cover?
  2. What art style does it use?
  3. Does it have any gameplay elements?
  4. How many words is it?
  5. Does it have multiple endings or is it linear?
  6. Is it a specific type of romance, and if so, how many love interests does it feature?

Answer each of these for your game and then try to find games that fit some of these on Steam, itchio, and VNDB. What tags do they use? How would you describe their art style? What do players say about the game?

Now that you have a few games that are similar to yours in different categories, we can move on to the next part.

2. SullyGnome is your best friend

So let me introduce you to SullyGnome because it’s your new best friend while looking for streamers. It scrapes Twitch (only Twitch) for statistics and analytics on who streams what on Twitch, even going back several years with data. You can look up any streamer to see what games they’ve streamed and for how long, and you can look up any game to see who’s streamed it.

For example, let’s look up my recent release Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon on SullyGnome (data pull May 10th at 2PM). It will initially bring us to the Summary tab, but I find the Most Watched tab to be the most helpful. Let’s swap to it.

(I also swapped the timeframe to 14 days, meaning it’s pulling all Twitch streams that have happened in the past 14 days)

As we can see here, at the time of pulling the info there had been 15 different Twitch streamers streaming the game. It pulls this data based on streams that tag the game as what they’re playing, so if a streamer doesn’t tag their stream as this exact game then it doesn’t pop up here.

By default it sorts the streamers by Watch time (hours), which is the amount of hours people have watched the livestream & the VOD. I don’t find this statistic to be the most helpful as it skews to the more popular streamers. However, the 2nd column, Stream time (hours), is very helpful, as it shows how many hours the streamer streamed the game. This is super helpful for seeing who actually enjoyed a game and who just wanted to try something out. If it says they only streamed the game for 1 hour, then they might not have liked it, but if they streamed it for 3+ hours then they most likely enjoyed it. The other filters are useful information too, but I find this one to be the most helpful. Play around with the filters to see how the rankings change!

3. start looking up those games

We have all the tools—now, you just have to use them. Start searching up some comparable games from step 1 and see who’s streamed them in the past half a year or year (the 180 days and 365 days filters). Be sure to swap to the Most watched tab from the Summary tab so you’ll get the list of streamers. And change the filter to Stream time (hours) before continuing.

Now comes the labor-intensive part. Your goal is to go through every streamer listed who has played one of your comparable games, one at a time, and see if they’d be a good match.

In general, you’re looking for someone who:

  1. has streamed visual novels more than once
  2. is an active streamer (isn’t on hiatus / only streams once every few months)
  3. has a way to contact them (primarily email)
  4. actually streamed the comparable game for more than an hour (preferably 2+)

Let’s go through a few examples.

Example 1: Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon

I’ll use a few of my games as examples for how I sought out streamers. For CWES: Amaranthine Moon, I reached out to 103 streamers for the demo. That’s a lot! I did it over the course of a year, though, so don’t try to replicate this in a single month.

CWES: Amaranthine Moon is a Victorian vampire mystery otome game with a set female protagonist, 3 male love interests, multiple endings, and 220k+ words. From this, we can make some generalizations of who might like this:

  • vampire VTubers who are interested in romance games, visual novels, or story-driven games with lots of reading
  • classic otome fans who want a set female protagonist and multiple love interests
  • visual novel fans who want a long mystery and are fine with romance

I was able to make these generalizations based on what the game is. We can also do the inverse of this and determine some people who might not like the game, such as people who:

  • don’t play visual novels, or have only ever streamed 1-2 in their entire career
    • Why? This is 220k+ words—it’s a LOT of reading and has no gameplay. You should like reading to play this (or any visual novel, but I digress).
  • have only streamed romance VNs like Date Everything, or gameplay heavy VNs like Hundred Line
    • Why? This is not a mainstream visual novel. This is intended for the otome girlies. It also doesn’t have any gameplay elements to it. Some larger VNs like Hundred Line especially have had large marketing campaigns including paying streamers who otherwise would’ve never played it. If they primarily stream things like Baldurs Gate then they probably don’t want a low-budget indie VN.
  • only play customizable romance VNs like A Date with Death
    • Why? ADWD is a great game, but if the only VNs they’ve streamed is games like it (including others like Our Life, Killer Chat!, and more), then they probably want a customizable protagonist and experience that’s more interactive. These people could still be fine to reach out to, but would be lower on the priority list.
  • comfy / cozy streamers
    • Why? Yeah this isn’t a cozy game. There’s a lot of murders and throwing bricks and biting people. If they want a slice-of-life romance then this is not for them.

When I searched for streamers, I followed these guidelines. I wanted to find people who’ve played other romance visual novels (preferably otome) and looked like they’d enjoy the aesthetics of the game. I did this by going one by one down the lists and looking through their Twitch and their social media profiles.

4. what do I look for?

You need to look for a few key things when you’re on their Twitch profile. Sometimes you’ll have to check out their social media handles as well, but usually most of it is on their Twitch. (p.s. if you’re a streamer—please keep your profile updated and have an email listed!!!!)

  1. what do they normally stream?
  2. how often do they stream?
  3. what language do they stream in?
  4. are they a SFW streamer or NSFW?
  5. do they have an email / contact listed?

I’m also on the lookout for the Vibes of the streamer the entire time. Do they have pronouns in their bio, or any pride flags? Have they streamed any LGBT+ games recently, or any controversial games? If I go to their Twitter, is it normal stuff or is it terminally online posts? For VTubers especially—do they engage with drama or do they support other creators & streamers? You’ll never be able to get the complete picture unless you watch someone for hours and hours on end, but you can still get a decent idea in a few minutes.

Sadly, though, a lot of streamers (primarily those under 300 followers) don’t have any contact info listed. If they don’t have an email or contact form listed on their Twitch nor social media, I move on. I don’t bother trying to reach out to them via social media unless it’s a PERFECT fit, and even then I rarely do it because social media sites have made it nigh impossible to receive DMs from strangers. Instead I just move on. There’s lots of other streamers out there.

Example 2: Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery

Lock & Key is a magical girl mystery yuri visual novel about a pair of married magical girls on one last adventure before their powers fade for good, hunting for a serial killer on the loose. It’s a yuri story but the couple is already married; it’s also a magical girl story but the story contents are about murders and death. So we looked for streamers who:

  • enjoy dark fantasy romance visual novels, especially on the shorter side
  • magical girl-themed VTubers who like visual novels
  • yuri enjoyers
  • visual novel fans who like mysteries and are fine with girls love

We found lots of streamers that matched one of these categories (magical girl-themed VTubers, mystery visual novel fans), but then they wouldn’t fit our other criteria (do they want to stream a visual novel where you don’t pursue love interests? do they want to stream a gay game?). When it comes to these, you have to make your best guess. Yes, it doesn’t cost you anything to shoot your shot, but also…

5. you’re looking for people who will enjoy your game.

At the end of the day, the purpose of this is to find streamers who will actually enjoy your game. Sure, you can extend your net out to streamers who might enjoy your game because they’ve played 1 visual novel their entire life, but the more specific you get then the better off both parties will be. Your goal here is to find streamers who will have a fun time playing your visual novel and showing it off to their audience rather than just finding anyone who might stream it.

A random vampire-themed VTuber might not enjoy CWES: Amaranthine Moon, but one that has streamed visual novels before probably will. You’ll never be able to fully know who will enjoy your game and who won’t, but we can narrow things down and make knowledgeable guesses. A lot of this is getting a feel for things and using your best judgement, which will be honed with time & practice.

One fact we all have to acknowledge is that visual novels are still by-in-large niche. There are a few breakout titles every year, but the majority of players won’t touch a visual novel (especially if it’s called a “visual novel” over a “story-driven game”) and even the ones that do don’t care to read that much at one time, instead opting for gameplay hybrid VNs. As previously mentioned, some larger games like Hundred Line had big marketing campaigns where they paid a lot of streamers to play their game. That’s fine and all, but that means that a lot of these streamers wouldn’t be interested in small indie titles as a lot of them were normally playing Baldurs Gate and DOOM.

Streaming VNs can also be exhaustive on streamers, as reading out so many words for hours on end is taxing on anyone. It’s hard to stream non-voice acted VNs for long periods of time given how harsh it is on the vocal chords. You shouldn’t expect streamers to stream your entire game if it’s over 6 hours long as that’s multiple streams worth of story.

6. it’s spreadsheet time

It’s time to make a spreadsheet and actually use it. I have a spreadsheet for each of the games I market that tracks who I’ve contacted, why, and if they actually played the game. Here’s an example of the one for CWES: Amaranthine Moon:

It includes:

  • email
  • username
  • site link (their Twitch / YouTube)
  • why I contacted them
  • pronouns (if they listed them)
  • follower count on their main streaming platform
  • status for coverage (did they respond to my email? did they end up playing it?)
  • social media link
  • additional notes
  • coverage link
  • game key (did I sent them a Steam key for the full game?)

…Confession time, though. I didn’t actually make this spreadsheet, I just stole it from Studio Ephua after begging her to make a copy for me to use. Teehee.

Anyway at the very least you’ll want to list out who they are, the email you used, why you contacted them, and the status of coverage. These notes will be very helpful when it comes to release your full game or any future games, as you’ll have a list started on and details on if they actually responded to you or not. Since I don’t always contact people as soon as I see them (I’ll often find a streamer and just jot them down on my list to contact later), it’s very helpful to write a small note on why you think they’re a good fit for your game, especially if you’re doing this as a team. If you’re working on a list as a team, then it’s also helpful to have a column for “related content”, whatever stream(s) you saw that made you pick this person.

7. writing that email

By now you should have at least a handful of streamers who will probably enjoy your demo. Let’s email them.

When I’m emailing about a demo I’ll typically do batches via BCC emails (blind carbon copies), as I’m usually sending out a lot and don’t want to exhaust myself. For full games you have to do individual emails if you include a Steam key, but I digress. Here’s an example of one of my previous streamer emails for A Tithe in Blood, as shown in What does a modern visual novel release look like?

To quickly go over the important parts here:

  1. have an interesting subject line that tells the streamer what the game is about and why you’re contacting them (this is a dark modern fantasy yuri VN and I’m reaching out to you requesting that you stream it)
  2. introduce yourself briefly as well as the game. assume the person has never heard about it (unless you absolutely know they have)
  3. include your best visual artwork, square or rectangle size (don’t take up too much vertical space)
  4. why should they play it? give a few more details on what the game contains, why they specifically might like it, and how long it is
  5. give your expectations. if you have any kind of embargo or upcoming dates (like a release date or Steam festival), put that down
  6. list out all relevant links (namely the Steam page, press kit, etc)
  7. closing words and one more pretty image

Here’s the example for how I reached out to streamers for the full version of CWES: Amaranthine Moon. The important things to always consider: did I provide enough context? Did I make it clear what I’d like from them? Is it easy for them to find more information on the game?

Now press send. It’ll be fine, probably.

faq

1. does this cost money? will they charge me?

No, not typically. Most streamers won’t charge to stream your game, especially if you’re giving them a free game key. Some will, but if you’re not comfortable with that then just politely decline.

2. is it normal for streamers to ask for exclusive content?

Also no, as that’s not really something most streamers do (i.e. show off exclusive content) unless they’re specialized (like IGN, but they’re not a streamer, but you get my point hopefully). If you don’t have any exclusive content to give them (or don’t feel like it would be a good exchange depending on the streamer), then just politely decline.

3. how many streamers should I reach out to?

That depends on the type of game you’re making. Some are going to be a lot more niche than others. For my boys love VN Asphodelium, I gave up after 10 or so since I was spending a lot of time on dead ends—most of the people I found seemed to only want NSFW games or they were inactive. If you can, aim for 30-50+, but keep in mind that some games are just not very streamable, especially visual novels.

4. I reached out to 349135 streamers and barely got any responses!

Go back to the writing an email section and really scrutinize what you sent to the streamers. Show your email to other devs and to friends. Can they tell what your game is about without any context? Is your subject line interesting? Does you email give them a call to action or is it just an advertisement?

5. is this normal?? people do this??

Yes, we do! Publishers reach out to streamers all the time about their games, but typically only the ones with lots of followers or really dedicated fanbases. If you reach out to small streamers (under 500 followers) then you might be the first developer who’s ever asked them to play a game on stream and that can be pretty exciting for some people.

wrapping up

Reaching out to people is hard! But it doesn’t have to be super hard. There’s a lot of tools out there that make it easier to do all of this so you don’t have to do it all by yourself.

…But, at the end of the day, a lot of this requires experience and you’ll only gain that from doing it a lot. I can usually tell in 2-3 minutes if a streamer is a good fit for my game. If I can’t tell after 10 minutes, I move on to the next one. But that’s because I’ve looked at so many Twitch channels and seen who plays what and can understand the Vibes. You’ll get there too.

Anyway I’ve been trying to take it a bit easy after releasing CWES: Amaranthine Moon, packing some Kickstarter orders, and Otome Games Celebration going on. We’re in the final day of the 2nd iteration of Otome Games Celebration and it’s been a complete whirlwind—this year we had 150 streamers & content creators sign up to cover the event, our 1st ever YouTube showcase, and a few of my shortform videos for it even went viral. It’s been a hectic month to say the least.

One of my resolutions for this year was to get more into producing video content and I can safely say I’ve met that goal! For CWES: Amaranthine Moon I created several devlog videos, each covering a different love interest. I’ve already learned a lot about video editing and am ready to learn more.

Until next time…

— Arimia

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