Tag: Marketing

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Having survived many, many launches of varying degrees of success, I feel your pain when launch day comes near. You’ve probably got a checklist of stuff to do, announcements to announce, posts to post, updates to update, but your mind is frantic. Don’t fret! You’ve got this. Keep your cool, try to keep your tabs below 20, and get some help to help you send posts and emails.
But what about social media? What all should you post then? Well, good news, on a lot of sites you can schedule posts so you can draft these before you even hit Release on Steam. So, let’s go over 3(ish) of my tweets I always make come release week!
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(For all these examples I’ll be using my most recent launch, Image of Perfection, a commercial RPG VN)

 

This one should be a no-brainer- hype your followers up by reminding them that your game releases tomorrow! I tweeted this right before 11AM CST on the day before- it has a video of gameplay, it has a small description, and has links to where they can buy it that next day.

 

✨ Optional ✨

 

Do a countdown on social media to your launch day! A fun way to do it is with art- here’s a couple of examples from my 5 day countdown for Paths Taken- the countdown featured a different drawing of each of the main characters for each day. In hindsight, I could have mixed up the small message with them a bit more.
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I didn’t schedule the launch tweet because I wanted to tweet it out the minute I uploaded it to Itchio and hit Release on Steam, but I did schedule the ICYMI tweet for later that night!

As you can see, the game went live around noon CST and I had scheduled the ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) post for later that night, around 6 hours later. If I had a professional trailer for this game done (it was a very quick 2 month development cycle- please try to get a good trailer done for your games!) then I would have posted that in the release announcement.
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Your mileage may vary on this one— you should send out emails to press before and during release, but it never hurts to just ask any that might follow you if they want to review it! Sometimes this lands me a few reviews, sometimes it only lands me a few RTs. Either way, it’s worth the 30 seconds writing the tweet for me.
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The tweet for Image of Perfection only did a few RTs… but the Paths Taken tweet got a couple YouTubers interested!
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Run a giveaway for a free key or two of the game! Set a few rules (I typically say “follow us and RT to enter”), set an ending date, and link the store pages. As usual, I add a couple emojis for some extra flair.
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✨ Optional ✨

 

Some giveaways use custom graphics that have the rules explained in more detail. Some giveaways have more info and links in a reply tweet. Post the rules in whatever format you want!
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Reviews on any game are extremely important- so, show off the first few you get, especially if they’re glowing reviews like the first one we got for Image of Perfection!
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…And that’s it! There are a lot of other tweets you can make during launch (RTing streams, posting articles about the game, asking people to share their favorite screenshots, etc.) but these are a few more basic ones that I try to post every launch time. Hope this article helped some of you out- if it did, consider reading my previous articles!
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There’s a new restaurant being built in my town- it’s a refurbished old warehouse, so it’s less being built and more being brought up to code. This has been going on the past few months, with the parking lot and landscaping recently being completed, so it was apparent that the restaurant was going to open very soon- however, the restaurant has yet to put a sign up with the name, let alone saying that it’s even a restaurant and not some kind of shop.

​Today while driving past it, I remarked that they now had condiments and paper towels on the tables near the windows- surely it was going to open soon after they put the sign up. Tonight while driving past it, the parking lot was full. People were sitting in all the tables we could see. It was a soft launch where they were testing their speed and kitchen, so not the full launch- but yet, there was still no sign for the restaurant. As an outsider, I’d assume it was another boutique or even just a small warehouse like the surrounding stores.

This was mind-boggling to me- you want to open up a store and not even advertise what kind of store you are, let alone your name? Even a nearby restaurant that was hidden down a set of stairs had a few small signs (and even a menu) on the wall next to it. So, as a game developer and person who attempts to market said games, it got me thinking- what would this be like if a game did this?

I’m going to use a couple different cases here in my analogy since there won’t really be anything 1 to 1.

Case #1 – No Name/Branding

The first case is the most obvious and extreme- you are posting on social media or Discord servers and such but you’ve yet to put a name to your product, or you fail to refer to it as such/put no logo with the images. People might see a screenshot of the game but if you don’t have a name for it or don’t put a name where people can easily see it, how will they be able to find out more? Sure, sometimes they’ll see it on your Twitter, but what if they happen to see it out in the wild where you can’t easily reply with an answer?

This should be a case that, if you’re reading this, shouldn’t happen. Most, if not all of you, should already have a name set for your game and be calling it by that name if you’re actively promoting it in places. Now, I’m not saying you should throw you game’s logo on all your promotional material for the game (I find it somewhat annoying to receive screenshots of in-engine looks with the logo plastered on it), but I am saying it’s typically best to have the name visible when promoting it in places for consumers.

Case #2 – No Landing Page

This case is going to be more prevalent for most devs- we forget to have a landing page. In this sense, a “landing page” is going to be broad, but something where consumers can view what the game is about and see some form of updates for it. In this sense, the following (I feel) qualify as a “landing page”:

• Steam/Itchio/GameJolt store page
• Website with newsletter
• Social media specifically for the game

I’ve picked the types above as they all include some way to see updates for the game as well as get notifications for new updates- while I normally wouldn’t consider social media to be a “full” landing page as they’re more for sharing links to the above two places, they are ways for players to subscribe to your content. I would very much prioritize the first two, i.e. making a store front for your game where players can wishlist/follow it and making a website where players can easily see what the game is about.

Your goal with a landing page is to convert viewers into customers. You want a landing page to entice a consumer into supporting your game, even if it hasn’t launched- this can be by them following your social media, wishlisting the game, subscribing to your newsletter, and more.

So, what on Earth does this have to do with my long-winded analogy at the beginning of this? Well, them not putting up their name meant I had no way to search them up online, which means even if they did have a website (which they did) I couldn’t find it so I couldn’t see their menu, their “launch” date, and more. Make pages where potential customers can wishlist your game or sign up for updates!

When do I make a landing page?

As soon as possible! …No, but really, you should try to make landing pages for your games months before release if you can. Wishlists on Steam are basically an automated email blast of when a game launches and goes on sale, so you want to collect as many of those as you can. And like I said with the analogy, if you wait until release to have a landing page, you’re missing out on potential customers who lost interest because there wasn’t a way for them to follow the game.

As game devs, we’re all guilty of procrastinating things that aren’t coding or art or writing (aka, everything business) but we really should try harder to put landing pages and such up sooner. Maybe next time I’ll write on the abysmal importance of wishlists on Steam and how they translate to sales on launch day…

If you remember one thing from my articles, remember this- marketing should be seen as an integral part of game dev, much like programming and visuals, and should be done all during and after development. However, there will always be cases where people didn’t market their games or crowdfunding projects enough- as sad as these are, a lot of times they simply won’t be able to recover from that loss of a major amount of sales on launch. So, at what point does it become too late to start marketing and it become better to delay a launch?

Let’s look at crowdfunding first. Most people who’ve looked into Kickstarter have probably heard that you need to get 30% of your goal in the first 48 hours, and a recent study has found that to be pretty true. So what does that mean? It means that the biggest push of pledges needs to be at launch. Therefore, starting to market after the Kickstarter launch would be extremely detrimental to the campaign.

​Your game launch isn’t much different. According to a Gamasutra post by Jake Birkett, the average amount of sales on Steam is around 58% of your wishlist numbers- what this means is that if you have 200 wishlists then you can expect to sell around 100 units on launch week. As Simon Carless went over recently in his own Gamasutra post, wishlist counts have become an exceedingly reliable way of telling how well a game will sell after launch.
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What does this tell us? It tells us that collecting wishlists (for games being sold on Steam) is a good way to not only get people to be notified about the game on launch but is also a good indicator of how well the game will sell. This also means that we need to focus on driving wishlists (or maybe newsletter subscriptions for a non-Steam platform) before the game releases.
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Let’s do some further math. At the time of writing this (yes, I just checked), Asterism gets around 4-6~ wishlists a day on Steam.

• Asterism does not have a demo out yet
• Asterism is not 100% being actively promoted (2 other games are sharing promotion time with it)

With this context, we can reasonably assume that the amount of passive daily wishlists will increase once there’s a demo released (which will lead to let’s plays and journal coverage) and the project is being worked on more frequently.

Each week Asterism currently gets around 36~ wishlists. This means that, if it kept up this rate, in a year…

36 x 52 = 1872

…Asterism would have an additional 1800~ wishlists. Not great, considering the game (hopefully!) won’t take that long to complete and when you see the results from the Gamasutra articles. But like I said, this number should increase with more coverage, a demo, etc.Let’s say that each week Asterism will gain around 50 wishlists. If this is the average rate, then in a year…

50 x 52 = 2600

…Asterism would have around an additional 2600~ wishlists. It’s looking somewhat better, but not by too much again considering the game most likely won’t be sitting there raking in wishlists for another year.So what does this tell us? Put Steam pages / Newsletter signups when you can. Start gaining those leads early and collecting them over the entire development process.
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Games have different development cycles and time lengths- I’ve released games that took 48 hours and some that took 8 months. Therefore, I find it hard to give a sure timeframe in months or such, but I’d say you should stop what you’re doing if you’re 2/3rds of the way through development and have not set up store pages, social media, etc.​If your game will take you about 8 months to develop, you should consider halting progress to give time to properly market the game if you’re 2 months from launch and haven’t started at all- sometimes slowing a project in order to get the word out about the project.

In recap… start collecting wishlists early and give yourself time to tell the world about your game!

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​Designing an indie game to be unique while also having a defined aesthetic is growing increasingly more important as time goes on, as the indie game market (and game market in general) is constantly expanding at a seemingly exponential rate. It has become more necessary than ever to create eye-catching games, games that instantly attract eyes (and hopefully the eyes of buyers) towards your product. Your product is unique, and you must like it- why else would you be spending so much time to make it if not? Then, it stands to reason that you should want more and more people to notice your game. While maybe not immediately recognizable, good game design has striking correlations to good marketing- another essential piece of game dev that is sadly overlooked too often. According to Polygon, 2,964 games were released on Steam in 2015. That number increased to 4,207 games that were released in 2016. That number again jumped to 7,672 games being released in 2017 just for Steam. Each year it seems the number is almost doubling, meaning it is absolutely becoming harder and harder for consumers to find your game and it is absolutely necessary to make that first impression count- and if it doesn’t, then you need to rely on good, heavy marketing to make sure you get more than just one impression from people.

Indie games typically fail at marketing for a number of reasons, ranging from “somewhat avoidable through research” to “do you even know what game dev means?”:

• Not targeting the right audience
• Not reaching enough eyes
• Not marketing long enough before and after release
• Failing to market before release (the common “my game is releasing tomorrow and I forgot to market it!”)

Now, let’s go over briefly some of these.

Not targeting the right audience- you just can’t market enough to sell decently if you’re not marketing to the right audience. If you’re making a mobile mystery point and click game, then your main audience is going to be middle aged women. If you’re making a side swiping action game like Temple Run, then your main audience is going to be bored middle and high school students. Marketing outside of these ranges can work, but you should already be seeing the vast differences in some gaming genres. With the addition of mobile gaming to the market, more and more “non traditional gamers” are now adding money to the market, meaning the market is expanding even in these ways.

Not reaching enough eyes- posting a couple tweets every few weeks and maybe tagging them isn’t going to suffice even if you’re Ubisoft or EA. Some surveys have said that it takes three impressions before consumers build an idea and recognize a brand– this means that effective marketing consists of posting frequently and posting in multiple places. It is for this very reason that more prolific indie game companies hire people just for marketing, as it truly is a full-time job. Those emails don’t send themselves, and a lot of times people don’t have a good grasp on what effective marketing consists of.

Not marketing long enough before and after release- this point is a bit more controversial, as some people will have differing opinions on this. Some will say you should start posting and announcing your game the moment you have any shred of assets to show off, whether it be an extreme prototype screenshot or a concept art sketch. Some will say you should wait until you have a good collection of assets ready to share, such as a trailer or even a demo. Personally, I believe there is a nice middle ground that can be found that changes for each game. As an artist, I always start with the art, so I can make art assets as needed. However, for companies such as those run by friends who are programmers and writers instead of artists, they have to depend more on their artists for when they can announce their projects and might lean more towards mock screenshots. Whenever you feel comfortable that you have enough assets and a good idea of what your game is, start marketing.
But what does this have to do with marketing enough after release? Well, let’s say you magically get your game out there. Congrats, you gave all your personal info to Valve and now it’s on Steam. Do you just go to your next game? Do you move on? …Somewhat. You should definitely move on, yes, but you should also try to not drop the game and run. There will be bugs. That’s inevitable, no matter how much proofreading, beta testing, and sleepless nights. There will always be people in your genre who don’t know about your game. Tweetdeck is a great tool for post-release marketing, as you just schedule tweets and leave. Try to check social media accounts frequently though, as people like being replied to.

Failing to market before release- whenever someone says “my game is releasing tomorrow and I forgot to market it”, a marketer dies on the inside. As previously said, marketing should be viewed as a natural and necessary step in the game development and publishing process, so it is absolutely mind boggling to hear of people who release a game and then decide to dip their toes into marketing, despite the fact that they should already be waist deep into marketing by the time of release, if not neck high. If you want to even try to make your deposit back on your game, you must begin marketing months before release. Most games won’t make their budget back, let alone get in the green money-wise, but that’s another story.
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​That’s a good question we’d all like to know! …But let’s go over some basics.Be active on social media- if you make a social media account for your company and/or game, try to keep it up to date. There are plenty of scheduling websites that can help you queue posts so you don’t have to remember to post daily. As well as being active on social media, you should also aim to make sure you’re using the websites to your full advantage, as each site functions a bit differently.

Start marketing as soon as you have enough to show and keep at it- start marketing once you have a fair amount to show and know what your game is. Graphics are the best way to catch people’s eyes, of course.

Contacting reviewers- game news sites and blogs are a great way to further reach people who are potentially interested. Don’t worry about being declined- 9/10 they’ll ignore/not reply to your email instead of sending one back saying why they don’t want to review it. Of course, don’t target sites that review only android games in the hopes that they’ll review your Steam release- don’t waste your time like that. Try to find as many sites as you can to email that allow devs to email them, as for the most part you won’t get responses back. These sites get a lot of emails every day, and they have to pick what to and what not to cover.

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In an essence, marketing is getting people who want to buy your game to know about your game. You definitely want to hone in on your audience and make sure they know what your game is, but in general the goal of marketing is spreading the word about your game.