Distribution How to Publicize your game?

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Greenhawk

Guest
So I've always had trouble getting my game out there. Ranging from: Structure, appearance, and attention grabbers, I have a hard time of getting views, downloads, and notoriety for my game. So basically I wanna know how all these game dev gurus do such a great job of advertising their game and getting it to a wider range of people.
 

Genetix

Member
Where are you releasing the game at?

If it is a mobile game (Android, IOS, etc..) we can get a lot more specific, or is it a Windows (Steam) game? Or a browser game?

There are a lot of general things to learn about marketing a game - but any specifics about your project will help a lot.

For reference I've got over 4 million downloads on Google Play, and working on learning to effectively market my game on Steam, glad to go into further details.
 
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Greenhawk

Guest
Sorry for the late reply. Yeah, I'm talking more about windows and steam publishing.

P.S: i give you props for the 4 million downloads man!
 
serious though the more i have tried to contemplate the entire thing the more i have realized we are not marketers, we are developers and i got this cooky idea in my head that if you just make a really good game that publishers will come to you smelling potential.

now i might be completely and utterly wrong on that, and maybe it only applies in specific situation, lord only knows i have had very limited sucess but thats mostly because i have not felt comfortable yet with releasing a fully finished game yet, just a bunch of prototypes to test the water but i cant help but think that if you just keep working hard and refining your work over and over again, building up a library, that either you will build up a fanbase or find people with an established fanbase who will help set you up and that its far better for us to specialize in making a really good product than it is to try to be a jack of all trades when we dont have all the information in front of us to do anything but program at the moment.

that said specializing takes a long time, its not easy and purely focusing on only the game might not be the best solution for everyone its just that there are huge companies that specialize in nothing but these sorts of things and i think it would be far better to try to get there attention then to try to do it yourself since they will have options avliable to them that only come after years of establishing themselves and thats not something that is going to be avaliable to you starting out.

or

Get a heap of followers on Twitter! :D
 
L

Levithan

Guest
I would say make an engaging trailer. Some of the best games usually have incredible trailers that draw you in, add suspense, or just inform you incredibly well of what kind of game to expect.

Some of my favorites (all for indie-dev games):

Crossing Souls (especially the ending):

Eitr:

Mother 4 (even a goofy trailer can get you interested):

Meanwhile a bad trailer can do the complete opposite, example (this is a professional game released by Playstation):


Once you have that good trailer, post it EVERYWHERE, such as Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, here and many others.
 
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Greenhawk

Guest
Aw man. So much helpful info! I really appreciate y'alls feedback. Bow of you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get a heap of followers on twitter and re read this info. :)
 

Humayun

Member
Make videos of your game, tweet each day about what you are doing , post update every week , Remember your itch.io game page , 20+ days till last update.
 
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faissaloo

Guest
If it's on Linux, go to Voat, dump it on /v/whatever and /v/Linux they love Linux, bonus if it's open source.
These subreddits are pretty good too: /r/IndieGaming/; /r/playmygame/
 
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Shihaisha

Guest
If it's on Linux, go to Voat, dump it on /v/whatever and /v/Linux they love Linux, bonus if it's open source.
These subreddits are pretty good too: /r/IndieGaming/; /r/playmygame/
Reddit is home to one of the most active software piracy communities on the Internet, and there are thousands of threads with users openly sharing instructions and links on how to hack steam games, remove drm/ads, providing links to patching programs, etc. Unless one releases 100% free project, I would think twice before posting anything there. If you make a decent indie game with any kind of monetization attached, by posting it on reddit you'll just double the speed of how pirated and cracked copies of your game spread online, and that's the only kind of "publicity" you can get from reddit.
 
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