I’m honestly glad you started this topic because we’re dealing with almost exactly the same problem.
I’m currently building Gilded Dominion, a persistent browser-based economy and strategy game, and one of the hardest parts hasn’t been building the game — it’s figuring out how to actually get it in front of the right people.
We’ve experimented with YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Discord communities, reaching out to content creators, and a few other places. You can get views surprisingly easily. Getting someone to actually stop, try the game, and stick around is a completely different story.
One thing I really want to give itch.io credit for, though: it has genuinely sent us players.
For a small indie project still in Alpha, that has been extremely encouraging. People here actually browse for unusual indie games, click through, test things, and sometimes give really useful feedback. That’s much more valuable to us right now than thousands of random social-media impressions.
And honestly, that’s partly why I’m replying here. I think small developers like us should support each other instead of everyone trying to solve the exact same marketing problem alone.
I’ll definitely be following this thread and trying some of the suggestions people post here. I’m especially curious whether other developers have found a good way to turn that first bit of traffic into an actual small community of returning players.
And if anyone happens to come across Gilded Dominion here on itch.io, feedback is always welcome. It’s still Alpha, so criticism is genuinely useful to us.
Good luck with your game. You’re definitely not the only developer fighting this battle. :)