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What's a good way to advertise the game?

A topic by interestick created Feb 13, 2023 Views: 876 Replies: 16
Viewing posts 1 to 7

There are a lot of people making games these days. As a result, the number of games released has also increased significantly. As there are many new games being released on platforms where games are mainly distributed, the opportunity to be exposed has become very small. This is probably one of the difficulties for many indie developers.

A word of message that someone plays and hears the game I made is a very big gift to me. However, it is very difficult to meet people who can be interested in my game.

How do you promote your game?

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Discord, Facebook, online forums, YouTube, itch.io 

Good. But it is not easy

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no you have to persevere 

that's right! I'm patient :)

Once you gain enough followers and have enough page links scattered about the net. The ball rolls on its own to a certain extent.

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This is a philosophical question that has stumped almost all game developers. To me, the question sounds like "How do I get a lot of money?" You just have to keep trying until something works.

I can't honestly say I don't need the money. I don't want a lot of money, but I have to make a living. I wish I could make games just for fun!

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On small tip is you can buy ads for specific subreddits that you think might be interested in your game. This allows you to target, say, /r/fishing if your game is about fishing.

Ah.. I didn't know there were ads on reddit too. thank you

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Reddit is great for getting game players because it has pages, called subreddits, dedicated to game players.
Colin mentioned buying ads, but you can also do it the manual way. If your not on there already, first spend quality time on there, joining subs you find interesting and posting comments and question posts. Build up karma by posting questions, pictures, devlogs, anything with no links. After you've got around 500 to 1k karma and get the feel of the place, then start to post  link posts, typically you want to only post 1 link post per week.
The main game subs that are for posting links are;  webgames  freegames playmygame  destroymygame  playtesters  webmobilegames. And itch has a sub too.
You can post a link to your game on each one, but you should not post to all of them on the same day.  Wait about three days to a week in between posting the same link to multiple subs, or have different links, like one to newgrounds one to gamejolt one to indiexpo, and wait a day in between posting each link to the subs.
Other subs more for like devlogs are  solodevelopment   gamedev   gamdevscreens.

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Thank you so much for the detailed tips. It seems like something that can only be learned with a lot of experience.

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From what I've personally experienced,  good tagging, naming and labeling does help quite a bit. I've noticed that our games sometimes show up when someone clicks through another game of the same tag, or they pop up when someone filters through tags. There are also some who search through the bar at the top - that one filters in games with matching titles.

Another way is to join game jams. Don't submit games you didn't make for them, though - join them properly. If you can make a good game that's relevant to the theme, there'll likely be a spillover audience looking for more from the same developer who'll visit your profile and play your older games.

Imo the best form of marketing for game devs is our reputation as developers - work of a quality we can be proud of plus content that suits our brand and style.  Even our experiments say things about us sometimes!

Thanks for sharing your experience. The sentence that a developer's skill is marketing is very impressive. I know it's not easy, but I'll try.

No problem! Market research can be fun too! The best part is that itch io's algorithm seems to like to make sure older games never get forgotten. The site developer really made it out of love~

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I've talked about the fact that I used to be a copywriter in some of my other posts, so I like to think that I know a thing or two about advertising. I have a BIG recommendation for smaller, one-person operations:

You CANNOT go wrong building a community. It's like the best kind of advertisement. Make your project's FB page a source of fun memes featuring your characters, engage in the discussions there, make a Discord, etc. The trick though is that you need to be genuine. It's 2023 and the Internet can smell a suit a mile away (I still smell slightly of mine, I know...). But if you engage in good faith with other creators, try to share your knowledge as much as you soak up from others, and keep a sense of humor about you, you'll have a loyal audience that'll eat up even your worst work.

But it's gotta be YOU. Unless you're a jerk... then consider being someone else.

Your writing is witty. Maybe that talent is innate. But I agree 100% with what you said. 'Have a player who will eat the worst' sounds so impressive. Probably, every developer who posts a game and wants someone to play it wants to have fans. We're making games for different reasons, but I think we all agree on that. thank you.