Something else not mentioned here ... follow and learn from influential people. As devs, we know to look at game design and art tutorials, but few of us follow marketing and business channels or tutorials specifically unless they crop up as a topic like this one. People like Scott Adams, VidIQ, Alex Hormozi, Seth Godin, Chris Voss, Jordan Belfort, etc. can teach about presentation, sales, marketing, virality, running a business, making money, and other things that are important to our game's success that have nothing to do with making the game itself.
@@MarushiaDark316 sure do, self improvement trope is like masturbation, there are other channels that talk about it in a different perspective, like the endless vicious cycle of it, the self-authentication instead of self improvement, the fact that the goals of self help doesnt apply to everybody that they should not be absolute One my friend one time even told me this:"if you are watching those kind of videos you are already f**ed" and I thought damn he is right I would suggest you to yeah find out informations about what you are doing, but dont become that little soldier for thise bs gurus, I m sure you are different from the printed version of yourself they want you to be
I think some nuance is worth adding to the number of game being released. Most people buy inside of genres and your favorite genre is only releasing a fraction of those 14k (Some genres are more saturated than others). It boils down to maybe a dozen or so games releasing a month that appeal to you in larger genres. That isnt really an overwhelming amount of games for players to dig through to find something they like and 70% of them van be dismissed within moments of seeing them. I think the narrative of it being 'near impossible' to be see in the game space is a little overblown, but it can be difficult. 95%+ of games that fail are due to your quality, not their marketing. It is a VERY rare case that a truly good game goes unseen for long.
True, too many devs focus on the marketing. If your game is truly good it will spread through word of mouth like a wild fire. The truth is that the vast majority of games are mediocre at best.
I screenshot your comment and I'd read it every now and then to remind myself there's a lot of ppl out there who think the same way you do. And I personally agree with you and the replies here. Even tho i'm struggling rn with my self doubts, i've only released a small trailer yesterday and I know I need to do a lot more than that. But i hope one day ppl see it, and think it's a fun new concept and it spreads through word of mouth like you guys are saying. But anyways, thank you all for sharing your true thoughts.
This is so important. I see videos like, if you look at the statistics, Horror games are a hot genre and you are x times more likely to succeed. That may be true but the fact is, if you don't play/ like horror games you will struggle to make one which resonates with players. The second thing is people don't understand what "good" means because there is no objective definition. But in my mind, there is an easy objective test. Get the best 10 games in your genre (this number is arbitrary but 10 is a lot of games to play in one genre) on your chosen platform (e.g. Steam) and then compare your game to them in every department (Art, gameplay, music, lore etc). Next, get 10 randos (super important you ask people outside friends and family) who play your genre to do the same and rank your game. If you game can't make the top 10 then why would anyone play it over them? This also shows there are certain genres a small indie cannot make e.g. MMORPG because of the competition. 99/100 indie games I see would never make the top 50 of their genre let alone top 10. Now, if you just want financial success, you can have lower limits but the core argument remains, your game needs to be better than X [x = how successful you want the game to be] in its genre.
is it tho? I wanna agree with you but i'm finding it hard. I feel like without eyes on you it feels like you're working in the bottom of a well. nothing will give you that initial push if you don't put a lot of effort into marketing. i've always felt like marketing is more important than the quality sometimes. not for me personally ofc but to make money it is. because even if the game is terrible but was marketed as amazing, they will get the sales and most ppl won't bother to refund if it's cheap. And i'm kinda figuring this out the hard way by myself rn since i've put my game up on steam (Malvorn) and obv i'm not saying it's amazing, but i'd like to think it's better than those low effort, copy-paste ideas, no love was put into it just want the money-sort of games. and it feels like i'm showing my new toy to the walls of a solitary confinement.
@@Orangeshirtbros2 Marketing matters, don't get me wrong, but it matters way less than making a good game. Make a great game, then figure the marketing strategy out. If I were in your position (and one day I will be), I would be sending my game to impartial players for honest opinions about it's quality. If they agree it's a great game (ask them if they would pay money for it), I would move on to marketing. If not, I would work to improve it until it is. Once they agree it is I would then sponsor a video from a small content creator that has an audience that are overtly interested in the type of game that mine is. A mistake I often see made is marketing a game before it's good. There is a damaging philosophy among devs in this current era of "I can improve it later", which is true but not without contending with many of the irreversible obstacles releasing an unpolished game creates.
Anyone repeating that "OMG 40 games per day" number has no idea what kind of garbage releases daily. Just look what kind of games release each day and what the standards actually are
The more I learn about the current state of game releases and marketing (something I know less of than coding, which I am already bad at), the more I don't think I will make it in game dev. I don't want to think that way, but it seems like that is gonna happen at the rate I'm going :\
40 games released on steam each day, but that number includes free demos, dlc for other games, and zero-effort asset-flips. Looking at the new releases section today I see a game called "Clone War", it's free but also looks like an asset flip or a 48 hour game jam game. These games are (hopefully) not what you'd consider to be your competition
Gotta disagree on a couple of points: 1. Attending game dev conferences/festivals is typically quite expensive, and the thousands you spend on a booth, travel, hardware, tables, banners, etc... is not worth the
Last week, GDC released a talk named "Identifying Indie". It is fascianting. There are slides about where people see indie games and what they do before they buy. The answer is: RUclips and they watch gameplay. People noticed that you can buy assets that look like the The Division or Demon Souls Remake for a few bucks, so they want to see the real game. Last Next fest, i ( FPS enthusiast) downloaded like 20 FPS demos and just ONE was wishlist-worthy, while around 15 were "why do you even release in that state?". The more games launch, the more players will search for some filter like following a youtuber that does your favorite genre. There's one guy that plays all Soulslikes, and there's Zlim who plays all the boomer shooters and those kind of channels.
chat gpt can't tell simple things, I have tried asking it many times many simple tasks and it can't tell it correctly and instead I have to go to the specific engine or programming forum to solve that problem.
@@webdevsolutions794 it's a additional tool not a total replacement, but all developers I know now turn to AI first then forums so its certainly useful if it often gets prioritized over a forum.
Have you ever released a game? The truth of this none of these methods work for most people because they make awful games. Your best way to make money on steam is to make a game that's better than most other games. It is guaranteed to succeed. Nobody wants another 2d roguelike, or a platformer, or a boomer shooter, or pretty much "any clone of X game, that's worse than X game". Make a good product first and then worry about selling it.
This is correct advice but worded poorly. Absolutely you need to make a quality product first and many indie devs have the misconception that their game failed because of marketing. When in reality it's that they didn't make a good game. That being said, it's absolutely no guarantee that if you make something good it will be seen. There's too much noise for quality alone to make you successful. Even the Steam algorithm works off of page visits and attention. Definitely do not wait until you're done to start marketing. Unfortunate but that's the reality. It's necessary and it's necessary early in the process. But you're right in that it only actually works if you make a good game.
@@fray989 Do you really believe there is a trove of great games on Steam that just got missed because they weren't picked up by the algorithm or marketed properly? Most users dig pretty deep into their genre of released games, not just scan over the first 3 games the algorithm presents to them. I think bad marketing can slow a good game's launch, but basically never hold it down forever. If it's good, it gets found. The exception being MMOs which really require a solid core audience from the start. But that's not an indie dev problem.
I know a VR RTS that is way better the other games in its category, yet nobody knows about it because it wasn't marketed successfully. (It's called Void Link)
Great video. All the information needed is shared. Thank you. :) I personally think the last option (make your own brand) is really the way to go. In the long run that's the one which makes the difference, and I guess as the competition gets tougher, it will become the number 1 method of marketing in a saturated market. Better to start right now before it's too late ;)
Something to mention about 6:48 : There's very little data suggesting steam promotes you more if you have a lot of wishlists. Sure, there are some lists showing most wishlisted games, but ultimately this only applies to the actual big dogs. What matters most is sales. The more sales, the more Steam will promote your game.
Dude, never stop uploading vids! you are absolutely amazing! (could you do a vid about grid 2d building system, like that of clash of clans or age of empires) Thanks!
I think creating a you tube channel to grow your own audience is a not that great of an idea. If you want sympathy votes for your game, then you tube is the way to go. you want a real shot, you try to get sponsors. you tube is temporary, (especially with it's current trajectory) its a platform for entertainment but more so, searching new information (education). tiktok is a better approach for low budget self growth advertising. it's quick an easy, unlike you tube. I know you said you are biased with you tube growth, but I'm willing to take it a step further and say you are blinded by this BECAUSE you are a youtuber. you want this to be true more than anything. fact is, it's not. your following is very small. you are better off promoting educational unity tutorials and leaning into patron and/or creating custom unity crash courses for people to learn. promoting your own games is a terrible idea alongside your multi-purposed channel. this is free advise from someone far far away from someone you don't know. but hopefully you'll look at this as constructive criticism instead of some bs hate (or whatever hate you think this is, it's not). good luck from a fellow indie dev (who is NOT promoting their own games in your comment section) think about it.
Something else not mentioned here ... follow and learn from influential people. As devs, we know to look at game design and art tutorials, but few of us follow marketing and business channels or tutorials specifically unless they crop up as a topic like this one. People like Scott Adams, VidIQ, Alex Hormozi, Seth Godin, Chris Voss, Jordan Belfort, etc. can teach about presentation, sales, marketing, virality, running a business, making money, and other things that are important to our game's success that have nothing to do with making the game itself.
Damn I dont know all of your suggestions but most are fake hopesellers bullshittier
@@BEPPEJHA Well, if you really feel that way, by all means, ignore them and the rest of us will continue our road to self improvement.
@@MarushiaDark316 sure do, self improvement trope is like masturbation, there are other channels that talk about it in a different perspective, like the endless vicious cycle of it, the self-authentication instead of self improvement, the fact that the goals of self help doesnt apply to everybody that they should not be absolute
One my friend one time even told me this:"if you are watching those kind of videos you are already f**ed" and I thought damn he is right
I would suggest you to yeah find out informations about what you are doing, but dont become that little soldier for thise bs gurus, I m sure you are different from the printed version of yourself they want you to be
@@BEPPEJHAyea I saw Jordan belfort and was like “wait, what?”
@@datmantj7I saw that and I immediately thought the same thing
I'm doing all these! Kickstarter will launch soon, come look!
I think some nuance is worth adding to the number of game being released. Most people buy inside of genres and your favorite genre is only releasing a fraction of those 14k (Some genres are more saturated than others). It boils down to maybe a dozen or so games releasing a month that appeal to you in larger genres. That isnt really an overwhelming amount of games for players to dig through to find something they like and 70% of them van be dismissed within moments of seeing them.
I think the narrative of it being 'near impossible' to be see in the game space is a little overblown, but it can be difficult.
95%+ of games that fail are due to your quality, not their marketing. It is a VERY rare case that a truly good game goes unseen for long.
true! Also in my opinion 99% of the released games have nothing or unnoticeably little of new/fresh quality to them.
Thank you for sharing this!
True, too many devs focus on the marketing. If your game is truly good it will spread through word of mouth like a wild fire. The truth is that the vast majority of games are mediocre at best.
I screenshot your comment and I'd read it every now and then to remind myself there's a lot of ppl out there who think the same way you do. And I personally agree with you and the replies here. Even tho i'm struggling rn with my self doubts, i've only released a small trailer yesterday and I know I need to do a lot more than that. But i hope one day ppl see it, and think it's a fun new concept and it spreads through word of mouth like you guys are saying. But anyways, thank you all for sharing your true thoughts.
The most important factor of all: MAKE A GOOD GAME.
Your players will become an eager marketing force.
This is so important. I see videos like, if you look at the statistics, Horror games are a hot genre and you are x times more likely to succeed. That may be true but the fact is, if you don't play/ like horror games you will struggle to make one which resonates with players.
The second thing is people don't understand what "good" means because there is no objective definition. But in my mind, there is an easy objective test. Get the best 10 games in your genre (this number is arbitrary but 10 is a lot of games to play in one genre) on your chosen platform (e.g. Steam) and then compare your game to them in every department (Art, gameplay, music, lore etc). Next, get 10 randos (super important you ask people outside friends and family) who play your genre to do the same and rank your game. If you game can't make the top 10 then why would anyone play it over them?
This also shows there are certain genres a small indie cannot make e.g. MMORPG because of the competition. 99/100 indie games I see would never make the top 50 of their genre let alone top 10. Now, if you just want financial success, you can have lower limits but the core argument remains, your game needs to be better than X [x = how successful you want the game to be] in its genre.
is it tho? I wanna agree with you but i'm finding it hard. I feel like without eyes on you it feels like you're working in the bottom of a well. nothing will give you that initial push if you don't put a lot of effort into marketing. i've always felt like marketing is more important than the quality sometimes. not for me personally ofc but to make money it is.
because even if the game is terrible but was marketed as amazing, they will get the sales and most ppl won't bother to refund if it's cheap.
And i'm kinda figuring this out the hard way by myself rn since i've put my game up on steam (Malvorn) and obv i'm not saying it's amazing, but i'd like to think it's better than those low effort, copy-paste ideas, no love was put into it just want the money-sort of games. and it feels like i'm showing my new toy to the walls of a solitary confinement.
@@Orangeshirtbros2 Marketing matters, don't get me wrong, but it matters way less than making a good game. Make a great game, then figure the marketing strategy out.
If I were in your position (and one day I will be), I would be sending my game to impartial players for honest opinions about it's quality. If they agree it's a great game (ask them if they would pay money for it), I would move on to marketing. If not, I would work to improve it until it is. Once they agree it is I would then sponsor a video from a small content creator that has an audience that are overtly interested in the type of game that mine is.
A mistake I often see made is marketing a game before it's good. There is a damaging philosophy among devs in this current era of "I can improve it later", which is true but not without contending with many of the irreversible obstacles releasing an unpolished game creates.
Anyone repeating that "OMG 40 games per day" number has no idea what kind of garbage releases daily. Just look what kind of games release each day and what the standards actually are
The more I learn about the current state of game releases and marketing (something I know less of than coding, which I am already bad at), the more I don't think I will make it in game dev.
I don't want to think that way, but it seems like that is gonna happen at the rate I'm going :\
40 games released on steam each day, but that number includes free demos, dlc for other games, and zero-effort asset-flips. Looking at the new releases section today I see a game called "Clone War", it's free but also looks like an asset flip or a 48 hour game jam game. These games are (hopefully) not what you'd consider to be your competition
Gotta disagree on a couple of points:
1. Attending game dev conferences/festivals is typically quite expensive, and the thousands you spend on a booth, travel, hardware, tables, banners, etc... is not worth the
Last week, GDC released a talk named "Identifying Indie". It is fascianting.
There are slides about where people see indie games and what they do before they buy. The answer is: RUclips and they watch gameplay.
People noticed that you can buy assets that look like the The Division or Demon Souls Remake for a few bucks, so they want to see the real game.
Last Next fest, i ( FPS enthusiast) downloaded like 20 FPS demos and just ONE was wishlist-worthy, while around 15 were "why do you even release in that state?".
The more games launch, the more players will search for some filter like following a youtuber that does your favorite genre. There's one guy that plays all Soulslikes, and there's Zlim who plays all the boomer shooters and those kind of channels.
Misconception many make:
FALSE: ChatGPT = AI videogames
Truth: Free education from CHATGPT = More people can learn game development = More competition
Exactly!
chat gpt can't tell simple things, I have tried asking it many times many simple tasks and it can't tell it correctly and instead I have to go to the specific engine or programming forum to solve that problem.
@@webdevsolutions794 it's a additional tool not a total replacement, but all developers I know now turn to AI first then forums so its certainly useful if it often gets prioritized over a forum.
Thanks for contributing ur experiences for indiegames devs...good job...
The word you're looking for when you say "viralability" is "virality"
Have you ever released a game? The truth of this none of these methods work for most people because they make awful games. Your best way to make money on steam is to make a game that's better than most other games. It is guaranteed to succeed. Nobody wants another 2d roguelike, or a platformer, or a boomer shooter, or pretty much "any clone of X game, that's worse than X game".
Make a good product first and then worry about selling it.
This is correct advice but worded poorly. Absolutely you need to make a quality product first and many indie devs have the misconception that their game failed because of marketing. When in reality it's that they didn't make a good game. That being said, it's absolutely no guarantee that if you make something good it will be seen. There's too much noise for quality alone to make you successful. Even the Steam algorithm works off of page visits and attention. Definitely do not wait until you're done to start marketing. Unfortunate but that's the reality. It's necessary and it's necessary early in the process. But you're right in that it only actually works if you make a good game.
@@fray989 Do you really believe there is a trove of great games on Steam that just got missed because they weren't picked up by the algorithm or marketed properly? Most users dig pretty deep into their genre of released games, not just scan over the first 3 games the algorithm presents to them.
I think bad marketing can slow a good game's launch, but basically never hold it down forever. If it's good, it gets found.
The exception being MMOs which really require a solid core audience from the start. But that's not an indie dev problem.
@@theebulll Yeah... Every good game eventually blows up. If the "steam algorithm" hides it, its just not a good game.
I know a VR RTS that is way better the other games in its category, yet nobody knows about it because it wasn't marketed successfully.
(It's called Void Link)
@@assemblyrtsdev vr rts just doesn’t sound good though.
I worked on a game for a year am almost done released a trailer and it got like 150 views but my game is a blast to play so im not giving up yet lol
Good vid, some people just get lucky sometimes no matter how good your marketing is.
"free ai tools" will not be making game more accessible, just allowing more space to shovelware
Building a personal brand is the one thing everyone should be focused on right now. Seriously!
No you bot
I'm scared of people playing my game And I'm scared of them not playing.
What about youtube shorts for video game marketing .
Great video. All the information needed is shared. Thank you. :)
I personally think the last option (make your own brand) is really the way to go. In the long run that's the one which makes the difference, and I guess as the competition gets tougher, it will become the number 1 method of marketing in a saturated market.
Better to start right now before it's too late ;)
I’m afraid of telling anyone about my game because it’s actually unique and I don’t want someone with more skill or money to beat me to it
Something to mention about 6:48 : There's very little data suggesting steam promotes you more if you have a lot of wishlists. Sure, there are some lists showing most wishlisted games, but ultimately this only applies to the actual big dogs. What matters most is sales. The more sales, the more Steam will promote your game.
Dude, never stop uploading vids! you are absolutely amazing! (could you do a vid about grid 2d building system, like that of clash of clans or age of empires) Thanks!
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥thank you bro this is good tips 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Thanks for the great video. 👏🏻 I do hope you get rich from your game. 💥
Great video!
2:51 this is exit now pizza tower in nintendo swich
Thank you
Very useful content. Thanks! Also, was this title/thumbnail a hint at Silksong's development?
❤❤
what about finding a publisher?
second
I think creating a you tube channel to grow your own audience is a not that great of an idea. If you want sympathy votes for your game, then you tube is the way to go. you want a real shot, you try to get sponsors. you tube is temporary, (especially with it's current trajectory) its a platform for entertainment but more so, searching new information (education). tiktok is a better approach for low budget self growth advertising. it's quick an easy, unlike you tube.
I know you said you are biased with you tube growth, but I'm willing to take it a step further and say you are blinded by this BECAUSE you are a youtuber. you want this to be true more than anything. fact is, it's not. your following is very small. you are better off promoting educational unity tutorials and leaning into patron and/or creating custom unity crash courses for people to learn. promoting your own games is a terrible idea alongside your multi-purposed channel.
this is free advise from someone far far away from someone you don't know. but hopefully you'll look at this as constructive criticism instead of some bs hate (or whatever hate you think this is, it's not). good luck from a fellow indie dev (who is NOT promoting their own games in your comment section) think about it.
First
thank you for the tips