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How can I market and build up buzz for my game?
What are the best practices for indie developers for marketing their games and for how to build up buzz so they get noticed?
While not specific to Unity games, this is still highly relevant to many Unity game developers.
Based on the blog post "Building Buzz for Your Game", here are some links to great articles on the subject.
Articles about marketing and building buzz
How To Use And Abuse The Gaming Press And How The Gaming Press Wants To Use and Abuse You.
Kieron Gillen has written an excellent article on how to get your game in the gaming press from the insider point of view of a gaming press journalist.
The secret is that we actually want to write about you. When someone has a phenomenal amount of work to do before the nineteen day clock ticks down to deadline, anyone able to present them something interesting to fill their pages saves them an amount of work. While games writers try to stay aware of whats happening in the games scene, and will go after anything that attracts their attention, by going after the games press you hugely increase your chance for favourable coverage.
The Idiots Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game
Michael Rose, one of the editors at indiegames.com, has written the perhaps most straight article on how to market your indie game, with focus on how to get it featured in blogs and magazines.
Nitty gritty time it is. In this guide, Ill be explaining exactly what it is you, the budding games developer, should be providing me, the eager games journalist, with.
Building Buzz for Indie Games
Paul Tayler has written an article on how to build buzz that discusses such things as building a following around your game, writing a good press release, doing maintenance and keeping momentum post-release, doing previews and release hype, and how to handle reviews. Some things in the article should be taken with a grain of salt, but there are a lot of good bits in there.
Marketing anything takes a lot of time and effort. Most small indies skew their efforts far too far towards production and away from marketing: this is one of the reasons why so few are a genuine commercial success, and why many high-quality games generate minimal revenue.
The Zero Budget Indie Marketing Guide
Rodain Joubert has written an article on marketing targeted at small indie teams. He writes about being visible in the indie games community, the importance of a nice presentation of your game in trailer videos and announcements, getting feedback from players, and about the importance of knowing the game media.
This guide is for anybody who has a nice game under their belt and wants to give it some more exposure. It doesnt matter if youre just a two-bit dev submitting simple concepts to some backwater forum. In fact, its probably better if you are: this article is geared towards you, and can help you make the most of something that would otherwise disappear into the murky undercity of the Internet.
Blogs that feature indie games
Once you know how to approach editors for maximum impact, here are some blogs that cover indie games:
Indie Games Blog
A sister site of Gamasutra and one dedicated to covering all the latest independent gaming news.
TIGSource (The Independent Gaming Source)
A slightly more quirky blog that also cover indie games.
Rock Paper Shotgun
This blog cover PC games, both mainstream and indie. If you have a great indie game, they may pick it up (but only if it's available for PC!).
Play This Thing
Cover games that are not mainstream.
Magazines that feature indie games
To come...
Forums where you can participate
An easy way to increase your exposure in the indie community is to participate in the various forums dedicated to indie game development.
Unity Forums
The Unity forums are of course the best place to discuss Unity game development specifically. The community is very friendly and helpful.
Indie Gamer Forums
The Indie Gamer Forums have forums for anything from announcements and portfolios to business, game design, and indie lifestyle. Also follow the blog.
TIGSource Forums
TIGForums have forums dedicated to GDC, TIGJams, announcements, the quirky TIGSource competitions, and more. Also follow the blog.
I have to say that I have a lot of first-hand experience in dealing with the media, and the first part couldn't be further from the truth. $$anonymous$$odern-day video game journalists, even ones that claim to be exclusively out for indie coverage, generally don't want to waste their time with you unless you either pay them off with ad space, or can indirectly make them money somehow.
The unfortunate part of being an indie developer in this current climate is that indie is turning into a word that is being snatched up by corporate entities in an effort to squeeze out true, small indies. Nobody wants to do an article on a game by a previously-unknown developer, even if you have mountains of media to show off... but if you're Notch, they're happy to write a full spread every time you blow your nose.
So even in indie journalism, "the rich get richer". Nobody will cover you until you're already so popular that everyone is already covering you, and then it's redundant, but profitable, for them to do so.
Gamasutra for instance and their sister site IndieGames won't give you any coverage unless you're paying them for ad space on the Gamasutra network. In fact, the very moment I created my first $$anonymous$$ickstarter for my PC game, Gamasutra was eager to talk... not for any sort of coverage or journalism on any of their sites, but to try and get me to buy advertising space.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs when alleged journalism sites won't do journalism until you line their pockets, not to mention the gall of asking an independent developer that is creating a $$anonymous$$ickstarter because it has no money, to fork out money for advertising.
So the trouble now is in finding sites that are both large enough to be effectual in helping you up, but who also have integrity to give start ups a chance, who don't just play it safe and report on the aforementioned "Notch blew his nose again today!" stuff.
The only sites I've found who would give us the time of day, and indeed even RESPOND to our inquiries were places like DistractionGa$$anonymous$$g, TruePCGa$$anonymous$$g, and Indie$$anonymous$$ine. And keep in $$anonymous$$d this was with us offering screenshots, videos, interviews, anything Gamasutra/IndieGames/Indie$$anonymous$$ag/etc. wanted regarding our game that's at 80% completion already... and being perfectly decent to them... but they didn't even respond. Extremely rude.
So my experience is that much of the journalists are in the business to turn a profit by regurgitating the same sensationalist news.
If this insider information was truly from a guy who says that indie journalists are hungry for news, I haven't met any of these news-hungry journalists yet. Just a lot of door to door salesmen trying to get you to buy ad space.
Even good guys like Rock Paper Shotgun are really only interested in mainstream indies.
What I'm getting at is if you're currently at the bottom of the barrel, you're going to spend at least a year clawing your way out, and then with a little luck, you may finally be noticed.
This is crazy how this 05/2012 statement seems accurate to me in 2016. I've read some papers that says the Unity games Armaggedon came during the 2015 summer, comparing that date with the fall of the USA ga$$anonymous$$g industry in the eighties or the Tsunami of Flash games in 2008-2012, creepy and boring to hear everywhere we're too many.
The only way i found to promote a game (without paying for ad) is to promote it among my friends and shamefuly ask them again and again and again and again, with some idiotic enthousiasm, to promote it to all their colleagues and friends till perhaps, it reaches some influent journalist or should I say youtuber. Plus your game should have something really original (in the gameplay or its design).
I can say it now, one month of marketing is much much, much tougher than learning+conceptualizing+making a game during months of hard work.
Sites where you can sell or promote a web version of your game:
Muse Games aims to redefine the online gaming standard with a curated line-up of high quality Unity 3D titles. They revenue share on sales and advertising.
- Submit to submit [at] musegames.com
A Unity 3D web portal with open submission. They revenue share on advertising.
- Simply visit wooglie.com register a developer account
It'll cost a lot if you go for TV commercials or radio spots. To save money, you can try printing marketing materials. For instance, I have a friend who owns a local gift shop. Every time she launches promotions, she'll just go for some custom sticker printing services online. She'll then distribute them to her clients. So far, the outcome is quite good.
Try using adhesive vinyl printing, among other campaign and marketing materials, this one if also effective. Marketing your business, product or services can likely be cheaper but effective.
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