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OrangeCorvus@lemmy.world

Marketing indie games is harder than making them (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago by nick_ocb@lemmy.world to c/indiegaming@lemmy.world

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I spent 2.5 years coding this game.

I've spent 6 months just trying to tell people it exists.

Marketing is a different kind of hard. Coding has logic. Clear inputs, clear outputs. Marketing? It's storytelling, psychology, timing, luck — and most of it feels like shouting into a void.

The game is a 4-player family thing where kids can actually beat adults. Fully voiced so pre-readers can play. Built because I was tired of "educational" games that bored everyone.

But none of that matters if nobody sees it. So here I am. Shouting into the void, hoping the algorithm decides I'm worth showing you.

How do you discover new indie games? Steam browsing? TikTok clips? Word of mouth?

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Marketing is a different kind of hard. Coding has logic. Clear inputs, clear outputs. Marketing? It’s storytelling, psychology, timing, luck — and most of it feels like shouting into a void.

There actually is a bit more science behind marketing than your statement suggests. The Marketing Mix starts with the "four Ps":

Price - How is it packaged/tiered/price? Is it a one-time fee? Is it a subscription? Where does it fit in the price compared to other products you're competing with in the same space?
Product - What is it? What are its claims (things it delivers on)?
Place - Where can your customers get it? Console only? Steam? Played in a web browser? What regions of the world?
Promotion - How do people find out about it? This is mostly the part you're talking about which include advertising, PR, influences, etc.

For those you're trying to reach, be able to answer the first 3 "Ps". If your game is sold only on Steam, then you don't care about console players. You've now eliminated a huge chunk of customers you don't have to try to reach. What kind of game is it, perhaps an RTS? Then you've eliminated all players that only play FPV shooters and you don't need to reach those folks. Are you going to charge $40 for the game? Then you don't need to worry about appealing to gamers that only spend under $40 for games.

All of this is a narrowing exercise to find where your customers are which lets you focus on streams or channels of communication specifically targeting those that would consider buying your game.