5 ms·

If you are still in contact with the guy, could you ask him what the marketing learning actually were? Everyone has their own take on marketing and it's honestl

by fire 4y ago

If you are still in contact with the guy, could you ask him what the marketing learning actually were? Everyone has their own take on marketing and it's honestly really difficult to get the concept with most posts about it being so fluffy. I'd honestly love some cliff notes or a bulleted list from someone who has actually succeeded, especially if they ( like me ) had no marketing experience beforehand.

throwntoday 4y ago
Getting a big twitch streamer to play his game was the only marketing he needed. Although their time is up for sale I think some amount of them do genuinely enjoy gaming and will try out something that is interesting to them.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  This story sounds like luck. That isn't marketing. It's like hoping that Kim Kardashian will use my new face cream and tweet about it. Another idea: Bribe a popular streamer to play your game and tweet about it. I am sure it is common.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    Bribe? It's just paying them. It's not like they have some duty not to take money or that its illegal.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > It's just paying them. It's not like they have some duty not to take money or that its illegal. It is illegal in the context of radio stations that play music. Legal in almost every other context; payola is one of the most obviously stupid laws we have.
  - jack_pp 4y ago
    People pay streamers all the time to play their games of course, but I think twitch TOS requires for the streamer to disclose that they're being paid, they usually have it in their title like "Playing {game}, !AD'
    - astrange 4y ago
      In my experience audiences are usually proud they got sponsored instead of resenting it too, though I haven't checked the numbers.
mosseater 4y ago
I've read on the /r/gamedev subreddit of people succeeding with even just doing cold-call emails to popular twitch streamers. Someone recently posted a breakdown of how many streamers played their game after he sent out emails, and he seemed to get around 5% turnaround. There's a guide that was posted to this subreddit a while ago too, that gives what you are looking for I think. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/m74fcj/guide_to_marketing_your_game_with_youtubers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/m74fcj/guide_to_ma...
- justinlloyd 4y ago
  I was playing Diablo 3 one evening (I use my real name), and the guy who I was grouped with was streaming on Twitch. Reasonably big name streamer. He looked up my name, found my personal resume website, played the small game on there. His viewers play the game. It is just some super simple stupid little space invaders game. Next day I wake up to several hundred emails in my inbox from various people just randomly talking about game dev and software development. Several trolls of course. Couple of "are you interested in a job?" pings. An interesting phenomenon.
  - PainfullyNormal 4y ago
    You know, I've been contemplating whether I should lose the pseudonyms and start using my real name for all of my online activity. This story has convinced me that it's something I need to do. That's such a crazy sequence of events that would have never happened if you had been playing under a pseudonym that's hard or impossible to connect back to your resume. All these years, I've been sabotaging my "luck surface area" with my stubborn insistence of online anonymity.
  - Shocka1 4y ago
    This is a cool story and a lot can be said about it, including how authentic/organic it is. I think your exact scenario had a lot of luck involved, but I think what we call "luck" is the type of thing is more common than we would think. What I'm talking about is continuously getting in situations that allow luck to happen. If someone is consciously aware of this phenomenon, they can continuously expose themselves and increase their odds. I think some refer to this as the law of attraction, but that doesn't seem right to me given the law of attraction's magical attributes. It's more statistics at play IMO. It's important that it's authentic though as people can see right through someone's BS. In your situation you were simply playing a game you liked, which is about as authentic as it gets. There are a lot of people out there grinding away at something they don't necessarily enjoy, for the end goal of making money or success, which sounds terrible to me. I'd much rather grind away at something I truly enjoyed and where it's a win/win whether success comes with it or not. In my younger and very introverted days I accidentally figured this phenom out. I was on a BBS site for a couple years, just hanging out with people with the same interest (motorcycle riding/racing). This led to IRL meetups, which led to me riding for a professional motorcycle racing team, where I lived my dream racing fully built Superbikes for several years. There was some luck involved of course, but it would have never happened if I hadn't participated authentically on some random website. Since learning this important life lesson I've applied the same philosophy to my professional life. At this point I've had enough "lucky" situations happen where it's affirmed my opinion of statistics at play.
aschearer 4y ago
Not trying to be glib but the single most important thing is to make the right game. 1. Before you start the project, do some research and ask yourself what is unique about your game? Why would someone play it instead of the leading competitor? Don't settle for an idea that doesn't have plausible answers. 2. Build the game really well. REALLY WELL. Amazing artwork, great style, a visual feast. Fun, snappy gameplay. Depth. I'm talking hours of engrossing gameplay. Solid, performant, virtually bug free. 3. Along the way build moments into the game that really stand out, that would look hot in a gif, that would pique someone's interest if they heard about it. --- most people get it wrong before this point --- 4. OK now you're ready to start marketing to people. It's easy, just tell them about your game. How? Break the game along different dimensions. The story. The game systems. The emotions players will experience. etc. For each of these, break them into smaller blurbs. You now have dozens of things to share, start recording gifs/video/screenshots to support what you've written. Now start posting to social media. If someone finds your Twitter profile and scrolls through, they should come away understanding what your game is and why they want it. 5. Next go to Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, websites, etc. and find the top accounts that cover / discuss games like yours. Follow them. Interact with their posts/communities. Especially keep an eye out for opportunities to share your work with them. 6. Advanced: come up with some marketing moments. E.g. announcing your game with a launch trailer, revealing the release date, releasing a demo, your launch day, etc. Put these all on a calendar. For each date, work backwards ~2 months. Coordinate social media posting, email with press/influencers using those dates. I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it's really so so so hard to get steps 1-3 right. People delude themselves into thinking they're on the right track simply because making games is incredibly, super hard. It's outrageous how much work it takes to make something at all. But no one cares about that. Another reason I think people fail, myself included, is we tend to make very safe, hackneyed games. How many of us are guilty of making a game set in a vaguely DND/Tolkien world? That's tired. I know someone still manages to beat the odds every year, that's survivorship bias in action. Play with a stacked deck, make something truly original.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  nit for 2. A fantastic game doesn't have to be visually stunning to be successful. It helps of course but visuals don't make/break an otherwise fun game. What does matter however is that the visuals need to make sense and be consistent. You can get away with "ugly" or otherwise unremarkable graphics but inconsistent or confusing visuals will interfere with gameplay and the game will suffer.

by fire 4y ago

throwntoday 4y ago

Getting a big twitch streamer to play his game was the only marketing he needed. Although their time is up for sale I think some amount of them do genuinely enjoy gaming and will try out something that is interesting to them.

throwaway2037 4y ago
This story sounds like luck. That isn't marketing. It's like hoping that Kim Kardashian will use my new face cream and tweet about it. Another idea: Bribe a popular streamer to play your game and tweet about it. I am sure it is common.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Bribe? It's just paying them. It's not like they have some duty not to take money or that its illegal.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > It's just paying them. It's not like they have some duty not to take money or that its illegal. It is illegal in the context of radio stations that play music. Legal in almost every other context; payola is one of the most obviously stupid laws we have.
- jack_pp 4y ago
  People pay streamers all the time to play their games of course, but I think twitch TOS requires for the streamer to disclose that they're being paid, they usually have it in their title like "Playing {game}, !AD'
  - astrange 4y ago
    In my experience audiences are usually proud they got sponsored instead of resenting it too, though I haven't checked the numbers.

mosseater 4y ago

I've read on the /r/gamedev subreddit of people succeeding with even just doing cold-call emails to popular twitch streamers. Someone recently posted a breakdown of how many streamers played their game after he sent out emails, and he seemed to get around 5% turnaround. There's a guide that was posted to this subreddit a while ago too, that gives what you are looking for I think. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/m74fcj/guide_to_marketing_your_game_with_youtubers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/m74fcj/guide_to_ma...

justinlloyd 4y ago
I was playing Diablo 3 one evening (I use my real name), and the guy who I was grouped with was streaming on Twitch. Reasonably big name streamer. He looked up my name, found my personal resume website, played the small game on there. His viewers play the game. It is just some super simple stupid little space invaders game. Next day I wake up to several hundred emails in my inbox from various people just randomly talking about game dev and software development. Several trolls of course. Couple of "are you interested in a job?" pings. An interesting phenomenon.
- PainfullyNormal 4y ago
  You know, I've been contemplating whether I should lose the pseudonyms and start using my real name for all of my online activity. This story has convinced me that it's something I need to do. That's such a crazy sequence of events that would have never happened if you had been playing under a pseudonym that's hard or impossible to connect back to your resume. All these years, I've been sabotaging my "luck surface area" with my stubborn insistence of online anonymity.
- Shocka1 4y ago
  This is a cool story and a lot can be said about it, including how authentic/organic it is. I think your exact scenario had a lot of luck involved, but I think what we call "luck" is the type of thing is more common than we would think. What I'm talking about is continuously getting in situations that allow luck to happen. If someone is consciously aware of this phenomenon, they can continuously expose themselves and increase their odds. I think some refer to this as the law of attraction, but that doesn't seem right to me given the law of attraction's magical attributes. It's more statistics at play IMO. It's important that it's authentic though as people can see right through someone's BS. In your situation you were simply playing a game you liked, which is about as authentic as it gets. There are a lot of people out there grinding away at something they don't necessarily enjoy, for the end goal of making money or success, which sounds terrible to me. I'd much rather grind away at something I truly enjoyed and where it's a win/win whether success comes with it or not. In my younger and very introverted days I accidentally figured this phenom out. I was on a BBS site for a couple years, just hanging out with people with the same interest (motorcycle riding/racing). This led to IRL meetups, which led to me riding for a professional motorcycle racing team, where I lived my dream racing fully built Superbikes for several years. There was some luck involved of course, but it would have never happened if I hadn't participated authentically on some random website. Since learning this important life lesson I've applied the same philosophy to my professional life. At this point I've had enough "lucky" situations happen where it's affirmed my opinion of statistics at play.

aschearer 4y ago

Not trying to be glib but the single most important thing is to make the right game. 1. Before you start the project, do some research and ask yourself what is unique about your game? Why would someone play it instead of the leading competitor? Don't settle for an idea that doesn't have plausible answers. 2. Build the game really well. REALLY WELL. Amazing artwork, great style, a visual feast. Fun, snappy gameplay. Depth. I'm talking hours of engrossing gameplay. Solid, performant, virtually bug free. 3. Along the way build moments into the game that really stand out, that would look hot in a gif, that would pique someone's interest if they heard about it. --- most people get it wrong before this point --- 4. OK now you're ready to start marketing to people. It's easy, just tell them about your game. How? Break the game along different dimensions. The story. The game systems. The emotions players will experience. etc. For each of these, break them into smaller blurbs. You now have dozens of things to share, start recording gifs/video/screenshots to support what you've written. Now start posting to social media. If someone finds your Twitter profile and scrolls through, they should come away understanding what your game is and why they want it. 5. Next go to Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, websites, etc. and find the top accounts that cover / discuss games like yours. Follow them. Interact with their posts/communities. Especially keep an eye out for opportunities to share your work with them. 6. Advanced: come up with some marketing moments. E.g. announcing your game with a launch trailer, revealing the release date, releasing a demo, your launch day, etc. Put these all on a calendar. For each date, work backwards ~2 months. Coordinate social media posting, email with press/influencers using those dates. I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it's really so so so hard to get steps 1-3 right. People delude themselves into thinking they're on the right track simply because making games is incredibly, super hard. It's outrageous how much work it takes to make something at all. But no one cares about that. Another reason I think people fail, myself included, is we tend to make very safe, hackneyed games. How many of us are guilty of making a game set in a vaguely DND/Tolkien world? That's tired. I know someone still manages to beat the odds every year, that's survivorship bias in action. Play with a stacked deck, make something truly original.

CuriousCosmic 4y ago
nit for 2. A fantastic game doesn't have to be visually stunning to be successful. It helps of course but visuals don't make/break an otherwise fun game. What does matter however is that the visuals need to make sense and be consistent. You can get away with "ugly" or otherwise unremarkable graphics but inconsistent or confusing visuals will interfere with gameplay and the game will suffer.