Market Research—Using constantly obsoleting data to inform decisions

Perception—The importance of talking about your game thoughtfully

Social Media—Tips for getting the most out of content you post online

Conventions—Why you shouldn’t go and how to get there if you do

Platform Support—Figure out your leverage, and use it

Steam Spy: This used to be a great tool to approximate the owners of every game on Steam. It was inaccurate in a lot of ways and the usefulness of estimates were muddled by Humble Bundles, free weekends and deep discounts but it was the best tool to see how well games were doing until Steam badly broke their algorithm in April 2018.

GDC Talks: Every day the Game Developer Conference’s Youtube channel uploads a video from this past year or the previous 30 year history of game development oriented talks. You can watch everything on that channel for free and a non trivial number of the videos are about game reception, sales, business lessons learned, and marketing advice.

Mentor Advice: My network of friends in Chicago’s indie game scene were generous with their knowledge and advice about market trends, Kickstarter, selling games, Steam changes, developing for console, and dozens of other things. There’s few things I can recommend more than getting involved in your local indie scene, making friends on Twitter, and forming a private community where you can share knowledge.

Just Ask: Are there games like yours that you can’t find information about on what’s left of Steam Spy, from friends, on public blogs, or on twitter? Just ask the developers nicely and they might tell you. Send a succinct message explaining why your game is similar, that you’re doing research on similar games and the market, and maybe suck up a little bit.

Everywhere: To do market research right, you should constantly be looking for information about new games coming out. What was their release strategy? How well does their game do in the first month? First 6 months? How does that match their expectations? How did they pay to make their game? How does the scope, marketability, and way they allocate their team’s time and resources differ from your team?

A last thought here- lots of advice you’ll hear in this post and in the sources I’ve mentioned above may be contradictory and that’s a great reminder that all advice is subjective, from one perspective, about a specific game, at a specific time, on a specific platform, in a specific context, etc!

How do you talk about the game- Is it a meme game or a deep art piece?

Open development content is probably WIP, but the level of polish in GIFs and screenshots still sends a message about what to expect. It’s also notable that snippets of development can be exciting, but may not represent what’s it like to play the game.

Wherever you decide to build an audience and communicate, your professionalism and values can either attract or annoy people.

What accolades has your game or studio earned in the past? Awards, influencers, good press, and anything legitimizing improve perception.

I think of all social media channels as an exchange. Anyone who decides to follow me is doing so because the content I make provides some sort of value for them. That might be education, laughs, cuteness, news about the game, reinforcement of their beliefs, or all of the above. Focus on making content that’s valuable for others and easy or fun to engage with.

With Sausage Sports Club- short, exciting stories told in GIFs were best. All the tweets that blew up were also examples of good storytelling with a clear beginning, some build-up, and then a surprising or funny ending.

Especially early on it’s important to follow and engage with others, so people who would want to follow you will actually see your account. If your content is amazing and super shareable you can get away with engaging less, but if you feel like the value of your content doesn’t match your growth then try this.

Having lots of followers is good, but having high quality followers (read followers with many followers) is also important to helping your content reach a wide audience. I didn’t purposely style my content to attract those people, but sharing development tips, explanatory tech-art GIFs, and links to tools I’ve open-sourced has had that effect.

Each platform is different and if you’re going to reuse content you should tweak it to fit each platform. Tweets do best with little text and GIFs, but Facebook posts can afford more text and longer videos for example. Feeling out intricacies of each platform is time consuming, but important.

To connect with and convert convention goers into fans. This totally does happen and feels really good, but you can connect with more people more effectively for little cost by streaming your game’s development on Twitch.

To playtest your game and make it better. Again this definitely happens at conventions and feedback is crucial, but that sort of environment shapes expectations of your game and only shared-screen games really shine.

To travel and see more of the world. Maybe you’ll get a taste of this, but mostly you’ll be tired in a convention center shouting your pitch at strangers and counting the minutes before you can go sleep in your hotel.

You want to get your game on consoles, but don’t have a contact at one or any of their teams. For the major shows, all the big platforms have reps walking around, taking meetings, and looking for new games to sign. Ask around, DM them- you’ll find some way to meet them on the floor.

You’ve been applying to award shows, looking for a publisher, and reaching out to content creators, but nobody takes your game seriously. If you keep showing up to shows with a unique, polished game, a legit looking booth, and talk to everyone- folks will start paying attention.

In general, if you have some large goal that meeting thousands of people in a short time is likely to help with, then being at a convention may be worth it despite the huge money and time cost. My goals ranged from hitting my Kickstarter goal, to meeting content creators, to getting signed on Switch.

The entry level is PAX and Gamescom, which are consumer oriented and ideal for making your game seem more legitimate to platform holders, publishers, and influencers. This posturing also helps ensure curators of more selective events will have seen of your game directly or second-hand.

The next level is game festivals, which are less business oriented and closer to art showcases. They’re usually volunteer organized and curated by people on the look out for rad new games. I consider Bit Bash, Day of the Devs, Fantastic Arcade, Indiecade, and Juegos Rancheros to fit in this category. These all select games through an opaque process, which is why you can consider selection in these events accolades and also why showing at conventions and meeting lots of people improves your odds.

There are some conventions I haven’t listed that fit into the above two categories, but any convention that big games and platforms aren’t showing at that also can’t be described as a festival aren’t worth the effort.

Showing in a console, other platform, publisher, or competition prize booth is ideal. They’ll send out a press release, arrange press and influencer visits, and usually foot the bill. Also, push for them to have staff available to run your game so you can take breaks and network freely.

Another option is curated groups like Indie Megabooth or PAX Rising. There are tons of options like these if you look- all with different cost and clout benefits, but they all help legitimize your game somewhat.

Last is the homemade booth, which for bootstrapping indies can be a risky choice. If you run a show on too tight a budget, your booth will look crappy and showcase the game poorly, which gives passersby a bad impression.

How is your game different from other games?

What can you offer that showcases the platform you want to be on?

What bargaining chips do you have to make your game the most appealing option?