Marketing can feel like a huge challenge for indie game developers and is often a bit of a mystery. There are articles out there which offer tips on how to do it and what to do, but there are also several mistakes that I think are often made time and time again – which can be avoided if you know what to watch out for.
I’m Ninichi, a game music composer, and I’ve worked with many indie game developers on their projects. I’ve helped them with their game music soundtracks and have supported them with there marketing where I can. I know how important marketing is for a game and so here are some common marketing mistakes that I think are useful to be aware of and to avoid if you can…
1. Marketing to the wrong community
As an indie game developer, you may find it easy to reach out to the game development community and/or to share your experiences and challenges around how you’ve developed your game. This is fine but be aware that ultimately your audience i.e. who you want to attract to play your game, are gamers, not game developers.
Don’t talk too much about the development side of the game but think about what would be interesting and useful to the gaming community to learn about in relation to your game. Talk about your passion for gaming and games in order to connect with the gaming community.
It’s an easy mistake to make and can end up wasting a lot of your time and energy. Game developers may certainly be interested in what you’re doing and could support you as well, but they shouldn’t be your main target audience.
See 6 Must Do Marketing Tips for Indie Game Developers
2. Marketing only sometimes
Marketing isn’t something to be done on a one-off basis e.g. at game launch. It’s something that needs to be an on-going part of your development activities. You need to spend time to build your audience and to continually engage with them.
Many indie games fail, not because they aren’t great games, but because they’ve failed to reach out to people who might be interested in their game and to build a following and community around it. This takes time, dedication and a well thought-out strategy. You can’t just do one thing and expect that to bring in lots of sales. You need to create a coherent marketing strategy that commences early on in your development and continues through to and beyond the release of your game.
Check out 4 Ways to Make Marketing Your Indie Game Less Painful for some ideas on how to get the most out of your marketing with minimum effort!
3. Relying on PR as your main marketing strategy
If you’re an indie game developer – whether it’s a solo game developer or a small indie game studio – you’re probably on a tight budget when it comes to marketing and so you’re hoping that PR will be a good strategy for getting the word out. PR – whether it’s through magazines, bloggers, YouTubers, streamers etc. is all well and good but it should be just one component to your marketing armoury and activities.
There are so many games out there being released all the time. Your main challenge will be cutting through the noise and being visible to your audience. This means that you will need to market your game across multiple channels and you will need to do everything in your power to find your audience and/or to help them find you.
4. Failing to nurture your community
A lot of game developers will know that you need to build a following and thus a community around your game. However, not everyone will know just what it takes to really nurture this community so that it continues to grow, be loyal, be supportive, engaged and excited about you and your game.
You can’t just throw out little snippets of content or information every now and again and expect that to be enough. You need to invest time in engaging with your community and in managing it. That means setting aside regular hours during which you will activity interact with your audience – whether it’s replying to tweets, posting new ones, sharing new content, thanking people for their comments or feedback or asking for your audience’s thoughts/help/ideas.
Even if it’s just half an hour a day set aside for community management, that will still be something and will give your audience the confidence to know that you’re there, taking them, their views and needs seriously and that you care about your customers.
Also see How to Promote your game on Twitter to make the most of your presence on this social media platform. Twitter has a huge game developer and gaming community and so make sure you’re reaching out to them.
5. Believing your game is easy to understand and play
You may think that you’ve created a game that’s easy to pick up, play and is intuitive. However, the chances are – it’s not as easy to get as you think!
Don’t expect or leave your game to sell itself, and don’t sit back hoping that people will get into it as quickly and as easily as you do. Show them how your game works. Show them how to play it and what exciting things they can do with it. Use education as a marketing tool. Teach your users how to get the most out of your game and this will double up as a great way to market it.
6. Giving away loads of free demos / game keys
It can be tempting to give away demos and keys to entice people into playing your game, perhaps reviewing it and to share it with others. In theory this can work but be careful not to give away too much.
If you reach out to YouTubers and streamers, remember that what they actually care about is growing their audience and reaching more people. If your game or if your community can help them to do that, then you certainly have something great to offer them. If you’re just giving them – yet another, free game demo or game key, it’s likely to be something they’ve been offered millions of times before and sure, they might look at your game, but they also might not bother. So just be aware of this and see if you can think about what they might want and how you can help them to make this happen.
Also, if you give loads away for free, it can diminish the value of your game and your work. So, by all means carefully select who you may want to give a free game demo or game key to, but limit how much you give away for free.
So, I hope these points have been useful and give you some ideas of what to watch out for. Marketing is an important part of game development. It can be tricky and certainly challenging but don’t give up! Get in touch with me if you’d like to be featured on my blog, and of course, if you need any help with the music for your game or game trailer.
About the author: Ninichi is a game and film music composer. She works on a range of freelance composing projects supporting talented game developers and film makers with their music.
Want some great custom music for your game? Listen to Ninichi's game music or contact her now to discuss your game music needs.
Follow her @ninichimusic
