Marketing tips

6 Marketing Articles to Help Your Indie Game Succeed

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By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

Hello lovely indie game developers and other peeps! Welcome, welcome to my humble blog! If you’re here for the first time, I’m Ninichi - a freelance game music composer and the creator of this game development blog. Here I offer my music talents and services to you i.e. you can commission me to create music for your game (see my game music page) or explore my royalty free music library and game music packs. AND - you can explore my blogs which include a wide range of articles to support you through your game development journey, highlight interesting indie games I’ve found and been involved in, offer tips and tricks when it comes to game music and more!

One of the key areas in the game development cycle that I’ve seen many game developers struggle with is marketing! It’s often something that isn’t considered very fun to do but at the same time I think we all know that doing something in this arena is absolutely necessary if we want our wonderful games to sell! Without any marketing, how will you reach your audience? It’s something that must be thought about and that you will need to take some action around but it can be tricky to know where to start and what to do.

On my blog I’ve written a couple of articles that look into the ‘marketing space’ and so I thought that it would be useful to pull these articles together here so that you can explore them easily and as and when you feel the need…

1. 6 Must Do Marketing Tips for Indie Game Developers

This is the first article that I wrote that offers some ideas to help game developers market their games. It’s a good place to start and offers some ideas that you can hopefully action or at least start exploring. It’s just an overview and introductory article to give you some idea of the areas to be thinking about, but hopefully is a good initial article to help you with your next steps.

2. How to Create an Awesome Indie Game Trailer

Creating a trailer to help give people a glimpse of what your game looks like and to introduce it to them, is a powerful way to market your game to your audience. However, it’s not always obvious how to go about creating an effective game trailer. Check out my tips and ideas to help you create an awesome trailer for your indie game.

3. How to Promote Your Game on Twitter

Twitter has a big game development and gaming community. I’ve discovered this, being on Twitter myself (@ninichimusic), and have found both of these communities to be incredibly supportive and encouraging. I would recommend that you tap into these communities and that you build your Twitter and other social media profiles so that you can reach a wider audience.

4. 4 Ways to Make Marketing Your Indie Game Less Painful

I’ve discovered that many indie game developers really really don’t like thinking about marketing their games in any shape or form! It’s not something that comes naturally to everyone and you are not alone if you feel that it’s something you’d rather avoid, runaway from and/or skip completely. However, I would encourage you to think again and to try and approach it in a way that hopefully you can become slowly more comfortable with. In this article I try to offer you some suggestions and ways that you can do this.

5. 6 Indie Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

There are many mistakes that I’ve seen people do and that are common but that can definitely be avoided! That’s the reason I put this article. It aims to highlight some very common errors that people do and that can waste you a lot of time or mean that you miss the boat completely - and so get reading and make sure that you don’t fall into any of these marketing traps!

6. 10 Crowdfunding Platforms to Consider for indie Projects

As you develop your game you may wish to explore raising some funds for it. Crowdfunding is a great way to do this and can also help create a buzz around your game. It can form part of your marketing activities and help to build your fan base which is why I’ve included this resource list here for you to explore further.

So, I really hope that you’ve found these 6 articles useful. I hope to create more in time but hopefully these offer some insights and ideas to help you hone in your marketing strategy for your game. Best of luck with it and do keep in touch with me via my Twitter and Instagram accounts! I’d love to hear all about your game and how you’re getting on with it!


About the author: Ninichi is a freelance UK-based indie game music composer. She works with indie game developers and indie filmmakers to create soundtracks for video games, film & media. She can compose in a wide range of styles & loves getting involved in new projects. Find out more about her game music or royalty free music and contact her to discuss your project and music needs.

Follow her @ninichimusic

6 Reasons Not to Use Royalty Free Music in Marketing Videos

By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

Do you have a corporate video or marketing campaign you’re working on? If so, getting the music right will be one element to consider carefully. Putting together the rest of the video is super important, however, many people seem to underestimate the importance of the music and the impact it can have on pulling the whole project together and enhancing the video content.

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5 Ways Great Music Helps Marketing Videos to Succeed

By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

If you’re running a marketing campaign and want your marketing video to stand out, it’s important to choose the right music for it. This goes for running a successful podcast as well. The music that plays in the background is often more important than you think and can impact on your commercial or show positively or negatively depending on what you’ve chosen to use.

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10 Crowdfunding Platforms to Consider for Indie Projects

By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

So, you have a great idea and maybe even an awesome team working on it already! That is an excellent start, however, the often tricky issue of financing your project may be something you have yet to decide on and to have set up for you.

Are you sure that you have the funds to see your exciting project through? If not, then crowdfunding may be something for you to consider.

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10 Places to Find Beta Testers for Your Indie Game

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By Ninichi | Contact | Follow

One of the challenges before launching your game is finding people who are willing to test it and offer you useful feedback on it.  Getting friends and family to check it out is certainly useful but isn’t always enough. Understanding your user and ensuring that the user experience is as good as it can be before releasing your game into the market, is a hugely important part of the process.

As a game music composer, I’m not really able to offer much advice on how to develop your game but from my experiences in working with many amazingly talented indie game developers (see my credit list), I know that one area which is often tricky, is in knowing where to source those beta testers.  So, I’ve had a go at compiling a list of places that could be useful to be aware of and to check out.

I know that the game development journey can be a long one and hope that this article helps you a little bit along the way…

1. Alpha Beta Gamer

Alphabetagamer is ‘the worlds biggest beta testing site’. They cover alpha and betas on all platforms and do so for free, however they will only play your game if it’s free or if you give them some keys to distribute and offer through their website. They aim to add new games to their website each day.

2. Indie Quality Assurance

IndieQA was created in 2015 by a group of playtesters wanting to support Indie developers with their games. They offer a free service to beta test games as long as you provide keys for your game for your preferred platform.

3. Beta Family

Beta Family has over 65,000 testers that you can invite to test your game and target based on demographics and device. They have an easy to use test builder and 3 different price plans (from free to $399/month) for you to choose from.

4. PreApps

PreApps is a site that helps people to discover and test new apps before they are released. They cover apps on both iOS and Android and offer various services to help with the launch and promotion of your mobile app. This includes submitting your app to over 150 sites for review.

5. UberTesting

UberTesting provides access to real users to test and offer feedback on apps, websites and more.  For mobile game developers it can be a great way to get feedback on your game. You don’t need to integrate SDK, you can target specific user segments, set up surveys, interviews, focus groups and more.

6. Betalist

Betalist is a place to discover and showcase new startups. It’s a community of creators and early adopters. If your mobile app or game offers something exciting for early adopters to get their teeth into then check it out.

7. Playtest Cloud

PlaytestCloud offers a one-stop solution for playtesting mobile and browser games during all key stages of game development cycle i.e. prototyping, development, soft launch and after release.  You can easily set up a playtest, specify your target audience and then watch and listen to videos of people playing your game. There are 4 different products and various prices associated with the kind of survey or test you’re looking to implement. Prices range from $9 per response right up to over $1000 for longer studies.

8. Roast My Game

Roastmygame is a site which encourages indie game developers to post their games so that they can gather ‘sugarfree’ feedback on it.  Anyone can post a game and anyone can offer feedback.

9. Reddit

There are various subreddits, which allow you to share your game and ask for feedback. Check the rules for each subreddit to make sure it’s ok to post something there before doing so. Here are a few to maybe take a look at:

  • /r/gamedev
  • /r/playtesters
  • /r/playmygame
  • /r/inat
  • /r/gamedevclassifieds
  • /r/gamedevscreens
  • /r/testmyapp
  • /r/alphaandbetausers
  • /r/androidapptesters
  • /r/startups
  • /r/indiegaming
  • /r/iosgaming

10. Twitter

There is a huge gaming and gamedev community on Twitter with many people very willing to take a look at and support your game. Find me there @ninichimusic! If you have a strong following on Twitter, then ask your followers if they want to beta test your game. As well as that, here are some hashtags that may be useful for you:

  • #gamedev
  • #indiedev
  • #indiegame
  • #indiegames
  • #indiegaming
  • #betatesting
  • #betatesters
  • #testmyapp
  • #apptesting
  • #mobileapptesting

Read next: How to Promote Your Game on Twitter


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About the author: Ninichi is an experienced game music and film music composer. She creates music for games, film and other media, and would be delighted to help you create the music for your game or project. 

Contact Ninichi to explore working with her now and follow her @ninichimusic

5 Top Tips for Indie Game Developers

As a big supporter of indie game developers and someone who is working with many within the game community (usually supporting them with their game music and/or marketing), I am frequently asked to share more marketing tips on my blog.  So, here are 5 top tips that I hope will be useful to you, whether you are a solo indie developer, a small team of game developers or a larger game studio...

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