Opinion: Indie developers' marketing costs don't pay off
Promoting an indie game is not an easy task for single developers. A developer under the nickname Ninja_Gah shares his personal experience on Reddit. Listing marketing schemes, he asks the question: are there any practical benefits from them?
App2Top.ru translated the post, which can be found here.
Indie Game Marketing is a Waste of Time
And before I am torn to shreds by those who disagree with my opinion, let me give the context.
If you are a studio that already has weight, influence and a lot of money, then the title does not apply to you. But personally, I am a novice developer, and my indie game had a very modest production budget: about $ 10 thousand plus marketing costs. I think many developers on Reddit have the same situation or even worse.
Why social networks don’t help
Promotion in social networks works if you already have subscribers. But if they are not, then who will read the posts? “Just look at it, someone retweeted my post about an indie game… Ah, it was a bot.”
Facebook is a little easier. Find a popular community of indie developers, post there and gain decent views. Several times and I had 10 thousand views… but it did not affect the sales of the game at all.
But some people do what I don’t. The most successful social media accounts are dedicated not only to the product itself, right? They are full of humor, they have user-generated content, they attract a regular audience.
What do I want more — to promote in social networks or to develop the game itself?
Grow HomeWhy neither developer diaries nor mailing lists help
Who reads developer diaries? Only other developers or the most devoted fans of the game. But the latter have probably already added the title to their vishlist or made a pre-order.
I wrote a whole series of posts about my game. He talked about such rarely touched things as a multi-user command engine, cross-platform networks, high-level modular architecture… And then posted it all on Reddit. Nobody cared. Although no, one developer from Japan still wrote me a BOS. We chatted on Twitter.
And after all, every such post, presentation, video blog needs mailing. Therefore, on the main page of my game there is a form for adding your e-mail to the list of addresses. They are used to send notifications about any major update. They open such letters… about 15% of the people on my meager list.
So, should I become a blogger or do I still play a game?
DeltaruneWhy don’t the stands help
I brought my game to three different game exhibitions. I had great stands, a lot of people came up, they liked my game. And my best exhibition result is 12 copies sold. It was enough to pay for your daily ration and a taxi home.
At most conferences, sales are out of the question. Of course, these were local, chamber exhibitions. Maybe it’s different with big indie events, but I can’t afford it.
And is it better to travel to conferences or still make a game?
Why publishers don’t help
I personally called at least 20 publishers. He behaved very aggressively with some of them. I spent a lot of time preparing pitches and presentations. Everyone rejected my game.
Indie publishers receive hundreds of offers a year, but select only a few projects among them (less than 10). It’s an investment for them. They want less risk, more profit. They need a popular genre and a team with a great portfolio. It is almost impossible to prove to them the benefits of cooperation with an unknown lone igrodel.
What should I create in this case — a fuss or a game?
OwlboyWhy PR, marketing and advertising agencies don’t help
I have communicated with both agencies and private freelance marketers. Those whom I can afford to hire have the same scheme: I pay them several thousand dollars (or make them shareholders) — they write posts on social networks and do mass mailing. These people take money from you, but they do not guarantee the result. They will not present any performance indicators.
At the same time, reputable, trustworthy marketers are too expensive. They rejected my game themselves because they didn’t want to waste time on small projects. Well, at least they were honest.
As for advertising, this is not a cheap marketing solution at all. Advertising requires long-term investments, experiments and improvements. In addition, it is more profitable to advertise strictly defined titles (frituplay, for example).
MoonlighterSo what do I really want — to be a marketer or a game developer?
Either your game sells well on its own, or you should resort to marketing. The latter requires time, people or money. Choose something one. Personally, I only have time — and now I know for sure that marketing requires a lot, about a third of all the time that you have. The whole last month I spent only on marketing and PR materials for the release of my game on mobile. I think I’ve wasted my time. But it is necessary to go out in the release. After all, if you think about it, being an indie developer is not a game at all.
Of course, not everything is so hopeless. There are marketing techniques that will suit certain indie games and teams with a certain structure. Someone, for example, helped the service IndieBoost.io (for a small fee, he sends letters about the game to influencers). Someone — posts in social networks with the text: “I quit my job to devote all my time to game development.” But my first game has already been released, and it’s too late for me to study all this. And in general, I looked at how much time one developer spends on marketing, and wondered if game dev is really about games…
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