By and far marketing is going to make or break the game that you are working on. Whether it's a video, blog post, social media post, or whatever else you decide to throw out into the wild you are going to be doing a major uphill climb! Never fear though, I am going to give you a few good quick tips on marketing your games and hopefully help you avoid a few of the mistakes I've made myself.

Reaching your audience is going to be your number one goal, getting the right audience and getting in front of that audience can be really hard at times. Narrowing down your reach is going to make things a lot easier for you though. When marketing your game decide who you actually want to reach and start working within the communities those people are already in.

Your audience should be based on things like:

One thing I would recommend is not trying to market your game to "gamers" because that is a massive group of people and doesn't really tell you anything. Someone who loves cozy farming games probably isn't looking for the same thing as someone who has spent the last five years screaming at people in competitive shooters. Find the people who actually like the kind of game you are making and start there.

Also don't just join a community, dump your game link, and disappear. People generally don't like that and I can't really blame them. Actually talk to people, show what you are working on, answer questions, share screenshots and clips, and become part of the community you are trying to reach.

This is probably one of the harder parts because eventually you are going to run out of creative ways to say "Hey look at my game!" and nobody wants to see the same advertisement seventeen times.

Gameplay clips, screenshots, funny bugs, new mechanics, development updates, before and after comparisons, new areas, enemies, characters, playtest announcements and demos are all things you can post without constantly trying to directly sell your game. Sometimes you are just trying to get someone to stop scrolling long enough to look at what you are making.

Not every post needs to be some amazing marketing masterpiece either. Sometimes a ten second clip of something stupid happening in your game will do better than the video you spent six hours editing because apparently the internet enjoys watching your NPC get launched into space more than it enjoys your hard work. Such is life.

A lot of people really hate self promotion, so you are probably wondering after reading my long winded statements where the hell do I actually promote my game?

Well for starters you are welcome to self promote here in 404, there are also Discord links I'll put in this blog for places that allow self promotion if this site isn't to your liking.

Facebook, Reddit, Discord, itch.io, YouTube, TikTok and other gaming communities are all places you can look at depending on the type of game you are making. I wouldn't recommend trying to post on every single platform every single day because you are probably going to drive yourself insane doing that. Pick a few places where your audience actually hangs out and see what works.

Some places might really like screenshots, others might like short videos, development posts or longer explanations about what you are working on. Unfortunately there isn't a magical "post here and receive players" button, otherwise I would be abusing the hell out of it myself.

Getting people to actually download the game

Getting in front of people is one thing, getting them to actually click your game and download it is another problem entirely.

Your screenshots, trailers, game description and store page need to show people why they should care about your game. If you have something cool in your game then show it! If your combat is the main focus then show the combat, if you have some ridiculous building system then show people what they can build, if your physics system lets someone launch a cow across the map then I personally want to see the cow flying across the map.

You don't need to explain every single part of your game immediately. Get someone's attention first and then give them somewhere they can learn more about it.

Once you have gotten in front of your audience and you've gotten them to download your game now comes the other big hurdle...getting them to stay after downloading your game.

Before you can even get them to stay you need to make sure there is actually enough there for them to play. If this is a limited demo then that's completely fine, just tell people it's a limited demo. If this is supposed to be a major release though you should have a completed game or enough play time to keep people busy and entertained.

The majority of games have simple gameplay loops hidden in them, which you have probably already noticed. Resource harvesting, crafting, travel time, missions, building, collecting and progression systems can all keep players busy while more areas are completed, more levels are made ready and more content is added.

Just don't confuse keeping someone entertained with giving them chores for the sake of stretching five hours of content into twenty because players are eventually going to figure out what you're doing.

Keeping your players busy and happy is going to be a task outside of marketing, but it also feeds directly back into your marketing. Someone who enjoyed your game might leave a review, tell their friends about it, come back for another update or start sharing the game themselves. Word of mouth is still one of the nicest forms of marketing because someone else is doing the work for you!

While getting hype for your game is awesome, and I absolutely recommend being excited about your game, never and I mean NEVER over promise what you are going to deliver.

I've learned the hard way on this one many times over.

It is really easy while developing something to start talking about everything you want to add. Then something breaks, something takes three times longer than expected, a feature turns out to be terrible or life just decides it has other plans for you.

Keeping realistic goals is going to be your best bet. Your trailers, screenshots, roadmaps, release dates and feature announcements are all creating expectations for your players whether you realize it or not.

Even if something doesn't work out or something happens, always be upfront with your player base. Tell them what happened and that you are working to resolve it or put something else in its place. Most people are a lot more understanding when you are honest with them than when you promise them the world and then quietly hope they forget about it.

You can pay for advertising on most of these platforms, while some are obviously going to cost more than others. By the way we here at 404 will also happily take your hard earned money and allow you to get paid ads on here ;)

I personally recommend not spending any real money on marketing until you are 100% sure you are ready and have enough gameplay within your game to make it worth someone's time.

Before you start throwing money at advertising make sure your store page looks decent, your screenshots actually show your game, your trailer represents what people are going to play and there is enough content there for them to enjoy.

There isn't much point in spending $100 getting people to your game only to discover that everyone leaves after ten minutes. Congratulations, you just paid $100 to learn that something isn't working.

Try promoting organically first, see what people respond to and figure out what is actually getting people interested. Once you know something is working then you can start thinking about putting money behind it.

Marketing isn't something you should suddenly remember exists two days before releasing your game. You want to slowly get people familiar with what you are making while you are making it.

Someone might see a screenshot today, see one of your gameplay videos next week, come across your game again a month later and eventually decide to download it. You don't need millions of followers and you don't need to spend every waking hour screaming about your game online.

You just need to find the people who might actually enjoy what you are making and keep giving them reasons to pay attention.

You are also probably going to screw some of this up. I have, more times than I would like to admit, and I'm probably going to screw something up again. That's part of figuring this stuff out.

Try things, see what works, stop doing the things that don't work and for the love of everything don't wait until launch day before realizing "Oh crap, I probably should have told people this game exists."

TLD;

If you game, video, trailer, screenshot, blog post, promotion. Can't be summarized in a elevator pitch(30seconds or less) you will loose 90% of your audience before they even know they want to play your game! Keep it simple silly! (KISS)

~AJ