Get Ready Get Noticed Get Big A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game

Patrick DeFreitas and Garret Romaine  Contents

Preface viii

Chapter 1: Overview of Indie Game Marketing 1 Why Marketing Matters 4 The Right Time is Now 6 How to Start Getting Noticed 6 Where to Start: Irresistible Promotional Materials 9 Trailer Video 9 Screenshots 10 Press Releases 11 Fact Sheets 11 Landing Page 11 Start a Developer’s Blog 12 Reach Out to the Press 13 Following Up 14 Convert Visitors into Active Fans 14 Maintain Your Marketing Momentum 15 Common Mistakes and Pitfalls to Avoid 16 What Makes You Unique? 17 Demographics 18 Personas: Mythical Prototypes 21 Competitive Analysis 23 Strategy and Goals 25 Marketing Goals 27 Lead Generation 28 Creating a Brand 30 Working Without Deep Pockets 31

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Cost-Benefit Analysis 32 Metrics: In Data We Trust 33 Analytics 35 Marketing Channels 37 Shows and Events 37 Jams and Meet-ups 38 Closed Alpha Exposure 39 Contests 39 Don’t Tweet That 40 Pricing and Monetization Strategies 40 PR and Self-Promotion 42

Get Ready 44

Chapter 2: The Four Ps of Marketing for Indie Game Developers 45 The Four Ps Marketing Framework 46 Using the Four Ps 47 Mutually Dependent Variables 48 Yes, Your Game is a Product 48 Price 51 Setting the Right Price 53 Discounting Dos and Don’ts 54 Free to Play 55 Promotion 55 Assets 56 Ongoing Activities 57 Events 57 What About Advertising 58 Relationship-Based Promotion 58 Partner with Established Brands 59 Public Relations (PR)—Should You Hire a Pro, or DIY? 59

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Place 59 Must-Have Channels 60 Boutiques 61 Getting Inventory from Here to There 61 The Four Ps: Summary 62

Chapter 3: Pricing Your Indie Game 63 Dodging Anomalies 64 Pricing Checklist 65 Break-Even Pricing 65 Kickstarter* Pricing 67 Market Pricing 67 Competitor Pricing 68 Downloadable Content Pricing 69 Episodic Pricing 70 Geographical Pricing 71 Perceived Value Pricing 73 Promotional Pricing 74 Preorder Pricing 75 Discounting and Sales 75 Bundle Pricing 76 Pricing: The Final Word 77

Get Noticed 78

Chapter 4: Attending Your First Event as an Indie Game Developer 79 Find the Event That’s Right for You 81 Don’t Waste Your Time—Plan Ahead 83 Bring Your Code and Show It Off 85 How to be Part of a Booth 86 Network Like Crazy 88 Follow Up After the Event 91 Resources 91

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Chapter 5: Expanding the Pool of Customers for Your Indie Game 92 Funneling Fans 93 Grabbing Attention: Lead Generation 94 Channel Partners 94 Get a Unique Website 95 Social Media 95 Paid Social Media Campaigns 96 Kickstarter* 97 Events 97 Video Trailers 98 Public Relations (PR) 98 YouTube Gamers/Streamers 100 Data Management 101 Sparking Interest: Direct Relationships 101 Creating Advocates 103 Email Marketing 104 Community Management 104 Using Data and Analytics 105 Decision Time: Influencing Choice 106 Spurring Action: Sell Your Game 107

Chapter 6: Packaging Your Indie Game 110 Tell Your Story 111 Branding Checklist 112 Content Building Blocks 114 Some Assembly Required 120 Game Website Checklist 120 Landing Pages 122 Your Game in a Box 123 Packaging Design, Explained 124 Packaging Summary 126

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Get Big 127

Chapter 7: Approach Industry Influencers to Build Awareness for Your Indie Game 128 Social Networks: Start with What You Know 130 An Agenda for Events 133 Strategies for Streamers 134 Tap Existing Contacts 136 Talk to Game Retailers 137 Take a Holistic Approach 138

Chapter 8: Solving the Distribution Dilemma for Indie Gamers 139 Physical Boxes and Shareware Days 139 Make it a True Partnership 143 Direct Distribution Can Still Work 143 Don’t Stop with Steam 144 Data Gathering Aids Decision Making 145 Multi Platform Releases Boost Incomes, Headaches 147 Bundling for Fun 148 The Power of Good Distribution 149

Appendix 152

About the Authors 153 Additional Contributors 155 Resources 157

vi | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game Lead Authors Lead Authors

Patrick DeFreitas, Intel® Partner Marketing Manager A graduate from Boston University & UC Berkeley Patrick has worked in the entertainment industry including film, television and video games for almost 20 years. He has also worked in ecommerce and media marketing industries starting in the late ‘90s. When he’s not focused on tracking new up and comers in gaming catch him enjoying “quiet time” in Palm Springs, CA. Primary subject matter expert on marketing indie games

Dan Fineberg, Marketing Consultant For more than 35 years, Dan has built demand for innovations that transform the way we work, play and learn—driving growth for small, medium and large companies. At Intel in the ‘90’s and 00’s, Dan led marketing initiatives and programs to establish Intel® LAN products, server processors, and mobilized software, helping to drive a sea change in business computing based on industry standards and volume economics. As marketing director at the electron microscope leader FEI, Dan implemented and managed direct-relationship marketing and led the category-creation campaign establishing a new class of electron microscopes. Today, Dan works for Intel’s Software and Services Group as a full-time consultant, helping drive strategic communications for Intel’s innovative software and platforms. Primary subject matter expert on marketing indie games

Garret Romaine, RH+M3 Lead Writer Garret has been writing about the gaming world since the early days of MS-DOS, authoring white papers, case studies, game reviews, profiles, and feature articles. He worked on Intel’s Visual Adrenaline Magazine starting in 2009, and has since contributed content for Intel Developer Zone. He is currently the Director of Content Creation at RH+M3. Lead Writer for RH+M3

vii | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game Preface

Preface

Intel has supported the PC gaming community since the late 1970s, when the Intel® 8088 processor ran at 4.77 MHz inside the IBM PC. While hardware advances received the early headlines and large studios dominated the trade press the role of independent game developers has always been of interest. The freshest ideas, the most interesting stories, and the most groundbreaking advances still come from the indies who bravely bring their visions to market. Their struggle to balance the mastery of new technology and to conquer competitive marketing is growing in complexity.

Intel’s new Get Ready, Get Noticed, Get Big initiative is designed to help indie game developers with vital tools, information, and guidance during each stage of the marketing process. This marketing guide is a go-to resource packed with current content for vital individuals and small teams trying to get their titles noticed in the dynamic gaming market.

The mention of any particular game, product, or tool is not an endorsement.

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By Garret Romaine

Chapter 1: Overview of Indie Game Marketing According to Newzoo—the leading provider of market intelligence covering global games, eSports, and mobile markets—more than 2.2 billion gamers worldwide are generating an estimated United States dollar (USD) 108.9 billion in game revenue for 2017. That global market for games offers many enticing targets for indie developers.

LAI Global Game Service reports that Western Europe is now the market leader with 31 percent of the total sales, and it boasts the top spending per mobile title at USD 4.40 each. North America is in second place with slower growth prospects, but MENA (Middle East and North Africa region) is projected to grow by 21 percent, year-to-year. Asia is growing at an annual 13 percent rate, Latin America increased by 14 percent in 2016, and Eastern Europe (and especially Russia) is another key emerging market. Even long-overlooked regions such as Southeast Asia remain largely untapped.

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Still popular after all these years—Super Mario Run* was the #1 downloaded app in 2016.

In early 2017, Apple reported that their App Store brought in USD 20 billion in revenue for the previous year. On January 1, 2017, they set a new record of USD 240 million in revenue in a single day. The top-grossing apps were games, and Super Mario Run* from Nintendo was the number one app overall.

According to PCGamesN.com, Steam* will hit a record of 6,000 new releases in 2017, representing an enormous opportunity for developers. Statista breaks down the game industry numbers for 2016; and with some careful study, a clever independent could spot several profitable, growing niches. For example, should you develop for the growing elderly population in the US? According to the US Census Bureau, the US population aged 65 and over is projected to be 83.7 million people by 2050. Targeting a brain-boosting puzzle game or nutrition diary might make sense. At the other end of the scale, a game for preteens in the Middle East might offer lucrative potential.

Multiple opportunities exist for hungry independents in the games market. In a 2017 blog post, Kenneth Tran at Gamasutra.com offered this insight, “The independent games industry is currently in a state of near perfection.” Tran

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says the market has been “disrupted by digital distribution and self-publishing. Everyone knows this story: the rise of Google Play*, the (Apple) App Store, Unity* Personal Edition, and Free2Play*.”

The key takeaway from Tran’s blog is the concept of perfect competition. An indie game developer can create incredible beauty and compete on equal terms like never before. The barriers to entry are crumbling, with free dev kits, copious training and documentation, and multiple vendors offering assistance. When you combine that newfound muscle with the availability of extensive market research and data, the ability to Get Noticed and grow into something big is enticing. Remember, Minecraft* was a wildly successful indie game before Microsoft Windows* put it on every platform on earth, making Markus Notch Persson a billionaire. In 2016, Forbes magazine listed Minecraft at second place in the top- selling games of all time, at 107 million copies, though still far behind Tetris*, with an estimated 495 million copies sold.

Minecraft* began as a popular indie game before it was purchased by Microsoft and became a household name.

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Why Marketing Matters

Marketing is defined as “an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer, the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.”

Effective marketing can mean the difference between a little-known cult classic and a blockbuster. Marketing includes your ability to spread the word, build excitement, satisfy customers, and create enthusiasm; and when done right, it is measurable, plannable, and repeatable. If you can master shaders, physics engines, and compilers, you can certainly compete in the marketing arena. Be prepared to put in the time and effort to learn.

Game designer Sarah Woodrow estimates that developers spend only 30 percent of their working time actually coding. “The rest of the time will be everything else you need to do, especially if you’re a one-man band.” The only way to succeed if you remain small and nimble is to constantly learn and adapt. Try new angles, but fail quickly and move on. Learn how to run a business and how to do marketing and networking as you go, but be prepared to spend some time and money.

Often juggling family, work, and other commitments, the time that indies devote to their projects is already squeezed. Finding time for marketing activities is difficult. Experts sympathize, but they stress that time for marketing must be found. Intel’s Patrick DeFreitas is a partner marketing manager who outreaches to the independent gaming community. For him, the answer to the question, “When should I start marketing?” is obvious: IMMEDIATELY!

Statistics from the Entertainment* Software Association’s February 2017 report tell an encouraging story. “Video game industry growth is likely due to 1) the rise of independent video game developers, who in 2016 made up 98.1 percent of all company additions; and 2) the increasing amount of video game studies, courses, and programs offered across 940 American educational institutions of higher learning.”

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“I’ve seen reports that over 4,000 new games are launching every year,” he recently explained. “That’s 11 games a day!” He suggests you start marketing your title early. “Every day you let pass allows another stack of competitors to fall into your same genre, attracting the same customers, pulling for the same share of wallet,” Patrick explained. “You must decide how much time to devote to marketing. If you spend ‘x’ hours developing your title, you must put in an equal amount of time toward its promotion.”

If you can master shaders, physics engines, and compilers, you can certainly compete in the marketing arena. Be prepared to put in the time and effort to learn.

Think of marketing as any activity that starts a conversation and builds a relationship with the gaming community. You’re probably marketing without realizing it. Developer blogs, websites, social media, gamer- and game-developer forums, video trailers, and a host of other tasks let you lift the curtain on your game’s development to promote its progress and features. Every chat with a potential customer is a marketing activity. Along the way, you’ll be able to gather feedback to help iterate designs and even extend the shelf life of your title.

The How to Start Getting Noticed section of this guide delves deeply into these marketing concepts, presents strategies for using them effectively, and discusses how to avoid common pitfalls.

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The Right Time is Now

While it’s never too early to think about how to differentiate your game in the marketplace, waiting until release to trumpet its arrival is too late. Most game sales happen shortly after release, so it’s essential that potential customers know well in advance that your game is coming.

Marketing approaches vary depending on where you are in the development process. Use Table 1 to begin crafting your marketing strategy and creating a timeline of activities.

How to Start Getting Noticed

During the initial planning stage (see Table 1), think about your target audience and how to reach them. At the 2013 Konsoll conference, dedicated to the advancement of the Norwegian independent game community, famed IndieGameGirl* Emmy Jonassen spoke about How to Successfully Market Your Indie Game on a $0 Budget.

She told the story of Monkey Labour* from Dawn of Play, which didn’t sell many copies until they reached out for a game review at Touch Arcade. After a positive review, sales spiked 600 percent. She also mentioned Hitbox Team, which spent USD 100,000 building DustForce* and very little on marketing. A friend volunteered to write press releases, create trailer videos, manage media communications, and begin marketing efforts before launch.DustForce generated tremendous interest and awareness well ahead of release, landing over 100 articles, including a positive piece on GameSpot. Their return on investment was made in seven days, and the game quickly became profitable.

Reaching out is the first step. Rev up your social media presence, start a blog, begin networking with friends in the industry, and make new contacts—all at little cost. Read How NOT to Market Your Indie Game at Gamasutra, by Dushan Chaciej, CEO and lead designer at Frozen District, creator of Warlocks 2: God Slayers*. He believes he has made every possible mistake.

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Table 1. Crafting the marketing strategy

Activity Goal Initial Planning Stage

While crafting story and gameplay—and If possible, identify elements of your game choosing a programming language, game development process that set it apart from engine, graphics, and audio tools—look for other games. Maybe you’re Agile with a Twist anything unique in how you’re approaching or strictly use student volunteers for QA. Work a problem. Use it later when creating your that into your title’s value proposition. value proposition. Next, create a timeline that sets deadlines for each milestone in your marketing strategy, from defining your value proposition and writing it down to creating assets, promotional materials, and all of the subsequent steps outlined for each development stage.

Asset Creation and Prototyping Stage

• Share game graphics and audio samples on: • Start communicating your value proposition • Forums through visual and audio samples, as well • Your website and blog as early gameplay experiences. Collect user • Social media sites such as Facebook*, feedback and use it to refine gameplay. Twitter*, YouTube* • When community feedback is positive • Meetups enough, encourage people to start • Game events spreading the word about what you’re doing. • When your prototype is ready to share, give keys to beta users so they can test • Encourage people to share gameplay videos drive the gameplay. to help generate interest. • Establish a communication channel for • Establish relationships with key beta users. influencers—including the press—whose • Be a speaker or panelist at game events. interests align with your game. Get them • Create and share at least one trailer (or talking about what you’re up to, sharing several trailers) to spur excitement about your graphics or sound clips. Post gameplay your game. videos and interviews you’ve done about the game’s development. Use this momentum to promote interest among retail and online distribution channels.

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Table 1 (Continued)

Activity Goal Finished Development, Ready-to-Release Stage

• Hold contests and value-add promotions • Increase interest and drive sales. (tell-a-friend and get a code to unlock • Encourage influencers and fans to talk about features or Easter eggs). your game and share their experiences to • Exhibit at game events, either by get other potential customers interested in purchasing a low-cost booth through playing and buying your game. a booth aggregator, or by developing • If packaging your game, stay faithful to a relationship with a tool vendor and your brand. Refer to Chapter 6 for more landing a spot in their booth. If you information about packaging. can’t exhibit, attend the show and bring promotional handouts, copies of your game, game keys, business cards, t-shirts, and so forth. • Continue to blog about your progress and link to your website/blog wherever you can.

Game Released and Generating Interest Without Any Marketing Effort Stage

• Exhibit and speak at events, meetups, and • Keep your audience engaged and interested trade shows. in playing your game. • Hold in-store promotions or online • Help people find and buy your game. promotions such as contests, podcasts, • Sustain momentum and rekindle interest and value-add promotions to boost in your game after the thrill of its newness momentum as the new factor fades. has faded. • Use social media and every other available • Boost sales around holidays with special channel to make people aware of where add-ons. they can play and buy your game. • If appropriate, release a new level periodically or leak clues to unlocking Easter eggs and hidden features. Seed stories in magazines and online via podcasts and influencer websites to build excitement.

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Where to Start: Irresistible Promotional Materials

Create irresistible promotional materials that compel sharing and discussion. Trailer videos, screenshots, press releases, social media presence, a landing page, and a development blog are the best places to invest your time, Jonassen advises, with the trailer being particularly valuable.

Trailer Video The game development tutorials at Envato include an Indie Game Dev’s Marketing Checklist, written by Robert DellaFave, a self-described logic nerd who founded Fourth Dimensional Gaming. It suggests that the trailer doesn’t have to be “overly flashy or dramatic, but it should leave viewers with a lasting impression of your game,” as he put it. Create a trailer using video-capture software and editing tools. Customers use trailer videos to see if they like a title’s appearance, music, art, concept, and playability. Game journalists rely on trailers to sort out the clutter of a jammed inbox.

As a good example, Jonassen pointed to the trailer video for the gold edition of the PC game Guacamelee!*, a side-scrolling shooter from Drink Box Studios. Created by Kert Gartner—a noted leader in trailer production—the first 3–5 seconds are entrancing, with artwork, action, and music all combining into a happy frenzy.

The trailer for the gold edition of the PC version of Guacamelee!* is instantly funny, engaging, and lively, and lasts just 59 seconds.

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Lasting less than 60 seconds, the trailer contains testimonial pull-quotes showing that it was updated after positive reviews came in, and ends with a call to action and logo. It’s fun, frantic, and leaves you wanting more.

Virtual reality (VR) games are a new challenge for creating trailers, as you’ll need to convey the excitement of a 3D world in a 2D video. Gartner is experimenting with mixed-reality environments to film players against a green screen, and also using avatar-based trailers to enhance the visual appeal. Such efforts can be time-consuming and require enormous processing power to play, record, mix, and stream, but the new Intel® Core™ i9-7980XE Extreme Edition processor can do it all from a single system. For more information about simultaneously handling VR game-trailer production tasks that previously required multiple computers, access this article at the Intel® Developer Zone.

Screenshots Screenshots are another important weapon in your arsenal. They should be high resolution, with excellent composition that’s well-lit. Avoid dark images, skip the menus and interface unless they are part of your genius, and concentrate on the beauty of the creation. When choosing a screenshot, pull an engaging scene that captures what DellaFave describes as “your game’s most magnificent moments.”

This screenshot from Secrets of Raetikon* shows the dreamy, atmospheric, 2D adventure game.

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Get your viewers to sink into the art and want to see more, like in the previous screenshot from Secrets of Raetikon*, created by the Viennese team Broken Rules.

Press Releases Press releases have to engage immediately, with passion and sizzle. Keep in mind that stressed-out deadline writers will like pieces from which they can cut and paste, so make sure your writing is good—don’t assume it will get cleaned up before publishing. Jonassen advises that the first paragraph is crucial, and it must summarize all the key points you want to convey. Place the reader into the game, give them a point of view as the player, and sell the sizzle.

Fact Sheets DellaFave also suggests creating one-page fact sheets with links to your website, landing page, and developer’s blog, plus contact information, website addresses, team history and pedigree, and other titles you have worked on. Readers like quotes because they bring more life to a written page and make the writing more genuine and relatable. Include quotes in your fact sheets when possible.

The screenshots, trailer, press release, and fact sheet are crucial pieces of your promotional materials. Check out presskit()* for guidance. It’s a free resource for beginners who need help getting traction or need templates to speed up their work. See also this infographic from Entrepreneur* Magazine for some timely writing tips.

Landing Page Once you have someone’s attention, you should drive them somewhere, and that’s where a good landing page comes in. Create a unique web address to convert visitors into customers, and include an instantly-recognizable button for game purchases. The only navigation off that page should be to the purchasing process or to provide more information about your company. The page should be stocked with screenshots, testimonials, and other art. Your landing page should also be easy to share via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn*, and Google+*.

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Dev blogs such as this one from Drink Box Studios are a key to driving traffic and continually engaging your customers. Note the easy subscription buttons on the right.

Start a Developer’s Blog Another key to initiating and maintaining customer contact is the developer’s blog, which is one of the best ways to reach out to your fans. Jonassen says that sites with a dev blog bring in 55 percent more traffic than those without blogs. She advises that you post at least once a week.

At becomingminimalist.com, writer Joshua Becker gives some important reasons why he believes more people should blog. Number 4 on the list is, “You’ll develop an eye for meaningful things.” Once you start thinking of your blog as a weekly task, you’ll find yourself making notes about things that readers might like to

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read about. You will soon realize that you have plenty to say. And because this dynamic industry is constantly evolving and you’re surrounded by interesting, creative personalities, you can cultivate those relationships and build new ones by staying in contact through your blog.

Good dev blogs include eye-catching artwork and give subscribers an easy option for an RSS feed, email subscription, or social subscription. With each post, you’ll ring the bell and get fans (and the press) to return. Include a download button or link to make it easy to pull a demo, or the actual game if you’re into the revision phase and you want to keep interest up.

Reach Out to the Press Be systematic about contacting the trade press and requesting they officially review your game. There is a herd mentality to getting reviews; once you get that first one, you’re in the herd, and more will follow if you keep reaching out. Some of the many places to find reviewers to choose from includeGameSpot , Gamasutra, VentureBeat, IndieGames, GamesIndustry.biz, and Polygon.

Turnover in the industry is non-stop, so maintaining your press contacts list will require time, but it’s solid gold.

Be as methodical about generating press coverage as you are about tracking down a compiler bug. First create a list of press contacts and then grow that into a spreadsheet where you can track what you sent, when you sent it, the response you got, and so forth. To build the list, collect business cards at conferences and conventions, get contact information from bylines on websites, and spend time churning the web for names. Networking can help—share with other indies and

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always be on the lookout for new tips. Turnover in the industry is non-stop, so maintaining your press contacts list will require time, but it’s solid gold.

Once your promotional materials are ready to go and have been scrubbed for errors, contact game reviewers via social media and email. Create a template for introducing yourself, your team, and the game, but be sure to personalize the message for each reviewer. Answer the question, “Why should this reviewer care?” Make your pitch compelling, clear, and concise. This is your elevator pitch, your reason for being; take time to polish it into a shiny object.

Following Up Always follow up with your press contacts and reviewers, especially when you break through and get some much-coveted publicity. Jonassen told of an example where she followed up after publication of a review and thanked them for taking the interest. She got a reply, made a friend, and expanded her network. That contact now republishes her press releases or passes her info along without fail. And she keeps in touch while faithfully commenting on new articles that her contacts publish. When she sees her contacts at game shows or conferences, Jonassen has a more genuine relationship.

Your marketing campaign goal is simple—to build and maintain an adoring fan base. Make it easy to discover your game, using social media to post updates. Post on social media daily, if possible, even if you’re just passing something along. Think of it as the “I’m alive” circuit for your marketing efforts. Be active in forums and blogs, and participate in game jams and other events. Show up at your local game development community events. They’re desperate for the help and welcome new faces as well as old veterans. Start a crowdfunder not just to pull in money but to help with your online presence.

Convert Visitors into Active Fans When you create and update promotional materials and regularly post a blog, you systematically convert casual visitors into paying customers. Even better is when you upgrade your customers into active fans. Regular news about your game

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and your company is vital to your growth. Nurture your fan base with personal touches, and respond quickly to questions. But don’t just post and respond—drive the conversation with dialogue starters. Make fans feel like part of the process by seeking input on certain decisions. And remember to remain professional when responding to trolls and critics. Simply explain the reason for your decision, but don’t throw gasoline on the fire and engage in a two-week flame war.

According to Jonassen, the Canadian team at Sauropod Studio developed Castle Story* with some polite interest but not many sales. They hadn’t put much effort into sales materials, and their first demo was too short. But once they had their 11-minute story told and recorded, it got posted to Reddit. Within an hour they started getting an avalanche of serious interest from the gaming community, which they were eventually able to convert into sales.

Examples of starter promotional materials such as those for Castle Story are available across the Internet. If you know of a game that does a good job, start at their website and download their materials to get an idea of what you need.

Maintain Your Marketing Momentum

Once you have a playable demo, you’re ready to step into the limelight either as an exhibitor or a vendor. Or create your own event. For example, Inc. Magazine has an eight-point primer on staging your own event. They describe how to employ GPS tracking, add augmented reality, manage social media, and more. Some of their advice may seem costly, but many examples don’t require a big budget. The key is to plug away on social media with continual build-up and updates, via your Twitter handle, Facebook page, and blog posts.

Contests are another inexpensive way to create value-add promotions. Insert Easter eggs into your game around major holidays or in conjunction with an upcoming event. Enlist the aid of your customers by suggesting that if they contact a friend, they’ll get a secret code. This was hugely successful with games like Candy Crush*, created by United Kingdom-based King.com, and was responsible for 500 million downloads, an average of 6.7 million daily users by

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2013, with average daily income of USD 633,000 at the iOS App Store alone. In 2015, King was purchased by Activision for USD 5.9 billion.

Podcasts and interviews are another way to spread your message. With the right interviewer, you can talk about your philosophy, passions, and motivations. Interviews are easy to share and blog about when they’re recorded as videos. Remember that if you’re not in the right frame of mind, or your interviewer isn’t well prepared, the results live forever. So come prepared, be alert, and preferably know your questions in advance.

Common Mistakes and Pitfalls to Avoid

Keep these points in mind while working on your marketing activities:

Establish a schedule of marketing activities and commit to it. Don’t stop.

Plan to spend at least as much time and energy on marketing activities as you do on development. Some experts advise that you may drop to a ratio of one-third development, two-thirds marketing.

Be careful about what you share—don’t give away your secret sauce. Also, if you provide a peek at what you’re doing too early, you can build up a buzz that you can’t satisfy quickly, and attention will drift away.

Use a public voice in your blogging and social media that addresses your audience as your peers, not your minions. Keep a sense of humor, humility, and wonder about the road you’re on.

Know the roles of your influencers and reviewers. For example, if you’re building a PC game, don’t contact people or publications solely focused on mobile games.

Tell your game’s story with an eye toward its value proposition. Whatever it is that makes your game special, be it art, design, story, music, or cleverness, sell that continually. Entrepreneur.com has a good tutorial on developing a value prop, and it’s crucial. Of course, be careful not to oversell it in the process. Let others draw their own conclusions about your game’s quality.

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What Makes You Unique?

Your first marketing strategy step is to develop your value proposition. If you know what makes your title unique, and what the target market should see in your product, you’re way ahead. Recall the first brainstorming sessions you conducted, and remember what motivated you to design the game. If you remember thinking, “There’s never been a game like this,” or “Nobody has ever done this before,” you have the beginnings of a unique story. Use the concepts that help you stand out and make you different to develop your company slogan and focus your marketing activities.

To flesh out your ideas, follow these steps fromsitepoint.com , written by Alyssa Gregory, founder of Small Business Bonfire, a social, educational, and collaborative community for entrepreneurs.

• Describe your target audience. Are they using PCs, smartphones, or tablets? What is their age group? Do they like sports, technology, or just a quick puzzle or game?

• Explain the problem you’re solving. Why does the world need another shooting game? What’s unique about your puzzle game?

• List the big benefits. Will they be entertained, mystified, challenged, or otherwise satisfied?

• Define your promise. Do you vow to be the most intriguing, have the most engaging theme, or the most beautiful art, or stay true to your mission? A big benefit to any company is to share in a common promise that people can rally around.

• With the thoughts from the first four steps, write a full paragraph with three or four full sentences—aim for at least 60 words.

• Take out the chainsaw, cut that word salad down, and saw off the sharp edges. Smooth the slogan until it’s memorable, repeatable, and your whole team agrees with every word.

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Here are just a few examples of popular value propositions from the business world:

• Fast, incredibly fast relief. – Anacin* • Melts in your mouth, not in your hand. – M&M* Candies • Clinically proven to reduce dandruff. – Head & Shoulders* • You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less—or it’s free. – Domino*’s Pizza • When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight. – FedEx* • Get Met. It Pays. – Metropolitan Life* • We are THE low-fare airline. – Southwest Airline*

At Convince & Convert, they list things to consider when developing a value proposition:

1. Unabashedly appeal to your ideal customer. For example, Abercrombie & Fitch* says its ideal customers are cool, good-looking people. They’re focused on a segment, not mass appeal.

2. Use unique personalities. If you have a personable, identifiable leader, use them!

3. Avoid the superstar rat race. Don’t strive to be the best—stand out with a unique approach.

Demographics To create a value proposition, you must know your target audience. How old are they, are they male or female, do they come from one region or are they global, and what are they interested in? What are their buying habits? What makes them tick?

At GameRefinery, Joel Julkunen wrote an article about target audiences and competitors. As the leader of GameRefinery’s analytics department, he creates algorithms and statistical models that pull the data apart and make it understandable. He understands the marketing challenge that game developers face. “The natural strategy is to make a game that appeals to your target audience AND at the same time stands out from the crowd of similar games.” If you’re writing a role-playing game (RPG), you need to appeal to

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traditional RPG enthusiasts. But at the same time, you must differentiate yourself, or you’re just another title.

Julkunen suggests plotting your game in a matrix to determine where it sits in the cognitive and dimensional spectrums. On the horizontal axis, pinpoint your game’s placement between acting quickly versus acting correctly, and simple versus complex thinking. Think about the skills your game aims to teach. Strategy games focus on a player’s cognitive skills by emphasizing tactical thinking, puzzle solving, and pattern detection. Speed is not important but being logical and methodical are. Shooting games challenge players to develop sensory and motor skills such as speed, aim, and reaction. Plot where your game falls on this axis, between physical (sensomotoric) and mental (cognitive) skills. Consider what you know about top-selling games and decide if you have an easy story to tell that appeals to buyers of equivalent best-selling titles.

The vertical axis differentiates betweencore layers to model complexity. As Julkunen describes it, single-dimensional games are simple, because they focus around one core layer, such as repeatedly solving scrambled word puzzles. At the opposite end of the spectrum are games like Clash of Clans*, a mobile strategy game that requires multidimensional thinking about planning, asset optimization, and resource allocation. An example of an exceedingly intricate challenge would be a real-time strategy game like Dune*, created by Paris-based Cryo in 1992. To win, players must balance offense and defense, create buildings or weapons, plan assaults, conserve resources, and watch for sporadic sandworms, all in real time. There is a lot of clicking, but not a lot

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of aiming. You now have a two-by-two matrix to plot where your game sits: physical versus mental, and simple versus complex.

With your matrix done, build on your assumptions about games you’re already familiar with, and determine what player types to attract. Also consider what you know about top-selling games and decide if you have an easy story to tell that appeals to buyers of equivalent best-selling titles. Study successful franchises for insights into their appeal, approach, marketing, outreach, and other tasks—good examples are everywhere.

Simple 2x2 matrix used by Julkunen to show where games fall based on mental versus physical, and complex versus simple axes. The real-time strategy (RTS) game Dune* would be just right of center on the X axis, but toward the very top of the Y axis (source: GameRefinery.com).

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Personas: Mythical Prototypes While in development, create a persona—a mythical prototypical consumer—to guide you along. A persona represents an important cluster of behavior patterns that can be grouped by purchasing decisions, adoption of technology, lifestyle choices, service preferences, and other behaviors, attitudes, and motivations. As you identify these patterns, you can create a generalized character to represent the entire segment.

At the Gurusability blog, Papa_Lamp discusses some overall persona themes in the gaming world. He cited an article in Gamasutra by Flavio Camasco debating the difference between hardcore and casual gamers, and he argues that a serious Journey* addict is just as hardcore as someone who plays a lot of Shovel Knight* or puts in long hours managing the farm in Stardew Valley*. He argues you might as well differentiate solely on the amount of time a player commits to a title. “[Personas are] the foundation for a great user experience.”

—Kevin O’Connor, president of user insight at UXMag

Papa_Lamp then describes the gathering of metrics to determine player behavior. He discusses work by Lennart Nacke, from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, who presented a talk at the 2009 Canada Game Developers Conference (GDC-C). Nacke advocated the use of gameplay metrics to help identify and build personas, and while data can be hard to track down, the premise remains true. Nacke suggested mixing qualitative and quantitative metrics, and described how those feed into the bigger picture to inform game design.

Kevin O’Connor, president of user insight at UXMag calls personas, “The foundation for a great user experience,” and says personas should hold true regardless of age, gender, or education.

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O’Connor recommends conducting one-on-one interviews with at least 30 people before studying the results to watch what patterns evolve. He also suggests the interviews be conducted in context, such as where the gamer plays, to ensure there are no missed environmental clues. Such formal studies can cost around USD 35,000 and take three to six months—several lifetimes for an indie developer. You’ll have to use your own insights and anecdotes to replace a formal report, but the underlying science is important to know.

In Angry Birds*, players master the physical task of pulling the rubber band on the catapult while calculating how explosions will destroy structures and remove obnoxious pigs. This game includes physical and mental components to a multilayered challenge.

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A few online tools are available to help you create a persona, including ImFORZA and UpCloseAndPersona.com. The tools are only as good as the assumptions you use to create them, but they’re a start. You can create simple personas based on a fictional name, an assumed set of details about their background, and a simple statement about their goals. For example, “Andre is a French hipster with too much spare time who wants to be entertained by a challenging racing game.” Or, “Tomoko is a middle-aged Tokyo woman with a demanding schedule who needs an easy game or puzzle while riding a commuter train.”

If you’ve interacted with the gaming community at large, you probably already know a lot about your ideal customer segment. You may already have an idea of who your target audience is, based on feedback you’ve received. Obviously, the more time and money you spend to identify the persona’s traits, the better.

Once you’ve started selling your title, you can easily answer questions about your customers with quick polls and surveys. SurveyMonkey*, PollEverywhere, Typeform, SoGoSurvey, and many others exist solely to help you ask questions and get answers as you strive to Get Big.

Competitive Analysis Another key tool in your marketing arsenal is a competitive analysis, which is a broad statement about your business strategy and how you relate to the competition. The more you know about the companies battling in your space, the better. According to Entrepreneur.com, if you can build a clear picture of your competition, you’ll understand their strengths and weaknesses. “With this evaluation, you can establish what makes your product or service unique—and therefore what attributes you should play up to attract your target market,” they write.

Inc.com suggests asking these questions about your competitors, adapted for the gaming world:

• What are their strengths? Artwork, theme music, playability, extensibility, community following, and established presence are all areas where you may be vulnerable.

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• What weaknesses can you take advantage of? Maybe they are understaffed, overworked, under-funded, or missed their target date. Maybe their music is basic, their art is bland, but they have a killer artificial intelligence.

• What are their basic objectives? Do they seek to gain market share? Do they attempt to capture premium clients? See your industry through their eyes. What are they trying to achieve?

• What marketing strategies do they use? Look at their advertising, public relations, and so forth.

• How can you take market share away from them?

• How will they respond when you enter the market?

This is where you set aside your developer’s hat and put on the business person’s uniform. Think of this process as its own puzzle game that requires quick thinking, long-term strategy, and fast reflexes. Make it fun!

Gather competitors’ information from their websites, such as the size of their team and their expertise. If you don’t yet know who your competitors are, talk to trade show attendees, read community boards, explore gaming events, and talk to salespeople. Build a spreadsheet or a grid where you can collect the information. You may not know a competitor’s annual sales, but you can use high, medium, and low for starters.

Try tracking down these key differentiators while building your grid: • List similar titles to your game. • Estimate their pricing model. • Figure out where they distribute. • Determine the team size. • Analyze their strengths and weaknesses. • Locate them on a map. • Guess the strength of their reputation. • Weight their commitment to your genre. • Rank their threat as strong, medium, or low.

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Once the grid is built, fine-tune your assumptions, keep gathering information, and keep asking questions. Your future depends on your insights into your competitors and how fast you can get into the market. For example, understand the concept of MVP—Minimum Viable Product. At Agile Alliance, the term refers to how many bells and whistles should exist in a demo to draw instructive feedback. If you extrapolate the concept to competitive analysis, you can determine if you can safely cut levels, complexity, characters, or structures. If your competitors don’t have over 50 levels, 25 weapons, or 12 character options, you probably don’t need those either to release your title.

Talk with anyone you can reach. If you find a competitor at an event, ask them a few questions in person, if possible. Who knows—you may make a friend who could become a partner some day! After all, Digi-Capital* reports that 2016 was a record-breaker for mergers and acquisitions in the games industry.

Strategy and Goals Your ability to set realistic, achievable marketing goals and strategies is crucial to Get Big. That starts with writing them down. Tadhg Kelly, creative director at Jawfish Games, said it best in aGamesBrief article about the biggest marketing mistakes that indies make. His succinct answer: “Making a game that has no marketing story.” In the same article, Oscar Clark, evangelist for Applifier, says teams should always ask “So what?” In other words, so you’re making a great (insert genre) game…so what? Is that enough of a marketing story?

At GameSparks.com, the team created a blog devoted exclusively to game marketing. They suggest two artifacts to guide your marketing efforts: a marketing strategy and a marketing plan. The strategy guides the overall objective, while the tactics get you there.

Table 2 includes some keys to what GamesBrief considers a good marketing strategy.

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For more information, read How to Publish a Game, by Nicholas Lovell. It’s packed with tips, tools, and strategies. Black Shell Media provides equivalent tips while offering a full range of marketing solutions. Anacademic paper by Peter Zackariasson and Timothy L. Wilson at academia.edu goes into more depth.

Table 2. Keys to a good marketing strategy

Element Description

Are you a product or a service? Will you have frequent updates with GaaP versus GaaS new add-ons that a subscriber would get excited about? Or will you launch a product and then move onto the next project?

Will you charge a one-time fee, or give the title away and collect cash Business Model via in-app items?

Define your distribution and marketing choices by who you are Target Audience targeting, and not the other way around.

Unless you plan a multiplatform launch, your decisions about console Platforms and versus PC, smartphone versus tablet, and Xbox* versus Nintendo are App Stores vital to know up front.

Are you going global or staying regional? Do you have translation services, or are you restricted to a single geography? The fewer words Geography on your screens, the less you have to translate, so your early design decisions could be guided by these answers.

Even if your budget is small, you have time. Always think about where Budget to spend money and time. And consider a kill criteria, where you stop spending any effort on a project.

Events, reviews, ads, launch parties, blog posts, social media, and other Marketing Channels channels can help get your word out. Which ones seem right to you?

Measurement How can you gather statistics to better allocate your limited resources?

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Once the overall strategy is in place, or at least forming, develop specific tactics for each sector. See these posts and articles for valuable information:

• Anecdotes about successful video game marketing from Creative Guerilla Marketing.

• At entrepreneur.com, Mike Templeman discusses specific tactics to capitalize on Pokémon Go*.

• Read about the battle between Xbox One* and Sony PS4* at the Strength in Business website.

• An article from David Murdio gives digital marketing tips for video games, which follows up on his article about video and social media marketing tips.

Your marketing plan is a compilation of the strategies and tactics you intend to use. Keep in mind what Mike Tyson said, a US boxer who often knocked out opponents very early in his matches. “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” he replied when asked how well he thought he carried out his plan after entering the ring. Be prepared to adapt to changing conditions in the marketplace—flexibility is vital.

Marketing Goals Management guru Peter Drucker has a famous saying, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” His point is simple—if you don’t know a statistic before you make a change, you won’t know how much impact your change had on the result. Software engineers are familiar with the principle of changing only one thing at a time to see if they moved the needle on a measurement. If you use a shotgun approach and try several tactics simultaneously, you might not learn which tactic had a big impact.

For indie developers, that might be a hard discipline to follow because you usually don’t have time to try one tactic and measure the results. What you can do is try to devise statistics that capture the effects of a single change. For example, gather Google stats on website traffic, then start blogging more often and measure the

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changes. Track the number of your Twitter and Facebook followers, and determine the rate of change when you post a video versus a simple comment.

Sometimes your data gathering may consist of simply, “Hey, traffic is up.” You can get a bit more scientific and measure the before-and-after results as you go. Then you can revisit your tactics and goals, and give yourself a specific task, such as, “I want to increase traffic by 10 percent in the next two months.” This gives you something to execute against, focusing your efforts.

Lead Generation A sales team lives and dies with their lead generation tactics. Because one of your hats is to lead your game’s sales efforts, you must understand the term. Lead generation is the concept of developing a list of names that you can hopefully turn into sales.

On this topic, a web search will pull up lengthy advice from Hubspot, InfusionSoft*, ThriveHive, Lynda.com*, and Salesforce. Most of them want to sell a service, and some, like Unbounce, MarketJS, and DuctTapeMarketing, will help you turn the task into a game of sorts, or offer tips.

Here are some ways to start generating leads:

• Create a new demo video and circulate it far and wide.

• Check your website to make sure the call to action still stands out after you squint at it like a cowboy in a dust storm. If it becomes invisible, fix it!

• Obey Hick’s Law of web design—give your website visitors fewer choices, not more. Focus is good.

• Capture email addresses in exchange for content.

• Use services such as FollowerWonk to identify leads on Twitter.

• Try tools like Quora that use yes/no questions to track links. Here’s a link to a case study about building connections that turn into conversions.

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• Post presentation slide decks to sites such as SlideShare. According to one case study, SlideShare has 70 million visitors, and the site is addictive. Be sure to include a link back to your landing page where your readers can get more information.

• Speak at events. Look for opportunities to talk about your journey, and get used to making humble brags, spreading around the credit, and thanking your long-suffering significant other in public.

• Update your email signature. Make sure it includes your contact information and logo. If you recently won a contest or landed some good praise, update your signature block.

• Try renting an email list. LaunchBit is a good place to start, among many others.

All of these tips have one goal: build a better list of leads. The end goal is converting those leads into sales. Think of your efforts as beginning a conversation. Your job is to continually create new content to share, new conversations, and new ways to engage your growing fan base. Building a buzz takes a brick-by-brick mentality, and it’s much like tending a garden.

In one of the great post-mortems at Gamasutra, Rob de Lara described one of his problems in getting NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits*, an award-winning action-based platformer for Wii World*, completed on time. “I know the many hats issue is a common wrong for indie developers, but it took me totally by surprise,” he said. “I didn’t expect the management, paperwork, and PR requirements of a video game to take so much time. We had (and still have) to devote a lot of time to write emails, request reviews, prepare trailers and screenshots, and answer interviews. After a few months, we feel that there are still a lot of people who haven’t heard of NyxQuest. Some magazines have nominated our game for Best Sleeper Hit, and there’s a reason for that. Hopefully, we will be able to address this issue and create more buzz for our next game. We wanted to create a nice blog, dev diary, and additional media content, but because of the enormous

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amount of work, we had to leave it for the future. Lesson learned: PR is a huge area that requires full-time dedication. The more time you spend here, the better the awareness of your title will be.”

If you are going global, tailor your messaging to individual regions. This obviously takes more time and effort, but trying to use aone message fits allapproach could shortchange your relationship-building efforts. Similarly, if you’re collecting demographics data that seem to be pointing you in a certain direction, go with that flow. Building a true buzz in one demographic can help your game catch fire in other sectors. But it takes a spark to get it going.

Lead generation is covered in depth in Chapter 5.

Creating a Brand Your brand sums up your appeal, positioning, persona, attitude, and design changes, all in one subtle statement. According to Inc. Magazine, killer brands all do the same things well:

1. Focus on a single brand. 2. Snag a good domain name. 3. Keep it simple. 4. Choose one: descriptive, evocative, or whimsical. 5. Avoid branding by committee. 6. Apply your brand consistently. 7. Protect your brand

Forbes has a great checklist for creating a great brand, and so does Branding Strategy Insider. See Strategic Thunder’s list of questions to answer; Brand Butterfly also has somegood bullets to consider. Whatever you come up with, maintain the identity religiously to establish your corporate identity. The brand should be splashed all over your website, business cards, landing page, contact page, download page, dev blog, and other marketing materials. Each facet of your company—from audio to video—needs to be consistently and appropriately branded.

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Multiple books and articles have been written about the top branding mistakes companies make; Entrepreneur.com, Precision Intermedia, All Business, and Inc. are just a few. Read them, and extrapolate to the indie game dev world. For example, Xerox is a global term for photocopying—but the company once tried to kill the use of “Xerox” as a replacement. Esurance gave in to a few critics and killed their beloved babe mascot “Erin Esurance” just as she was gaining serious traction. Colgate thought it could pivot from toothpaste to packaged food, even though the two are hardly related. Burger King* creepy “King” mascot was thought to be a sure winner in the boardroom, but it wasn’t. A Chevy executive once demanded that employees drop the beloved shorthand term and use the whole word—Chevrolet.

Working Without Deep Pockets Indie budgets are notoriously thin. Nevertheless, start budgeting and tracking costs and expenses because when you start that second title, you can refer back to these costs.

Budgeting is more than just wishful thinking. As you become more of a business leader, you’ll have to become familiar with terms such as “return on investment” (ROI), risk versus reward, and cost versus benefit. If you don’t know the costs, you can’t calculate the numbers.

ROI is an attempt to use data to steer decisions. If you expect to invest USD 100 on productivity tools, you better see at least USD 101 in return on that investment. You could get better returns on upgrading to Unity* Pro or buying more RAM for your main system. The art in calculating ROI isn’t in the numbers; it’s in how you put a number on things that are difficult to quantify.

For example, what is the expected benefit of using an agency to create your branding? Let’s say the cost would be USD 8,000. What’s the benefit of offloading that task to a vendor rather than your overworked teammate? How do you measure the expected (or at least, hoped-for) outcome? Trying to put a dollar figure on the value of what it’s worth to not have to complete your project on your own is not easy, but it’s certainly worth doing.

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(Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) ROI = Cost of Investment

To calculate an ROI requires a firm grasp on inputs and outcomes.

You can find ROI calculators at many places on the web;Financial Calculators, Easy Calculation, and Money-Zine*, are just a few examples.

Cost-Benefit Analysis Cost-benefit analysis starts with being systematic and data-driven about where you spend your time and efforts. Multiple online tools and cost-benefit analysis explanations are available at The Balance, Mind Tools*, Chron, and Investopedia*. Allocating time and creating an efficient daily routine may seem difficult when you’re juggling school, work, relationships, and physical well-being, but it helps to have a plan. And in that plan, get granular in your indie project’s budget. Don’t simply allocate 10 hours a week to game-making; break that down further so that your marketing efforts don’t get overlooked as your journey continues.

Elon Musk, the famed South African entrepreneur who changed the world through Tesla*, SpaceX*, and other endeavors, famously declared that he hasn’t read any books on time management. But he manages time in his own way. “It’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. That’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”

If you have enough data to calculate the ROI on a decision such as branching out to multiple geographies, you’re far ahead of most indie developers. More commonly, game devs make their ROI decisions based on intuition, which is hit-or-miss at best. The good news is that if you at least attempt to calculate

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ROIs and cost-benefit analyses, you are more memorable to investors. And that alone would make exploring data-driven marketing a little more important.

Metrics: In Data We Trust Consider this graph of game sales for Beat Hazard*, an indie title from Cold Beam Games. This galactic arcade shooter set to the beat of a player’s chosen music hit USD 2 million in total sales.

Most games start with an initial peak and taper off over time, andBeat Hazard’s launch was typical. This particular title benefited from incorporating new content in the game around holiday themes, generating new spikes from refreshed gameplay.

Sales graph for Beat Hazard*, showing sales on the Y-axis and time on the X-axis. Marketing around holidays defied the typical initial burst/long tail pattern for most games (source: ColdBeamGames.com).

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The best indie developers are keen on gathering metrics for everything they can find. Think of all the different aspects of your business that you can track:

• Buzz on social media and number of reviews, downloads, and visitors • Number of likes on YouTube and Facebook • Number of followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ • Number of market influencers you’ve impacted

Under Drucker’s maxim, that you can’t manage something if you can’t measure it, you need to gather metrics on all your key marketing tasks.

In addition, you must recognize when an idea didn’t work. If you had a marketing goal to increase traffic by 10 percent with a new video, and there’s barely a bump, then something wasn’t right with the video, the distribution, the timing, or more. Perhaps the answer lies in the visitor comments. Try again with a new video that is different and completely fresh.

At Developer.com, the staff wrote an intriguing article entitled I’d Rather Be Coding: Gathering Metrics. It explains why gathering metrics is as important to beginning marketers as it is for project managers.

The best indie developers are keen on gathering metrics for everything they can find.

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Analytics Google Analytics* service is a big advantage for today’s indie developer. Check out the success stories Google compiled at their site, or read some of their tutorials.

Google Analytics service can reveal important data about user events (source: GamaSutra.com).

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Gamasutra has an article by Nemanja Bondzulic about using “Google Analytics service in Games” where they tracked how users interact with SUPERVERSE*, an online arcade space shooter. They needed to know the most popular hardware configurations that users played the game with. They gathered information by tracking usage, which proved helpful for their future planning.

Some pitfalls to avoid when gathering analytics include:

• Information becoming dated quickly due to external events, changes in your game, or other variables.

• A single source for statistics, and always needing confirmation about the data you gather.

• Drawing conclusions based on statistics for one region that may not apply to other geographies, so as with all measurements, use some judgement.

As you gain marketing expertise, become familiar with search-engine optimization (SEO). Make sure your game shows up in a results list when a consumer searches for titles similar to yours. The web contains plenty of information on this topic, and an article from Moz is especially helpful with an eight-step process to get you to that promised land.

Forbes published an interesting article that describes the 12 most effective SEO strategies for 2017. In it, John Rampton talks about content length as a key motivator for ranking position results. When writing your blog posts, for example, avoid the tendency to stop too soon. According to Rampton, “virtually every study done to date shows a correlation between longer content and higher rankings. Some suggest 1,200–1,300 words, while others say 1,500 words should be the minimum. If you want your content to rank, aim for a minimum length of 1,200 words for standard blog posts, and 2,000 words+ for [timeless] content.”

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Marketing Channels

Marketing channels are how goods and services flow to consumers. Game titles can move directly from the creator to the customer via their own website, for example. Or a retailer can be involved in selling boxed games of top titles.

Your choice of distribution channel(s) depends on how hard you want to work. If you collect the cash directly via your website, you’ll become a PayPal expert, you’ll be generating unique product keys, and you’ll be chasing accounts. This method can become quite time consuming.

Channel marketing includes digital marketing, direct marketing, email marketing, and more. Trends come and go quickly, so you’ll want to collect metrics to determine if email campaigns are working better than banner ads for you, for example. According to a 2017 article by Andrew Medal at Entrepreneur.com, as many as 60 percent of all banner ads are 60 percent of clicked on by mistake. About 91 percent are viewed for less than one second. all banner ads Clearly, the metrics just aren’t there any more for banner ads.

are clicked on By far the most common marketing channel for indies now are download by mistake sites. Consumers can download indie games from multiple providers that act as wholesalers, such as the Xbox Games Store, Microsoft, Steam, GameJolt, IndieDB, and EpicBundle. While you may lose a percentage of sale revenues via the bigger sites, you benefit from increased exposure and traffic.

Shows and Events Game jams, trade shows, and gaming events are great places to concentrate your marketing efforts. Your budget may not allow for extensive travel, but crashing on

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a friend’s sofa and carpooling are still common for many indies who are starting up. And although you might not be able to offer T-shirts, key rings, or USB drives, walk around the shows and events to see what others are doing.

Some of the most well-known indie gatherings include Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Game Developers Conference (GDC), Independent Games Festival (IGF), and PAX. See gamesindustry.biz for a continually updated list of industry events that range from eSports to casual connects.

Participating in a panel discussion or presenting a slide deck about your story is a great way to get recognition. You’ll find that public speaking isn’t so difficult while talking about your favorite topic. Be prepared to spread advice and encouragement in your talk, and promote your presentations through all your social media channels.

This topic is covered in more depth in Chapter 4.

Jams and Meet-ups Game jams are formal or informal gatherings for the purpose of planning, designing, and creating one or more games within a short span of time, usually ranging between 24 and 72 hours. Participants include programmers, designers, artists, writers, and fans. Game jams can be intoxicating, exhausting, and exhilarating. They’re a great way to meet other indies, but participating in such gatherings can leave you drained.

PixelProspector maintains a complete list of game jams, as does Wikipedia. Here’s some advice from BáiYù at itch.io:

1. Avoid crunch and deadline pressure—pace yourself and know your limits. 2. Know the scope of the project; don’t bite off more than you can chew. 3. Plan for the worst. If someone drops out, reduce your scope immediately. 4. Communicate with the team. State your assumptions about who is doing what. 5. Leave time for testing and bug fixes. 6. Protect your health. Don’t get caught up in the frenzy. Stop for breaks, fresh air, and stretching.

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Meetups are another great way to network. Meetups range from informal, local hang-outs to formal meetings with speakers and schedules. Some are dominated by developers, and others by players. Search at Meetup.com or elsewhere to see what’s happening around you. At meetups, you could bring your game demo for some feedback, show off your game trailer, give a talk, or otherwise network with like-minded indie fans and developers. You may find these are also a good place to look for help with design, coding, graphics, or music.

Closed Alpha Exposure Project managers use the alpha stage of a software project as the first stage of rigorous testing. While the code may be unstable, it is now at a state where you can gather feedback at meetups, jams, and other gatherings. Players can tell you what they like and don’t like, and help you make decisions about features to add or drop. Few indie devs are brave enough to host an open alpha testing phase, where all comers can drop in. That’s why most teams who endure alpha events usually close them to a carefully selected audience. The advantages of gaining player feedback, gauging playability and enthusiasm, and generating buzz may or may not offset any nagging issues or crashes, so use your judgement about how early you want to show the world what you’ve got.

Contests Entering your game in a contest is a time-tested way to get feedback from accomplished judges and maybe a pat on the back when you most need it. Winning a contest can boost your momentum, give you an instant marketing point, and provide info for your dev blog and social media storm. Pushing yourself through a final scrub to hit an entry deadline can also provide motivation.

Feedback and technical assistance is a key part of the annual Intel® Level Up Game Developer Contest. Intel gathers a well-rounded field of judges from the indie world and top development studios, and their insights and observations are a special part of the allure. The winnings are more than just cash prizes; all contest winners in 2017 received a Razer Blade Stealth Ultrabook*, and the

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Game of the Year winner received USD 5,000, an agency-driven digital marketing campaign tailored to their needs (valued at USD 12,000), and a distribution contract offer with Green Man Gaming.

Don’t Tweet That Social media is a sharp, two-edged sword which, when put into the wrong hands, can prove deadly. Pick your battles wisely, stay true to your game’s identity and voice, and learn to shrug off criticism, no matter how loud it seems and no matter how well-intentioned it may have been.

Some of the most common social media sites are well-known—Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat*, and Instagram*—and a new one may spring up at any moment. Joel Lee, writing at MakeUseOf.com, listed three awesome social networks just for gamers in 2013: Raptr, Playfire, and Duxter. Of those, Duxter has closed its doors, Playfire moved to Green Man Gaming, and Raptr said good-bye in September 2017. Use caution when investing considerable time in a new site.

Pricing and Monetization Strategies

One of the biggest challenges in game distribution is how to price it. Yu Zhan at the University of North Carolina has a simple guide to pricing strategies, divided into three sectors: Pay to Win, Pay to Play, and Play for Free.

Players can pay for better heroes, better weapons, or more levels after starting out for free, for example, such as in All-Star Heroes*. In this game, the players can’t really win the game until they pay.

Dark Souls* is an example of Pay to Play. They sell sequels and downloadable content, plus online versions. Minecraft Realms* is another example of this strategy, and so is World of Warcraft*.

Free-to-play games, sometimes called freemium, use a strategy where the game is free, but it’s full of ads and inducements. Most recent games use this strategy, sometimes offering players the ability to pay up to avoid ads.

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Setting the right price involves competitive analysis, described in the Competitive Analysis section, and knowing how similar titles handle pricing. If you know your target audience and their expectations, you should be able to set a price and stick to it.

Six to twelve months after your game’s launch, determine whether you’re leaving money on the table by not offering discounts, sales, and other promotions. You can push the boundaries of industry-wide pricing trends if you are tracking sales and gathering stats to make informed decisions. But keep in mind that it’s almost impossible to raise your prices once you’re in the marketplace.

Retailers want you to be successful so they can grow, too. Brick and mortar locales are growing less important, especially for indies, and most of your sales will probably come either by selling online via Steam, Green Man Gaming, Humble Bundle, G2G, or others. At the GameJolt marketplace, look beyond your own borders and list retailers by region. At Statista, find information about game market revenues for a particular region.

Revenue sharing with Steam or other providers is necessary in today’s indie landscape. Gamasutra tackles the question and asks if it’s worth it. The answer is maybe. They conclude that, “If you partner with the wrong folks (or even with the right folks but under the wrong conditions) no contract is going to help you. But going through this process is vital. Most importantly, a contract may help you avoid getting into the wrong partnership. Additionally, a contract will give you a reliable framework if disagreements arise between you and your partners.”

This topic is covered in more depth in Chapter 3.

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PR and Self-Promotion

According to the Public Relations Society of America, PR is a “strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their public.” When done properly, PR includes complex planning, metrics-gathering, and development stages. Unfortunately, hiring a public relations company to help promote your game is a luxury most independents can’t afford. However, inexpensive activities you can use to enhance your reputation with the public do exist.

Rich Kahn, founder and CEO of eZanga.com, told smallbusinesspr.com there are five easy things you can do:

1. Become an authority in your industry. Accept any speaking engagement you can find, volunteer often, and answer questions on a blog for starters. Publish interesting tidbits on Twitter, engage in polite debate, and make a name for yourself. Be sure that your thoughts are consistent with your brand—don’t hype FPS titles if you’re an RPG studio, for example.

2. Connect with schools. Students are the employees of tomorrow, and getting in front of them as a guest lecturer is an easy way to expand your public presence. You can build on your campus connections to hire interns from engineering, business, graphic design, and writing programs, depending on your needs.

3. Befriend the media. Reach out to the reviewers and editors whose bylines you respect and chat them up. They may need a quote someday to perfectly capture a key insight, and there’s nothing like seeing your wisdom in a pull- quote, highlighted for everyone to see. The more you learn about the people who cover your industry, or especially your particular niche, the more fun you’ll have at conferences and gatherings, too.

4. Consider co-branding. If your game was a hit at a local jam or meet-up, the more you share that success, the more you help that entity in their marketing efforts, too. If you spread the word about a positive review at a growing

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website, you help their efforts as much as your own. Good co-branding is like having good manners at a party—of course you would thank the host and compliment their efforts.

5. Take the industry pulse. Build your own online surveys about interesting challenges, and publish the results on your blog. Trumpet the news on social media, and share the wealth. You might be picked up by your media friends, which gives you more credibility the next time you survey.

Your game development journey is full of peril and excitement, sometimes in the same day. To Get Ready, Get Noticed, and Get Big, you face multiple challenges along the way. Although this guide covers some of the biggest hurdles you will face, new ones arise every day.

Because most indies’ marketing budgets are tight, you will have to improvise, adapt, and overcome throughout your journey. While this guide offers a few ideas, some elements are mandatory, such as a social network presence, a website landing page, a solid video trailer, and a playable demo. Start early in getting the word out, establish your voice and use it, and avoid the tendency to go quiet. Find panel discussions to join, and tell your war stories. You may not have deep pockets, but you have a unique story and the passion that goes with it. Jaded veterans working on yet another sequel admire your enthusiasm, so ride it as far as you can.

Back at Gamasutra.com, game designer Sarah Woodrow offers this encouragement: “Indie game development will drive the future of games. Indie game developers will be the ones to take games beyond what we know, to create truly innovative and interesting experiences. There are indies who are starting out now who will be the business leaders of the game industry in 10–20 years. We are already seeing a rise of indies; we will see more.”

This topic is covered in more depth in Chapter 2.

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By Dominic Milano

Chapter 2: The Four Ps of Marketing for Indie Game Developers Succeeding in today’s highly competitive games market takes more than hard work and a brilliant game. You need a marketing strategy as carefully crafted as any game design, and a plan for differentiating your game from the thousands of others on the market.

That’s especially true for independent game developers who don’t have the active fan base enjoyed by well-known brands and franchises, or the financial resources to go toe-to-toe with established gaming studios. The good news is that plenty of channels exist (that won’t cost more than time and effort) for getting the word out about what you’re doing.

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This chapter explores a classic marketing framework called “the Four Ps”. Use it to evaluate your game’s commercial potential, take stock of the competitive landscape, set strategic goals, and create a plan for achieving commercial success.

The Four Ps Marketing Framework

The Four Ps concept originated with Procter & Gamble* more than a century ago. Then, the Ps were price, place, promotion, and packaging (because the product was always soap, but the packaging differentiated it for different consumer segments). Later, as companies began to apply these new marketing methods to more complex products, the “packaging” P gave way to “product.” Fast forward a couple decades to Neil Borden. Borden, a professor at Harvard Business School, coined the phrase Marketing Mix in the early 1950s, referring to the ingredients of marketing campaigns. The best-known marketing mix evolved from Procter & Gamble’s Four Ps.

The Four Ps of Marketing

Product Price

Place Promotion

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If your inner marketing maven is whispering, “Wait, aren’t there seven Ps?”, the answer is yes. Three additional Ps (Physical Evidence, Processes, and People) are often included in the marketing mix when dealing with service-oriented businesses. While some might argue that subscription-based games are essentially software-as-a-service businesses, we’re going to restrict our focus to the Four Ps marketing mix and how it applies to indie game marketing. We’ll provide practical advice on how to use those Ps to gain visibility, as well as sales, in the increasingly crowded games space.

Using the Four Ps

For game developers, the Four Ps let you evaluate and plan using this simple matrix:

Table 3. Systematic approach to evaluating and planning your marketing efforts. PRODUCT PRICE PROMOTION PLACE Variety List price Advertising Channels Quality Discounts Personal selling Coverage Design Revenue model Sales promotion Assortments Locations Features Public relations Inventory Brand name Transportation Packaging Logistics Services

To get started, look at each of the Ps above, take a high-level view, and ask yourself:

Product: What sets my game apart from other games (gameplay variety, quality, design, other features)?

Price: What revenue model should I use; what price should I set (list price, discounts, subscription, free)?

Place: What are my distribution options (online download, streaming, in-store, channel partnership bundling, and so forth)?

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Promotion: Given my resources, what are the best ways to attract attention (via the web, social media, relationships with key influences/YouTube* gamers, trailer videos, events)?

Mutually Dependent Variables

An important aspect of the Four Ps is that each component is interdependent— they go hand-in-hand—and you’ll need to plan and use them in combination with each other.

Markets rarely stand still, so you’ll need to commit time and energy to monitoring and adjusting your plans to keep each ingredient in your marketing mix aligned and in-tune with current market conditions. If any one of the Ps falls out of step with the others, don’t hesitate to re-evaluate and adjust accordingly.

If that sounds daunting and time consuming, don’t worry. It’s more straightforward than it might sound. For example, imagine you’re busy coding when you get a Slack* message telling you that one of your distribution channels is experiencing a temporary outage. You were about to post a very prominent banner on your website linking to that channel. Rather than direct traffic to a site that’s down, you could delay posting the banner, or direct potential customers to other outlets during the outage to help maximize sales.

Yes, Your Game is a Product

Creative individuals—game developers included—take great pride in their creations. So much so that many find it difficult to think of the fruits of their labor as a product with commercial potential. Embracing that idea, however, is an important step in making the transition from being someone dabbling in a fun hobby to someone committed to generating income from making a product that other people will pay to experience.

Thinking of your creation as a product has another advantage. Emotional attachment can cloud your judgment and, while being passionate about what

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you’re doing is great, being brutally honest when it comes to making business decisions is best. The sooner you start thinking of your baby/labor-of-love/ awesome creative experience as a product, the better.

With that in mind, ask yourself: Is your product unique in the marketplace, or is it familiar?

A unique product is something original, unproven, and unfamiliar. Assuming enough people share that perception—and it’s fun, engaging, and priced right— it could have commercial potential.

A familiar product is something similar to existing games—perhaps a reinterpretation of, or a variation on, a trendy genre. If your product is perceived by enough people as better than what’s on the market, it could have commercial potential.

Every product has advantages and disadvantages. Understanding what these are in your product’s case is very important to being able to craft a plan aimed at convincing people that your product is worth playing and buying.

Here’s where the Product component of the Four Ps can help you catalog and quantify your product’s strengths and weaknesses, as compared to its competition.

Create a table and list the top five or ten products you’re competing against, then create a list of the strengths, weaknesses, and distinguishing features of each. Keep your list at a high level—use broad strokes to define differentiating factors. No one will care that one of your algorithms is 25 percent more efficient than an algorithm in your game engine, but they will care that your graphics look better than those of other games on the market.

An often-overlooked feature is the length of time that it takes customers to play through a game. If you know this, make a note of it for each competitor game. It’s a vital statistic when it comes to pricing your product, which we’ll talk more about in the next section.

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Table 4. Sample matrix for competitive analysis to determine your competition’s strengths and weaknesses. PRODUCT YOU COMPETITOR COMPETITOR COMPETITOR COMPETITOR COMPETITOR 1 2 3 4 5

Variety

Quality

Design

Features

Brand

Name

Packaging

Services

In addition to evaluating how your product’s strengths and weaknesses stack up against the competition, you need to also take into account your product’s life cycle. At each stage of that life cycle—from prerelease to beta testing, up through launch and its end of life (or the release of its first sequel)—you’ll want to have a good understanding of the challenges present at each specific stage, and have a plan for dealing with them.

Key to accomplishing that is knowing your intended audience, and tailoring a story that presents your product’s value proposition in the following:

Words—Describe your product in terms that emphasize its primary selling points, and what makes it stand out. Be consistent in how you use gameplay- specific jargon and character names.

Pictures—A picture is worth a thousand words, so emphasize the best things your product has to offer. Gameplay screenshots should focus on attention grabbers: epic battle scenes, monsters, vehicles, puzzles, and so on.

Videos—Game trailers are extremely effective ways to pique the interest of potential players. Keep trailers focused on communicating what makes your

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product a blast to play. Gameplay videos by you and key influencers are another great way to attract attention.

Behind-the-scenes interviews, webcasts, and blog posts—Let your audience watch as your product develops. This builds a prerelease fan base, while you and your team become a part of your product’s value.

Deploy these words, pictures, and videos everywhere and anywhere you interact with potential customers—on your website, social media, download and streaming sites that carry your product, and YouTube Gaming*. Use every digital channel available to you in this regard.

Price

It may seem obvious, but price refers to how much someone has to pay for your product. What’s not always obvious is that your product’s price should be based on its perceived value in the market, not simply what it cost to produce and distribute. A product with a price that’s higher or lower than its perceived value won’t live up to its commercial potential. In fact, some would say it simply won’t sell. It’s crucial to understand what your target audience thinks of your product.

Gaining that understanding requires you to take a dispassionate look at your product and its competition—all the things you did when evaluating your product’s strengths and weaknesses. Add to that evaluation by surveying the prices—and revenue models—your competitors are using. If possible, look back six to twelve months at any promotional discounts they may have offered, when they offered them, and under what circumstances. Lay that information out in another table:

Table 5. Sample table for determining the pricing factors of your competition. PRODUCT COMPETITOR COMPETITOR COMPETITOR COMPETITOR COMPETITOR YOU 1 2 3 4 5

List Price

Discounts

Services

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If you’re able to track list prices and discounts for six months or more, put those prices on a timeline that lets you spot seasonal pricing and discount trends. For example, identify whether discounts are common during the December holiday season, or if they are timed to coincide with popular gamer events and tradeshows.

Comparing revenue models for competitive analysis purposes can help you to gain a better understanding of your pricing strategy. Tracking pricing and discounting also lets you see how practical considerations might impact such things as net revenue and cash flow. For example, distribution channels typically take a percentage of the total price of a product. For your business, you’ll want to know what that percentage is, and, for your competitive analysis, it’s helpful to understand that percentage when making revenue comparisons. Comparing net prices, not list prices, tells you what your intended audience is actually paying for similar products. For business planning, knowing whether a particular distribution channel sends payments once a month, once a quarter, or on some other schedule is also helpful.

The last factor in Table 5 is for tracking revenue models, and tells you whether your competitor’s earnings are based on:

One-time payments (download content pricing or DLC pricing): Players purchase the product once.

Subscription fees: Players pay a recurring fee to access the game online.

DLC pricing: Players purchase additional content and upgrades that enhance their game experiences.

Subscription fees: Players pay a recurring fee to access the game online.

Episodic pricing: Players pay to access individual episodes or a complete season of a game.

Microtransactions (in-game purchases): Players buy keys to unlock features and additional powers.

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Free to play: Players don’t pay anything up-front, but pay to avoid in-game advertising or pay for an enhanced game experience, extra content, and more features.

Bundle pricing: Bundling lets you get exposure for your product and extend its life by selling it along with products from other developers.

Read reviews and end-user feedback to get a sense of how much value customers place on your competitor’s products. Play games similar to yours or, if your game is truly different from anything on the market, find and play other unique products, with an eye toward the value being delivered.

Setting the Right Price There’s no one right way to price products, but there are plenty of pitfalls to avoid. One common mistake is believing that price alone drives sales. That idea leads to the notion that undercutting your competitors by offering a familiar product at a lower price will guarantee that people will buy your product over theirs. That’s often not the case. More importantly, setting an initial price that’s too low can hurt you. Unless you announce that your starting price is an introductory special offer, and will be raised after a predetermined period, it can be difficult to raise the price after it has been set low.

Another common mistake is to base pricing solely on the time you and your team invested in making your product. It’s one thing for building contractors to base their fees on time and materials, but, for game developers, audiences rarely know or care how much time and loving care went into creating a game experience. Gamers care whether your product is fun, entertaining, and worth the time and money spent playing it. In other words, the key to putting a price on your product is to align it with the market’s perceived value of your product.

Questions to ask yourself:

• How much is the market willing to pay? • How much are your competitors charging?

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• How long will it take customers to play your game? • Are you offering a discount at launch, and plan on raising the price later? • Does your list price leave room for future promotional discounts?

Similar advice on pricing best practices is offered bySteam* .

Discounting Dos and Don’ts Discounting your product’s price can play a valuable role in extending its shelf life—boosting sales when they’re flat or declining, as your product matures in the marketplace. You need to be careful, however, when timing promotional discounts. Offering discounts too frequently can undermine your full retail price. For example, potential customers may resist paying full price, or any price, because they expect you to lower the price in the near future. Even if that future never comes, your sales will suffer as people wait for the price to come down.

The key to putting a price on your product is to align it with the market’s perceived value of your product.

Try to avoid discounting as a knee-jerk reaction to slower than expected unit sales. That kind of emotionally driven behavior can undermine the market’s perceived value of your product. Instead, have a pricing strategy in place that specifies when to offer discounts and under what circumstances. For example, you might create a pricing strategy that offers a discount during a holiday season, when a lower price could attract attention from gift shoppers. Similarly, offering a discount on your primary product in advance of releasing new content can help seed the market, and drive more interest in your upcoming release.

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Keep in mind that discounts don’t have to be purely monetary in nature. For example, at launch your introductory price could include additional content—“a USD XX value”—at no additional cost, for a limited time. After meeting a sales target, or after a certain amount of time has passed, you can start charging full list price.

Free to Play At the other end of the pricing spectrum sits taking a free to play approach to pricing (an option made popular by titles such as Candy Crush Saga* and World of Tanks*). Free to play generates revenue from in-game purchases (power-ups, customized objects, and so on) or from up-leveling to remove advertising. Free to play has been adopted by many established game studios, in part to combat piracy. Many publishers favor episodic pricing, an approach that combines one- time pay with a subscription fee, in the form of season passes. These passes can cost nearly as much as the original game, and give players exclusive access on a limited-time or one play-through basis to certain elements of the game, along with bonus features.

Promotion

Think of promotion as any activity that’s designed to drive sales. For indie game developers, offering a discount is promotion, as are activities that start conversations and build relationships with the gaming press and key influencers within the gaming community. Exhibiting at a tradeshow or speaking at an event are also types of promotion.

If you’re wondering how that differs from marketing, think of Promotion as an ingredient of the “marketing mix”, along with Product, Price, and Place. In other words, marketing can exist without promotion, but promotion doesn’t exist without marketing.

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When planning a promotion strategy, use “What you need for game promotion” section as a checklist divided into three categories:

• Assets to create that will help you promote your product any time, and on any channel (see the Place section).

• Things to be doing on an ongoing basis.

• Events to participate in to promote your product.

To help you plan an event strategy, create a separate document with a timeline that includes vital details such as deadlines for submissions, load-in/load-out dates for exhibitors, deadlines for making travel reservations, and a schedule for producing targeted press materials (press releases tailored for the event, new game trailers, and so on).

Here is a list of the items you need to successfuly promote your game.

Assets Assets are key items you use to market your game. They should have consistent branding and messaging.

Logo: Icon image that instantly communicates what your product is and is not.

Gameplay screenshots: Pictures that emphasize the best things your product has to offer.

Trailers: Get potential customers excited to experience and buy your product.

Messaging text: Tell your game’s story in a sentence or short paragraph, and create a few bullet points that emphasize your product’s key selling points.

Gameplay videos: Showcase your product by focusing on scenes that will entice people to want to learn more about your product, play it, and buy it.

Press materials/playable demo(s): Have these always on hand and ready to distribute when the opportunity arises.

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Ongoing Activities Ongoing activities make sure that you don’t just Get Noticed - you stay noticed through relationships and partnerships.

Build relationships with key influencers, YouTube gamers, and streamers: Enlist the aid of others to spread the word about what you’re building and how cool it is.

Establish partnerships with other brands: Force-multiply your promotional results by also employing the marketing muscle of established businesses to help you get the word out about your product.

Blog about how development is progressing: Let your audience see what’s happening behind the scenes to get them interested in the end result. Turn yourself, and your team, into a part of your product’s key selling points.

Refresh content on your social media channels: Build a fan base and create excitement over your product on Facebook*, Instagram*, YouTube*, and so on.

Build and maintain an email list of potential customers: Spark interest with the goal of converting list subscribers to paying customers.

Build a website and refresh its content to continually build excitement about your product as it develops: Attract attention, generate interest, and make it easy for people to take action—read reviews, play a demo, watch trailers, subscribe to your email list, and purchase your product.

Events Events are your chance to mingle with other game developers and learn about current trends.

Tradeshows: Game Developers Conference, Electronic Entertainment Expo, Intel® Buzz Workshops, PAX, Independent Games Festival, and so on. Exhibit and speak to increase awareness and attract interest from potential customers and the gaming press.

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Gamer meetups: Meet potential customers and get them excited about your product.

Contests: Intel® Level Up Game Developer Contest. Get valuable feedback from notable industry judges, raise awareness, and possibly win valuable prizes.

What About Advertising There was a time when product marketing was synonymous with advertising. For indie game developers, however, the costs often outweigh the benefits— depending on where you choose to run an ad campaign. For example, social media ads are relatively inexpensive, and may be worth the effort and money spent on them, but placing ads with more traditional media—print and television—may not yield enough returns to make the cost and effort worthwhile.

If you do choose to advertise, target your ads carefully. You want to reach as many people that fall within your target audience demographic as possible. Digital delivery media—such as YouTube—let you pick the age, gender, parental status, and household income of those who will see your ad. Placing an ad in a popular, general-interest print publication that covers games as part of its editorial mix may put your message in front of a lot of people, but it’s unlikely that they all play, or care about, games.

When in doubt, ask yourself if what you’re planning to spend will result in enough potential sales to make the cost worthwhile.

Relationship-Based Promotion One of the most effect ways to spread the word about your product is to enlist the help of established and respected gamers who actively share what they’re playing with the gaming community. These YouTube gamers and streamers can be an elusive bunch, but building relationships with key influencers whose interests align with your product is a great way to build an audience.

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Partner with Established Brands Building relationships with established brands—companies whose products align with yours—is a great way to expand your promotional activity in ways you normally would not be able to afford. For example, some companies may invite you to exhibit in their booth at prominent industry events at minimal or no cost, other than your travel expenses.

Public Relations (PR)—Should You Hire a Pro, or DIY? Unless you’re extroverted and love to interact with people—including complete strangers—you may find it challenging to directly engage in many of the activities professional publicists typically handle for their clients. Hiring a PR firm, however, can be costly. If you can’t afford to hire a pro, consider teaming up with a friend or family member who’s comfortable building relationships, storytelling, and being persistent. The effort you and your promotion-oriented friend/family member/ partner put into public relations can pay off significantly.

Whether you’re doing PR or someone is doing it for you, before contacting influencers and the press, know their niches, and respect them. When you’re building a PC game, don’t contact people or publications solely focused on mobile games. When telling your product’s story, keep sight of its key selling points, but be careful not to oversell it in the process. Let others draw their own conclusions about its quality.

Place

Places where people can buy your product are the focus of the fourth P. With so many digital distribution channels available, plan on leveraging all of the available channels, assessing them as your product matures in the marketplace. Do the same with any physical places where your product can be purchased.

Table 6 can help you catalog all of your distribution channels. As you start planning, use the table as a checklist. As your distribution network grows, be sure to track your market coverage, and spot gaps in your network. As you start

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selling product, track your sales. And, like the other three Ps in the marketing mix, diligently monitor each category and adjust your marketing mix accordingly.

Table 6. Record your distribution channels

PLACE CHANNEL 1 CHANNEL 2 CHANNEL 3 CHANNEL 4 CHANNEL ...

Coverage

Assortments (OEM bundles and partner distribution channels)

Locations (brick-and-mortar stores)

Inventory

Transportation

Logistics

Must-Have Channels Online outlets for distributing your product fall into two categories: places you can set up yourself, and places other businesses run with which you can partner. The latter usually involve a straightforward sign-up process for joining a partner program.

Places that should be on every indie game developers’ must-have channel list include, but are not limited to:

A website: Be sure your site—either for your company, or dedicated solely to promoting your game—includes prominently positioned calls-to-action (that is, download, purchase, play the demo, and so forth).

A Facebook page: Be sure to include links to your website, your YouTube channel, your product on YouTube Gaming, your Steam landing page, and information about any other place that’s promoting your product.

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A YouTube channel: Provide a place where people can watch your video trailers.

A YouTube Gaming presence: Post gameplay videos of your product made by key influencers and gamers, not your team.

Assortments, or game bundles, are another way to get your product additional exposure. By packaging your product, or a partial version of your product with other similar titles, you can piggy-back promotion and sales efforts with other developers.

Sites such as Green Man Gaming and Humble Bundle can greatly help boost exposure to your product.

Crowdfunding sites offer another channel for both selling and promoting your product. While you’re still developing your product, crowdfunding sites let you raise money by selling promotional items (t-shirts, bumper stickers, and so forth), offer early access to betas, or playable demos, and so on. They can also be a source of news when, for example, players leave glowing feedback, or your fundraising exceeds your wildest dreams.

Boutiques Getting distributed in a large brick-and-mortar retail outlet can be challenging for indies with no proven track record. Boutique game stores often have a highly dedicated clientele. Teaming up with boutiques whose customers align with your product can be a very effective alternate retail strategy.

Getting Inventory from Here to There Use the last three categories of Table 6—Inventory, Transportation, and Logistics—to track available inventory, shipping and transportation services (and costs), as well as any related logistics. Even if you’re selling digital keys to download a compressed package containing your product, or to unlock your product on a streaming site, use these categories to help ensure that each of your digital channels has what they need to effectively distribute your product.

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The Four Ps: Summary

When used correctly, marketing strategies and promotional plans based on the Four Ps can help you get your game in front of the right people, at the right time—giving you a better chance at achieving your sales and profit goals, while building customer satisfaction and loyalty. To do that effectively, devoting time and effort to marketing and promotion is necessary. How much time is enough? Our recommendation is to spend a minimum of 30 percent of your time marketing and promoting your work. Without marketing, it doesn’t matter how much hard work and brilliant design went into your game. If people don’t know it exists, it isn’t likely to generate much revenue. With the right marketing, however, the sky’s the limit.

Resources

• Marketing’s Four Ps: First Steps for Entrepreneurs, Purdue University (513K PDF) • Marketing Mix: The 4Ps of Marketing for Businesses an Alternate Perspective • Green Marketing Strategy and the Four P’s of Marketing • Four Ps - Investopedia • Marketing Mix - Wikipedia

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By John Tyrrell

Chapter 3: Pricing Your Indie Game As if making a game wasn’t stressful enough, once you’ve made one, you then have to stick a price on it, and ask people to buy it. How the heck do you know what to charge? And, in a more existential sense, how can you put a price on your own creative outpourings? Well, think of it this way: if you don’t get paid, this could be the last game you ever make—and none of us want that. So it’s time to bite the bullet, put cap in hand, and finally get what you deserve for all those months of late nights and creative anxiety.

Setting the right price for your indie personal computer (PC) game is a key piece of the marketing puzzle, and, in a constantly shape-shifting market, it’s a tricky one to nail. The price of your game is so much more than just the money someone hands over; it guides player expectations of quality and content, and—crucially for you, the developer—it’s what stands between making or losing money.

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There are commentators outside the industry who say games are too expensive compared to their movie cousins. However, some within the business point to rising development costs, increasing technical demands of hardware, mushrooming player expectations, and the many hours of fun that one game can deliver as evidence that games aren’t expensive enough. Recently, PC Gamer* explored the question of underpricing in the indie market, leading to some weighty debate on the issue.

All debate aside, when it comes to pricing your game, stay focused on two things: making sure the player feels like they’re getting a fair deal and ensuring you, the developer, get paid. The goal of this marketing guide is to help you tick both boxes by throwing some light on different pricing strategies for indie PC games.

Dodging Anomalies

The indie-game renaissance is showing no signs of abating, although with such buoyant success comes stiff competition. Steam* is at the forefront of bringing many of these games to its PC-playing public, and, according to one analyst, the platform was deluged with more than 6,000 new titles in 2017, almost as many as the total number released between 2005 and 2015. It’s usually the indie success-stories that make headlines, the leading contender for 2017 being Cuphead*. The self-published game was made by a small, independent team utilizing the free-to-use Unity* game engine, and sold for USD 20. Two weeks after release, Cuphead had sold over a million copies on PC and Xbox* One.

Massively successful indie games such as Cuphead, however, are anomalies, and not representative of most of what happens in the market. When it comes to the price, would Cuphead have sold a million more if it had cost less? Maybe it sold as many as it did because that was the natural limit of the market for it, regardless of the price. We can only guess.

Cuphead developer Chad Moldenhauer pretty much nailed it in StudioMDHR’s MIGS 2017 keynote: “The commercial success really just means we get to keep making games for hopefully as long as we live.” This is almost certainly what most indie developers want their games to deliver, and so the price needs to be set accordingly.

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Pricing Checklist

There’s a lot to consider when making pricing decisions. The following checklist covers most of the key areas that you should check off and revisit as you approach the release of your game, with each one explored in more detail below.

Break-even pricing: How much money do I need to earn to be able to keep making games? If you’re considering Kickstarter*, there are other factors to take into account.

Market pricing: How are my past, present, and future competitors priced, and what are the pricing limits for comparable games? Also consider downloadable content (DLC) pricing, episodic pricing (if it’s relevant to your game), and geographical pricing.

Perceived value pricing: What else do I want to communicate with the price?

Promotional pricing: What kind of discounts and offers should I be thinking about and at what point in the product life cycle?

DLC pricing: How should I price post-launch content?

Break-Even Pricing

It may seem obvious, but the first thing you need to do is work out how much money you need in order to pay yourself and your team a living wage, both for the work you’ve done up to the launch of your game and to keep going afterward. Even if you have additional funding from an investor or a Kickstarter campaign, you still need to do the math.

The break-even point is the point at which your revenue covers your costs. Costs need to include not only your team’s burn rate, but also the percentage of revenue that goes to the retailer (usually 30 percent in the case of Steam and GOG*, for example) and to your publisher, if you have one.

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Once you’ve got that break-even figure, you can start working out how you’re going to reach it by multiplying the price by the estimated number of copies you’re going to sell. Because you’ll never know exactly how many games you’re going to sell, try different scenarios and make good use of all the historical data for comparable titles on Steam Spy. UK-based independent developer Ninja Theory* gave us a glimpse of how this process works in the post-mortem video it released for its 2017 self-published title Hellblade*: Senua’s Sacrifice.

The image shown below was taken from the video and shows the projected sales (in blue) of the game compared to the actual sales (in green). Ninja Theory anticipated it would need to sell 500,000 copies in six months to break even, which means it was able to plan its finances in advance, with the aim of being able to stay solvent for six months following launch. In the end, Ninja Theory exceeded its own sales expectations, but, by creating this projection, the company knew exactly what it had to do and could price its game accordingly—in this case at USD 30.

Ninja Theory’s expected-versus-actual sales for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice*.

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Kickstarter* Pricing

It may be that you follow in the footsteps of many successful indie teams and launch a Kickstarter to help fund the development of your game. Crowdfunding a game on Kickstarter is something of an art in itself. The pricing process is complicated by the number of different reward tiers, often involving the production and distribution of unique physical and digital items, as well as the game itself.

If you’re heading down the Kickstarter path, you need to calculate the true cost of the rewards—not just the goods themselves, but the resources required to fulfill them. Items such as figurines, art books, and vinyl records are expensive to produce and ship. Add everything to your costs—including labor costs—and use that to help set the prices of each reward tier, and to work out your overall break-even point.

Market Pricing

The key to getting the price right is understanding the market you’re entering. You need to ask some important questions about how competing games are priced, be they direct competitors in your genre, indirect competitors aimed at a similar market, or share-of-wallet competitors releasing at the same time as you.

Steam Spy and SteamDB give access to historical sales and pricing data for every game on Steam so you can see how they performed. If a certain price worked for a similar game, there’s a good chance it will work for you—although it’s always a roll of the dice, and, ultimately, nothing replaces having an excellent game to sell in the first place.

This is not to say that you can’t do things differently if you want to—just make sure you’ve done the research so you know exactly why you want to do it another way and what the risks are. Relying on hunches alone is crazy when there’s so much data available.

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Competitor Pricing

The clearest indicator of how you should price your game should come from your competitors, which you can group as follows:

Direct competitors: Games competing in the same or similar game genre.

Indirect competitors: Games that share a broad audience target, and have a similar amount of content and level of production values without being in the same genre.

Share-of-wallet competitors: Games released in the same period of time as yours, competing for finite financial resources.

Build a representative list of a dozen or so recent historical competitors (from the last year or two) that fit into each of the first two competitor types, and then list the following:

• Competitor type (direct or indirect) • Release date • Release price • Sales data (for example, from Steam Spy*, or their own announcements) • Revenue estimate (minus retailer percentage, which is approximately 30 percent) • Time period between launch and first discount • The sales the game has been in, with prices and percentage discounts

With that data, you will be able to paint a detailed picture of the effects of different pricing strategies on competitors’ sales, glean information on best practices and pitfalls, and start to define what your own pricing strategy should look like.

For games coming out around the same time as yours—share-of-wallet competitors—look at the audience they’re targeting and estimate the degree of crossover with yours, and then gather as much relevant information as you can about them. Check their pricing, preorder strategy, media presence (including social media, streams, and YouTube*), and try to gauge the overall level of anticipation compared to your game. This will give you an idea of how you’ll fare in the battle for market bandwidth at launch.

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What’s key is doing your research and not losing your nerve. Price your game at what you believe it’s worth based on the data available and on the revenue you need in order to break even and keep going.

Price history for Reikon Games’ Ruiner*, released in September 2017 (SteamDB*).

Downloadable Content Pricing

DLC is all about extending the life cycle and revenue potential of a game. DLC has become a regular fixture in the world of PC gaming, not least because it’s much easier to do on a PC than a console (first-party certification demands are notoriously slow and complex to navigate). Publishers tend to favor a mix of paid and free DLC over a game’s life cycle, so those who don’t want to pay more than the shelf price still get a piece of the action.

The Season Pass signs up players for a whole set of forthcoming DLC for a game. The player gets a discount, and the publisher gets guaranteed income, and an indication of interest, which helps predict sales of the DLC, especially with the help of historical data. A win-win.

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Of course, it’s vital to make sure the perceived value of your DLC matches the price you’re asking. A couple of skins and a new map might be fodder for free DLC, whereas major new game modes and a new game world sound more like the stuff of paid DLC. Look at the DLC and relative pricing for other games, and if it’s your first time avoid big risks—stick with what it looks like the market will bear easily.

Episodic Pricing

Releasing a game in episodes has become an accepted way of delivering game content, and it can be a great way of generating regular revenue over a sustained period of time.

A recent success story is Life is Strange, which was sold in five episodes, at USD 5 per episode. The Season Pass pricing mechanic often used for DLC is also employed for episodic games, and with Life is Strange players could buy all five episodes for USD 20—a discount of 20 percent.

Selling a game experience in episodic form can put constraints on pricing—asking for USD 40 each for three-or-more episodes is likely to be somewhat contentious— but it’s well-suited to narrative-driven experiences, for example, where relatively lower development budgets allow for accessible pricing per episode.

All five episodes ofLife is Strange* were offered for USD/EUR 19.99, a 20 percent discount on the price when bought separately (since then, episode one has been made free).

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In addition to generating revenue over a longer period, releasing a game in episodes can be extremely useful for small, resource-strapped development teams. Creating episodes allows them to release a part of the game, generate revenue, and reinvest in ongoing development. Ebb Software is intending to release the first part of Scorn in 2018; it will hopefully be successful enough to fund the development of part two.

Part one of Ebb Software’s first-person horror gameScorn* is entitled DASEIN, and planned for 2018.

Geographical Pricing

Another factor to bear in mind is the (often surprising) price differences in various geographical regions. At the time of this writing, on Steam DB, the USD- equivalent local prices for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds range from USD 14.94 in Indonesia to USD 37.41 in the UK, which is a phenomenal range.

The availability of lower prices in certain countries encourages some buyers to purchase from another territory (using a VPN for example) or buy keys via resellers such as G2A*. This phenomenon is proving challenging to parts of the games market where margins are narrow; squeezing those margins too hard can mean the difference between success and failure. It is, however, possible to region-lock Steam codes, although the practice is not that widespread.

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Building best- and worst-case financial scenarios based on the lowest and highest prices you estimate your game will be sold is a worthwhile activity. While it will never happen that all your players, worldwide, buy at the cheapest price available, you’ll be prepared if some of them do.

Some of the geographical price variations for PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds* (SteamDB*).

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Perceived Value Pricing

When pricing your creation, you need to get inside the head of your customer, and try to figure out what price they think is fair. It’s all about perception and context.

The price communicates information about where your game sits in the market and its intrinsic value—the perception of which depends on the context. For example, a USD 60 price immediately suggests a AAA-quality game or blockbuster, for which gamers would expect to receive a significant amount of content (hours-of-play being the simplest yardstick) and high production values. At the other end of the spectrum, a USD 5 or USD 10 indie game may be equally or more creative in its ideas but will have less overall content and lower production values, whether in terms of the graphics or in other areas.

Price communicates information about where your game sits in the market and its intrinsic value.

Where it gets really interesting, and more complicated to judge, is in the mid- market, especially in the digital space. Indie games with higher production values may be priced anywhere from USD 20 to USD 40. Shadow Warrior 2 from independent team Flying Wild Hog was released in October 2016 and has sold around 355,000 copies with a standard price of USD 40 (not including discounted sales). In terms of price expectations, Shadow Warrior 2 was consistent with its predecessor and with what players expect to pay for a complex first-person action game with relatively high production values—certainly for an indie game.

There’s no doubt that the 2017 release Cuphead also has high production values, but its genre is a simpler one—a 2D side-scrolling platformer. Hence its USD 20 price—half the price of Shadow Warrior 2—feels about right, perhaps even generous to the consumer, given the game’s impressive artistic realization

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Flying Wild Hog’s Shadow Warrior 2*, an indie game with high production values.

and commitment to its creative vision. While Cuphead has sold more copies (1.3 million on Steam as of January 2018), in revenue terms, both titles have performed well. The real test is whether they’ve covered costs and entered profit, while being priced at a level that is acceptable to buyers, according to their perception of the game’s value. That’s the sweet spot you need to find.

Promotional Pricing

The world of digital game distribution is littered with sales and promotions, from preorder incentives, to seasonal sales and bundling. You need to watch the markets, study the competition, and work out the right timing and type of promotions to support the success of your game.

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Preorder Pricing Many games offer preorder discounts (typically 10 percent on Steam) or added value, such as exclusive in-game content. The former option can eat into revenue, while the latter risks alienating players who don’t want to preorder. A well-judged preorder incentive is worth it, however, as it can provide a guide to future sales— especially when combined with historical data from previous titles.

Discounting and Sales Steam, GOG, Green Man Gaming, and other digital marketplaces have had a profound effect on consumer behavior when it comes to discounts and sales. As with physical retail, day one of release is still the moment when the sales are likely to be highest, but the endless shelf-life of digital products means that the life cycle can last years, and many buyers are happy to wait to bag a bargain.

When it comes to discounting, don’t do it too quickly after launch —you risk devaluing your product.

Games compete with each other not only within their genre, but also for a share of the finite amount of money consumers have to spend at any one time (share- of-wallet). With so many games hitting the market each month, gamers have to make tough choices on how to spend their money. Looking for quiet gaps in which to release a new intellectual property has become something of a sport for many publishers. Crowded release periods can reduce day-one sales and encourage potential buyers to wait for a discount.

In that context, it’s important to look beyond day-one sales figures and consider the number of people who have put your game on their wish list for an indication of the game’s potential over time.

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When it comes to discounting, don’t do it too quickly after launch—you risk devaluing your product (“Why is it on sale already? Is it no good?”) and annoying your early buyers who picked it up at full price. A couple of months post-release is probably a good guide, but watch the market, competitors, your sales, and make a smart call.

You may find that deep discounts of 75 to 90 percent don’t deliver a proportionate increase in sales for the massive slice they take out of your revenue. Generally, reductions on digital stores are more modest, with the majority of games in the Steam 2017 Autumn Sale on offer with discounts of between 20 and 60 percent.

Again, the price of your game communicates more discount than just the hard cash spent, so always discount thoughtfully, and take your lead from the market between and other comparable games. 20 and 60 Bundle Pricing percent Humble Bundle has put PC game-bundling on the map, offering limited-time bundles and donating a portion of the profits to charity. It’s a fascinating model, and one that many publishers use to monetize digital content that would otherwise be gathering virtual dust.

Bundles are also a permanent fixture on Steam and other digital stores, and they’re a win-win for both the consumers and the game publishers. The buyer gets a bunch of games for a great price, and the publisher generates revenue from games that may otherwise have stalled by bundling them with more desirable ones. This is a useful strategy for further into the product life cycle once sales have reached a plateau and can breathe new life into a game’s sales.

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Pricing: The Final Word

The final word: measure everything for the entire duration of your marketing campaign, pre- and post-launch. Log every article, stream, YouTube video, social- media post, and user review, then after-launch look for correlations with peaks and troughs in the sales data. Compare your sales with your initial predictions, build up a picture of what works, what doesn’t, and how you can do it better. Then do it better.

This chapter gives you a good start to find a pricing strategy that works for you. As you go through the process of releasing games, gathering data, and gaining experience, you will become your own expert on using price to increase your chances of success in the fascinating, frustrating, challenging, and rewarding indie game market.

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By Garret Romaine

Chapter 4: Attending Your First Event as an Indie Game Developer The very best independent game developers apply the same degree of adaptability to the promotion of their game as they do to its development. To jump-start your promotional activities, increase your network, and gain inspiration, we urge you to strongly consider trade shows, developer conferences, workshops, and networking events. Even if you arrive with only the briefest demo, or proof-of-concept presentation, attending can provide you with greater knowledge and experience, more insights into the industry, and lead to greater market presence and status for your game.

It won’t be easy if you’re already operating on a shoestring, but try to leave something in the budget for events and festivals—advice that Roger Paffrath,

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a Brazilian producer and co-creator of the side-scrolling platformer Little Red Running Hood* readily endorses. Writing at indiegames.com, he said: “Hands down, [attending events] is the best way to show your game to other people, and start networking with other developers and press.”

Alberto Moreno of Crocodile Entertainment, the creators of Zack Zero*, says his one big regret is not starting his promotional efforts sooner. “After passing [quality assurance] QA, and a little under one month before game release, we began to think about [public relations] PR … If we could turn back time, we would begin by establishing press contacts way in advance.”

At gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com, Robert DellaFave—game designer and project manager at Divergent Games—recommended that all indie developers consider events as a key part of their promotional plan. “Despite the theory that all game developers are vampires who dwell in dark basements, getting out into the light of day and attending public gatherings is one of the smartest things you can do to promote your game. I promise you won’t turn to ash.”

Conferences such as GDC offer insights into what the biggest names in gaming are doing.

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Find the Event That’s Right for You

Deciding how to approach events can be difficult—there’s a dizzying number to choose from, while travel costs and time commitments will vary by event. There are less formal and more frequent game dev meetups almost everywhere, including India and Brazil, for example. More formal events include the Chinese Game Developers Events Conference in Shanghai or the big Chinese Game Developers Game Developers’ Conference Conference, Shanghai (GDC) show in San Francisco. From IndieCade in Los Angeles Game Developers’ Conference to London’s Rezzed, or from (GDC), San Francisco Paris Games Week to Germany’s IndieCade, Los Angeles Gamescom, you could possibly attend an event every week of the Rezzed, London year if you could travel the globe. Paris Games Week, Paris “I would recommend a Gamescom, Germany combination of gaming and developer events, and obviously there are hundreds of them out there,” says Patrick DeFreitas, Software Partner Marketing Manager at Intel. He points newcomers to GameConfs.com, which provides a calendar of gaming- related events listed by country.

Be smart about your selections, and be serious about choosing your targets. If you’re on a tight budget, you can hook up with dozens of fellow PC developers at one of hundreds of global game development meetups, and talk face to face with developers at a similar spot in their developer’s journey. If you bring a playable demo you could attract lots of local interest, and you could end up promoting your game with only an investment of time.

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Intel® Buzz Workshops offer great networking opportunities, and are not overwhelming.

Alternatively, you can mingle with the game-playing public at larger gaming- industry events, like PAX, GDC, and DreamHack. These offer a much wider scope, and attract thousands of attendees—but the challenge is to not get lost in the crowd.

The more intimate nature of Intel® Buzz Workshops makes them a great source of information relating to technical elements such as cleaning up game code and optimizing your programming. You can also learn more about distribution channels, consumer metrics, and other business topics. These workshops are usually limited to a few hundred attendees, so you won’t be overwhelmed.

The key point is to consider shows and conferences in terms of the possibilities they offer. If you’re just starting out, you may want to hit local events first, because they’re easier and cheaper to attend. When you’re ready to invest in a more expensive show, do your research first. Andreea Vaduva is a marketing, PR, and community manager for the stealth platformer Black the Fall*, which was created in Bucharest, Hungary, and set in a dystopian communist dictatorship. The game was promoted far and wide and, in an article at LinkedIn.com, Vaduva looked back favorably on attending ten events in one year, and recommended using the Promoter app calendar for research. “Before submitting your game to a competition or accepting an invitation, always check online to see how many attendees are coming, what other developers are saying about it, etc.,” she said. Considering Black the Fall won Best Indie Game at Gamescon 2016, it’s good advice.

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The big events offer you the opportunity to rub shoulders with your biggest competitors. You might also meet studio executives and publishers that appreciate what you are trying to bring to market. Your goal is to get a feel for the industry, beyond what you’re reading online or via social media. At these events you get to see what future the industry is planning for itself, listen to some of the star names in gaming host classes, and give talks. You’ll come away with your own personal viewpoint on the state of the industry and where your game fits, plus some contacts for when your game nears completion.

Begin your marketing campaign the moment you have something that illustrates the fundamental mechanics and look of your game.

Don’t Waste Your Time—Plan Ahead

If you’re the only person to plan around, the good news is that your schedule is easy to control. The bad news is that everything rests on your shoulders. You’ll have to plan your social media presence, your technology for playing the game demo, and your personal calendar.

Most indies bring a laptop with their code so that they can maintain flexibility in their day. Laptops and personal devices are fine, but strip out anything personal on your device, such as exotic ringtones, interesting browser histories, embarrassing photos, or disorganized desktops. And always make backups.

If you have the benefit of being part of a larger team, you need to work out how to divide your time in order to cover the most ground. One or two of you can hustle to meetings with the laptop containing your game, while the others attend

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talks and classes relevant to their role in development. The likes of GDC in San Francisco, for example, and the Develop Conference in Brighton, England build entire tracks of expert talks and presentations around visual arts, programming, audio, business, and more. You may want to have someone else dive deep on a single track, while you bounce around and hit key topics from name-brand speakers, for example.

What you don’t want to do is attend events with the goal of tracking down some particular individual at all costs. Experienced, sought-after conference notables come with a schedule already in place, and probably have an admin or assistant to ensure it stays that way. You can’t plan to go to an event with a goal of simply stalking them for that perfect moment. That is a waste of your time, and likely to end in disappointment. Plan your time to be as productive as possible, and don’t rely on serendipity.

If your goal, however, is to meet a certain kind of person, there is certainly value in attending shows, even without prearranged meetings. You could

TwitchCon is a great venue for getting noticed as you start your promotional journey.

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take your game to an event such as TwitchCon if you’re just starting out on your promotional journey, and are looking for exposure within the streaming community and their millions of fans.

At TheNextWeb.com, reporter Lauren Hockenson described TwitchCon’s Broadcaster Alley as “The gallery of Twitch success stories.” She met up with broadcaster CohhCarnage, a former student of game design who left before completing his degree to become a full-time streamer, and now has sponsorship deals with Intel, Razer, Aorus, and Madrinas Coffee. He says he’s never seen anything so uniquely focused as Broadcaster Alley.

“Every single person you meet… has a vested interest in something that you do, too,” he said. “Everyone is cordial and nice, and enjoys Twitch. It’s not like any con I’ve ever been to at all.”

You might not be able to get time with the biggest streamers, but showing your game to lots of smaller streamers, who then go on to feature it on their channels, gets you a foot on the promotional ladder. Don’t forget, some of the smaller streamers could go on to be incredibly successful in the future, so building a relationship with them early can pay off later.

Bring Your Code and Show It Off

Ideally, you want to take a code sample that shows off your game’s vision. That doesn’t necessarily mean a finalized edition, or even a whole level, but it does mean something that allows people to understand what you’re aiming for. You have to give people enough information to communicate to their audience why they should care. You need enough of a sample to show a publisher your vision, and you need a big enough demo to allow fellow developers to provide input on how well you’re executing your idea. Developers and publishers understand the process of game creation, and are used to seeing games that are nowhere near finished, so don’t worry about not having something final to show.

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DellaFave says it’s never too early to start marketing and promoting your game. “Instead of waiting until the eleventh hour, follow this general rule: Begin your marketing campaign the moment you have something that illustrates the fundamental mechanics and look of your game,” he advised.

Be aware of any content restrictions particular to the country hosting the event you’re attending. Do not bring a demo that includes content that violates local laws or corporate guidelines regarding game content, particularly if you’re at a public event that admits children and teenagers, and your game includes material aimed solely at an adult audience. Take this responsibility seriously.

How to be Part of a Booth

Renting space at game events is beyond the budget of most independent game developers. Partnering with larger companies, or applying to be part of a dedicated independent game booth (such as GDC’s Indie MEGABOOTH), is a good alternative. Landing a booth presence gives you a certain status, saves money, gives you a solid base for meeting people and scheduling appointments, and

The Indie MEGABOOTH is perfect for promoting your game on a small budget.

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more. You’ll have to work up front to get accepted, so having a personal network that includes representatives of major gaming companies can ensure that you’re aware of deadlines, commitment levels, and content restrictions.

If you can do it, the effort could make a big difference. Dustin Hendricks, founder of Last Life Games, is the creator of the side-scrolling platform game Trial by Viking*. He took the plunge, purchasing booth space at GDC, and described the experience for GamaSutra.com. “I was able to get like three months’ worth of polish just out of watching people play, watching where they get hung up, and [hearing] some stuff people mentioned that might make it even cooler.”

Make sure you budget for your own accommodation, transport and sustenance— don’t assume that being accepted as part of a booth equates to a free event for you and your team. Also, don’t assume that there will be enough free food lying around to forage for your needs.

The Indie MEGABOOTH requires you to submit your game in advance for consideration. This is common practice, and the extra boost of a deadline may jump-start your creative juices into a productive roll.

If that deadline blitz isn’t enough of an incentive, consider what’s at stake if you win a category. The annual Intel® Level Up Game Developer Contest, for instance, can provide category winners with great exposure, such as showcasing at PAX West.

Winning the Intel® Level Up Game Developer Contest means cash and marketing support, as well as recognition.

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Winners get a new marketing bullet to add to promotional materials, and a great reason for a new press release, a new Tweet, and an update to their landing page.

The payoff can be huge. Dean Dodrill of Humble Hearts decided to lock down his content and polish up a submission of his action role-playing game (RPG) game Dust: An Elysian Tail* for the annual Dream.Build.Play event. “I had low expectations, as this would be the first time anyone outside of a handful of play testers actually played my experiment, so I was quite surprised when I won the Grand Prize,” he wrote. Three years later his game was a headliner of the Microsoft Xbox Live* Arcade (XBLA) Summer of Arcade event.

Network Like Crazy

Don’t be shy once you’re actually at the event. Think outside of the box when it comes to showing off your game, so attendees will remember you. Be active on social media, and mention as many people, players, and companies as you can— they’ll likely return the favor and share your Tweets if you mention them.

Talking about your game in front of an enthusiastic audience is a great way to get inexpensive exposure.

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The Phantom Compass team rushed to pull together a GDC prototype for a unique game combining RPG elements and pinball—Rollers of the Realm*. Once at GDC, they got right to work. “We set up meetings with potential publishers and barked ‘RPG pinball’ to any passers-by with a press badge. Almost all were immediately intrigued by the concept, yet couldn’t wrap their heads around how it would work. This turned out to be a great recipe to start a dialogue,” they said in their postmortem. Be active on social media, and mention as many people, players, and companies as you can— they’ll likely return the favor and share your Tweets.

Contests are a great example of maximizing your booth time. Mini tournaments can get the public dialed in and playing the game, and can generate tremendous buzz on the floor. Recording those sessions with industry luminaries, or enthusiastic booth visitors, makes a great new promotional asset that you can share.

For inspiration on taking tournaments to the next level, consider the efforts of Gamelab, creators of Gangs of GDC*, a massively multiplayer mobile phone fighting game, just for GDC. It was a “wonderful little gumdrop of fun,”they reported, that also provided an inspiring experience with mobile technologies.

Handing out t-shirts, business cards, game keys, and flyers describing the core features and idea of your game can provide a lasting connection. Make sure you have something for people to remember your game by, and don’t be cheap. A poorly produced t-shirt or meager flash drive communicates a negative message long after the show is over.

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If you’ve never spoken at an event, and worry about standing in front of a crowd, take some time to watch others do it. See how prepared they are, and imagine yourself up there. Follow along, and take a few notes about how you could do the same thing with your story.

Maybe your background is your story, if that’s what inspired you. Some examples:

• A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who creates a title around forensic science

• A wilderness guide who builds a challenging survival game

• An art therapist who shows how to paint with emotions as colors

Your passion and enthusiasm for your vision are your key selling points. Still, public speaking isn’t for everyone; if it’s not for you, consider other ways of getting your message across. Post-event parties are numerous, and include those hosted by large gaming companies, as well as smaller, more intimate social events arranged by groups of fans and developers. Use these events as a means of meeting like- minded individuals. Remember to bring high-quality business cards; printing them yourself is dangerous. Darius Kazemi, blogging at TinySubversions.com, describes a system for taking notes on who you talked to and what they said. Guard your reputation, and stay businesslike, especially in the face of free drinks.

Use events to network and make new friends. Remember to bring business cards, and stay professional.

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Follow Up After the Event

The event might be over, but that doesn’t mean your work is done. If you met with influencers, and showed off your game to them, you should jot down their comments. Even if the coverage is negative, take the time to engage fairly and in a professional manner. What you don’t want to do is argue or fight back, no matter how tempting. If someone has taken the time to play your game, you owe them the courtesy of accepting their feedback. One bad reaction is a data point, and hopefully you’ll find something constructive in their view.

Also, it is totally acceptable to follow up with a polite piece of correspondence reminding relevant parties of your meeting, and asking if they need anything more from you to help them produce coverage. Keep in mind that influencers see a lot of new games at events, and they might not have gotten around to covering yours yet.

Finally, when you’re in a position to look back at the event, reflect on whether it was a success, in order to help you in planning for your next outing.

“Did you leave that event ultimately feeling as though progress has been made in anything that you’re doing personally as a developer, an entrepreneur, or an artist?” asks DeFreitas. “Did you feel like there was any sort of advancement or progress made with respect to your game getting out there? And if you can say ‘yes’, then it was really worth going.”

Resources • Intel® Developer Zone

• Intel® Level-Up Game Developer Contest

• Intel® Buzz Workshop Series

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By John Tyrrell

Chapter 5: Expanding the Pool of Customers for Your Indie Game You’re a game developer, you’ve got a game that you think is really cool, the people you show it to agree with you, but what next? You need to spread the word. It’s never too early to start building a community of interested people, with the ultimate goal of turning them into customers. This is the essence of lead generation in promotional marketing.

Lead generation and relationship marketing are a lot like dating: you grab someone’s attention, start a committed relationship together, based on mutual exchange and respect, then, when the time’s right, enter into a binding contract. Unlike dating, however, the contract you want isn’t marriage, but a purchase— and your goal is to enter into that contract with as many people as possible.

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Funneling Fans

When talking about this process, marketers often refer to the customer journey and the sales funnel. Various versions of the sales funnel exist in marketing literature, all of which work in essentially the same way. Their aim is to use different marketing tactics to get as many people as possible into the wide top of your funnel (leads), then pull them through (the journey), to eventually become customers at the end. The number of leads you turn into customers is your conversion rate.

One version of the funnel is the AIDA model: Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. These stages describe the customer journey from never having heard of your game, to eventually buying it. Different marketing tactics are appropriate for each stage of this journey.

This might look like jargon, but it’s a useful framework when it comes to marketing your game. Let’s break it down into concrete actions.

Attention A Making sure as many people as possible know your game exists

Interest I Turning that awareness into an active interest in your game

Decision D Influencing people to choose your game and decide to buy it Action A Driving people to make that purchase of your game

The Sales Funnel.

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Grabbing Attention: Lead Generation

This is first contact—that magical moment when a starry-eyed gamer sees your creation for the first time and adds it to their mental “follow” list. But don’t just trust them to remember you—you need to be able to contact them. That means gathering their data, using it to build relationships, and turning contacts into leads.

What you want is permission to communicate with your leads on an ongoing basis—via email, a website newsletter sign-up, or a like/follow/subscription option on a social-media channel. What follows are some of the principal tactics and how to use them.

Channel Partners As an independent developer, it’s very difficult to go it completely alone. Whether or not you end up with a publisher, you’ll always need the support of channel partners to help get the word out there. Channel partner go-to-market programs generally take the form of a negotiated cooperation—potentially involving a discount or exclusive content—rather than being paid for directly, so it’s an efficient avenue to explore for independents. Channel partners include physical retailers such as Gamestop;* online retail portals Steam*, Green Man Gaming, and Humble Bundle; and hardware manufacturers.

Practical Matters Use promotional messages sent via channel partners (email or website, for example) to push people towards your own social channels or website signup.

The value each kind of partner can bring varies, but among the things they can offer are: access to their existing customer databases, promotion at point-of-sale (whether an online storefront feature or racking in store), preorder campaigns, product bundling, and post-launch promotional campaigns—all of which can help generate leads and start relationships.

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Whether you end up working with channel partners to bring your game to market or do it yourself, the following tools and tactics will help you fill that sales funnel with leads.

Get a Unique Website Having a website for your game is absolutely essential, whether it’s dedicated or part of your studio’s site. Make sure the site looks great on mobile as well as desktop, and that you have the ability to capture email addresses. Keep things simple: apply Hick’s law of user experience (UX) to make user choices easy. Find more tips at lawsofux.com.

Practical Matters Encourage visitors to sign up for your email newsletter with incentives for exclusive and up-front info.

Social Media One of the first places you’ll probably think about communicating your game’s virtues is on social media. Managing and feeding content to social-media communities takes resources, planning, and creativity, and you need to be social— personally responding to as many people as you can, and always with a smile.

Practical Matters Every social post needs a link to follow, a video trailer to watch, an opinion to share, or a question to answer, letting you keep the conversation going. Never let a potential customer or influencer go cold.

The analytics provided by platforms such as Facebook* offer great insights into where and who your followers are, which helps you spot opportunities and target them more effectively. Services such asFollowerwonk* , Sprout Social*

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and Hootsuite* can help you identify leads and automate your social-media management process.

If you have an offer for a free trial, use it.

Paid Social Media Campaigns Getting content to go viral organically on social networks can be difficult, as the social networks naturally want you to pay for the convenience of reaching their millions of users. Paid campaigns for specific pieces of content can gather page likes and followers, are economical to run, and the targeting tools on networks such as Facebook are surprisingly powerful.

Practical Matters Ask viewers of your content to like/follow/subscribe, depending on the platform.

Snapshot of some of the useful data Facebook Analytics can provide.

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Through the Woods* by Antagonist was successfully funded on Kickstarter.

Kickstarter* Kickstarter is primarily a way to help fund game development during the early stages of a project, but it’s also a very powerful tool in building community and generating leads. As anyone who has run one will tell you, a Kickstarter campaign is a full- time job that requires careful planning of time, resources, and content. Done well, however, it will give you an audience who are hungry for interaction and information.

Keep those relationships alive once the campaign is over. Use the email-update tool to send calls-to-action to followers and drive them to your social channels. Respond to questions and keep the conversation going. This Kickstarter post- mortem from independent studio Antagonist shows what’s involved and suggests best practices.

Events Gaming events—be they trade or public shows—give you opportunities to show your game, gather contact information and valuable feedback, and, with a bit of luck, generate some social-media buzz. Speaking at events is also a great way to meet potential leads and is surprisingly easy to get into. If you don’t come home with a four-inch stack of business cards, you’re not doing it right.

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If you speak at an event, make sure to upload your presentation to SlideShare* afterwards. Not only can this improve your profile, search visibility, and ranking (it’s owned by LinkedIn, incidentally), but you can redirect viewers directly back to your website landing page and turn them into leads.

Practical Matters Ask everyone you meet for their email address, to follow you on social media, and to directly share their experience of your game or talk with their own online networks.

Video Trailers The importance of a great video trailer in creating impact for your game is hard to overstate, but it’s equally important to add a call-to-action at the video’s close.

Practical Matters Add your website URL on the endslate, ask viewers to follow you on social media, and add a YouTube* endslate overlay to ask viewers to subscribe.

Public Relations (PR) PR is all about building relationships with the media and journalists, with the aim of having them say good things about your game to their audiences. Start by researching who to target (high-value media with relevant audiences); next, issue a press release using an email tool such as MailChimp*; lastly, and most importantly, proactively and continuously reach out to interested parties to turn them into friends who want to help.

When it comes to the emails themselves, make sure your email signature contains your contact information and logo, and, if you’ve won any awards or received notable praise for your game, add a note. Pro tip: to increase the chances of

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recipients opening your email (the “open rate”), include video content in the email and the word “video” in the subject line.

It’s useful to create an online press kit where media professionals can instantly get their hands on basic assets such as bios, logos, press releases, video, screenshots, and art. Rami Ismail from independent developer Vlambeer created a simple, free online press kit solution aimed at helping developers manage PR more efficiently.

Practical Matters Press releases should contain a website URL, social-media links, embedded video, and a press-kit link, so your media contacts have everything they need about your game to pass on to their audiences.

The online press kit for Young Horses, developers of Octodad*, built using presskit.

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YouTube Gamers/Streamers YouTube gamers and streamers have become vitally important communication channels. The most popular influencers can be an elusive bunch, even when they’re being paid, offering few guarantees of coverage. However, contacting as many relevant influencers as you can is worth your time and effort, as you might strike gold. People with smaller followings, but with an affinity for your game, can also prove valuable in reaching your niche. It’s worth looking at tools such as Keymailer that can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Practical Matters Ask YouTube gamers/streamers to direct their viewers to your lead social-media channel.

Check out Keymailer and similar services to see if they can help reach video influencers.

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Data Management Social-media platforms keep your contacts for you, but you need to store other contacts yourself. Google Sheets* is a good place to start, and be sure to keep it organized, updated, and clean. From there you can export email addresses to email marketing software such as MailChimp.

Sparking Interest: Direct Relationships

Awareness becomes interest through the information you share, the conversations you have, and the relationships you foster. Your aim is to turn every single contact whose data you have collected into a lasting relationship. The key to this is the value exchange. Put yourself in your leads’ shoes—if you want them to interact with you, they need a good reason to give you their precious time.

Value comes in many shapes and forms. Here are a few examples:

• Exclusive content: Offer your leads something they can’t get anywhere else. This could be new information (which also acts as social currency), or it could be something more tangible, such as merchandise.

• Developer access: Game fans love a direct line to the developers, and to feel that their opinion is valued. Make yourself available, and respond, personally, to as many people as you can. Tell your story—everyone loves a good story.

• Closed beta/early access: Letting them try out an early version of your game is one of the most powerful ways you can directly engage with your leads. If the experience is positive, it also drives advocacy (more on that soon).

If you really want to stand out, you can go further and create a unique community experience for your leads. Developer No More Robots did this for its upcoming game Descenders*, creating a custom meta-game for beta leads on the game’s official Discord channel. On joining a particular team, fans become a part of a special community with access to a private Discord channel, events, and exclusive prizes.

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Independent developer Fourattic responds to the majority of Twitter feedback on Crossing Souls*, and works to give value to its community.

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Creating Advocates

If you give your leads value, respond when they call, and feed them great content, not only is it going to be much easier to persuade them to buy your game, but there’s a good chance they will become advocates.

The “loyalty ladder” is a similar marketing model to the sales funnel—it’s concerned with the journey from lead to customer, to repeat customer (client), and finally to the top of the ladder, where they become an advocate. This essentially means that they like your game so much, they tell their friends. (Advocacy applies equally to the pre-launch phase, too.)

Jonah Berger’s STEPPS model for driving word-of-mouth viral communication.

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This is why driving word-of-mouth—virality, in other words—is such a preoccupation of marketers. While we can’t make people tell their friends, we can maximize the chances of it happening. The useful “STEPPS” model for this was proposed by professor and author Jonah Berger, in his book Contagious.

Email Marketing

According to research, email is today’s consumers’ preferred way to receive marketing messages. You’ll find email marketing a cheap and easy way to stay in touch with thousands of followers, and send them enticing content, offers, and calls-to-action. Build your email database by incentivizing people to opt-in at every opportunity—on your website, social-media profiles, videos, and at events. You can also buy or rent email addresses, although it’s a much better idea to build your own list. This blog from online marketing agency HubSpot provides some useful tips.

Use an automated tool such as AWeber or MailChimp to send great-looking and engaging monthly newsletter emails to your subscriber base of potential customers. Take some time to understand how to use the powerful analytical tools for tracking and monitoring your subscribers’ behavior, and improving your emails’ open rates, click-throughs, and read times.

Community Management

Gaming communities of fans live in a number of different places online, from Facebook and Twitter, to Reddit and specialist forums. You don’t need to be proactive on all of them, but you do need to make sure you feed the ones that are most important to you. You also need to monitor the rest for mentions of your game.

Whenever an opportunity arises to insert yourself into a conversation, do it. More often than not, people love hearing from a game’s development team. Just remember to always keep a virtual smile on your face—never respond in anger. If you’re not sure your response is the right one, park it, ask someone else, and come back to it later. Remember, once posted, anyone can see what you write, and every one of those people is a potential customer.

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Using Data and Analytics

Gathering masses of data on your leads, fans and followers, and then not doing anything with that information is an easy situation to fall into—either through lack of time or just not knowing where to start. Nearly every marketing platform from MailChimp to Facebook provides great data-analysis tools and advice, and you will benefit by planning time each week to review what’s happening with your fan base and to make notes. Only by doing that can you see what works, what doesn’t, and figure out what you need to do next.

Example of MailChimp* email marketing analytics on its reporting dashboard.

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Decision Time: Influencing Choice

One key thing to remember—that seems almost counter-intuitive in this era of hyper-choice—is that marketing wants to make our decisions easier, and it does this by reducing the choices we’re faced with.

The way we do this depends on the situation. If it’s a first-time purchase—for example, a brand-new game IP—your potential customers are going to be looking at what other people are saying. Before the Internet opened the floodgates on user reviews and YouTube gamers started earning six-figure salaries, specialist game- journalists were the real influencers. They still have an important role (not least when it comes to reviews on Metacritic, which has become a go-to yardstick for game quality) and often have very large or specialized audiences.

The power of traditional media, however, has been unseated by user reviews and video influencers. We now tend to favor the opinions of people who are just like us. You can’t control what people write and say in reviews and streams, but, if you have a good relationship with as many fans, followers, and influencers as possible, you can build a groundswell of positivity for your game.

We love hype trains. The phenomenon of social proof states that people imitate others because it’s the “right” thing in a given social context. This means that buzz— good or bad—snowballs. That buzz can manifest in the form of reviews or posts on social media. If you’ve done your relationship marketing well and the game is good, the chances are better that the buzz will be good and word will spread. The power of traditional media, however, has been unseated by user reviews and video influencers. We now tend to favor the opinions of people who are just like us.

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Spurring Action: Sell Your Game

If you’ve turned leads into relationships, pushed the right buttons to help their decision-making, and your game is as good as you think it is, then this part should be a shoo-in.

Sales promotion is the general name for marketing tactics that are concerned with nudging people to make that all-important purchase. This includes preorder incentives, discounts, value-add deals, and point-of-sale retail marketing. The latter is channel-partner marketing, and covers everything from visibility in physical retail stores to being featured on the front page of Steam or GOG.com at launch, or during a sale. Physical retail marketing is an expensive business; but when it comes to online stores, if you have good interest in your game and can get a foot in the door, then you stand a chance of grabbing some of that valuable front-page real estate.

Sales promotion in action during the Green Man Gaming 2017 winter sale.

Another marketing model that comes into play between release of your game(s) and its/their various versions is the “loyalty loop”. When the game is a sequel and the experience with the previous game was a good one, the decision is already easier for the buyer. Once invested in the brand, they want more— so, when it comes to a share-of-wallet buying decision there’s a good chance they’ll pick your game.

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Attention A

Interest I

Decision D Loyalty Loop Action A

Illustration of the “loyalty loop” where customers turn into repeat customers.

In practice, the loyalty loop takes customers from the bottom of the sales funnel and reinserts them back at the decision stage the next time they’re triggered to purchase. With gaming, that trigger can be any of your marketing activities, from receiving an email or reading a social-media post, either about the sequel or about a new game that you are releasing. Your ongoing relationship with each customer will influence how long they stay with you as a player and whether or not they become interested in your subsequent product releases.

Aside from the experience with your game, loyalty is encouraged by factors including after-sales service, availability of relevant information in a knowledge base, FAQs or forums, and sustained communication through social media and email.

Every customer relationship is a long-term commitment. Stay on the best possible terms with every one of your customers, fans and followers, so they’re always ready to invest in your next DLC or game. You never know when you’ll need them again.

Look after your customers, treat them with respect, and they will look after you.

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Mini-Glossary • Email open rate: The percentage of recipients who open the email you’ve sent.

• Email click-throughs: The percentage of recipients who click on a link in your email.

• Email read times: The amount of time a recipient spends reading your email.

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By Dominic Milano

Chapter 6: Packaging Your Indie Game Packaging your game in the age of downloads and streaming doesn’t end with a cardboard box on a retail shelf. Standing out in today’s competitive and crowded PC games market takes a carefully coordinated plan for telling your story and promoting your game, in effect packaging it. Whether that packaging is physical or digital, its role is to attract the attention, interest, and desire of potential buyers.

Because indie developers have access to the same channels used by established studios—the web, social media, YouTube*, and retail shelves— physical and digital packaging is neither difficult nor expensive. The key to getting the most out of each channel isn’t about how much money you spend. Rather, it’s the time and effort you put into knowing your intended audience and telling your game’s story in ways that clearly communicate what makes it worth playing.

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Depending on where you are in the development cycle, you may already have many of the necessary elements—a logo, screenshots of gameplay, gameplay trailer videos, and a playable demo. And what you don’t have isn’t too difficult or expensive to create.

This chapter describes how to get your game in front of its intended audience, including these topics:

• What elements your website should include. • What to put on the game’s cardboard box. • Tips on writing copy, producing trailers, and making screenshots. • Tips on designing logos. • How to prepare your text and graphics for printing on the cardboard box.

You won’t encounter any rules or one-size-fits all solutions for promoting and packaging your game, so be creative, use your best judgment, and get feedback when in doubt. Your mileage can and will vary.

Tell Your Story

If you’ve been strategizing about how to start conversations and build relationships within the gaming community with the goal of enticing people to buy your new creation, congratulations. You’ve taken the first step toward marketing your game, and those activities will feed directly into your game’s packaging. Including pathways for players to give constructive feedback via your digital packaging can help you refine gameplay, making your game more appealing to potential and future players/customers.

If you haven’t already, start by identifying anything about your game that sets it apart from others. Whether it’s the way you coaxed an off-the-shelf game engine to do something it wasn’t supposed to be able to do, your visual style, the soundtrack, sound effects, or gameplay—if it stands out as different, work it into your story.

Reading the story out loud should take about 30 seconds. Introduce your story to people whose opinions matter to you, people who don’t pull punches. Ask

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other developers, or better yet, find your worst critics and get their feedback. Iterate and refine the story until you’re happy with the result. For marketing and packaging purposes, let it serve as the foundation of your game’s story.

When applied to your packaging online or on a box, your story must reinforce your game’s selling points with words and a tone informed by:

• Your intended audience demographic: • Are they mostly male or female? A story can appeal more deeply to boys, for example, than to girls. • What are their age group(s)? • What kind of lingo will appeal to them? • How will their nationality or geo-location influence how you talk about your game? Jokes that play well in one locale may not go over in others.

• The game’s genre.

• The time period in which the game takes place (if applicable).

Make your game’s story personable by talking directly to your desired audience and refer to them as “you.”

All the other elements of your game—visual and sonic style, color palette, the website and in-game text font(s), and even the words that describe your game’s components—should be informed by the factors listed above.

Essentially, your game’s story is your brand. Be consistent in how you tell it. Use the same color palette, fonts, and wording and phraseology wherever you’re promoting and packaging your game.

Branding Checklist

Big companies go to great lengths to document where and how their trademarks and logos can be used, often defining the web and print colors, grammar style guidelines, and the spacing dos and don’ts.

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You won’t need that level of detail, but you’ll save time by creating a brand and style guide that documents your color palette and fonts, the spelling of unusual character names, and game-centric jargon to ensure consistent use of those elements.

If more than one person is writing copy, create a style guide that covers grammar issues—how and when to use certain kinds of punctuation, game lingo, and so on. Consistency is key to building relationships and an instantly recognizable identity. The more people who are involved in writing your copy, the more important it is to maintain a consistent voice.

Here’s a sample style template:

Table 7. Sample style template. Logo RGB / Web Colors CMYK Colors

97/148/9 bonzai-broccolini.svg 67/22/100/6 #619409

Tagline RGB / Web Colors CMYK Colors

166/241/34 You are what you eat 38/0/100/0 #a6f122

Body Copy RGB / Web Colors CMYK Colors

0/0/0 Calibri Regular, 14pt 0/0/0/100 #000

Headlines RGB / Web Colors CMYK Colors

166/241/34 Calibri Bold, 20pt 38/0/100/0 #a6f122

Search the web to find free and inexpensive branding and style-guide creation tools to jumpstart the process.

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Content Building Blocks

Like assets for your game engine, you need promotional assets that can be used to package and present your game. Create and store promotional assets so they can be used like building blocks. If you sign a new distribution deal to a streaming game service, you’ll be able to reach into your asset library and drop the content you need into their Content Management System (CMS) template.

The building blocks next, with the exception of music and sound clips, are must-haves. A Logo Once the game is named, it’ll need a logo—an image that instantly communicates what the game is … and isn’t. Logos should be readable and visually aligned with the game’s genre. Because the logo is the cornerstone of your game’s (brand) identity, once the logo is finalized, don’t change it unless you have an excellent reason. If the logo continually changes, who will know it’s the same game?

Crisp, clean, and easy to read, Vertigo Games’ Arizona Sunshine* logo communicates the name of the game and also hints at its content through the color-coded Z for zombies.

Practical Matters Create a vector version of your logo so it easily scales to any screen size. Also create a version with a transparent background so that background elements aren’t deleted when you place the logo onto an image, over text, or in a video.

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Screenshots and Graphics Take several gameplay screenshots. Focus on things like epic battle scenes, monsters, vehicles, puzzles, and anything else that will grab attention. A picture is worth a thousand words, so use screenshots to emphasize the best things in your game.

A hero graphic—an iconic image taken from or inspired by gameplay—is essential. Established studios often use illustrations or ultra-high-resolution renders from their graphics program rather than their game engine. Such images exemplify all that the game represents—action, fun, cool puzzles, and so forth. Use a hero graphic on your homepage, download or streaming landing pages, and on the cardboard box if you’re distributing via retail stores. Hero graphics should be powerful enough to draw your audience in entice them to keep reading below the fold of your homepage or interest them enough to turn the box over to learn more about your game.

Arizona Sunshine hero graphic.

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Arizona Sunshine alternative hero graphic, featuring a typical zombie from the game.

Treat your promotional assets like you treat your game assets—keep them organized by naming files in a consistent, easy-to-remember manner. Saving images named “Screenshot 2017-11-09 12.30 PM” won’t make them easy to find when uploading game graphics to a new streaming service site or updating your Facebook* page.

Practical Matters Computer screens and printed materials require different resolutions and different color spaces. For online use, 72-dpi resolution is plenty. For printed materials, use a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. On-screen graphics need to be in RGB (red, green, blue) color space. Printed materials need to be in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color space.

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Music and Sound If your game has a soundtrack, consider adding it to your promotional toolkit. Upload audio clips to a streaming music service and embed its audio player in your website. Choose audio excerpts that emphasize the best your game has to offer. The audio clips don’t have to be bombastic. Ambient sound characterizes many successful AAA titles. If atmospheric audio sets the game’s mood, use it to package your game.

Practical Matters If you embed an audio player on your website, don’t set it to automatically play. Also, make it easy for the user to turn the volume down or off. You don’t want to get a potential customer in trouble because they visited your site at work and your ultra-cool soundtrack let everyone else in the room know what they were doing.

Text Blocks Consider creating three versions of your game’s story:

• Short—30 words or less • Medium—50 words or less • Long—85 words or less

These different lengths provide flexibility. Each version could consist of one concise sentence followed by bullet points that emphasize the game’s primary selling points. Longer versions could add more bullet points or include another sentence or two. The key is to create short, fun, and easy-to-read blocks of text that can be plugged into a content template or design.

Other important text blocks include:

• The game’s vital statistics—the number of players, their age range, and playing time.

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• Information about your team, its history, and other games you’ve created. Keep the team’s story short—no more than 200 words—and break the story into sections using headings such as The Team and Our History.

• Unless you created the game yourself, create a ready-to-use list of credits.

• Legal indicia, including a copyright notice, trademark info, “created with” licensing info, and so on.

• For boxed games on retail shelves, include minimum system requirements and the logos of the operating system(s) your game runs on. Trailer Videos Game trailers, like Hollywood movie trailers, are an extremely effective way to attract attention and pique the interest of potential players. Whether you produce one trailer or release new trailers throughout your development process, keep them focused on promoting what makes your game a blast to play.

Post your trailer(s) on YouTube or go live on YouTube Gaming to showcase features that make your game stand out.

The launch trailer for Arizona Sunshine as seen on the game developer’s homepage. Notice the call-to-action, “Stay alive, get the updates” (by subscribing to the email list).

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Post gameplay videos on your YouTube channel to showcase your game. Keep the videos focused on action that entices people to want to learn more about your game or—better yet—buy it to play it.

Tips for Creating a Compelling Trailer Video Armed with video-editing software, background music, and a set of video captures and gameplay screenshots, you should be able to assemble a compelling trailer video that gives viewers a lasting impression of how entertaining your game is to play.

When capturing gameplay video, if possible, mute the background music before capturing the video, but leave the sound effects and dialogue tracks turned on. The former will make creating smooth transitions easier; the latter will help propel the action.

When capturing your gameplay video, capture the highest resolution supported by your game engine to make the best possible impression. Video-editing software usually allows for several kinds of transitions. Most are great for wedding videos, but you don’t need them for game trailers. Stick with straight cuts (jumping from one scene to the next instantly) or sparingly use dissolves and other transitions.

For background sound, write music that’s tailored to match your trailer video, or use a portion of your game’s soundtrack and cut (edit) the trailer to it. Another option is to loop a portion of your soundtrack, assuming the music lends itself to being looped.

Make sure the tempo and mood of the chosen background music matches the game’s mood. Slow and atmospheric are fine for a moody mystery game but not for an action-packed, first-person shooter.

Finally, be sure to end your game’s trailer video with a call-to-action. Don’t simply say, “buy it now” and show your website link. Instead, announce the release date and state where more info can be found or how to download it.

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Some Assembly Required

Your growing collection of promotional assets—including the game’s retail packaging—can be used on your company website, a standalone website dedicated solely to your game, landing pages on streaming service sites that carry your game, your Facebook page, or your Twitter* feed.

For inspiration, we’ve included a few examples of how your promotional assets can be used.

Game Website Checklist

Your homepage ingredients can include:

Hero graphic

Logo

Copy block(s) for your game’s story

Call-to-action links to download/buy/play a demo and read reviews of your game as applicable

Screenshots (presented as stills or in a slideshow)

Trailer(s)

News: Link to new builds, new reviews, new characters, new levels, or anything that will generate excitement, keep your game’s momentum, and create the impression that people are playing and enjoying your game

Events: Places where people can try your game live and meet you or hear you speak

Feedback: A way for people to offer suggestions and comment on your game, both while you’re still building it and after it’s released

Links to your game and reviews of your game on third-party sites and forums

Blog

Links for others to share your site on social media sites

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Your website’s homepage design objectives are to attract attention, generate interest, and make it easy for people to take action (read reviews, play a demo, watch trailers, and purchase the game).

The game’s story—located below the fold so people need to scroll down to see it—is told in a paragraph, followed by its selling points highlighted in short blocks of text.

On the Arizona Sunshine landing page on Steam*, the hero graphic is actually a window for playing the currently selected game trailer or for displaying gameplay screenshots. The game’s story is told in the copy block on the right beneath the logo and tagline for new content.

Notice the calls-to-action in the navigation options along the top of the page and in the box beneath the hero graphic that dominates this portion of the Arizona Sunshine website.

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Landing Pages

Game publisher sites and streaming service sites use landing pages to promote individual games or games from a specific studio. If you plan to distribute your game through a publisher or streaming service, adapt your promotion materials to the publisher’s content guidelines and requirements.

(Top) Sample selling points from Arizona Sunshine promotional materials; (Above) Arizona Sunshine promotional materials on it’s Steam landing page.

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Essential landing page ingredients typically include: For design • Hero graphic inspiration, visit: • Logo • Copy block(s) of your game’s story Web design-Inspiration • Screenshots Design Shack • List of supported operating systems • Call-to-action links (start/download/buy)

Your Game in a Box

In-store packaging needs to physically conform to certain requirements dictated by retailers. The overall size of the box should match boxes for similar games so they can be displayed together on the same shelf. Consult your distributor or retailer for further guidance.

An assortment of gameplay screenshots available on Amazon.com* clearly communicates that Arizona Sunshine puts players in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Fun!

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If you can afford it, hire an experienced package designer. In retail settings, your box may be the first and only thing a potential player sees before deciding whether to buy your game. If you design the box yourself, check out graphic design applications for prebuilt templates that can assist in jumpstarting the process.

For printed packaging, you need: • Hero graphic • Logo • Copy block(s) of your game’s story • Screenshots that clearly communicate what gameplay is like • Number of players, their age range, and playing time • List of supported operating systems (or just include their logos) • Minimum system requirements • Universal Product Code (UPC) code

Packaging Design, Explained

The circled letters in the diagram correlate to those in the following lists.

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A: Front of the Box Design objective: Entice potential buyers to pick up the box and read the details listed on the back of the box.

1. Hero graphic 2. Logo tagline 3. List of supported operating systems (or just include their logos) 4. Number of players, ages, time-to-play icons (optional)

B: Sides of the Box Design objective: Call attention to the game when it’s on a shelf.

1. Logo 2. Publisher info and logo 3. Number of players, ages, time-to-play icons

C: Back of the Box Design objective: Communicate that what’s inside is worth buying.

1. Logo 2. Copy block for your game’s story 3. Screenshots that clearly communicate what gameplay is like 4. Number of players, their age range, and playing-time icons 5. Credits 6. List of supported operating systems (or just include their logos) 7. Minimum system requirements

D: Top and Bottom Edge of the Box Design objective: Identify the game if the box is lying flat.

1. Logo or name of the game

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Packaging Summary

The key to getting your game noticed among the 4,000 new games being released every year is knowing your intended audience and using carefully crafted words, pictures, trailers, videos, and demos to clearly communicate what makes your game worth playing. And make it clear where they can buy your game!

Packaging Resources

• Brand Consistency and Packaging Considerations

• 7 Branding Tools to Effectively Establish Your Brand

• How to Make an Indie Game Trailer With No Budget

• Packaging Your Game so Stores Can, Y’know, Sell It

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By EddieC Chapter 7: Approach Industry Influencers to Build Awareness for Your Indie Game

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Getting noticed in the vast digital world, with its myriad social networks and other channels of influence, might appear to require mountains of money and resources. This could be a problem for indie game developers with limited budgets. Expensive PR agencies might have once been the only option, but today’s internet-based marketing channels are free for the asking. The networks and people who can provide the exposure you need often have as much to gain from your success as you do—it’s your content that keeps them in business. More than they create, influencers endorse and attract. They need a constant flow of new and visionary material to keep viewers interested. Indie game developers can feed that appetite for content as well as any major game studio, but how do you make that connection?

Getting the word out today means more than sprinkling seeds to the four winds of the web and nurturing the ones that take root. Today’s influencers—the streamers, YouTube* gamers and bloggers—can multiply your exposure many times over, and it’s important to identify and target the ones that play your type of game. You also can gain exposure from your indie peers, traditional media outlets, gaming conferences, and from the consumers themselves.

The trick to approaching these disparate groups is in knowing how to identify the influencers of highest value to you, designing a plan of attack for each, and implementing and tracking the results of that plan.

This chapter covers strategies for approaching: • Social network communities • Streamers on Twitch*, YouTube*, and others • Game retailers • Gaming event attendees

We lean heavily on the know-how of Patrick DeFreitas and Dan Fineberg, marketing experts at Intel, who share time-tested techniques for publicizing and distributing titles on a budget that indies can afford.

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Social Networks: Start with What You Know

Social media channels play heavily into an overall brand-building strategy. Identify the social networks you’re already familiar with, and start promoting your game there.

During the early stages of development, indies can already identify the aspects of their game that make it unique and fun. Before a game is even playable, screenshots or renderings of game scenery can be used to promote the game on sites such as Facebook*, where it’s easy for others to help spread the word, generate interest, and perhaps even spawn a community. “Even if you don’t have anything to show but a single screenshot, if you have a good story, and something to share with the gaming community that they feel would be a value to their own work, then that’s another way of bringing visibility to your game in the very, very early stages,” says Patrick DeFreitas, Intel marketing manager for software, user experience, and media.

Identify and spread the word about the unique aspects of your process and game.

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What is different about your game—its narrative, characters, or flow? Identify the characteristics of your game that will capture people’s interest and post about them on social sites. One post could cover how the game riffs on a popular storyline, another its original setting, and the next how it augments reality in a way that’s never been done before. It could be anything, but it should be something that’s yours and yours alone. DeFreitas says that outreach should begin at an early stage. Dan Fineberg—a software marketing and planning consultant at Intel—points out that new social channels, such as Medium*, are being launched frequently and are getting a lot of attention. “It’s a relatively new medium when you think about it. There’s a lot of change, and you just have to stay abreast of it.” “If you have a good story, and something to share with the gaming community that they feel would be a value to their own work … that’s another way of bringing visibility to your game in the very, very early stages.” –Patrick DeFreitas, Intel marketing manager for software, user experience, and media

Dan also said that for generalized social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter*, Instagram*, and YouTube, your strategy must be carefully tailored. “There is a lot of nuance in terms of what each platform is best at doing.” Different social media channels have differing value to gamers and the game developer. “Not just in gaming, but in general software-related areas, you might find that you can get a lot more engagement on one medium such as Facebook,

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but that for creating more awareness of your game another channel such as Instagram or Twitter might be better—but your results are unique to you.”

The social aspect for some specialized sites might be relatively small, but having a presence can pay off later. “Places like Green Man Gaming and others like it have obvious relevance,” says Fineberg. They are good places to get early visibility and make inroads to the opportunities the sites offer to increase the distribution of your title. He added that Twitch also has become a powerful social platform, and can lead to engagements with influencers and others that might be interested in promoting your title.

“You’ve also got Reddit*,” notes DeFreitas. “There are so many different groups within those channels that really cater to developers and individual developer programs, and I think they’ll continue to use those social channels.” The trick

As the pieces of your game come together, put them in the public eye to generate interest and build a community.

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is to balance your game development time with the time you spend on social networks. DeFreitas added: “You only have so much time in the day to dedicate to exchanging content and information with your digital community online, versus focusing on creating your game.” He advises that selecting communities and channels that yield the best return-per-engagement might involve some trial and error. Make sure you’re providing value and tapping into a channel that sees what you’re doing is innovative, progressive or unique, and parallel to what that channel or community is all about. The community itself will let you know, either by silence or by storm.

An Agenda for Events

A great place to make direct contact with influencers, industry figures, and game enthusiasts is at developer events, such as the Intel® Buzz Workshop series, where the focus isn’t necessarily on showing people a game that’s ready for market. “You could be talking about your development techniques, the challenges, and things that you’ve overcome,” says DeFreitas. Also, on the agenda could be some of the different solutions you’ve implemented that other developers may find interesting or valuable.

The most important element of the indie’s marketing campaign is to approach influencers who can spread the word about your game, and get people interested in buying and playing it. Schedule appointments ahead of time, and take advantage of events that draw together personalities that you otherwise would have to spend a vast amount of time and money tracking down individually. Think ahead and plan your campaign.

Once your game has reached playability, offering a closed beta is a great way to give gamers a sneak preview. DeFreitas described how Polish game developers Destructive Creations are using this strategy for the upcoming release of Ancestors Legacy. “They created videos on YouTube. They created a product page on Steam* and, to get the word out for the game, they created all of this content—and obviously the game’s not even ready for market.”

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To create buzz, Destructive Creations created prerelease content for Ancestors Legacy.

“The closed beta means getting people to hammer on the game itself, and you’re still capturing all the feedback,” says DeFreitas. “That feedback won’t necessarily affect your ratings on Steam, because everyone understands that this is a closed environment.” Testers are made to feel like insiders, which likely means they’ll talk about the game more, and it gives them a stake in your game’s success—and a say in what goes into it. “It’s a clever way of doing that, when you think about it. Besides them playing your game and giving feedback, if they love it they’ll get a free copy, or a couple of copies to give to friends and family when everything is ready.” You offer something interesting, exclusive, and unique to your audience, as well as a reward for participating.

Strategies for Streamers

Is your game a first-person shooter, side-scroller, or immersive adventure? Does it take place in space or a fantasy land? One-on-one or online multiplayer?

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Identify streamers who play your type of game. Be brave, aim high, and list them all, regardless of their status. “Don’t be afraid to start with the mid-tier or upper- tier influencers and see if they’ll be willing to stream,” says DeFreitas. After all, streamers need content to fill their pipelines, gain new viewers, and increase their influence. Their inclination will be to listen, but your time with them will be limited. So, develop and practice your pitch—you might only get one shot.

“If you can engage with people like that, and implement some of their ideas in your game, they will likely feel really positive toward what you’re doing and help promote it,” Fineberg added. This can be a critical strategy in any market— luminaries and influencers get on your side to champion your cause because you’ve realized their vision. “That’s important, because they’re opinion leaders, and they have ideas that lots of people care about. You can help them build equity in their value to their audience, and they’ll be inclined to help you, in return.” “The closed beta means getting people to hammer on the game itself, and you’re still capturing all the feedback.” –Patrick DeFreitas

Of course, there could be roadblocks. “Once you start reaching the celebrity influencers and streamers that are out there, often they’re committed to a specific title or genre, or under commitments made to a sponsor,” says DeFreitas. This makes it a greater challenge to pull someone in to stream your game, especially if it doesn’t have the level of success of other games they’re currently streaming. There may be, however, opportunities to partner with the sponsors themselves. “Channel folks can help,” Fineberg says, “because as you develop relationships in distribution, that can become an entrée into their joint go-to-market activities, including engaging with influencers.”

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DeFreitas agrees. He says that developers should also look to the hardware companies producing the kit used by gamers. “Some of the independent software vendor developers we’re working with today wouldn’t have reached out to some of the streamers that we work with, if we didn’t insert ourselves as part of the equation.”

Tap Existing Contacts

Identify the sponsors of the streamers you plan to approach and exploit any existing relationship or connection you might have with them. “Those influencers are already getting paid through sponsorship, so if they have a channel and they need to fill that channel with content they may be open to opportunities to insert your game into that channel, which is already being paid for and covered by the bigger partner or brand sponsoring it,” says DeFreitas.

Intel, your game engine maker, and others, also might maintain influencer networks as part of their developer programs. Some might even have their own streaming channels. “It takes considerable energy, time, and resources to keep one of those up and running and filled with content,” says DeFreitas. “So, they are probably always looking for opportunities to pull in new content, especially if it’s a title that’s related to their technology.”

A successful publicity strategy will include many interrelated components, working together.

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Talk to Game Retailers

“Companies like Green Man Gaming and Humble Bundle want to increase their revenues, so they engage the developers of games they distribute in go-to- market promotional activities to build interest and demand for the titles,” says Fineberg. Retailers have affiliates, influencer channels, and networks, too, and all are aimed at generating revenue. Green Man Gaming maintains a network of about 3,000 influencers, explains DeFreitas, but access doesn’t come for free. Retailers usually expect you to contribute time, effort, and possibly money, to the go-to-market program.

Some of that time should include putting together an influencer kit that describes the game in positive terms. Include artwork and other relevant game assets in your kit. And make it easy for retailers and influencers to understand, help promote, and sell your product. After signing a retail contract, you’ll be working with either an account manager or with a marketing team. According to DeFreitas, your proposal might be to set aside 50 influencers and give each of them three keys to give out to their audience. “You’re most likely going to get some visibility on their channels.”

Be brave. No matter how big the influencer, it’s a mutually beneficial partnership.

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Repeat this process for other distribution channels. “Now you’re taking their networks, and leveraging their audiences on your behalf, without really doing a lot of work,” says DeFreitas. “Essentially, you’re giving them the keys, you’re giving them the artwork, you’re giving them some interesting facts about the game itself, you’re packaging it up, and you’re pushing it out. Ultimately what they are trying to do is bring visibility to your game, drive audiences back to their respective retail channels, and convert those sales.”

Take a Holistic Approach

As an independent game developer your business strategy needs to begin early in your design process, evolve as the game does, and continue through release and distribution. You must find the right balance between coding and marketing, learn from mistakes, focus on the strategies that succeed, identify the most efficient influencers, and prioritize your contact and engagement with them.

Awareness marketing has historically been thought of as separate from lead generation. “That’s all changed. Social media really combines both awareness and lead generation in one fell swoop,” says DeFreitas. The reason for this is simply due to the sheer mass of sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. “When viral content exists on one, or there’s a controversy or what have you, it creates a ripple effect throughout the entire mass communication media spectrum,” he explained.

Influencers need you as much as you need them. So, remember to be brave, and try to avoid being eaten.

Resources • Green Man Gaming • Intel® Developer Zone

• Humble Bundle • Intel® Buzz Workshop Series

• Taboola

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By Garret Romaine

Chapter 8: Solving the Distribution Dilemma for Indie Gamers

Independent game developers face an important decision when selecting a distribution channel. While many devs plan to simply push their game to Steam*, a multichannel distribution model makes more sense. Using more than one channel takes a bit of additional work, but you could reach a far bigger audience and potentially make a lot more money.

Physical Boxes and Shareware Days

For independent game developers, distributing physical, boxed games to brick- and-mortar retailers was often prohibitively expensive. One early workaround was the concept of shareware titles, such as Doom* from id Software, which

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launched the first-person-shooter genre, courtesy of a free executable with a small footprint. Players could download the first 10 levels before purchasing the entire title, and demand was so intense on the first day that servers were overwhelmed. Players were encouraged to distribute the shareware version freely, and customers eventually bought over one million copies of the full game.

Early online distribution services, such as GameLine*, for the Atari* 2600, and Stardock Central*, lacked any kind of marketing assistance or title curation, and had other distribution issues. In 2004, the Valve Corporation launched the Steam platform—and a revolution.

Steam* is the #1 choice for most indie gamers, but it’s not the only one.

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Steam soon became the largest digital distributor of games for PCs. The advantages are obvious, as Gabe Newell, creator of Steam, explained to RockPaperShotgun.com. “The worst days . . . were the cartridge days for the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System*) . It was a huge risk—you had all this money tied up in silicon in a warehouse somewhere, and so you’d be conservative in the decisions you felt you could make, very conservative in the IPs you signed, your art direction would not change, and so on. Now it’s the opposite extreme . . . there’s no shelf-space restriction.”

Doom* from id Software was released in 1993 as downloadable shareware.

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Multiple sites now centralize purchasing and downloading digital content. Some platforms also serve as digital rights management systems (DRMs) to control the use, modification, and distribution of games and to handle in-game purchases, the keys to unlock content, and more. The three main models are:

• Proprietary systems run by large publishers (such as Electronic Arts Inc.*, Ubisoft*, and Tencent*), which allow them to sell direct and to aggregate user information.

• Retail systems that sell third-party titles and third-party DRMs. Examples: Green Man Gaming*, Humble Bundle*, and GamersGate*.

• Digital distribution platforms selling third-party titles and proprietary DRMs. Table 8 shows the page visits of leading platforms.

Table 8. Top distribution platforms ranked by page visits1

Platform Web Address # of Games Total Monthly Visits

Steam* steampowered.com 14,000 163,000,000

Humble Bundle humblebundle.com 5,000 41,600,000

GOG gog.com 2,000 19,000,000

itch.io itch.io 63,000 10,100,000

Green Man Gaming greenmangaming.com 7,500 6,200,000

GamersGate* gamersgate.com 6,000 2,000,000

OnePlay* oneplay.com 2,000 127,000

1Top distribution platforms ranked by page visits (Source: Newzoo Q2’17: Global Games Market)

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Make it a True Partnership

With so many options to choose from, it can be difficult to choose a distribution partner. Some key questions to answer before settling on a partner are:

• What is your business model? If you are relying on in-game purchases, you’ll need a strong DRM system to manage those microtransactions.

• Is your game free or fee-based? Pricing is a tough choice you should make early in your developer’s journey—find more information inChapter 3: Get Ready—Pricing Your Indie Game.

• Who is your target audience? If you’re focused on a narrow niche, you may not want to risk getting lost on the largest distribution platforms. Look for sites dedicated to your target audience.

• What devices are your potential customers using? If you are releasing a mobile puzzle-game, focus on sites that distribute such titles.

• What channels are your potential customers using? Find out what site(s) your target audience relies on.

Direct Distribution Can Still Work

Alarmed at the thought of losing revenue to an online distributor, some indie devs might be thinking about distributing their game’s installation package by themselves. The average split for selling through a retailer is 70/30, but can vary depending on the platform and the leverage of the developer. Some sites even offer aPay What You Want option or allow customers to direct some of the money to charity.

To keep more than 70 percent of the revenue for yourself, you can hook up with a full-stack digital commerce platform, such as Fastspring*, which enables global subscriptions and payments for online, mobile, and in-app experiences. Or you can set up your own digital store using the tools at Binpress*.

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“Don’t just rely on distributors to sell your game for you . . . There is still significant money to be made from direct sales,” writes Paul Kilduff-Taylor, part average of the team at Mode 7 in Oxford, United Kingdom. split When setting up your own distribution channel, you’ll need a reliable payment provider, a clear, selling optimized website, and you’ll have to work hard to drive potential customers to your site with a good through a marketing plan, Kilduff-Taylor advises. retailer: Use your own efforts to augment a complete, multichannel distribution strategy. “To have a decent success on the PC with a downloadable game, you’ll 70/30 need to be on every major portal,” Kilduff-Taylor said.

Don’t Stop with Steam

Steam controls a significant portion of the PC game market space, and by late 2017 the service had over 275 million active users—growing at 100,000 per week, according to SteamSpy.com. In 2017 an estimated 6,000+ games were released on Steam.

One of its key attractions is the Humble Indie Bundle, which curates indie titles, giving smaller games a chance to shine. The SteamDirect FAQ lays out some issues you should be aware of. Be sure to emphasize the points that make your game unique and be organized with your marketing efforts—with a plan, collateral pieces, press information, and a compelling trailer all ready to go. Trailers are a key ingredient, and producers such as Kert Gartner are highly sought after. (For more information about Kert’s trailers, check here.) Make sure your game stands out, or you could get lost in the daily release avalanche.

Patrick DeFreitas, software partner marketing manager at Intel, advises indies to consider distributing through multiple channels. “Many indie developers on the PC gaming side see Steam as the be-all and end-all for distribution. They believe that

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if they have their title on Steam, they’re good to go. But it’s important to consider additional digital and retail distribution channels to get your title out there.”

Secondary retailers and channels focus on curating high-quality games that are compelling to their base and may be able to perfectly match your title to their followers. DeFreitas also points out that some retailers may do a better job in a single region. “They’re all looking for a portfolio of titles that they can sell through their channels,” he said. “At the end of the day, you could potentially end up as an indie developer with a dozen different channels where you are selling your titles directly to consumers worldwide.”

Data Gathering Aids Decision Making

Investigate the statistics the various distribution channels can gather for you. Over time, you should have plenty of data to analyze as you determine sales trends, response to promotions, geographical strengths, and buyer personas. Steam is so big that third-party sites, such as SteamCharts.com, have sprung up providing data snapshots. At SteamAnalyst.com you can find out what in-game purchases are trending. Google Analytics* can be paired with Steam data to analyze your Steam Store page or Community Hub for anonymized data about your traffic sources and visitor behavior.

Distribution platforms to choose from or to include in an all-of-the-above approach.

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Be sure to take advantage of data collection opportunities, so you can develop and perfect the player personas in your target audience. The more you know about your sales and your customers the better are the decisions you can make about additional distribution choices.

Steam* conducts monthly surveys to help guide your decision making.2

2(source: Steampowered.com)

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Multi Platform Releases Boost Incomes, Headaches

Releasing a title across mobile devices, consoles, and PC operating systems is a good way to boost your income flow but probably not a good choice for most beginners with a single title. Learning the ropes for so many different systems all at once is a big challenge. Game engines such as Unity* software and Unreal* offer ways to reach multiple platforms from the same code base, but be prepared to make a big investment in testing and quality control. You might want to concentrate on making the very best PC game you are capable of, rather than extending yourself across every available platform.

Third-party sites such as SteamCharts.com offer continual snapshots of Steam* data.3 3(source: Steamcharts.com)

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Bundling for Fun

Getting into an original equipment manufacturer bundle is a great way to jump- start distribution; you develop more of a business-to-business model, and the bundler handles much of the promotion. Instead of trying to stand out from dozens of titles released around the same time, you only compete with the handful of titles in the bundle. Reddit* maintains a good overview of the current bundles for sale, and a list of sites that offer game bundles. IndieGameBundles.com* keeps a similar list completely devoted to indies.

Concentrate on making the very best PC game you are capable of, rather than extending yourself across every available platform.

Writing at venturebeat.com*, Joe Hubert says, “You don’t enter into a bundle in hopes of retiring on a nice island. You enter a bundle for the residual influence it has on your game. (The exposure outweighs the low price-point of the sale.) Your game will get eyeballs, lots and lots of eyeballs, to look at your game, see what it’s about, and recognize it in the future,” Hubert wrote.

HumbleBundle.com offers anFAQ to help guide you through their submission steps. Fanatical.com* starts their process with an email, while Green Man Gaming has an online form.

You can also contact publishers and bundlers at shows and events as part of your own networking. Major gaming sites and magazines can steer you toward hot, new platforms. Chat up fellow devs for their takes on distribution trends as well.

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Once you get into a bundle, you may be expected to participate with your own marketing efforts. The good news is that you’ll have more news and information to fill up your social networking feeds. For more information about promotion strategies and marketing deliverables, check out Chapter 4 about attending events, and Chapter 7 for approaching industry influencers.

Several organizations host annual contests for indie game developers. The Independent Games Festival offers cash prizes and publicity, while the Game Development World Championship offers trips to Finland and Sweden, and visits to top game studios. These are also great marketing bullets for your promotional materials. Also be on the lookout for contests that offer help in distributing your game in a bundle, or as a stand-alone title. The Intel® Level Up Game Developer Contest, for example, puts your game in front of Green Man Gaming. Check the PixelProspector.com* site for its updated list of contests to enter.

The Power of Good Distribution

Bastion*, an action role-playing game from indie developer Supergiant Games, was nearly sunk by a troubled preview version at a recent Game Developer Conference (GDC). When they brought a playable version to the Penny Arcade Expo, however, it started picking up awards. Crucially, this led to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment publishing it on Microsoft Xbox*. It was next ported to Microsoft Windows* PC on Steam, and a browser game was created for Google Chrome*. It sold at least 500,000 copies in one year.

When Dustforce* was included in Humble Indie Bundle 6, they witnessed an enormous boost in sales. In a short two-week period after the bundle was rolled out, the game sold 138,725 copies and pulled in USD 178,235.

Promotions often provide a spur to plateauing sales. Alexis Santos, editor at Binpress*, said that Pocketwatch Games’ Monaco* made USD 215,000 by participating in Humble Indie Bundle 11. Monaco was included in 370,000 bidders out of 493,000 bundles sold; bidders had to beat the average price of USD 4.71 per bundle to receive Monaco. That meant that Pocketwatch didn’t

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receive a big income boost per title, but it distributed hundreds of thousands of copies of the game. What it did receive was a pretty good income boost to a game that had been on the market for 10 months, and there was no major impact on Steam sales of the full-priced title outside of the bundle.

Aki Järvinen, founder of GameFutures.com*, recently wrote on 10 trends shaping the gaming industry and pointed to the evolution of business models that benefit from new distribution schemes. “Companies like Playfield* andItch.io are building services that try to tackle the indie discoverability issue,” he said, “both for the player community and the developers.” His guess is that with distribution platforms providing more support for marketing, public relations, and data analytics, in the future we may be seeing more of what Morgan Jaffit calls “triple-I” titles and studios.

Bastion* overcame early obstacles to become available in multiple versions.

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Rather than the “indiepocalypse” that pundits worried about in 2015—a super- saturated indie market leading to smaller slices of a slow-growing pie—there will always be room for creative, unique games. The trick will be in making them easy to find and buy. With multiple evolving distribution channels, you’ll have to work hard to distribute your intellectual property through appropriate channels, in order to maximize reach, audience, and revenue. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, either. Intel and Green Man Gaming just teamed up to form a new digital content distribution site for publishers, retailers, and channel partners.

To learn more about getting involved with the Intel® Software Distribution Hub, visit isdh.greenmangaming.com.

Resources • Intel® Developer Zone

• Intel® Level Up Game Developer Contest

• Indie Games on Steam

151 | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game Appendix

152 | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game About the Authors About the Authors

Patrick DeFreitas, Intel® Partner Marketing Manager A graduate from Boston University & UC Berkeley Patrick has worked in the entertainment industry including film, television and video games for almost 20 years. He has also worked in ecommerce and media marketing industries starting in the late ‘90s. When he’s not focused on tracking new up and comers in gaming catch him enjoying “quiet time” in Palm Springs, CA. Primary subject matter expert on marketing indie games

Dan Fineberg, Marketing Consultant For more than 35 years, Dan has built demand for innovations that transform the way we work, play and learn—driving growth for small, medium and large companies. At Intel in the ‘90’s and 00’s, Dan led marketing initiatives and programs to establish Intel® LAN products, server processors, and mobilized software, helping to drive a sea change in business computing based on industry standards and volume economics. As marketing director at the electron microscope leader FEI, Dan implemented and managed direct-relationship marketing and led the category-creation campaign establishing a new class of electron microscopes. Today, Dan works for Intel’s Software and Services Group as a full-time consultant, helping drive strategic communications for Intel’s innovative software and platforms. Primary subject matter expert on marketing indie games

Garret Romaine, RH+M3 Lead Writer Garret has been writing about the gaming world since the early days of MS-DOS, authoring white papers, case studies, game reviews, profiles, and feature articles. He worked on Intel’s Visual Adrenaline Magazine starting in 2009, and has since contributed content for Intel Developer Zone. He is currently the Director of Content Creation at RH+M3. Chapter 1: Overview of Indie Game Marketing Chapter 4: Attending Your First Event as an Indie Game Developer Chapter 8: Solving the Distribution Dilemma for Indie Gamers

153 | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game About the Authors

John Tyrrell, RH+M3 Senior Writer John’s career in the video game industry began with the launch of Nintendo’s Pokemon on an unsuspecting British public in 1999. After a decade of international PR campaigns and freelance writing, he left the position of Worldwide PR Director at Atari in 2009 to establish Hot Socket, his communications consultancy based in Lyon, France. Today he writes for RH+M3 crafting articles and papers for Intel, produces videos about games and the people that make them, helps run international games PR and marketing agency Cosmocover, and teaches digital marketing at business schools in Lyon. Chapter 3: Pricing Your Indie Game Chapter 5: Expanding Your Pool of Customers for Your Indie Game

Dominic Milano, RH+M3 Senior Writer Dominic is a veteran of online, event, and print media production. He served on the Game Developers Conference advisory board and was editorial director of Game Developer magazine, InterActivity, Digital Video, Keyboard, Guitar Player, and more. He has edited and contributed to many books on subjects ranging from interactive technology to electronic music and digital video compression. Today, he helps Intel and other high-tech companies explain new technologies. Chapter 2: 4 P’s of Marketing for Indie Game Developers Chapter 6: Packaging Your Indie Game

EddieC, RH+M3 Senior Writer EddieC has been a tech writer for RH+M3 since 2009, and has written numerous developer case studies, Intel contest-winner profiles, tutorials and technical articles for Intel Developer Zone and Intel Visual Adrenaline magazine. Chapter 7: Approaching Industry Influencers for Indie Game Developers

154 | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game Additional Contributors Additional Contributors

Bob Gardner, Intel® Game Dev. Program Lead Bob is an ex-graphics engineer, indie games programmer, Android GDE (Google Developer Expert), and the current Game Dev. Program Lead for Intel. He has hands-on experience in industries from backbone internet, through mobile silicon, to high end PC gaming; and has spoken at events varying in size from intimate Android gatherings to full auditoriums at GDC. He loves strategy games (and has played every game that could ever be described as an XCom clone); Metroidvanias; and has played a tank in World of Warcraft from Vanilla to this day.

Josh Bancroft, Intel® Game Dev. Content Lead Josh Bancroft is a lifelong geek and early adopter who grew up with video games and then the web. He has always been fascinated with how people connect with each other and their tribes online. Josh has been at Intel for 18 years, and spent the last decade in developer relations, building community among people who make amazing stuff with software. With a background in instructional design, Josh currently works on content planning and strategy for game development and VR at Intel. In his free time he’s probably playing Overwatch (support/ tank main), working on gaming PC builds, or tinkering with cameras and VR mixed reality.

Caitlin Powers, RH+M3 Graphic Design and Production Caitlin has worked with RH+M3 for 10+ years designing for a range of mediums and publications, including Intel Visual Adrenaline magazine. She also works as a UX designer on web and mobile interfaces. When not on her computer, Caitlin enjoys reading, watching movies, and learning what will and what won’t grow in her garden.

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Rhonda Roth, RH+M3 Account Executive Rhonda Roth has handled some of the coolest customers on the planet, creating marketing programs in the highly-competitive world of technical marketing. She brings 10 years of experience to her role as chief collaborator, point-person and gatekeeper, managing vendors and agencies and ensuring our team keeps focused and that your content pipeline stays full. Rhonda always leaves people, places, and things better than when she found them.

Rose Hill, President of RH+M3 Rose Hill, has served clients in the high-technology industry since apps were called software programs. She is outrageously passionate about the data, details, and processes required to create outstanding and effective marketing programs. Hands-on at theRH+M3 command center, Rose qualifies and selects the people on every RH+M3 client project, ensuring your work is done on time, in budget, and to the highest standards. Rose is the maestro firmly orchestrating the delivery of a virtuoso performance for your content-marketing program.

156 | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game Resources Resources

Chapter 2: The Four Ps Of Marketing For Indie Game Developers Marketing’s 4 Ps: First Steps for Entrepeneuers, Purdue University: extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/ec/ec-730.pdf Marketing Mix: The 4 Ps of Marketing for Businesses an Alternate Persepective: toggl.com/marketing-mix-4ps Green Marketing Strategy and the Four P’s of Marketing: toggl.com/marketing-mix-4ps Four Ps - Investopedia: investopedia.com/terms/f/four-ps.asp Marketing Mix - Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix

Chapter 4: Attending Your First Event Resources Intel Developer Zone: software.intel.com/en-us Intel Level-Up Game Developer Contest: software.intel.com/sites/campaigns/levelup2017 Intel Buzz Workshop Series: software.intel.com/en-us/event/buzzworkshop

Chapter 6: Packaging Resources: Brand Consistency and Packaging Considerations: packaginginnovation.com/category/brand-consistency 7 Branding Tools to Effectiveley Establish Your Brand:inkbotdesign.com/branding-tools How to Make an Indie Game Trailer With No Budget: gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to- make-an-indie-game-trailer-with-no-budget--cms-20825 Packaging Your Game so Stores Can, Y’know, Sell It: leagueofgamemakers.com/packaging-your-game-so-stores-can-yknow-sell-it

Chapter 7: Approach Industry Influencers To Build Awareness For Your Indie Game Green Man Gaming: greenmangaming.com Humble Bundle: humblebundle.com Taboola: taboola.com Intel Developer Zone: software.intel.com/en-us Intel Buzz Workshop Series: software.intel.com/en-us/event/buzzworkshop

Chapter 8: Solving The Distribution Dilemma For Indie Gamers Intel Developer Zone: software.intel.com/en-us Intel Level Up Game Developer Contest: software.intel.com/sites/campaigns/levelup2017 Indie Games on Steam: store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Indie#p=0&tab=PopularNewReleases

157 | A Practical Guide to Marketing Your Indie Game Want to learn more about marketing your indie game? Subscribe today to the Intel® Game Developer program for insights on building your gaming business.

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