The Golden Rule of Game Promotion: No One Cares About Your Game

In this GDC 2023, talk, the "no one cares about your game" mindset gets explained and shows how this simple marketing philosophy can help teams laser focus their social media posts, keep their trailers to-the-point, write better emails, and shape a wider PR campaign mindset.

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[LizardOfOz]

I've released 4 trailers of the same project back-to-back within a few days. 95% of viewers come from YT recommendations, therefore most viewers were new to the project regardless of which trailer they have found first.

[AssasinZorro]

Summary:
The Avengers Problem (99% of games are not AAA)
1. Get to the point quick;
2. Works for the newcomers; (keep them feel included)
3. Think of the environment; (it's not as perfect as you might hope)
4. Know your next step; (funnel, call to action)
5. Just show your game
Bonus rule: know your money shot

Customize, PR is as personal and unique as a game

[GlowstickLamps]

Fantastic vid! Everything is clearly communicated, and the talk itself is still very encouraging and not overly negative :3 keeps the discussion realistic and practical

[LaboratorioDoPardall]

18:00 "call to actions are mega cringe" - I really did not get this one. Why? Isn't having a CTA the whole point of a post like that?
18:42 this one was great! "vampire survivors - millions sold, but everyday there are still people discovering it" - I am one who doesn't like repetition, but because I am always inside my own gamedev bubble. From this point of view, it makes so much sense to post every single day then!

[Lunareon]

Thank you for the great advice! Moving videos from the beginning to the end of the roll on Steam store pages is one development, which shows how customer behavior has changed the presentation format. With the popularity of short and to the point video clips, epic cinematic trailers are already obsolete as marketing tools. People just do not have the time or attention to spare for something they are not already invested in.

[Rusrik]

Great talk. I am kinda sad to hear how important TikTok is for marketing, apparently. It does not seem like you can avoid platforms you don't like, looking through a marketing lens - you only diminish your already meagre reach more.

[lilian]

I used to see marketing as something boring. But as I learn more about it, I start to treat it like a creative process. It suddenly seems way better.

[kevinjordan]

He has a very clear, concise and effective delivery style. I always enjoy and learn from his talks.

[LimitedPerfection]

Excellent. I will be coming back to this for sure.

[iwantagoodnameplease]

Most indie videos / trailers are a disaster. Too much text and too little in-game footage. People are only going to give your video one chance to impress them on that Steam page before they close the tab or move onto the next thing in the queue. If you're fading in and out of random snippets of gameplay that don't show people what your game is actually like they're just going to switch off.

But *so many* indie games do this. So I hope they all watch this video.

[SarthakGupta-mb]

This is so cool. I BELIEVE in your title😂 seems like my struggle to promote games has come to an end.

[sodakan]

For the 12:00 part I think its smart to focus on the new people because the returning players have already bought it

[LvB]

I like the slide that says "Rule 1: Get to the point quick" - presented only after 6:30 minutes... Kinda puts the whole point of this talk in perspective..

[zerolelouch]

I wonder, what's harder to promote; your homemade video game, or music album?

[tintedglass]

I learn about a lot of new games from my favorite steam curators. I'm sure I'm in the minority but if you have a niche for your game, consider reaching out to the curators 😊

[Armadous]

Great to get assurances that I cannot spam my social posts. I don't post a lot because I want my next social media content post to be about progress. I suddenly feel extremely stupid for ignoring new flavors of existing content.

[SISYPHEgame]

Great but did bro just leak how much money some of his company's games made?? Vampire survivors made 14M??

[jonnosays]

Thanks for the insights and advice! :D!

[Lishtenbird]

Uhm... I feel like a whole part was just glossed over, that being - "knowing your audience". Which also explains why "no one cares" about those games - well, yeah, if they're games that are hard to "care" about, no one will.

If you mainly make (and market) giggle and gimmick games for a wide audience - sure, TikTok this and TikTok that. You throw a wide net onto people with short attention spans, and hope to go trending to scoop out your daily bucket out of the ocean. They'll go spend those couple bucks, lulz at it for an hour, and move on. No genuine feelings, no attachment, boxes ticked, transaction completed. That's a valid strategy to earn money; but is it, like, the only one, really?

There are also older gamers who despise the fake intrigue, fake sincerity, and spamminess of shorts and tiktoks. You can see the pushback in a lot of places - even on YouTube itself. There are people who dwell in specific subreddits and Discord servers and are subscribed to specific channels because they're interested in specific topics, and have been for years. These are people who will "care" about a well-crafted product, and may even want to participate in its creation; the more niche, the indier you go, the narrower - but the more dedicated - an audience you'll get. And yeah, shouty and frequent self-promotion will get you kicked out instead.

Some games are designed to be popcorn, some are designed to be multi-volume novels. Both are fine, but they are different beasts and need different treatment. Sell popcorn in amusement parks, sell novels at book clubs. Simple as that.

[Soulindex]

I don't know which was more entertaining. The talk or the amount of people pretending to be experts in the comments 😂