The MOST IMPORTANT Skill to be a Successful Game Developer! (How to go Full Time Game Dev on Steam)

💬 Learn what is the number one skill you need to find success!
👍 Learn to make awesome games step-by-step from start to finish.

🔴 RELATED VIDEOS 🔴

00:00 What is the Most Important Skill to be a successful Indie Game Developer
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00:47 Attention Economy
01:19 What is success for an indie game developer
01:52 A good game does NOT sell itself
02:56 Indie Game Sales Estimate
04:24 Why I check Steam New Releases every month
04:32 Why I started this channel
04:59 How Steam sells your game
05:42 How my Strategy didn't quite work
07:00 How to learn indie game marketing, Clark Tank
07:27 How to consistently make profitable indie games
07:57 GameDiscoverCo
08:10 Chris Zukowski
08:17 How to launch a game on Steam, before and after release checklist
08:40 How to do Indie Game Marketing
09:48 Twitter, Imgur, Reddit, TikTok
10:55 Free Prologue, Steam Next Fest, Paid Marketing
11:48 Should I do marketing for my indie game?
12:05 Steam Game Metrics, Wishlists, Followers
13:22 What is the Number One Skill to be a successful Indie Game Developer

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Hello and Welcome!
I'm your Code Monkey and here you will learn everything about Game Development in Unity using C#.

I've been developing games for several years with 8 published games on Steam and now I'm sharing my knowledge to help you on your own game development journey.

I do Unity Tutorials on just about every topic, Unity Tutorials for Beginners and Unity Tutorials for Advanced users.

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[timhellmann]

Let's also not forget about one essential aspect: You have be able to finish your game!
So many start with a promising idea or prototype and either start to think way too big or simply do not iterate and improve on an idea to make it work in a 4-5 hours long game.
Resulting in years of working on that game with no actual goal or feature freeze milestone - therefore a game that will never see the light of day.

[Hopecho]

I think an overlooked thing to have, while promoting your game is confidence.
I’ve known a lot of game designers who were simply too shy to post about their games. Because they didn’t want to bother other people with ‘boring commercials’.
Trying to avoid being the next Raid Shadow Legends. And also just a lack of confidence that their game is good in general.

[rafa_guitar]

Totally agree! Publicity is the king of actual business and as game developer we even don't know where to start! Nice video!

[MadeThisStuff]

It's rough seeing people pour so much of themselves into something for years just to drop the ball at the end of the journey. I really hope more people take this to heart.

[nonprogrammer]

i love the fact you say the point at the begining of the video and no force us to see all the video.. .btw, i enjoy all the video as well :D.
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sorry my bad english

[Funstyle]

nearly everytime when i try to learn new things about Unity and Game Dev your channel pops up. You doing so much variety and its every time interessting. Well done so far!

[GambitGenius]

Code monkey is great, he tells us what the video is about right at the beginning unlike others! This made me subscribe to him and watch the video until the end!

[lubaka]

Couldn't be more true! A year or two ago i released my first mobile game, which i actually thought was decent. Many people agreed and gave positive feedback but the fact why it still stays at less than 100 downloads is that i never marketed it! Perhaps I will revive the game in the future with new content and loads of ads this time and see how it turns out. Great video!

[h.m.chuang]

A course I took last semester also mentioned that, marketing nowadays takes 50% if not more of the total cost of a game release.
If a game took 1M to develop, it will take at least 1M in marketing as well.

[ganning]

Your advice always help me progressing with the game development track ... Thanks for everything 💖

[icesparkstudios]

Thank you Code Monkey! This information was a real eye opener. Its not just about the quality of the game but the amount of marketing. I think I was going about this backwards. I was trying to push myself hard to create better content and thinking that if something only got 10-20 likes then I was failure. Instead, I think I should just share the journey and enjoy the process for both marketing and game dev. For now, I am slowly start integrated some changes and think about what I want to do for a Youtube channel and then try some new stuff once school finishes in the summer. Thank you again!

[r.allenposchii]

I love how you tell exactly what it is your going to talk about at the begging. Sometimes it's hard to follow I think because you talk really fast and I get distracted easily 😂 but, I am so glad your making cool videos like this keep up the good work.

[justinr]

This along with actually finishing what you start working on are the two most important things, imo.

Look at Dead Cells. One would argue that game was a bigger MARKETING success than anything else. What set Dead Cells apart from any other dime a dozen games, tackling the same genres? Nothing! Giving the game out to smaller channels/influencers until the big outlets were begging to play it at no cost at all was one of the smartest small budget marketing moves I've ever seen. They were really smart, and now they're reaping the benefits of that.

[Sputterbug]

what everyone in my game dev social media groups should hear
i try to tell them marketing is the most important bc no ones gonna play their games without it but they are intent on thinking the customers will just show up if they put their life into a project.

this is also something they teach in game dev at my community college. your work is nothing without an audience (customers).

[Awesomenessk]

"Marketing is the study of attention and how to get it."
That is incredible, A+

[EricOnline]

Thank you for the very informative and enjoyable video Monkey! Always greatly appreciate a post from your channel. Since I am starting my Indie Dev ventures from Scratch I am glad I found a YouTuber/Professional Indie Game Dev combo AND you also focus on teaching and spreading the right information. A true Diamond in the rough here. You for sure deserve way more attention on YouTube and your Games. Keep up the amazing content and can't wait for your next Video/Game release.

[dreamisover]

Definitely a very important skill! A lot of game devs seem to only be focused on the core development, which often is the more fun part, and even though there have been more and more resources on the business and marketing side of things, they are sometimes overlookd. For example, there is a youtube channel called IndieGameBusiness which has fantastic guests and talk sessions with them, but not that many seem to watch it.

[hypercharge]

Agree. I haven't published any game(s) yet. This video really prepares me for that. Thanks!

[mishuhishu]

You are truly a gift to aspiring game developers!
really good video!

[LemuriaGames]

Sad truth. I'Ve made a couple indie games over the past 25 years, and some were successful with purely organic growth and word-of-mouth, but most weren't. I was always lazy to do marketing and the result is a nice selection of cool games that I put a lot of work into and that almost nobody ever played.