Zero Budget VIDEO GAME MARKETING // Marketing for Indie Game Developers

Money is not needed to do marketing as an indie game developer - You CAN do video game marketing with a zero dollar budget. I used $60 and my game sold almost $130k in 1 year. In this video, I'll give my opinion on what are the best game marketing methods to do as an indie game developer.

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0:00 Intro
1:49 Contacting YouTubers & Streamers

Send a free key to a video creator and hope they like the game enough to make a video about it. These can be review videos, commentary videos, gameplay videos or some other types of videos. I consider this to be the best way of doing marketing for indie game developers. If I could only choose one type of marketing activity to do, it would be this one. 100%. You can do it either manually or through different services like Woovit, Keymailer and Indieboost

Verdict: Highly recommended

3:18 Contacting Journalists

This used to be THE dream for indie game developers, but with decreasing readership numbers and the rise of alternative sources for news and entertainment, the influence of both print and digital media has declined. Getting your game featured on one of the top sites will still give you a visibility boost, but the actual effect on sales might be disappointing if your expectations are not kept in check.

Verdict: Recommended, but not the highest priority.

4:55 Setting up a Steam page

When you have created a Steam page, Steam will occasionally show it to people who might be interested in your game. Those people might then wishlist your game. This is a passive boost on top of your other marketing efforts. You’ll need to create a Steam page anyway to sell your game there so you get this extra marketing bonus without any additional effort. Having a Steam page also allows you to have a place you can direct potential customers to and where they can express their interest towards your game through wishlisting. So you should get your Steam page up ASAP to start utilizing these benefits. You might even consider this one of the best game marketing tricks.

Verdict: Highly recommended. This should be your top priority.

5:46 Press Release Distribution Sites

Verdict: Not recommended.

6:22 Mailing List

This is more for enabling future marketing. Setting up a mailing list with services like mailchimp is easy and free. But if you are just making your first game, I wouldn’t stress about creating a mailing list. Aside from a few die-hard fans, you won’t get many people to join your list unless you have something to offer them. Google for Lead Magnet if you want to get ideas for this.

Verdict: Recommended, but not a priority.

Let's move on to social media!

7:52 Twitter

Twitter is best suited for quick-to-consume content like gifs. You can use tools like ezgif to quickly churn out gifs of your game and then keep dropping them on Twitter from time to time. But honestly, I feel like Twitter is better at reaching your current customers than new customers. Also, most of the people liking your tweets are usually fellow developers instead of your target audience, the players. But still, using twitter is so easy that there’s no reason not to give it a try.

Verdict: Recommended.

8:45 Reddit

Reddit is the best at turning hobbies into careers. Posting on Reddit can be a bit tricky though. You will need to maneuver varying subreddit rules, over-zealous automoderators and idealistic guidelines on self-promotion. After all this, many times your posts will get zero traction. To get the most out of Reddit, you should become a part of a community there and not use it just to advertise.

Verdict: Recommended.

9:58 Imgur

Imgur is like a visual, more light-hearted version of Reddit. If your game has good gif potential, you’ll probably do fairly well on Imgur.

Verdict: Recommended

11:01 Tumblr

11:39 Outro

[AndrzejGieraltCreative]

This video is incredibly underrated and answered more of my questions than watching numerous GDC talks. Thank you for your incredible and detailed description too.

[christianbrenner]

A guy called "Notch" had a blog on tumblr about some indie game he made.

[Unigma]

Reddit is very tricky because it's a text-based website. The title is everything. Most of the post that are upvoted needs a storyline attached to it. "Me after quitting my job and losing my home", "The first game I started in middle school" The title says everything.

Because of this Reddit is not a good place to market. Rarely does these post directly lead to any sales. They're not focused on liking the product, but rather the creator (which is fine, but the opposite of what steam/itch cares about)

[lemuero]

This was a super educational GUIDE on how to get things done... it's not just tips, but a guide .. people pay a lot of money for info like this .. THANK YOU !

[IceCenders]

Me: Really tired of people saying 'smash that subscribe button'
AuroDev: 'Lovingly caress that subscribe button'
Me: Ok not that tired after all

[mehmedcavas]

really helpful video thanks a lot. I do develop my indie game right now as a solo dev. I'm also okay to spend 1-2k dollars which should be okay that's why I'm looking for ways to spend 20-50-100 bucks on tools which help me to reach more players than spending all in one thing

[StygianStyle]

He sounds like Stephen Hawking's voice synthesizer

[paypercutts]

Very informative mate!! I saved this vid for later for certain suggestions, that I'll need it in the future

[squali]

Don't ever do paid ads even if you have the money.

[NinetyRalph]

Great video, most videos don't say anything at all on what to do, it's just explaining how there's an audience, what is an audience, what is marketing, what are charts, why do teeth don't regenerate and everything but what to do, this was really helpful, keep it up, I'm sure you'll be huge someday!

[kivihattu]

Kiitos hyödyllisestä videosta!
Niinkuin kaikista muistakin videoista! Paljon hyödyllistä tietoa jollekin joka haaveilee soolona pelien tekemisestä! Ja aina hienoa nähdä suomalaisen onnistuvan : D

[page]

This sounds promising, I'm gonna try all the recommended ones and do my best..my 1st game was an absolute fail on android because of marketing. I'm running out of time but I think I still have enough time to do a steam game, thank you for all the info.

[fredericc.]

Great video with valuable information. You seem to be a smart guy, thank you for sharing your experience with us, it's appreciated.

[brightFlaskGames]

Super informative! More videos like this!

[CappicheGames]

Super helpful information for an area that seems pretty daunting. Would definitely be interested in a separate video around contacting youtubers and creators.

[TylerHaddad]

I have a feeling that TikTok is the next big frontier for game marketing. Very little saturation relative to other platforms and it seems MUCH easier to "go viral" with TikTok's algorithm

[Shizufuzu]

this came in my fav playlist. Awesome Content.

[aeolian]

Huge thanks. I'm one of these people who "have a brilliant game, but aside from a twitter post with 2 likes they didn't do any marketing". I got so desperate that I actually started considering mailing a game publisher.

[jvdongames]

This is so informative, this type of insight is priceless.. 🎖️

[benlega]

This is cool ! I love your content man, keep it up :)