Enacting a Marketing Strategy

The Importance of Marketing

Marketing and advertising is critical to a game's success. The goal is to convert as many people within your target audience into buyers. Your team can make the most amazing game in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then no one will play it.

Marketing Streams

Devlogs

• Make videos or articles showing development progress on social platforms.

Social Media

• Share screenshots, gifs, and videos on social media.
• Reddit, TikTok, Twitter

Advertisement

• Ads on Television and Social Media Ad platforms.

Website

• Host a dedicated website for your studio and games.

Sponsor Content Creators

• Pay a content creator to make videos or stream a game.

Game Trailers

• Release a 1 to 2 minute video showing off the game.

News Coverage

• Announcements, interviews, and reviews written by media outlets.

Conventions

• Get a booth so attendees can demo your game. Get showcased in the digital showcase events.

Beta Testing

• Let players play the game early.

Common Marketing Strategies

Grassroots & Community Driven

• Start marketing on Day 1.
• Post Devlogs. Share progress on social media. Make screenshots, gifs, and videos showing off the game. Upload alpha builds for the community to demo.
• Build a community, engage with them, and encourage discussions. Interact with them through comments, chat rooms, and live streams.
• Communities are powerful, and has the potential to make your game go viral. Your community can amplify your marketing efforts by sharing your game, and being the first ones to support your crowdfunding campaign.
• The size and strength of a community will determine if your game will be successful.

Get a Publishing Partner then Let Them Do the Marketing

• Start pitching to publishing partners once you have a Vertical Slice of your game.
• Focus marketing efforts on making a successful pitch.
• Publishers will get news coverage and reviews for your game through games media outlets.
• Publishers can also showcases your game at conferences, digital events, and on their social media accounts.
• Publishers can assist with creating cinematics, gameplay trailers, and screenshots for your website, store pages, or advertisement on websites.

Traditional Marketing

• If you have the capital, work with a marketing agency, and market the game during alpha, beta, and release.
• Make advertisements on television and social media with top quality trailers and screenshots.
• Partners with content creators and media outlets to showcase your game with early copies.

Multiplayer Alpha and Beta Testing

• For multiplayer games, host Alpha and Beta Testing sessions. They can be a good way to let interested players try the game early and share their experience with others.
• Often times, players will encourage their friends to participate in the betas.
• People that watch a content creator play the game might also be interested in participating.
• Successful testing sessions can increase the potential playerbase growth substantially.
• Players can find major issues missed in QA Testing.
• User feedback can be used to rebalance gameplay or introduce additional quality of life improvements.

Go Viral

• Rarely, games are released with little-to-no marketing and simply go viral because the game is either so good, or so bad, that word-of-mouth gets other people to play it.
• You should not expect your game will succeed on its own.
• If you want to ensure your game has a successful launch, market it before and after it releases.