Wow... when was the last time I made a blog?
Anyways, what I want to talk about Today is not finance or "getting priorities straight" before you go on your game dev journey. This is about starting the journey itself. And more importantly your goals.
If you're just a humble game dev that just wants to participate in game jams and make small little games as a hobby to share with your friends and family, go ahead and make all the games you want. Trying to get a job at your favorite company? Go ahead and build up that Unreal/Unity portfolio so you can work the latest Bethesda or Way Forward title.
But if you really wanna make this work as a full-time indie thing, you have to network with not only people in the gaming industry, but the gaming community; the people that spend hundreds, maybe even thousands, a month on video games and anything closely related to it. Which is why you need to communicate with as many people as possible. Before you type in that first line of code, draw that first pixel-art frame or even open up FL Studio 8 to make the epic first fight theme, you HAVE to build a network foundation.
Who's gonna play your game if you don't know anybody or anybody doesn't know you (poor grammar totally intended), especially the audience you're making the game for? Nowadays, the market is oversaturated with everything from 2D roguelike platformers to the latest open-world sandbox game . Now there is nothing wrong with those types of games, games like Hades and GTA V prove so and developers, as well as gamers alike, adore them. It's how you spread the word out on your game.
You need to learn how to build a social network to put your game in the limelight.
I suggest visiting Chris Z's website, How To Market A Game for tips on getting your game out there. He has some great tips on how to network on Twitter, email marketing and in general how to show off your game.
I also recommend visiting other Indie Devs through Discord, Youtube and Gaming Conventions (Online and Offline) to get the word going.
But what also helps is being a part of an online social entity of some sort related to games. This can be Discord, community forums like the GameSpot or IGN message boards, heck even showing it off to someone from a game company can get you somewhere.
Forums alone are a real attention grabber. These numbers are the average of the amount of people concurrently online a week at the forums I visit on a night and day cycle.
Night:
Goat House: 11
IGN: 577
Gaming Latest: 12
Gaming Rev: 38
JoyFreak: 82
Day:
IGN: 702
Gaming Rev: 62
Gaming Latest: 31
Goat House: 6
JoyFreak: 133
Night time is less visited, but that is still a lot of people all together. That is over 1,000 users that are paying attention to you and what you post.
And the best part is... most of these options are FREE. You don't need to pay for a forum post about your game or cough up your earnings to some stupid marketing company for the game. You can do that organically.
So in conclusion:
- Make a mailing list
- Look at Chris Z's site for better game marketing tips
- Visit your favorite forums and show off your game there
The best part is, once you're finished doing all this, you can literally rinse and repeat for every other game you then put forth but that's only IF you built a strong social foundation. No duct-tape and zip tie shotty work is gonna help you grow an audience if you don't put in actual good work.
That's it for my advice; I'll see you guys around in the next blog! Happy Game Deving!
