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Promotion Research - Day 2

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago2,210 words

Here's another post about my continuing journey into the unfamiliar territory I need to explore if I'm to make anything of this games thing! In this one, I mainly talk about stuff from the comments on the last post.

I've been posting a lot more than usual recently, because I'm actually taking steps to get out of my shell rather than just venting about how I'm not doing that every couple of months. I like the thought of reporting every day about what I've done, so perhaps I'll try to make a habit of that for a while, either adding new posts or updating this one.

Thanks to those of you who've commented so far, especially those of you who've included links and stuff! That's been quite useful, as one of the hardest parts for me has been just knowing where to start looking. This time, I'll talk about some things mentioned in comments on the previous post which I looked at. You might have seen these in the comments already, but I suppose writing about them helps me synthesise ideas, or something.



Purplerabbits linked to this Patreon, from a guy (I'm assuming, maybe incorrectly) who makes RPG Maker games for Kongregate at the insane rate of one a month: [LINK]

Honestly, I'm surprised people still use Kongregate! Or RPG Maker! But good on this person for making something which clearly entertains a lot of people!

The page doesn't have the (annoying) 'professional vibe' I felt a couple of the ones I looked at yesterday did, and the tiers seem fairly basic, yet the top one's sold out. When I look at these pages, the first thing I want to see is a screenshot of what they're actually making, but I had to scroll down for that. I suppose I'm an unusual case though; most people would get to a creator's Patreon once they're already very familiar with their work.

He's got 132 patrons for $518 per month, which is really impressive, I think! I'd be really happy with something like that. He says this covers his bills entirely, though I wonder what country he lives in if that's the case (I've only skimmed the page).

His lowest tier (why the lowest?) mentions "A new 4-panel (4koma) comic every week featuring characters from the series". I don't know what that is, but I wonder how much interest there is in things like that. I'm reminded of an idea I had a while back for something I could do without too much time or difficulty, which would be little dialogue scenes as gifs or videos, like this:



...but longer and less stupid. There's arguably more content in something like that than can fit in a static comic, and they're 'easier' in a way to make, but more alive. It could also be a good way of refining my own understanding of the world and characters. The biggest issue would just be coming up with scene ideas!
I was imagining using something like that for promotional purposes - posting on Twitter etc - but maybe I could offer them earlier to patrons, or something? Get input to tweak them before the wider release? If I were to do that at all; it's just an idea at this point.

I've noticed a lot of these Patreons mention art as a reward, and Falcon suggested in a comment that I could make game-related art for my own. That's a good idea, though I always wonder how much people are actually interested in art, plus I've been so unmotivated about art for a long time now so I rarely do it. Perhaps knowing I could actually do something with my art once I'd made it could be a huge motivator though, and I could improve my skills while making something people could appreciate? It takes time to draw anything though, which I currently lack. Definitely something I'll be thinking about though!


NewXmad linked to this Patreon, for a team of brothers whose games they said were of a quality similar to mine (quite flattering, I think, since I see them as higher than what I'm capable of): [LINK]

The Patreon has 111 backers offering an undisclosed about, but they've also run three Kickstarter campaigns: [LINK]

The most successful of those got over $200,000! If I could ever get numbers like that, I'd be very happy indeed!! But I imagine it took an immense amount of effort to achieve, and the game's got a team behind it and has a quality and feel which to me looks more 'standard', more like what gamers are used to and what they like, whereas my games are more eccentric.

Even the least successful of those Kickstarters - which only got 330 backers - still earned over $20,000 though. This gives me hope about Kickstarter, and maybe that's the best way to go for what I'm aiming to make myself.


MF linked to this useful (short) video:



In it, the developer talks about how he earned $75,0000 (!) from Steam sales in his first week, thanks to advertising that he did in the year leading up to its release. He makes some interesting points.

Something I notice is that his 'unique' game looks very, very similar (and sounds identical 'story'-wise?) to this game, which I saw a few months ago: [LINK]

It's not that I'm assuming there was any copying going on, but rather it seems like an easily identifiable 'category' of game. Atmospheric, gentle, arty, serene! And this is great for sales for the reasons he mentions in the video. People like what they're used to, what they recognise. It's natural to say "this reminds me of [other thing I loved when I was younger and more impressionable]!"; this particular game was compared - accurately - to Okami and Journey.

Sindrel Song likely wouldn't have ever done well because it's just too alien, too different, there's nothing really to directly compare it to in that way. But Divine Dreams is different, I'm hoping. Perhaps there's hope for that, since it's a (hopefully) relatively high-quality 'traditional'-style RPG when most other things in this category would be either very modernised or 2D RPG Maker stuff? I'm not sure, maybe that's just wishful thinking.

He talks about posting gifs on various social media platforms a whole lot, and how some went viral while others didn't. Perhaps this is something that I should do too, though I've been reluctant to post at all on Reddit because when I was looking into that around Sindrel Song's release, I saw a bunch of rules and complaint posts about how people were sick of indie developers trying to push their products. I didn't want to be annoying!!

But that's the only way to get noticed. Perhaps I need to make a habit of posting gifs on various platforms. I already do occasionally on Twitter, but he also mentioned Instagram, which I've never used because I thought it was just 'normies' posting photos of themselves, and Reddit, which I've yet to muster up the courage to attempt because it feels like a judgemental place to me and I'm afraid of being shot down (or ignored, which might even be worse).

I think getting used to posting on Reddit is the next big step I need to take. I browse the site every day via my phone and PC browsers, but tend to just check r/all, avoiding all the indie communities so as not to experience uncomfortable comparison envy. I have the app on my phone too, though, where I'm logged in, and I've subscribed to several of these communities on there so I do see the posts from them if I use the app. I've been avoiding the app for ages for this reason, but today and yesterday I've actually braved this potential anxiety and it's not been so bad. Though it is more mentally draining than, say, looking at random videos of elderly dogs or whatever the hive mind's sharing unrelated personal anecdotes adjacent to at the moment, so I tend to be tense while checking the app and can't do it for very long before saying "alright I did it, that's enough for today!!"


Speaking of mentally draining, watching that video seems to have made this one pop up in my suggestions:



It doesn't say a whole lot, really - and he answers the clickbait title question in the first few seconds - but it's... interesting, at least, seeing the more human face of this whole field in a way I'm not really used to. I'm just used to seeing impersonal developer names, never seeing their actual faces or hearing them speak.

Both that guy and the other one are both apparently comfortable enough to talk in front of a camera, do streaming, things like that, which likely makes a big difference. I can't see myself doing that anytime soon, though maybe one day it'll be necessary, who knows.

I like the thing he says about marketing adding a multiplier to a game's success (even if he seemed to feel he wasn't making sense). You could have a great game with a quality of 1.0, but if you put 0.1 into marketing, its success will be 0.1. But if you have a 0.1 quality game and put 10 into marketing, it'll be ten times as successful. That seems likely to be true.

So I feel more motivated to make greater effort learning how to market myself.

It's been quite draining though; since it's facing my fears and stepping very much out of my comfort zone, I can't do very much before wanting to just 'rest' the rest of the day away. I suppose getting used to anything new is going to take time though. I feel like there's not actually much anxiety though; it's more a case of breaking out of an ingrained habit.


Finally, while replying to a comment from JohnnyBoi, I got thinking about how I'm aiming to produce Divine Dreams. It's written as a pair of trilogies which - Star-Wars-style - would start with the second before eventually using the first as a prequel. Each Chapter of the chronologically-second/first-released trilogy - the one based on MARDEK - is written as six distinct Episodes.

The plan has been to build one of these episodes as a demo, which I'd release openly alongside a Kickstarter to show people what I'm intending to make. People told me Undertale did something like this (or it included a demo anyway, though I don't know which part - or how much - of the game it was). I'm edging closer to having this demo ready, though with the MARDEK stuff and mechanics revisions it's been delayed a bit.

What I was wondering though was whether to effectively release the episodes as they're made to patrons (of a certain tier) who are supporting the project. This would be great for me because it'd allow for more immediate feedback and guidance towards finally combining them into a whole, and I'd like to think it'd be a very worthwhile for supporters too. It wouldn't work to release them widely in this way because I want to be able to go back over them if any changes needed to be made.

Once all six episodes were completed, we'd collectively go over everything and I'd combine them into a Chapter (this integration would probably take as long as making an episode), which I'd then give a full release on Steam.

This seems like a really appealing idea to me, as it means I'd be able to release one of these maybe every month or two to people who were interested enough in the project to dive that deeply into it, and with their feedback I'd be able to shape something that people really liked. One of my worries is spending months on something only to discover at the end that nobody likes it, so this should really help with that.

Like everything I've said in this post so far, it's just an idea, but I'd love to hear your thoughts about it!



Thanks for reading if you've decided to join me on this journey! Like I said, I might try to write a post like this every day - or every other day - while I break out of my shell and try to learn all this stuff I've been avoiding up until now. I've talked about specific things that people have mentioned to me here because they're so useful to see, so if you have anything else like that, I'll look into those too.

I know people already mentioned this in previous posts, but which subreddits do you think would be most appropriate to post about MARDEK in? That seems like the next step I should take, since time's ticking before the release of that and I should make at least some effort!

(I feel I've missed the window to really widely promote it and make tens of thousands, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable doing that for a port of an old Flash game which was free for a decade anyway.)