How do independent developers market their products? Overseas experts share 3 tips

[[152403]]

Raghav Mathur is the chief marketing officer of the independent game PR agency Black Shell Media LLC. Recently, Mr. Mathur published a blog post on the game developer website Gamasutra, sharing his three experiences on how to market independent games based on his work experience in the past few years. The following is the translation of the text:

Lesson 1: Gamers don’t like game companies, but they like game developers.

On Internet forums, many players have made negative comments about large game companies such as EA and Microsoft. Players don't like large companies, and they don't like those who they think are game salespeople. Players hate the company and the people in it, and they don't have any good feelings towards the affiliated companies that help game companies promote their products - in their eyes, those companies are greedy and their only purpose is to grab players' money, which ruins the original joy of the game.

For this reason, when I send emails or promotional messages to players, I prefer to do it as an individual, without revealing the company's name. By doing this, players will think they are communicating with a person, not a company, and are more willing to accept. Our mass emails have a high click-through rate, sometimes even close to 50%. Players are also happy to provide us with their feedback on the game.

Experience 2: When placing paid ads, you need to consider the return on investment (ROI).

Paid advertising plays a huge role in getting a game product in front of potential users and making an impact on them. But for independent games, I suggest that developers think carefully about whether it is necessary to run paid advertising. As I said before, game companies pay for paid advertising, but players don't like game companies. They will think that the only purpose of game advertising is to make money. Independent games that succeed through paid advertising are sometimes even a waste of money. Even on websites with CPMs as low as $0.75, developers find it difficult to break even. As a game marketer who has been immersed in the industry for many years, my opinion is that from a return on investment (ROI) perspective, it makes no sense for independent development teams to run paid advertising for their game products.

In addition to the cost of placing ads, developers also need to invest a lot of time and energy in placing paid ads, including ad design, interaction with channels, communication with users who comment on ads, data analysis, etc. Compared with this approach, I suggest that independent developers continue to build a player community, so as to achieve the goal of influencing players through simple social media sharing and increase game product revenue.

From a long-term perspective, instead of spending money on advertising every time, developers should focus on building a stable player community and transforming the player community into a user group that can continuously contribute to revenue. Advertising is not effective, inconvenient and expensive, so it is not worth it for independent developers to try. As far as I know, independent game players are often enthusiastic and highly involved in the game, so as long as you can build a player community, they will fight side by side with you to help your game products achieve profitability.

Lesson 3: Images are more engaging than text. The same is true for GIFs and trailers.

In order to effectively reach and attract players with product information, independent developers need to master copywriting skills, which is an important marketing buff. But today, as information on the Internet tends to be presented and disseminated in a visual form, people are more willing to watch pictures and other forms of media than text. On the PC game platform Steam, product pictures and trailers are displayed in the most eye-catching position; on Apple App Store and Google Play, game icons and screenshots are also important factors that stimulate users to download most super blockbusters.

Therefore, I recommend that you don't spend too much time trying to get your writing to the top level. Instead, spend a few hours creating gripping gameplay video clips and screenshots. Visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing content is more appealing to players.