Serious Question.
I'm a high school student who is new to game dev. Klaystar, my first video game is coming out on steam soon. However, for the longest time, I've been neglecting marketing.
This was initially not a problem. Although I don't want my hard work to just disappear into the void, I mainly did this because I enjoyed it.
However, this has changed. I'm applying for colleges soon and although I tried my best to keep my game and college apps separate, over time the two have become irreversibly intertwined, resulting in a lot of stress.
In short, my game is now a big part of my college resume.
My problem is that colleges want to see some measure of how much impact something like my game has, such as no. of downloads. But unfortunately, steam doesn't show no. of downloads (it does show reviews and other stats but those aren't as useful), and my game barely has any attention in the first place due to my poor decisions.
I don't want to go around begging people to review my game. So, I'm looking for any advice on marketing my game such as other groups/communities. Along with other means of distributing my game (preferably ones that track the no. of downloads).
Thanks for reading
I need advice formarketing
itch.io
gog.com
youtube indie games reviewers
Important correction. I can see my steam downloads. I just need to use SteamWorks instead.
I would recommend reading this book.
Indie Games: From Dream to Delivery
You can try marketing on social media. Twitter is the best bet, but you can also use Facebook to get friends/family to download. Ads mostly don't work, unless you are a big company. YouTube can also work, and if your game is really interesting, you could get streamers to play it (though this is usually reserved for higher end 3D games).
first, I noticed the trailer on your steam page has no sound effects. that's a small thing that can make a big difference. if you look at steam best sellers (indie AND major budget) you might notice all of them include sound effects in the trailer.
secondly, this might sound paradoxical and is probably something to consider for your next game instead of this one, but free stuff is actually harder to market. something about psychologically people see a free game and think subconsciously "the developer doesn't even care enough to charge for it, it must be bad".
thirdly, you probably aren't gonna get much attention from youtubers and social media personalities since your game's a fairly standard looking 2D platformer. do try, there's always the chance you'll get lucky, but I wouldn't rely on it for this. that one steam review I saw calling it discount celeste is right on the money from the way your trailer makes it look, and celeste only got as famous as it did because of absurdly tight level design and controls combined with an extreme amount of accessibility most games don't have the time to achieve. anything less than that and people would have written it off as yet another 2D platformer indie game.
although thinking on it more, you can probably put a special focus on 'tubers who regularly do stuff like free game videos, since they're looking for those already.
also, what were your poor decisions you alluded to in the opening post?
- Edited
Colleges are unlikely to care about the popularity of your game. If you can't make it become popular, then don't even talk about sales/download numbers with them. Sell your accomplishments with design/programming/art/etc instead.
I mean you have a one-up on most applicants just by being productive and ambitious
Any college who filter based on "only successful gamedevs" are going to have tiny class size