How To Market Your Game

The leading question many developers ask themselves is: How do I market my game? As the gaming market becomes increasingly saturated, building a good game alone will no longer guarantee success. There needs to be a structured, intentional approach. Alone on Steam, the competition is not only 20k games released this year, but all the games released years prior that people are waiting on discounts to by.

Marketing is all about repeatable processes and scaling. If I can get 100 wishlists, and I keep doing the same things, can I get 100 more? How do I turn 100 wishlists into 1,000? How do I grow my downloads and purchases? How do I solve low playtime after installs?

The question of “How do I market my game?” is simply too broad. The first job of any developer is to narrow that question into something more specific. Those specific questions often fall into areas like:

• Social Media
• Influencers
• Advertising
• Events
• PR
• Storefront Optimization
• Leveraging Platform Algorithms

This lesson focuses on what areas developers should prioritize when marketing their game, and the three core factors that influence those priorities: the price of the game, the marketing beat, and the available budget.

Marketing Beats

What is a marketing beat? You might imagine someone pounding a drum and yelling “buy my game now!” But in reality, a marketing beat is a specific event that your marketing efforts are oriented around, and that event should have a measurable positive impact on the game. Marketing beats generally fall into two categories.

Pre-Launch Beats

• Fundraising: Raising money through something like Kickstarter
• Storefront Launch: When you first publish your game’s storefront on platforms like Steam
• Playtesting: Structured playtest sessions during development
• Demo Launch: When your demo is released and you want players to try it
• Events: Festivals, NextFest, conferences, or any event where your game is featured
• Early Access / Launch: When you finally release the game and let players play