How to Use Worldbuilding to Market Your Game More Effectively

As a developer, you might think that these things do not apply to your game, but when you critically think about it, they can apply to almost any game.

For example, imagine you are building an idle cozy game called Radicchio Rabbit, about a rabbit who wants to build a farm to feed his family. Let’s apply some world building.

“Long ago, animals evolved to the point where they learned how to farm. But animals began farming anywhere and everywhere without boundaries, and chaos ensued.

Eventually, all the animals came together and formed the World Farming Organization. This organization set the rules for where animals could farm, what they could grow, the currency used to buy supplies, and how they could trade with other farms.

The player starts the game by waking up on a bright sunny morning as Radicchio Rabbit, an energetic and optimistic rabbit that wants to create the most productive and healthy farm possible. Your babies will be due in one month, so you have to make every day count.”

If you think about this, through your game's lore you have now established several features in the core loop of your game:

• You have set restrictions on what can be grown.
• You have defined a currency that is used when buying supplies.
• You have created a commerce system for trading with other farms.
• You have established an organization the player can go to in order to resolve problems, such as disputes.
• You set a tone for the world and a looming date the player must progress towards.

Having world lore benefits all games because it allows for deeper storytelling and can even help flesh out game mechanics.

Player Role & Perspective (Very Important)

Then we can get the most critical piece of the lore - the player. The person we should care about the most as the story will revolve around them.Some key questions are:

• Who is the player in this world?
• Are they a named character, a blank slate, a profession, or an observer?
• Why does the player matter to the world?
• What does the world expect from them?
• What happens when the player fails?
• Is failure acknowledged in-world or ignored?
• Does the world react to poor vs good decisions by the player?

Lore Is the Start of Your Marketing

As you put together your lore, you will find that you are able to talk about your game more effectively, identify plot holes, and think about your core loop in greater depth. Lore also positions you to better describe your game to others:

• On Steam pages when writing descriptions.
• On your social media profiles.
• When entering your game into events.
• When pitching your game to publishers.
• It will help create hooks and taglines
• It will have marketing teams parameters to operate in
• It will help others create assets like trailers and key art