I've released 4 trailers of the same project back-to-back within a few days. 95% of viewers come from YT recommendations, therefore most viewers were new to the project regardless of which trailer they have found first.

Summary: The Avengers Problem (99% of games are not AAA) 1. Get to the point quick; 2. Works for the newcomers; (keep them feel included) 3. Think of the environment; (it's not as perfect as you might hope) 4. Know your next step; (funnel, call to action) 5. Just show your game Bonus rule: know your money shot Customize, PR is as personal and unique as a game

Great talk. I am kinda sad to hear how important TikTok is for marketing, apparently. It does not seem like you can avoid platforms you don't like, looking through a marketing lens - you only diminish your already meagre reach more.

Fantastic vid! Everything is clearly communicated, and the talk itself is still very encouraging and not overly negative :3 keeps the discussion realistic and practical

I used to see marketing as something boring. But as I learn more about it, I start to treat it like a creative process. It suddenly seems way better.

He has a very clear, concise and effective delivery style. I always enjoy and learn from his talks.

Thank you for the great advice! Moving videos from the beginning to the end of the roll on Steam store pages is one development, which shows how customer behavior has changed the presentation format. With the popularity of short and to the point video clips, epic cinematic trailers are already obsolete as marketing tools. People just do not have the time or attention to spare for something they are not already invested in.

18:00 "call to actions are mega cringe" - I really did not get this one. Why? Isn't having a CTA the whole point of a post like that? 18:42 this one was great! "vampire survivors - millions sold, but everyday there are still people discovering it" - I am one who doesn't like repetition, but because I am always inside my own gamedev bubble. From this point of view, it makes so much sense to post every single day then!

Most indie videos / trailers are a disaster. Too much text and too little in-game footage. People are only going to give your video one chance to impress them on that Steam page before they close the tab or move onto the next thing in the queue. If you're fading in and out of random snippets of gameplay that don't show people what your game is actually like they're just going to switch off. But *so many* indie games do this. So I hope they all watch this video.

This is great info to come back to!

Excellent. I will be coming back to this for sure.

Thanks for the insights and advice! :D!

I learn about a lot of new games from my favorite steam curators. I'm sure I'm in the minority but if you have a niche for your game, consider reaching out to the curators 😊

Excellent thank you 🙏

Great presentation. :)

I don't know which was more entertaining. The talk or the amount of people pretending to be experts in the comments 😂

Great to get assurances that I cannot spam my social posts. I don't post a lot because I want my next social media content post to be about progress. I suddenly feel extremely stupid for ignoring new flavors of existing content.

Thank you, friend. Really, thank you. I see your message. We all see. Smiles shouldn't be sad. You cool. Smile :)

I just wish new developers know that you can do everything that is sad here by the book and still fail for reasons that are completely out of your control; namely, your budget for marketing and your location in the world (whcih controls your access to budget in the first place, as well as participating on industry events that grease the wheels of competent marketing in the first place); most of those lesson would not apply for those in the global south.

I wonder, what's harder to promote; your homemade video game, or music album?

nice talk

bro got drip

wow just wow

Pretty much all the things mentioned in this video are things I consider *problems* with the modern games industry and that turn me off of new games.

iPad is not a small screen, try the vertical mode on normal phone like I watch 90% of all video

WHY DOES THE SOUND NEVER WORK!? 😅 It's like a meme how bad the GDC is at making sound systems work for the PowerPoint and trailers and stuff at this point.

People don't care about games that don't fullfill their needs and desires. The REAL problem is, most indie gamedevs don't know much about human behavior to make intentional design decisions and would rather make what suits them... Problem with this is devs will design based on how much work they want to put in, not how much is necessary to be effective in the market. Vampire survivors was not a good example of a marketing gimmick but was an effective game design. It seemed to be a word-of-mouth kind of phenomenon based on it's dopaminergic reward system. It's a good example of exploiting human behavior, especially those with ADHD and OCD; very common in the gaming space.

Great but did bro just leak how much money some of his company's games made?? Vampire survivors made 14M??

I didn't even know they ever made an Avengers game...

Uhm... I feel like a whole part was just glossed over, that being - "knowing your audience". Which also explains why "no one cares" about those games - well, yeah, if they're games that are hard to "care" about, no one will. If you mainly make (and market) giggle and gimmick games for a wide audience - sure, TikTok this and TikTok that. You throw a wide net onto people with short attention spans, and hope to go trending to scoop out your daily bucket out of the ocean. They'll go spend those couple bucks, lulz at it for an hour, and move on. No genuine feelings, no attachment, boxes ticked, transaction completed. That's a valid strategy to earn money; but is it, like, the only one, really? There are also older gamers who despise the fake intrigue, fake sincerity, and spamminess of shorts and tiktoks. You can see the pushback in a lot of places - even on KZfaq itself. There are people who dwell in specific subreddits and Discord servers and are subscribed to specific channels because they're interested in specific topics, and have been for years. These are people who will "care" about a well-crafted product, and may even want to participate in its creation; the more niche, the indier you go, the narrower - but the more dedicated - an audience you'll get. And yeah, shouty and frequent self-promotion will get you kicked out instead. Some games are designed to be popcorn, some are designed to be multi-volume novels. Both are fine, but they are different beasts and need different treatment. Sell popcorn in amusement parks, sell novels at book clubs. Simple as that.

Great speech, but something keeps bothering me here: I'd swap Reddit and Twitter in the every diagram they show up. Judging by my personal experience, Twitter is WAY better than Reddit for game promoting. I've learned about 4-5 different indie games from twitter and 0 games from reddit. And I spend a lot more time on reddit than on twitter. I think twitter's algorithm are (or were) better. I just started following my favorite game developers and content creators on twitter, they started reposting other game developers' posts, bada-boom, I'm following another one. Reddit is quite different: there's practically no way to learn about a new game unless you're a member of the particular subreddits, specified on self-promotion. I think Reddit is more about "hey, we've released a new update for the game you've last played a year ago, check it out".

I like the slide that says "Rule 1: Get to the point quick" - presented only after 6:30 minutes... Kinda puts the whole point of this talk in perspective..

Content is gold but the audio of this is terrible

The secret to successful game marketing is to have a good game in the first place...

Enjoy This Video 😍👍

This message is commonly true, but it needs more context. Otherwise it's unhelpful and actually harmful for the industry because it paints game development in a hopeless negative light from the jump. If you're making a cozy unlit game or walking simulator, no one cares about your game (beyond Twitter or other devs). If you're making a high fidelity tactical shooter with realistic reloads / graphics, people will naturally care about your game and social media algorithms will also pick it up (for now). I suppose it makes sense from a marketing / PR standpoint since sometimes you have to work with clients that have picked a weak genre to begin with, but I just wanted to shine some light on this very common nihilistic talking point so that more devs can succeed.

Yeah... I can only listen to someone talking about tiktok that much, you had me hooked and interested, but with the constant droning on about that soulsucking app and talk about games that pull in people with short attention-spans... yeah... no thanks!

My ears are closed, don't wanna listen too someone that focuses on tiktok so much