One of the biggest hurdles in indie video game making is not making video games, it’s how do you market them? You get started making them because you love video games or maybe you’re just weird like me and love programming. Video games are my way to be creative in what and how I program. Your so full of passion and excitement then you publish a game and are like, wait a minute how do I get people to play this?
Photo by Ian Schneider on UnsplashI’m pretty lucky in that I’ve already sold a few copies of Frost Bite. (Get your copy at https://gildedoctopusstudios.itch.io/frost-bite). I’ve kinda gotten to a point though where I’m not sure what to do next. Most of my sales so far are from Twitter or this blog. My twitter growth though has somewhat plateaued. So what’s a girl to do?
Well I have a new strategy. I’m going to keep trying to get reviews and play throughs of Frost Bite but I’m also going to try a new social medium, TikTok. I considered Instagram but I kinda like the quick viral feel of TikTok. So what’s TikTok like? It’s mostly short silly videos set to music with different effects. I’ve been making videos of clips from Frost Bite and other projects I’m working on. 15-30s of game play with a fun song and a few sparkles. It’s a bit like the better version of a gif. It’s to early yet to tell if this will be a good marketing decision.
What is kind of cool about it though is that there doesn’t seem to be much overlap with my twitter audience so it’s kind of a whole new world of people who might enjoy playing my games. It’s a bit random though in what videos get the most views. I haven’t figured out how to really shine on there yet. I only just got the analytics set up though so hopefully that will help. It has the potential to be a really great social medium for showing off indie games because it’s so art positive. There aren’t a lot of indie game developers on there yet. Tiktok also caters to a younger crowd than a lot of traditional social media, who might be more open to trying indie games.
Don’t get me wrong AAA games are awesome but they take so long to develop and are so expensive. Indie games offer the opportunity for something a little more creative and unique. After all what AAA company is going to publish something like an Unnamed Goose Game? I’m kinda biased on this one but I think Indie Games are awesome and wish there was a better way to let people know how many cool games there are out there that aren’t AAA.
Maybe TikTok will be that social media that really helps people discover cool and interesting games. I think it’s format would work well for that. Oh and if you feel like checking out my TikTok page use the code below.
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