next »

[TobiasW]

@Paul Eres:
How did you get that many subscribers? And do you know how many sales you got thanks to your newsletter?

[Chris Koźmik]

Your orignal question about not having enough time inspired me to write a short piece on some tools that can help you manage your marketing time.

As far as how much I work - probably too much  

Maybe I will write one how to work less, I'm kind of good at being not overworked 

The content that you create on your blog should be focused on your audience

Which bring me back to the purpose of a blog. We write about "sales of our games", "how to get more traffic", "if it's worth releasing on mac/linux" and things like that. It's interesting ONLY to other game devs. So, I wrote an excellent blog like that, I get 100,000 followers (all of them other indie game devs). Does it bring me even one additional sale? I try to find the financial logic (writing blogs because it's fun is completely another story, I don't deny this) for an indie to have a blog.

[Christian Knudsen]

If you want to attract potential customers, write about your game, not all the meta-business of being an indie dev. Use your blog like people are using the DevLogs here.

[Chris Koźmik]

If you want to attract potential customers, write about your game, not all the meta-business of being an indie dev. Use your blog like people are using the DevLogs here.

Well, that makes much more sense. Your blog indeed looks appealing to a gamer.
So you are using it to post updates to the people who already are interested in your game? Like a focusing point, not a way to get new players/traffic?

Right now I'm using various gaming forums for this. Any comment on this? Should I switch to a blog and just drop a link to my blog on the dedicated gaming forums?

Also, haven't you thought of using your own forum for this instead of a blog?

[Christian Knudsen]

So you are using it to post updates to the people who already are interested in your game? Like a focusing point, not a way to get new players/traffic?

Both, I guess. It definitely serves as updates to the people already interested in the game, but it also brings in new people now and then. I haven't really done any marketing as the game is still a couple of years from being finished, but the updates (and videos in particular -- I'm sure RPS wouldn't have written about it if there wasn't a video) have generated some attention. I think just the fact that potential customers can see that it's a game that's been in development for a while and that I'm always working on it means that they're more likely to get invested. And when they're invested, they're more likely to talk about it elsewhere and bring in other people.

Right now I'm using various gaming forums for this. Any comment on this? Should I switch to a blog and just drop a link to my blog on the dedicated gaming forums?

Just dropping a link to your blog can be perceived as spamming. I have a DevLog here and a thread on the Ubuntu forums where I copy-paste some blog posts. I don't post all updates on those forums, though, just the biggest updates (new gameplay mechanics or releases, for example).

Also, haven't you thought of using your own forum for this instead of a blog?

A forum requires a bit more involvement from people, and forum posts with updates aren't as immediately apparent as they are on a blog. I follow the Wolfire blog and the development of Overgrowth, for example, but I'm not a member of their forum and have never really read it.

What I have done, however, is connect my blog with my forum, so that the blog post automatically gets posted on the forum, and instead of separate blog comments, the blog post links to the thread comments. I did that to avoid having two parallel 'communities' -- one in the blog comments and one on the forums. The downside might be that casual visitors are less likely to post comments when they're made on the forum (even though I allow guest posts on the forum, so they don't have to register).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@Paul Eres:
How did you get that many subscribers? And do you know how many sales you got thanks to your newsletter?

mainly because i've been making/releasing games for 15 years. i've made about 16 games, going back to the late 90s. even if you only get a few hundred subscribers a year that adds up over such a long time. however considering that time span, i don't think the number i have is particularly high. i know many indies with newsletters in the tens or hundreds of thousands (e.g. i think cliffski and hanako and jeff vogel are in that range)

oh, another thing i do is i offer a package of all of my old games in one big zip file to newsletter subscribers. it's a good idea to offer rewards to people who subscribe to your newsletter. of course people can just sign up and then unsubscribe to get the zip if they want (and that's fine), but having an incentive is good

[Chris Koźmik]

I have been thinking and reading and run a small (unrepresentative) pool among players and so far I came to these conclusions:

- facebook & twitter are of very low use. Maybe to have these and post big announcements like when the game is finished, but posting all the time and being active there seems a waste of time. I could not find even one success story related to these.
- YouTube is of extremely high importance, not as having a whole channel with various videos, but just one video with gameplay of your game (x10 important if the gameplay involves bocks/vexels/construction in any form :D)
- official website (and/or blog since this is very similar) is the most efficient tool that is under your control. Players mostly bookmark the official website.
- RSS and newsletter could be of use (and definitely rank far higher than twitter and facebook)
- RPS (Rock, Paper, Shotgun) is very important
- Indie/ModDB is of unknown to no use, especially the forums there, could not find even one game entry that had any reasonable traffic on such forums

Please, please, please, contest these thoughts if you find them incorrect. I'm here to learn, not to preach, and I could be completely wrong on these. In such case please tell me...