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[nikki]

Let's assume i have a working pre-alfa version of the thing/game/application i'm building.
Wich internet sites are the ones i need (try) to contact ?

Wich are the sites that have lots of visitors, that could get to know me ?

[Over00]

Let's assume i have a working pre-alfa version of the thing/game/application i'm building.
Wich internet sites are the ones i need (try) to contact ?

It really depends on the kind of thing/game/application you're building as each websites have different kind of audience and purpose.

Can you provide us with more insights like is it a Flash game, downloadable, casual?

[nikki]

Yes offcours, it's a very broad question indeed !
First off, i am not finished yet, not even 20% .

BUt i was thinking ahead a little ..
when my program(s) will be finished it will be a downloadable generative world, in wich generative people live their life. alot of things will be moddable, customizable.
And the set of programs could also be used as animation tool (with sets,props,actor and timeline).

The programs that are most usable right now would be the character animation tool, and the house creation.

So the keywords would be:
pre-alfa
simulation
animation
life
sims-clone
naughty
pixels
house-builder

for some in-dev screenshots dev log

[Over00]

hmm I won't be able to help you much for a downloadable game as I'm not familiar with the websites for this kind of content.

However, you can submit your game for reviews to websites covering the indie scene like indiegames.com/blog, indiegamemag.com, bytten.com and such.

I'm sure other folks here can suggest some websites to distribute downloadable games.

[bateleur]

Pre-alpha seems a bit early to be actively seeking publicity, maybe?

If you have something good working already then the best approach might be to produce a gameplay video and upload it to somewhere like YouTube. Then produce a basic webpage with an RSS feed (WordPress is good for this) and post the video to it. If it looks interesting, that gives people a chance to take an interest in your game by subscribing to your feed. News sites might initially be a bit reluctant to cover something which could turn out to be vapourware, but if you can persuade them your feed is worth subscribing to then when your game starts to look convincing they can write about it any time they like.

[dsilvers]

This is a great article on Rodain Joubert on indie game marketing, definitely worth a read: http://www.devmag.org.za/articles/78-ZERO-BUDGET-INDIE-MARKETING-GUIDE/

My advice would be to wait until you have something substantial to show off. Trailers always grab more attention than screenshots. With any luck, when you have something working and email press sites, they'll be interested and will spend half an hour writing an article on your game. Even if they give it bad press, it WILL get another download or two.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there still really isn't enough info. is it freeware or shareware? do you plan on improving the graphics? because the game is so different from most marketing something like this seems like it'd be a challenge, because you'd first have to convince people why they should care about this game as opposed to the other 100 indie games that are released every week.

i think your best bet at first would be informal rather than formal channels: forums, irc, twitter, facebook, that kind of stuff. if your game can find a large enough audience through that, enough that a few hundred or so people find and love the game, then it'll spread on from there. it's better to have a hundred passionate fans who know what the game is and love it than a million people who looked at your trailer, didn't understand it, and forgot the game's name.

[FrostedSentry]

At this point there are a few things that I think would stand out.

1) A website / blog to track your progress (Wolfire does this very successfully)
2) A YouTube channel with gameplay feature tech demos (so you can show off when you make a forum post)

Taking advantage of 1 and 2, do what you're doing right now.  Share your adventure on this site, gamedev.net, devmaster.net, and other forums that target your genre.  That's a start.

Something like this will be largely driven by a grass roots effort until you begin to really establish the artistic flavor.  If what you have is it, then it's going to be pretty difficult to get noticed outside of the forums... unless you're exposing some technological epicness that you're not telling us about.

Good luck! It's not going to be easy, but the key is persistence.

[Over00]

Think I'll add something here.

I just released a game and read most of the "do this if you're indie articles" most of them written from editors themselves. It didn't worked great. Sure Rock Paper Shotgun posted about it (and I followed Kieron advices) but that didn't helped that much.

On indiegamer.com someone even told me "I checked the list and you did everything" but eh ... doesn't guarantee anything. Others will tell you "then your game sucks". That's not insulting to me as I've seen far worse (very far worse, believe me) but it's insulting to the people that actually spent money on the game.

What I'd say is read about the successful ones. Here's an example: http://www.indievision.org/?p=1485

He invested $5,600 in advertising so far even if he's one of the few to receive a lot of coverage (his game is even sold on Steam).

Don't get me wrong. He deserves all the coverage. What I'm pointing out is that advice is cheap. Ads are working even if they cost a lot. Don't believe me, believe someone that is successful: http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/?p=71

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i agree that some of the advice from journalists in how to get your game noticed should be a bit suspect because they're just recommending things that work on them, they haven't actually ever marketed a game before.

there is a good blog post by wolfire about marketing games though, which is worth reading. i don't have a link to it offhand but i thought it was far more helpful than that keiron gillen article, and that may have been because it was coming from people who do it.

[Over00]

i agree that some of the advice from journalists in how to get your game noticed should be a bit suspect because they're just recommending things that work on them, they haven't actually ever marketed a game before.

there is a good blog post by wolfire about marketing games though, which is worth reading. i don't have a link to it offhand but i thought it was far more helpful than that keiron gillen article, and that may have been because it was coming from people who do it.

If you find that link I'd be interested to read it (I'm always interested to become better at what I do!).

Just to come back on Kieron though, he posted one of my stories even before I read his article (with my first game). Somehow he thought it was worth it even if I can say today that I was very clumsy and dumb about the whole process of trying to get noticed (I'm not even sure he played the game, my mail just caught his eye I guess).

That shows how random it can be. Even by doing bad marketing and being badly prepared he still posted a story about my game (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/06/17/it-lives-indie-mmo-golemizer/). I guess I've been lucky that with him I hit the right way to write my mail even if I had no clue how to try to do it properly.

On the other side though it can be pretty depressing while trying to follow advices and still remain ignored even when "doing what you've been told". No magical recipes. Just try something else the next time I guess. The only problem is when it took you a year to develop a game you're next shot is far far away.

[gambrinous]

i agree that some of the advice from journalists in how to get your game noticed should be a bit suspect because they're just recommending things that work on them, they haven't actually ever marketed a game before.

there is a good blog post by wolfire about marketing games though, which is worth reading. i don't have a link to it offhand but i thought it was far more helpful than that keiron gillen article, and that may have been because it was coming from people who do it.

This one?
http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/03/5-indie-pr-tips-from-wolfire/

[Over00]

This one?
http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/03/5-indie-pr-tips-from-wolfire/

Ah thanks. It's similar to what I've read on other blogs. #1 I discovered myself long ago but it's important to repeat for other devs that may have way too much hope like I had

Overall #5 is the most important even though there are days you feel like it will never go anywhere. There's no progress bar to keep track of how far you are from success so not giving up is the only thing to do 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yep, that's the one i meant

oh, and i also wrote a blog post on this subject, sort of:

http://studioeres.com/games/content/market-through-helpfulness

[Christian Knudsen]

Just read your blog post. I definitely agree with that. I guess it boils down to "create a network by being a nice guy". I certainly like that better than the often seen "act like a jerk to get attention".

[Over00]

Just read your blog post. I definitely agree with that. I guess it boils down to "create a network by being a nice guy". I certainly like that better than the often seen "act like a jerk to get attention".

I agree. It seems unfortunately that some people can't resist to choose the second option (because sadly it do works to some degree if you're able to live with it).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

to be clear, i'm not advocating being nice or polite, just being helpful, being of value to people. i'm not a particularly polite person, i often say what i mean bluntly and it's safe to say that more people dislike me than like me in the community. nonetheless, i doubt that most people who dislike me would argue that i don't do things of value for the community. but still, i don't do nearly as much as some others, like derek and timw.

it's also not good to do things with the expectancy that you'll get back anything all or even most of the time. just that some small percent of the people you give value to will give you value in return, whether that's through word of mouth mentioning your game, buying it, donating, or whatever.

there are a lot of easy ways to give back to the community, some of which i mentioned in that blog post, but here's a list of stuff i recommend:

- technical help: help people with programming or other tech-related questions. i think i help someone with a game maker question on average twice a day. it adds up.

- playtesting: provide valuable feedback to other indie devs by playing their game and giving them suggestions and impressions

- write reviews for indie game blogs, this is especially easy now that derek has opened up his 'guest reviewer' thing

- offer to help people with things in their games, even if just in minor ways. for instance, if you're a pixel artist, offer to help people with improving the coloring of their tiles.

- write tutorials, articles, and so on if you're particularly knowledgeable about some aspect of something relevant to the community, even if it's only remotely relevant, like how to choose a good web host

- make videos of indie games that aren't yours, let's plays, playthroughs, speedruns, whatever, it adds more of an indie game presence on youtube

- if there are indie games you particularly like, promote those indie games to your friends and family, and post about indie games on other forums which you visit (forums which are not specifically about indie games, but may be about games in general)

- if you're an artist, create fanart of other indie games and put them up on places like deviantart, this will give indie games more of a presence there, and will also make the developer(s) of that indie game pretty happy that someone would draw fanart for their game; same goes for fanfics and music remixes if you're more of a writer or a musician

- write faqs for indiegames and post them on indiefaqs and on (if the game exists there) gamefaqs, since people who get stuck in games often would like accessible answers to their problems

- if you have money / an income, buy indie games that you enjoy, and also buy them as gifts for friends and family

if everyone did more of this stuff, indie games wouldn't be a niche anymore

[Christian Knudsen]

I agree. But in the end it does just boil down to getting your name out there by doing positive stuff instead of negative stuff.

[Oddbob]

Just to come back on Kieron though, he posted one of my stories even before I read his article (with my first game). Somehow he thought it was worth it even if I can say today that I was very clumsy and dumb about the whole process of trying to get noticed (I'm not even sure he played the game, my mail just caught his eye I guess).

That shows how random it can be. Even by doing bad marketing and being badly prepared he still posted a story about my game (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/06/17/it-lives-indie-mmo-golemizer/). I guess I've been lucky that with him I hit the right way to write my mail even if I had no clue how to try to do it properly.

It's not really *that* random. The RPS chaps (like me, pretty much I suppose) post what sounds interesting/amusing or different enough to make them perk up their ears.

Sometimes you can pull that off with just a subject line or an entertaining mail. Sometimes pretty pictures. It's all about making yourself/your game sound interesting.

And accessible. Did I mention that bit? Make posting about it easy - lots of screenshots, a link to a zip if need be, a video... bundle it all in. Sometimes that can make a difference between post/no post.

And knowing the site you're writing to. What do they normally post? What sort of stuff does perk up their ears? If your game is the kind of thing one of the staff members is into, then you've got more chance of a post.

On the other side though it can be pretty depressing while trying to follow advices and still remain ignored even when "doing what you've been told". No magical recipes. Just try something else the next time I guess. The only problem is when it took you a year to develop a game you're next shot is far far away.

The reason nothing is guaranteed is because there's many people writing games. There's much news to get through. And whilst you might think your game is special there's no guarantees that the person on the other end will.

Sure, it might not work across the board (most probably won't) but you only need to snag the right one or two to get word of mouth going because, believe it or not, a lot of them do talk to each other.

I ignore probably 10 mails a day. They're dull. I imagine the RPS chaps ignore even more. I've only got x amount of time to put into posting games somewhere and if someone can't be arsed even trying, bollocks to them. Most of the advice in Michael Rose's article and any similar is about one thing - increasing your chances of not being ignored. There's no promises because well, there can't be.

Natch, it might be a dull day, a slow day or whatever and you catch me in a good mood or with nowt else to post but it's not really as random as you think it might be.

And from the side of the fence you're on, I've had mails ignored about my own stuff. It's nothing personal, I know that. I don't expect anyone to post about them unless they interest them. I'd sooner have, say, the Eurogamer review I got last week over the five or six ones who reviewed the game early on for no other reason than "they want to cover all the games" or "they just want a free code". Not all exposure is equal, y'know? And if EG didn't want to cover it - fair enough. I'd have just taken that as they're not interested enough in it.

Paul's advice (and chrknudsen's summary) is very good stuff but I'd also add one thing.

Be yourself. Don't be other people or a conceptualisation of other people's ideas because your main strength as an indie is you. Which is pretty much what Gillen is trying to say throughout his article and he's bang on. Cliff isn't -just- successful because of his advertising, if anything he's the epitomy of everything Gillen is trying to teach. He's very much Cliffski and love him or loathe him, agree or disagree with his stance on things, that personality is gold.

[Over00]

Sometimes you can pull that off with just a subject line or an entertaining mail. Sometimes pretty pictures. It's all about making yourself/your game sound interesting.

And accessible. Did I mention that bit? Make posting about it easy - lots of screenshots, a link to a zip if need be, a video... bundle it all in. Sometimes that can make a difference between post/no post.

Well that's what I meant by random. Not that they choose randomly what to post but that from one person to another it's not always easy to figure out how to present your work. For example I knew there was some steampunk interest on RPS so I guess that's what caught the attention when I talked about my games.

On the other side I never received feedback from some websites I thought would be interested (not naming names as it's not the point here). Not blaming them but from my point of view I'm left to wonder what to do better next time. Maybe I did fine and it's just that my games are not what they like. Maybe they will like the next one and not RPS.

So when I say "random" it's from a point of view of being left in the dark. If someone tells you "I don't like your game" then at least you're set.

And I'm not saying anyone have to reply to me (they are not my employees). And I understand everything that's been said and know that I'm far from being the first one to experience this (as you said yourself).

The only thing I hope everyone understand here is that when I say "it can be depressing" it's not an attack at anyone. It really just is even thought that won't prevent me to sleep at night (I could build games for myself and never tell anyone if I wasn't hoping to share what I build).