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[Zaratustra]

I intend to employ some mailing carpet bomb tactics to market my games because my name is not Jason goddamn Rohrer and blogs won't blog about my games unless I shove them down their throats. Please to be giving me addresses of blogs that blog about independent games.

[Terry]

Er, I'm not sure that "shove them down their throats" is going to help in that regard

They were putting together a list like this on the GDR a while back. Dunno if it'll be any help to you, but here it is anyway.

[increpare]

I intend to employ some mailing carpet bomb tactics to market my games because my name is not Jason goddamn Rohrer and blogs won't blog about my games unless I shove them down their throats. Please to be giving me addresses of blogs that blog about independent games.

One other thing that helps a lot PR wise, I've heard, is keeping a face on various community boards.  In that regards, maybe this list might be helpful also?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Oh, reveal the secret list to you, eh? All our hard work will be for naught if anyone can just *ask* for the list! But okay.

The big four:
- tigsource.com
- indiegames.com/blog
- playthisthing.com
- gametunnel.com

A few others that sometimes review indie games if they're really good indie games:
- joystiq.com
- kotaku.com
- rockpapershotgun.com
- jayisgames.com

Sites that review indie games but don't have a whole lot of traffic:
- indiegamemag.com
- bytejacker.com
- the personal blogs of indie developers (auntie pixelante, etc.)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Another possible tactic is this: find an indie game similar to your own. Find all the reviews of that game. Email the people who wrote each of those reviews about your game.

[increpare]

Another possible tactic is this: find an indie game, X, say, similar to your own. Find all the reviews of that game. Email the people who wrote each of those reviews about your game.  They will write a review describing it as an 'X-clone'. Srsly.

(reasonable advice, though)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

True, but better a review calling your game a clone than no review at all.

[Zaratustra]

Hell, indie blogs lurve clones. Lookit The Underside and the eighty Crayon Physics-likes. (is crayon physics the original? I forgot)

[TheBlackMask]

Just change your name to Jason Rohrer, that will solve everything.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Or you can even just make a game called:

Jason Rohrer's and Jonathan Blow's Mega Omniludicon 3!

[Gold Cray]

Or you can even just make a game called:

Jason Rohrer's and Jonathan Blow's Mega Omniludicon 3!

Zaratustra present's Jason Rohrer's Heart of Darkness 1: Into the Meadow

[Powergloved Andy]

lol shove it down their throat!  :D

I am not sure many indie bloggers, sepcially somebody such as Tim W, will enjoy that too much! But hey, press is press I suppose.  :D From my understanding getting blogs to review your game isn't a big deal, as long as it's creative and fun. Otherwise, I'm sure most would be happy to accept your game without the need of shoving it down one's throat! 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

From my understanding getting blogs to review your game isn't a big deal, as long as it's creative and fun. Otherwise, I'm sure most would be happy to accept your game without the need of shoving it down one's throat! 

Oh, you'd be surprised, it's pretty hard for even really great indie games to get reviewed.

[Hideous]

Hell, indie blogs lurve clones. Lookit The Underside and the eighty Crayon Physics-likes. (is crayon physics the original? I forgot)

I was very frustrated when a couple of people were watching the CPD trailer in school, and one says "Hey, that's Magic Crayon!".

[JLJac]

If you make a good enough game(to save the president) I don't think you'll have to worry about it being spread over the net. A good start might be to post it here and maybe an editor will find it and front page it. Then you are world famous and will have to write autographs on your way to the supermarket. Many people read the TIG front page

[Zaratustra]

If you make a good enough game(to save the president) I don't think you'll have to worry about it being spread over the net. A good start might be to post it here and maybe an editor will find it and front page it. Then you are world famous and will have to write autographs on your way to the supermarket. Many people read the TIG front page

Heh. You're a funny guy.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think the "just make a good game and marketing will take care of itself" position is only really promoted by people who have never created (finished) games, because it doesn't work like that very often. Do you think we all know about Braid because it's a good game? No, we know about it because Jon Blow promoted the heck out of it, spending massive amounts of time promoting it.

[TheBlackMask]

No, we know about it because Jon Blow promoted the heck out of it, spending massive amounts of time promoting it.

This is true, but Braid was pretty much unheard of before winning big at the IGF in 2006.  Having a good game is not the only factor, but definitely the biggest, I think.  If your game is good, it makes it that much easier to get people to play it when it does come time to market it.

In the world of AAA games, it's possible to simply market the hell out of a crap game and have it sell...Take Kane & Lynch for example.  But in the indie world, where almost no one buys a game without playing the demo first, game quality is the bottom line.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

It was kind of unheard of even after that, though -- I think the constant previews, interviews, and game design talks Blow did had more to do with its popularity than the IGF prize (although that helped). And the reason it was unheard of before the IGF was because it didn't exist before the IGF; my impression is that the version that won the IGF was that version that just had a few levels with the time mechanic and some clip art as placeholder graphics.

Indie games tend to have similar conversion rates, 0.5%-1.5% of people who download a demo will buy it (higher quality games are on the upper end of that, lower quality games on the lower end), so getting people to try it out is more important than quality a lot of the time. A game with hundreds of thousands of downloads of the demo will sell better than a higher quality game with fewer downloads, even if a slightly smaller percent of those that download a game buy it.

So I still definitely think that marketing is more important than quality, just as much for indie games as for multi-million dollar games. Besides, mainstream PC games have demos as well, so the demo effect applies to both, I didn't buy Portal until I'd played the demo first.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

As an aside, there's a list of what you're requesting here:

http://indiedevguide.com/wiki/index.php/Game_Review_Sites

Although it's not much more complete than the ones mentioned, I thought it'd be good to link to it.