Minimal Marketing - noooway/love2d_arkanoid_tutorial GitHub Wiki

In game development, making a game is only a part of the job. At the very least, you also have to find players for it. This is what traditional marketing is about.

Github Traffic screenshot

Of course, good marketing requires time and skill, just as good sound effects, good graphics and code do. Publishers do this kind of work professionally. On the other hand, there are a number of things that can be done by a single person for a hobby project. Such things do not require much effort and they are enough to understand the basic ideas of marketing process.

Targeting well-defined audience is one of the key rules of the marketing. After all, a game for a 6-years old girl should be quite different in all it's aspects - visual, story, etc - from a game for a 16-years old boy. Ideally, you should decide on your target audience during initial game design process and constantly keep it in mind, adjusting as necessary either design or the audience, during the development.

At the very least, you should be able to clearly answer the following questions:

  1. Who might be interested in my project?
  2. How to reach them?
  3. How to talk to them?

People with common interests tend to group in communities. So, for practical means it seems more convenient to reformulate the above questions in the following way:

  1. Which communities might be interested in my project?
  2. How can I contact the maximum number of people in each community?
  3. How to persuade members of the community to give my project a try?

Typically, a community has several places where it gathers - web sites it's members frequently visit, dedicated forums, pages in various social networks, an email list; real-life meetings may be organized. The task, of course, is to establish a presence on every such place (without being perceived as a spammer).

A community typically has several prominent members or leaders, that can influence opinion of other members. A good strategy is to identify such members and win their trust and support. A recommendation, repost or retwit from someone with several thousand followers can bring a lot of new members to you. Typically more than an unskilled paid advertising campaign.

Each community responds to different triggers. While a fellow programmer might be interested what libraries you have used in your code, there is certainly no use to preach this to end player. So, in communicating with communities, you have to keep in mind which things to emphasize.

Some communities may not values what you have to offer or be outward aggressive to you. Typically that happens when you do not align with their interests (for example, this is commonly the case when proprietary Windows-only software is promoted on open-source sites). So, apart from deciding on your target audience it is also important to decide who is certainly not your audience and stop wasting time and energy on them. It is not possible to be nice for everyone.

A general advice: Post a couple of screenshots and a gameplay video. If possible, provide a working build of your game. If you post an announcement on a forum, the topic will become obsolete very soon, unless you bump it regularly -- be prepared to write (or prepare in advance) a sequence of updates to post roughly once a week.

List of cites and forums, where to announce newly-created game

Keeping that in mind, below is a bunch of cites and forums, where you can announce your newly-created game. Look for amount of Views/Comments/Likes to see, which of them have most active community.

So, going back to our example, first of all, there is Love2D community. It seems that Love2D forum + reddit + twitter allow to achieve a decent coverage. Love2D is a part of a larger GameDev community. GameDev is very broad and it is convenient to subdivide it into a number of smaller subcommunities.

First of all, there is Lua GameDev, represented mostly by Lua-based engines.

Then, there is indie-gamedev community. Apart from gamejolt and itch, http://forums.indiegamer.com/ is probably another related resource.

Since Love runs on mobile and web, it is also possible to consider mobile- and web-gamedev communities. Unfortunately, both are terra incognita for me.

Another small subset is the open source gamedev (opengameart, freegamedev).

After that, there is General GameDev community, represented by such resources as gamedev.net, TIGSource.

Then, there is General developers community. Again, it is very large and should be subdivided. The most obvious criterion is programming language, so Lua community should be targeted in the first place. Much to my surprise, it seems that among the people, who have starred the repository on the github, there are more JavaScript coders, than Lua coders. This might indicate, that JavaScript community also might be considered.

After that, there is Players community (gamespot & co ). It can be subdivided by a number of criteria (mobile/desktop, girls/boys, teenagers/adults, etc.). The problem is, players are mostly interested in finished games.

Next, there is general IT community (slashdot, etc ). Inside it, general open-source community (opensouce.com ?) might be considered separately. The chances, of course, are not very bright.

Finally, there are other people. What remains for them, are project website and various social networks. ( Of course, website and social networks are useful on their own, in case somebody decides to contact you ).

LÖVE-devoted resources:

That's where most active audience can be found:

  1. LÖVE forums (a thread about this tutorial)
    This place you should already know and love. This is absolutely must. Even if your game is in a prototype state. Also do try to get your game to LÖVE projects wiki section.

  2. Reddit LÖVE (example)
    Second most popular LÖVE gathering place.

  3. Github:
    A curated list of amazingly awesome LÖVE libraries, resources and shiny things..

  4. Facebook:
    [list of LOVE groups]

Also, don't forget local LÖVE-devoted resources:

  1. Vk ( popular russian social network )
    Разработка игр в LÖVE (LOVE2D, LOVE)

Other Lua-based game engines:

Most frequently, the following surface up:

Here is a more comprehensive list.
The problem is they do not welcome competitors. In my case it is not clear, whether or not it is worth to spend time on them. Of course, if they respond positively to your announcements, than apart from forums it is useful to test other community gathering places, such as social network pages. Show these lost souls the power of LÖVE.

Opensource GameDev community:

The world of opensource gaming is a barren desert (except a couple of rare oases). Any drop of liquid counts. The most active community used to be found at OGA and FreeGameDev.

  1. OpenGameArt (example)

  2. FreeGameDev (example)

Indie Game Development (international and local):

  1. Gamejolt
    Apart from forums, they also have devlogs (example).

  2. Itch (example)
    This is also a marketplace.

  3. IndieGamer.com (example)

  4. Social
    https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/
    https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/

Game Development (international and local):

Usually they have project showcase for indie or beginner's.

  1. Reddit gamedev

  2. TIGForums (example)
    This forum is a very active place.

  3. Gamedev.net
    This is also a very active place. They have announcements section (example) in their forum.
    Apart from that, there are blogs (example), that seem more suitable for devlogs.

  4. Fig
    Newly announced crowdfunding platform, specially for gamedev. This can be useful, if you are planning to raise money for development. Currently, this is for professionals mostly, but worth keeping an eye on. Probably they'll start a section with prototypes soon.

Local (in russian):

  1. GameDev.ru

  2. gcup

  3. make-games Not very active, but you won't lose much posting an announcement...

GameJams

It won't hurt if you participate. Some of them have forums, where you can announce your game.

  1. Ludum Dare

Digital game distribution platforms:

  1. Steam
    Surprisingly, it seems, that forums lack any special topics for developers. On the other hand, there is Concepts in Steam Greenlight. Probably, you can announce your game there to get some feedback

  2. Humble Indie Bundle
    It doesn't have forums, but it's possible to create a Humble Gamepage. This is probably more suitable for finished projects.

  3. GOG
    This is for end players mostly.

  4. Desura
    They are in the process of rebranding.

  5. Playism
    In their own words, "PLAYISM is a PC gaming platform used to distribute original and creative works from all over the world to Japan." It would be nice to find something like this for China and Korea.

General IT- and Gaming-Devoted Communities.

International: Gamespot, Slashdot, IGN, etc.
Hundreds of them. Sometimes they have a forum, where you can announce your creation.

Local: linux.org.ru, habr The first one is devoted to open-source and GNU/Linux software, another is a blog platfrom for IT specialists:

If your game runs on mobile devices:

Mobile gaming is wast and another topic in it's own. Also, a couple of mobile-games devoted forums:

Make sure to get to markets.

Video blogs:

Make sure to create a short video for youtube. Also consider popular streaming platforms: twitch.

General social networks:

Make sure to post announces of your game at least on your personal pages. Also, it is nice to get your game to some game-devoted publics, such as: [list-of-groups]

Facebook, twitter, instagramm. In Facebook, announce it on your personal page and also create a personal page for the project.

Modern marketing is not limited to finding audience for your project. It is more about building a relationship with people by providing positive user experience. The way your web-site looks (even, whether you have one or not), the way you respond to comments on Facebook, your photos from Instagram account - all of this contributes to the experience people get from interaction with you. Obviously, if the experience is positive, they are more likely to continue to interact with you and recommend you to others. Which brings you more customers in the long term run. This problem - of building relationship - incorporates a full customer interaction cycle: promotion, sales, distribution, support.

It is twofold. First, it can provide a feedback for your game, which would allow you to improve it. Second, it allows to increase Love community. More interesting projects and more buzz in forums will attract greater number of people to Love. Which means bigger community. Which, in turn, results in better support, more libraries, more interesting projects.

Our discussion on Love2d forum: https://love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=83426

Запостить сюда скриншоты с гитхаб-трафика. До и после. И количество посещений на каждом форуме за 3 недели.