Best way to advertise small free arcadey games?

Hi all,

I've released 3 small, arcadey games now on Android + iOS, completely free with UnityAds in them. No IAP's or anything, just games you can play for 3-4 minutes at a time.

Each is getting about 70 downloads between both stores. I'm not expecting too many downloads to be honest, but it'd be nice to have enough of a player base to at least hear feedback about the games, know whats good/bad about them.

Any ways or places to find a potential audience for games like these, or perhaps a way of correctly using social media? Anything would be a great help!

 

IMHO - Your best way to advertise without the use of thousands of dollars is the quality of work you produce.
Many Mobile games don't get much attention for the simple fact a lot of them are always the same thing, so people just go for what the norm is, the already popular one.

Now if you revolutionize an idea with amazing quality, people will begin to talk, word of mouth is the best advertisement one can get and it's all free. Nobody is going to give any positive feedback if your game doesn't have the "Quality" part to it.

That is why I mentioned IMHO that Quality is the best asset one can provide for advertisement, because if something is fun doesn't mean it deserves a spot on the top unless everything about the game has quality.

I'm in no way saying your games you made don't have any quality to them, but again, either you create a whole new genera or revolutionize an already made one.

 

It's a shame the big AAA companies don't go by this. Instead we see things like this:

Battlefield 1942
Battlefield Vietnam
Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
Battlefield 2142
Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike
Battlefield: Bad Company
Battlefield Heroes
Battlefield 1943
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Battlefield Online
Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam
Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand
Battlefield 3: Close Quarters
Battlefield 3: Armored Kill
Battlefield 3: Aftermath
Battlefield 3: End Game
Battlefield 4
Battlefield 4: China Rising
Battlefield 4: Second Assault
Battlefield 4: Naval Strike
Battlefield 4: Dragon's Teeth
Battlefield 4: Final Stand
Battlefield Hardline

On the bright side, they should be able to make a good FPS now. I mean they have some experience with such things.

You could look at how the AAA companies do it. Massive marketing campaigns. Great relationships with the video game reviewers. And growing a customer base across a ton of "different" games.

 

If you ask me, Battlefield 2 was the last great one they made.. 3 Was okay..

But BF 1942, Vietnam and 2 were the real BF games, these ones now, really?


They just keep selling you for one a super bugged BF 4. Heck I rented a server on it once and never got it because they couldn't fix it, I had to make them feel bad and give me a free game LOL. Which worked, but I mean really?
BF 4 is by far, worst the than Gaylo.

But anywayyyys LOL.

Yeah you're right though LOL.

 

How's best to get the initial people to judge the quality though, just a foundation of a playerbase? I suppose getting it mentioned by a video game review is a good point, must be other ways though.

Wanted Battlefield 2142 so bad as a kid, but my rig couldn't handle it

 

You need to find your market. Ideally you will have a profile for the person who will want to play your game. It may include age range(s), male or female or both, gaming preferences (retro, rpg, platform, fps, puzzle games, etc), what kind of movies do they like, and what are their other hobbies and interests. Once you know who exactly your target market is you can then focus on reaching them. But first step is to know who they are.

 

Put your game on more platforms, such as Kongregate, Chrome store etc, there are tons of portals etc

Why limit yourself to Android and iOS?

 

I know this has been posted before but:
http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-indie-game-marketing/

 

Welcome to the next stage. You've passed some real milestones, like: 'I can build games?', 'Release my first', 'Release to multiple platforms' and 'Release several games'! That's worth savoring - few get that far. Now, it's time for the next stage, which one of my engineers calls, 'Be Loud!'

Be loud is exactly what it means. Posting to Unity forums is kind of like being loud, except there's only a handful of folks here and most of them are building games. Loud is - Youtube, reddit, 100 web sites, social media, niche audiences, blogging, imgr, facebook, networking, etc..., etc.... There's no secret, just lots and lots of hard work.

'Be Loud' is as as easy to understand as it is hard to do.

Gigi

 

Yeah, it seems like that's the thing to do. I keep putting it off, in the mindset that the games can be better and will hopefully attract more players because of it, but I suppose there comes a point where you just need to get them out there.

Starting programming work for a new studio in a week, so hopefully shouldn't have to worry about this side of things in the coming future!

 

http://powellgroupconsulting.com/2014/07/15/six-ways-to-squeeze-more-revenue-from-your-game/

Another pretty good link, mainly for non-mobile

 

Well here's one of your problems:

In all of this thread you haven't shared a single link to your game.

 

Haha yeah, well I thought it'd be better for discussion to not try and advertise at the same time.

For those interested, just look in my signature

 

So after some searching I haven't been able to find anywhere that really showcases arcadey/casual games. Maybe it's just me being blind? I can see reviews/journalism being really powerful for slightly larger games, but for what I've got, I just can't see anyone talking about it besides saying "Try and beat my score on this game".

So, part 2 of the question: Are people having decent user acquisition via in-game sharing (e.g. Facebook/Twitter integration) or would it be better to spend the time using traditional methods (forums, press, etc)?

Probably some very open ended questions + per case situations but anyone's experiences help!

 

In game virality is extremely important, in fact you should hit as many angles as possible.

But social 'word of mouth' via sharing and rewards is very very important in today's day and age where discoverability is limited, and once you have it built into your game, it's free.

 

You have to get someone with a website who reviews games to review your game. You have to have a landing page somewhere for people to link to that extols the virtues of your game and shows them where to get it from on the front page. You have to exist... people can email or Facebook you.

Otherwise you might as well be invisible.

 

If you are getting 70 between them per day per store or even 70 total since release that's where you get recommendations to as to why or why not they've played your game. Advertising would be mostly a waste of money - you have enough interested players that if you can figure out why or why not they are or aren't playing your game and recommending to friends you can make adjustments to your game play based on what they were expecting. They may have not expected anything in particular but were intrigued by the art work. So try to find out.

So do a new release using Unity's package to gage in game activity and better yet on the 10th play if it's possible insist on a review before you let them play. 10 plays is a pretty good sign that more than the app store art work you submitted for your game was interesting.

 

Pick a name for yourself, register it on every social media you can, make yourself popular. If you become known for being a game developer, people will search for you instead of the genre. If they search for you, they find your stuff. If they search "arcade", they sift through so much that in the number of iDevices and androids combined, you've received ~70 hits. With the amount of devices that there are, despite 70 being greater than zero, 70 out of the total number of devices is probably 0 to a float

Look at how AAA games sell. Diablo 3 is an abomination, but people knew the names "Blizzard Entertainment" and "Diablo" so it sold millions.

 

The best way that I've ever found to "advertise" my iOS game is the TouchArcade forums. Huge audience there, generally enthusiastic to discuss games with developers. My "Coldfire Keep" thread there has over 60,000 views, and I definitely attribute at least some of the game's success to that alone.

 

Bookmarked!

Gracias

 

Good stuff coming up! Keep it coming

 

That's a perfect example of knowing your audience and therefore being able to figure out how to reach your audience. Knowing where they hang out. Well done!

 

(sorry this is off topic.. but its funny)
i find it weird battlefield STILL doesnt animate the getting into tanks and vehicles.. the player just teleports in and out of the vehicle.... lol .. i guess it has some gameplay benefit, but, i seen video of the Hardline beta.. and it looks really crappy because you can see the guy in the car, and i saw the guy aim at the driver, and then poof the driver teleports waay to the side and kills the ..guy aiming at the driver... LAME!!! lol .. .like really? they havent done that yet?!! ><

 

The downside being a lot of noise makes your thread disappear into obscurity within hours...

 

Regular updates - new screenshots, etc - pretty much anything to bump it

 

Ingenuity, drive, determination, persistence consistency.

 

The TouchArcade folk tend to be quite chatty too, so as long as you're game is at least mildly interesting, their discussion generally keeps the thread alive as long as you occasionally stoke the fire. I've seen some good ideas come out of the discussions there too - it's an environment that generally cultivates "healthy" commentary. There's exceptions to everything of course...

 

Ooh, maybe I'll head over there. /gg

 

Can't hurt!

 

Things are always a bit easier on brand new platforms as well. When there isn't much to choose from people will discover your content a lot faster. For myself, the fire tv has been that kind of platform it has 5x the number of downloads than the next platform (IOS).

 

Which aint exactly easy to achieve unless youre waiting 30 mins to post another screenshot you could have posted in the first instance. Within a day you're 5 pages deep unless you're constantly bumping it, which is the only option if no one is commenting. Doesnt help there are 20 stickies on the front page tho.

 

Is there a Sub-Reddit for truly Free Mobile games? (not apps on sale temporarily for free or freemium)

If not, is it something that would be good to look into making?