How to get people to install your game?

I'm talking about how do you make your game reach out their (on google play store), so people see it and download it. I created games for android, I published on playstore and that's where everything ends. How do I make my game famous (if it's good)?

Also if I've a brilliant game idea, completely new and original, I create and publish it, some well established game studio sees it and make its own copy of the game which then gets popular because that studio is well established and have budget to promote its game, I'll be completely in loss.

How did you begin getting installs on your game, pls be specific to google play store.

 

First off. Forget everything you know about how awesome your game is. Look at the play store. check out the images, read the description. Would you download it? Develop amnesia. Play your game. Do you want to keep playing it?
Take your phone(or better yet, tablet) to the mall. walk around and find people that are willing to check it out. This will give you, either a: a new download and possibly some word of mouth, or b: constructive(or not, but take it to heart) criticism to make it better. Put a link to it in your sig(look down there at mine)
Your game will never be famous if no one knows about it. Noone will know about it if no one wants to play it.
Disclosure: I have two apps. neither of them is "famous"(yet), I just know human nature.

 

Do you spend money on advertising your game? should I?

 

I did with the first game, it didn't do much. This time(after my update), Ill do it again, just different.
I couldn't expect much from my first game anyways.

 

don't spend money on advertising.

 

Then how do I start, I don't have a great social media presence on platforms like instagram or facebook either.

 

It might be worth having a look at this thread: https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-my-game-achieved-success-without-promotion.506966/

 

Sell it for a low price; people install and play what they buy, generally.

 

He spent around one year to complete his game? Damn, so much patience.

 

My game is completely free and no in app purchases, only rewarded ads videos.

 

Most of the people don't buy anything even if the game costs less than a dollar which is why majority of the games are nowadays ad or IAP driven (includes games by huge publishers).

 

Yes, that why it's free

 

Hi, there are many ways to go about this. If you want to advertise your game, you need to figure out your LTV first, then try to get a rough estimate of your user acquisition cost with an initial investment. If your LTV is above your user acquisition cost, you have the green light to inject money into advertising. If it's not, you want to think of a different model.

You say your game has only rewarded ads videos as a monetizing mean, I'd be really surprised if your LTV hits 0.25$ and advertising is definitely not your bet.

I think you don't have much control over everything else. You need contacts, really. Push games, work towards building key relations with stores staff. Some people say youtubers, etc.

Robert Topala, the developer behind Geometry Dash, says he owes his success to word of mouth. Apparently it wasn't that great for the first year, and then it grew. Personally I don't put much faith into this, but hey, there are a bunch of success stories like this.

 

sounds like to make games you need 50% real game development skills and 50% social media presence.

 

Ya, I think so as well.

 

Na not really, to make a game requires game development skills 100%. The social media presence is for marketers.

 

I've like zero budget, can't spend any money on advertisers. Does college helps? In landing you a job?

 

When you're a single person team, you ARE the marketer.

 

You could start by seeing if any of the YouTube personalities, like TotalBiscuit below, have a guide for getting featured on their channel. Aside from that you simply need a semi-active presence on the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and so on.

 

I've seen these kinds of youtube channels but they feature games available on Steam (mostly) and I am creating games for android mobiles. There is also a showcase channel on unity connect but everyone just share the link to their games, no one ever actually try others' games.

 

First of all, keep in mind my opinion is mobile is a dead platform these days (I've released over 200 titles) and that has almost nothing to do with your game.

Android in specific is even more challenging - - - it has such a low barrier to entry, you are competing with millions of developers that can live off of pennies and can pay almost nothing to compete with you. So what makes your app stand out from the thousands of identical alternatives?

Many new developers launch a game for X value, and are surprised they have 0 purchases. Then they go free, and find they get maybe 1,000 installs. At some point they try marketing and advertising - that won't work and they wonder why (they are competing with 100,000 app makers who have been established far longer).

So to answer your question, how do you make people install your game - you don't. A better question is why are they not installing your game? (most likely, they don't know it even exists - and if they do, they may not care for it. I find you need to consider the holy triad (quality VS speed VS effort) when trying to build a transformational app (beat everyone else in at least 2 of those 3 to make a viral transformation). Games are even harder as they serve no need. So figure out why they don't see your game. Figure out why they won't buy your game. And figure out why they aren't sharing it.

There are tons of ways to do that part - the simplest is to just start building a fan base. Get feedback from them. Team up with like minded developers. Get some product champions. And learn how to balance your ROI so you don't spend a year working on a single game installed by only a few hundred users. And get some really good media contacts - certain blogs when they cover my apps increase my sales my sales by about 250x for a few weeks when covered. Give them a reason to cover you (I'm an ambassador for their site, so they like to show off my work, etc). There are a thousand blog articles out about all of this.

Last, most streamers like to pick their content on their own. But if you contact them, be respectful. Their contact info is sometimes on their info page. And dont be afraid to create videos yourself. Eventually they will start contacting you - at which point you can start building your media list of streamers you've allied with. That works much better. And once blogs start covering you, keep their contact info, do giveaways for them, and come back with future titles. And remember none of them like to cover updates, just new products.

 

I disagree with you, mobile is the best platform for game developers right now, even for the ones who are just starting out. The One-Person team can create those small games which are suitable for mobiles. There are youtube channels like D.O.N.G which uploads an App All Knight videos featuring only mobile games you've never heard before, but I don't know how to get featured on those videos w/o actually paying them.

 

How are people meant to magically find your game? You are asking us how to get people to find your game and you didn't even post the game's name or a link its store page. You don't even have a link in your signature or anything. These things are small but they do help. If you can't even get people to discover your game when you are talking directly to them how is anyone out there who doesn't know about it ever going to find it?

And do these things...

Android app discovery things:
- Good user reviews (I'm aware you need downloads first)
- Good screenshots
- A good description (short and to the point)
- Good Icon (That communicates your game and stands out from other games)
- Features from google (they have a submission process, look it up)
- Similar app recommendations (Most of our downloads come this way, but I believe you'll need downloads and good reviews to get high enough in the google algorithms for this to take off)
- Search results - play with your search keywords, check your google dash stats and see if anyone is finding your app with your selected keywords. Use key words that are reasonably popular but also relevant to your game.
- Tell people about it and make it super easy for them to get to your app page. provide links! Link every time you talk about it, link it your friends,
- Ask friends and family for help, downloads and reviews. Who knows, some might actually like it and tell their friends!
- Post on forums about games
- Post on game review site forums
- Send e-mails to game reviewers (not spammy looking ones, and don't annoy them or they'll ignore you). Make it look like a cool game to them, get them interested and they'll find the time to review it if they think their audience will like it.

There's a tonne of other stuff you can do as well. I'm no expert at this stuff, but everything I've listed won't hurt, so DO IT!!!

 

If that is the extent of what you got out of my post.. I don't think it is possible for me to help you. There is a reason they aren't covering you. And even if they did, you would get a download boost for a few days at best. I'll repeat what I recommended before, develop a plan. Something better researched than just asking people on a forum...

My intent isn't to dishearten you or to say it is impossible. It is to make it clear how tough it is so you invest serious time into researching and planning what you are doing.

As far as building a checklist, the dude above posted excellent advice to get you started. What I can tell you as a streamer, is we get bombarded with requests to cover people's stuff. Streaming is a lot of work, I prefer to find content myself that interests me and my viewers. I'm sure most streamers are the same.

 

Thanks, that's very helpful

 

So you create VR games, compared to mobile platform isn't VR more competitive as VR is the trendiest thing in the gaming industry right now.

 

I confounded three companies, Red Iron Labs which specializes in VR. Little Red House which is a software consultancy. And File Archive Haven, a mobile software brand.

Without going into too much detail, the move into VR was years ago and very targeted and intentional for us. We are one of the few studios that got into it and did alright, and a big part of that is because we applied all our mobile tactics and got in early. It also helps that we have a bigger team.

Anyway, my point isn't that it is impossible (I did it, so you can too) just that the odds are against you and you absolutely must research as much as you can if you want to increase the odds of success.

Also added some more tips to my first reply - cheers.

 

If I want to fall asleep looking at your store page, I'm not going to download your game. Put some love into your store page. Make the game look interesting.

 

There should be analytic feature which shows us how many people landed on our store page but didn't download anything. Yeah, I'll work on making those in game screenshots beautiful.

 

The odds are against everyone who isn't 'connected' - but the points Rediron details are strong.

Work on these aspects - along with all other suggestions. If you don't have a social medial presence - start now.
A social media presence is not going to blossom out of a game you create. You need to create it - and advertise your creations.

Also - not to be a downer - but you have one simple game on googleplay. Although a quaint concept It's not revolutionary, the visuals are average-low and it looks like it would pass the time for about 2-4 minutes max.

Strongly suggest to put a star on the board, you released a game. Good job. Now move on to your next title. Keep It Up isn't going to make you any money. It is your first game, a great learning experience.
Now move on to your next project with added information and knowledge about creating a media presence, advertising your project while you are also concurrently creating it, reaching out to people who could help promote the upcoming product, fine tuning the presence and presentation, showing people how it is made, the cool USP (unique selling point) it has that will entice people to check it out once it is complete.
This could go on and on, but best just to say - job well done, now move on to your next thing.

 

Thanks for checking out my game! Yes I'm just starting out with unity and get excited when I see what all I can create with unity (though I created a very simple game with it). Already started on my next project with relatively more complexity

 

There is this feature, and many many more.



Open your google developer console and click the User Acquisition -> Acquisition Reports option in the side bar.

 

Take a small loan for marketing purposes

 

Damn didn't know about it, thanks!

 

Lol, I literally have pennies on my desk, that's the budget.

 

Size is relative even for millionaires.

 

I know you're joking... but I'm pretty sure the best millionaires (the ones that get richer faster) treat money the same no matter how much they have.