How your Friends & Family can support your Game For Free

Hey guys,

As a game devs a lot of our friends and family will ask how they can help or support us.
I myself have created a game with a subscription model, but I would never ask them to buy a subscription if the app is not for them — just to help me financially.

Instead I ask them to do these 7 free things to help out. Maybe you can use this info for after you launch your game: https://medium.com/@tobiaseberhard/7-free-ways-to-support-an-app-developer-4570759c05f0

Here is a quick version of the 7 things you can ask them to do:

1. Follow, Like, Share & Subscribe
It's free to follow, share and engage in social posts.

2. Write a Review
It gives a good first impression and helps your ASO ranking.

3. Talk about the App/Game
It can open up for new opportunities.

4. Report Bugs
Don't ignore bugs. Instead provide as much info, screenshots, videos etc.

5. Invite Friends & Family
If they like the game, then others probably will too.

6. Play a Game Everyday
This will also help for ASO.

7. Let The Developer Know What you Want
Suggest features and ideas. This also helps the dev prioritise what to work on next.

What do you think?

 

I think you're trying to promote your product here... and that's not necessarily a good idea.

I also think it is unreasonable to expect your family members to support you. You're supposed to have enough cash to pay the bill for the duration of the development when you start.

 

Shameless advertising in general forum. There forum section Made In Unity, for such threads.

Links tends to die after some time, thread will be meaningless after that.

 

What? That never happens to me.

 

Thanks for your feedback. I'm not trying to promote the app as game developers are not my target audience. I'm sharing some tips that helped my game.

I'm not sure what you mean about having enough cash to pay the bill. Can you elaborate?

 

Thanks for the heads up. I will update the post to have more info.

 

I'm sorry to hear. Let me know if I can help or support your game

 

Just sitting here so all is civil.

 

It means that you're supposed to be financially stable so you wouldn't need financial/material aid from friends, family and relatives.

Additionally I don't think asking them for aid in any form is the right thing in the first place. So you shouldn't ask them to promote, share and the like. Gives MLM vibes and I think it would be best to keep business and friends/family separate.

But that's just my opinion.

 

Sure, you should always be able to support your everyday life before going in to game development. As I say I would never ask for financial support or ask friends and family to support me unmotivated. But when they ask how they can help (and they do) I tell them they can do these 7 things if they feel like it. It's free and actually helps a lot.

 

Unless you have thousands of friends those things will not make any notable difference to anything.

 

Hey JohnnyA, you should not base your entire success on these tips, but it can actually make a bigger difference than you might think.

 

Why would it?

 

To what degree do you think friends and family actually impact the success of your game in commercialisation?

Assuming that all of my few dozen friends and family actively follow, share and subscribe to stuff, that's going to be a tiny fraction of the thousands of people I need to have a chance at meaningful success.

I'd also be a little concerned, on some platforms, with the effect that they might have on stuff like algorithms. If Facebook suddenly thinks that my thing is popular among motorcycle enthusiasts because a bunch of my friends all signed up immediately to support me that might be a bit of an issue if it's really a word game aimed at stay-at-home mums.

And how much of a chump do you look like if the only comments on your stuff are obviously your family gushing about how proud they are?

I agree that you should have some community engagement straight out of the gate, but I'm not entirely convinced that friends and family are the best way to do it unless they happen to also be your target market.

 

As an example one of my co-workers had a friend who was hosting a mobile experience event in France (I'm from Denmark) and he got me an invite to do a keynote at the event. There I met many new people and potential investors that I'm still in contact with.

I also met my co-founder after my brother in law somehow mentioned something about me or my game to one of his friends. He though it sounded really good and reached out to me himself.

 

Hello Angrypenguin, this will not make your game blow up and get thousands of users but it can open up for new opportunities, help fix bugs and give a good first impression for other users. Remember that you should not base your whole marketing strategy on this. This is only meant for the people who actively ask how they can help or support what you're doing. Then you can tell them these 7 things and they can decide how they want to help.