What's a new developer to do when his market reach runs out?

It seems that in the marketing side of things, the moment that separates the great from the okay is what they do when they have run out of close friends and family to buy their game.

I read a lot of people saying that all you really need is a well-implemented concept, and your reach will expand via word-of-mouth. Your customers will be so enthralled by your creation that they just HAVE to pass it on. I find that difficult to believe- there are a TON of games out there, and many of them good. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are people really that picky about what they play? Isn't it more of a contest of who gets in front of them first?

What did you do when you exhausted your circle of family and friends? How did you expand your market reach?

 

I used social media and local newspapers (I know it's weird, but effective) to "get my game out there".

 

I'm not really sure what you try to get answers for with this thread, to be honest.
I wouldn't really call my family and friends as the end of my market reach. They were and are my precious beta testers.
Where does this assumption come from ?

The entire premise of this thread seems a bit far fetched. There have been numerous threads on the topic of how to market your game before and during release, if that's what you mean
Also pixelprospector has a huuge library of superinteresting topics and "marketing" has its own section there with many many great articles, blogposts and even videos.

Do you have a specific project that you like to market and get exposure for ? Or is this just a theoretical question ?

 

Not so weird, just not so out of touch as thinking your game is going to conquer the world with a half dozen reviews from friends family and $75 of ad money Google gave you for opening an advertising account.

Local newspapers are affordable and more effective. Then you can get new players that have never heard of you if your game is actually of any interest, but it needs to be interesting because that's how word of mouth works. If it were interesting, why aren't your family and friends, those of them that actually 'game' and weren't doing you a favour, still playing?

 

Get someone on YouTube to do a Let's Play of your game.

For my last project, I posted on GameJolt, and there was someone there who offered to do LPs of games on GameJolt. I requested a LP, he did it, and everytime his topic gets bumped in their forums, I notice a small spike in plays of The Hero's Journey.

What's more, I went to the LPer's channel a few days ago, and found his video on my game was his third most popular! It's mutually beneficial for you and a LPer, so get out there and let them play your game on film.

I totally intend to use this vector with my next - and better - project.

 

Yeah i guess you could target LPers, obviously getting someone like a pewdiepie to play your game is a goldmine but there is probably no way to reach him. I know thats what they did for fract, both rockleesmile and sgf did a video on it. Probably if you give a review copy to the lesser known youtuers they might be more apt to do it, so you could compile a big list and its worth a shot i guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKF0vQecVD4

Someone like northernlion actually got more views for it then giant bomb did.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fract

 

I appreciate all the replies! You guys are awesome.

@Joseph-kun- I think local papers are an oft-overlooked form of exposure to the public- I wonder what sort of game sells best in the paper- I would assume you're really limited as far as showing off screenshots and that sort of thing... were your ads simply text? What kind of game did you advertise?

@Acumen- Theoretical. It occurred to me that most people just starting out with their first product would turn first to their own circle of influence to market their games.

 

I'd say scam a newspaper, tell them the creator of flappy birds just released a new game(yours). Then once its thoroughly circulated through the media, complain and have them redact it. Double media exposure

 

You only need to scam the local paper is you live in London, New York or such haughty places that can spend their space talking about Celebrity X's return to rehab...out in Podunk you'll have no problem if there's any human interest to your story at all, because well talking, in truth, reprinting from Reuters and AP, about another celebrity rehab gets boring eh?

 

There are tons of resources on how to market your indie game on the internet.

 

That's the problem, which are useful and which are marketers marketing the marketers?

That said, Unity seems to be creating an advertising market that is relevant to game players and Unity developers which isn't anything to sneeze at...

 

It only takes a quick browse to find this... (and determine that it has loads of useful articles from indie devs who have been through it all before)
http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-indie-game-marketing/

 

The big list is certainly an excellent list of resources!

I realize there are other resources on the subject, but I was really curious to know what the members of the community had to say on the topic. You guys are all a resource and a wealth of knowledge unto yourselves, you know.

With the amount of posts I read that boil down to "All you need is a good game for people to notice you." I bet there are a lot of devs that had to learn about marketing the hard way. I want to hear their stories. How did they expand their market?

 

There is plethora of past threads on the topic and the few people that have really successful games have had a good enough game that got noticed but didn't do much in way of advertising (the number of competitors was much smaller then) or more recently, with the bigger market, they make a game and bought the rights to use a well known trademark in their game. Trademarks that allow this typically demand a certain level of quality control and content and maturity ratings. Licensing a trademark isn't something most people can afford. Using Google isn't a thing most people can afford in a way that's effective.

So it's off to the link to the list Meltdown gave above to peruse or come up with ideals yourself that you yourself can afford if the methods in the above link are ineffective.

 

Build it and they will come.


Trust me I do absolutely no marketing for any of my games and I'm making a living from them.

My tips:

1) Make a really good game.
2) Give it a title that will appear in store search engines
3) Try not to do another clone of a popular game unless it improves upon it.
3) That's it.

An app IS marketing.

You could make a website for your app so they find it like this:

Google --> Website ---> Appstore ---> App

But I think most people find apps like this:

Appstore --> App

or

Friend ---> Appstore --> App

Most of all don't do this:

Pay for advertising for an app that is funded by advertising!

That's just pyramid selling. The only one who wins the the advertising provider!