During my journey through Indie game servers, I’ve noticed that some games attract more interest than others, and not necessarily because of their quality (on the contrary, I’d say). Before I start, I’m not a marketing guru. This is just my personal opinion of what I notice as a professional and as a user jumping through dozens of indies.
Let’s jump into my tips to get your game noticed.
1. Trailer
Every game that interested me had a trailer. They were usually short, cinematic or gameplay-like, with some voice acting or a nice soundtrack.
In my mind, I immediately classify a game with a good trailer as something more professional and polished.
Thanks, Craig from EverMoore Studios, for allowing us to use Crypts of Carith as an example. Go check out the amazing Dungeon Crawler universe he’s building!
2. Steam Page text
I work with text, so I pay a lot of attention to it. At the moment, what really turns me off of a game copy-wise is seeing the Steam page was written with AI.
I’d rather see fluency problems, long sentences, and style issues — normal “slips” for a non-professional writer dev with a lot of passion for their product — than read a text produced by AI.
Some of your (potential) players will also notice it and appreciate it if you sit down and write the whole thing yourself.
3. Steam page capsule art, GIFs of gameplay
The capsule art and the GIFs are what make me click and decide to play a game. These two combined have a powerful way of telling me what the game is like.
We’re humans, so I guess we still judge the game by its cover. I’m more interested in something more authentic and original, since AI is making pretty much everything look the same.
4. Recent Events & Announcements on Steam
Seeing frequent patch notes here, announcements of updates, and new additions makes me think that the dev is active and the game isn’t abandoned, which is always a positive thing.
5. Socials and links outside Steam
This is also very important and tells me there’s actually someone behind the game.
I don’t believe you need to do everything on every social media, but Discord, a website, and maybe TikTok or YouTube Shorts already go a long way.
6. Community
This is the best part of our work and probably one of the most important aspects.
I love seeing a dedicated channel on Discord (as long as the dev is active, of course).
To this day, I’m surprised to see what a community can do to a game and to the dev’s self-esteem. You should nurture it, show interest in it, and develop with it.
With a community, you can get valuable feedback, playtest opportunities, service opportunities, and friendly chats from people who have YOUR game as a common interest. It can’t be better than that.
7. Localization
After all, we are a localization studio, and the scope of this piece is to give you a first impression of how good we are so you can hire us.
Seriously now, English language amounts to 35-40% of all users on Steam.
That means, if you have your game only in English, more than half of Steam users will probably never see it or get it offered.
Whether with us or another company, I’d suggest hiring actual humans for the job, avoiding community translations, avoiding AI, and avoiding the big companies. Check our blog post “What you need to localize your game” to learn more or send us a message. We’re very friendly, and we don’t charge for tips and advice, no worries 🙂
8. Short videos
This isn’t something I necessarily like, but it is what it is. I’ve seen devs earning tons of new players and wishlists from YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and even Instagram. Maskborne is a huge example of this. Their YouTube teaser video got nearly 1 million views and dozens of thousands of wishlists.
However, I believe it is important to be consistent and realistic with your expectations, though. Our friend from ALATURKA has been making YouTube videos for more than 2 years and just now got millions of views on X, which led to a huge spike in wishlists.
You’ll get better as you do it, and you probably won’t get a viral video of your first attempt.
Show how your development is going, teach something, disclose your numbers (people love a graph), record an interesting or funny mechanic of your game or its story… Do whatever you think is best, but be authentic.
9. Content creators
There are people who will happily exchange a key from your game for a gameplay video.
Look for opportunities with content creators and don’t be limited to English. These guys can explode your reach. Just make sure your demo/game is well polished before sending it to them, because you wouldn’t want it to backfire.
10. Next Fest
I love a Next Fest and am always browsing there to find new gems before anyone else. If you already have a demo well-polished, sign up for it. You’ll only get one shot per game, so make sure your demo is prepared for it, possibly with localized Steam page to increase the reach.
Conclusion
I know this is a lot of things to do, and that you’d rather spend those hours developing your game. I’d love to just receive games to translate without having to go after them, too, but I guess life is tough.
This would be the job of, at least, three people, but if you’re a solo dev and intend to live off of your game, you’ll have to do at least some of these unsexy business/marketing things — or pay someone else to do them, aka a publisher/marketing consultant, if you can afford it.