How to get more people playing your indie game…

Daniel Doan
Aug 24, 2017 · 2 min read

In order to get more people playing your indie game, you need figure out the exact problem that’s specific to you.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a game developer friend…

“Daniel, I just launched my new game and no one is buying it. I need your help to fix my store page.”

Me: “Okay let me ask you something. How many people visited your game’s page?”

“Oh, I don’t know… like 35 people. And still, no buyers! Can you help me fix my game’s store page so that it’ll sell more copies?

Me: “Hmm… let’s back up a little. I think you have an ‘eyeballs’ problem.”

My friend got a bit ahead of himself — he needed that traffic first.

Most people often have a problem with not having enough “eyeballs” seeing their game in the first place.

And that’s why it’s super important to actually build a following for their game on social media, to build an email list, to build an asset that can drive traffic.

In order to succeed, you need to get your first 1,000 loyal fans. And if you’re already got that? Your next goal is 10,000.

After that? Well the sky’s the limit. There’s no end to potential growth.

If you want to go the DIY route to marketing your indie game (like me), you need to understand that the average conversion rate on social media is VERY low.

For example, on average if you have 1,000 followers on social media… only around 50 of them will actually see your post just due to how social media feed algorithms work.

And out of those 50, only about 1–5 people will actually care to click through.

Now, if you add some creativity, you could definitely boost that click rate. But the issue for most people is that they lack the impressions to even begin with.

So there you have it… you need to build your audience.

I’ve picked up a lot of things over the past decade of working in marketing, and I’d love to share some of those juicy tips with you — I just need to figure out if there will be enough eyeballs to make it worthwhile.

Leave a comment below if you’d like me to share some strategies and actionable tips on how to grow your audience, and I’ll follow up with more posts.

If you enjoyed reading this short essay please like and share it to help others find it.

About The Author

Daniel Doan is the Co-Founder & CGO of Black Shell Media and the developer of SanctuaryRPG and Overture, among dozens of unfinished game prototypes. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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Daniel Doan

Written by

Growth Marketing Consultant @ danieldoan.net

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