How I got people to actually care about my indie games…
Have you ever thought about how many people need to play your indie game in order for you to be happy?
You’ve probably thought about this a lot. I know I certainly did.
I ran into this problem with my second game, Overture. I had been slowly building a prototype for a while, but I wasn’t sure if anyone actually cared.
It was just another half-hearted project on my hard drive at the time.
I then reached out to a friend, Kevin Scatton, and got him to try it out.
He told me it was promising, gave me some feedback, and told me he was excited to try the next build.
That was all I needed to keep going and released my second commercial game on Steam, which did pretty well.
I realized that all you have to worry about is to get one person to actually care. After all, a single person who genuinely cares is better than twenty people who aren’t interested.
Divide your audience and potential customers into two groups: numbers and people.
The “numbers” are the ones who may check out what you’re offering, but probably don’t truly care.
The “people” are the ones who actually make a point to email you, to sign up for your pre-alpha email list. Heck, they might actually make a point to actually engage you in conversation.
Treat those people like gold — they’re the ones who really matter.
And, get feedback from them.
Honestly, feedback is so important to everything that I do. I can’t see how crappy something that I’m working on is until other people point it out.
When I can get honest feedback from someone, it lets me take a step back. It lets me take a look at things from their perspective to get a different take on what I’m doing.
I love that. I love realizing how wrong I am.
I love seeing an opportunity to grow and improve.
Being able to reach out to people on a personal level gives you a leg up over your competition. You’ll have an opportunity to get honest feedback on a regular schedule without…
1. Begging people on random forums groups to give you feedback
2. Waiting for internet trolls to give you a piece of their mind
3. Delusionally thinking that you’re on the right path with your new game design idea
Get someone who loves what you do and has enough of a real connection to become your biggest advocate. You’ll know when you’re doing it right.
They’ll find other people and share your game with them. They’ll spread the word.
So them, how do you get to that point? How do you make that one person care?
You just identify someone, and hit them up.
I personally like to look for people who are doing something similar to me — people on the same path.
There’s absolute importance in approaching marketing from this angle.
When Markus Persson first started his journey with Minecraft, I promise you that he didn’t have hundreds of players and advocates. He reached one person first, and got to iterating.
Get your first player and delight the crap out of them. If you can do this, find similar people to this first player and delight them as well. Keep doing this.
Remember that just because you start small doesn’t mean that you have to finish small.
Make one person truly care about your game, and the rest of your journey will be much easier.
I promise.
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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.
