Hello to all the gamers,
I’m going to keep this Devlog brief for two reasons. One because today we are touching on the dry and somewhat yucky subject of marketing an indie game. And two because I’m writing this the morning of and I want to finish this before my brown rice is done cooking.
Steam is an indie’s best friend
How does a new indie dev, hot on the scene of a VERY saturated market, make a name for themselves and get their game out there?
Well, it’s really really hard.
Luckily, Steam has some genuinely pretty great opportunities for indies, at least in theory.
1. Upcoming on Steam
The biggest is probably getting your game to trend via the ‘Upcoming’ tab. That’s how indies go from thousands of wishlists to HUNDREDS of thousands of wishlists.
Nomad and I discussed long and hard about whether we should wait longer to possibly make Muffles a contender for ‘Upcoming’, and ultimately we decided it was more important to get the game out there for people to play, and that there would be opportunities with other games in the future.
2. Festivals
Another great opportunity Steam uniquely (maybe the Epic/GOG do this idk) provides are events showcasing games of a particular genre or theme. Spookfest, TactiCon, etc. But what people might not realize is that many of these events are hosted by third-party organizations, not Steam themselves.
This means it can be easy to miss these events if you aren’t aware of them, since Steam won’t offer these opportunities directly. If you’re an indie who wants to take advantage of these (and you should) I recommend joining the ‘How to Market a Game’ discord, which has an ongoing list of the best vents you can apply for: https://discord.gg/ccqvY42q.
I am very excited for Muffles to be participating in NextFest this year. It’s no doubt going to be our biggest opportunity before launch to attract new eyes and them scar their retinas with MLS’s high-contrast color palette.
3. Release/DLC
When your game releases on Steam, whether it is early access or not, the people on your wishlist receive an email that the game is available to buy and play. Which is obviously more helpful at selling your game the more people on Steam have wishlisted!
Muffles sitting at around 2k wishlists is still in the small potatoes category. I am so thankful for everyone that has believed in this game and its potential, and at the same time it has yet to make a big enough splash for us to see us able to really take advantage of what Steam has to offer.
And that is part of the reason for the pivot to DLC. Each piece of DLC gets its own page on Steam, can be wishlisted, and has their own page for reviews. This means with every Episode, we have the chance to get a liiiiiiittle bit more visibility. And the episodic nature of Muffles means that having a DLC for each episode is a fair less seamless fit.
In other news…
You have to wear a lot of hats as a solo indie dev. Designer, writer, tester, artist, cheerleader, manager, data analyst, musician, engineer, marketer, etc. It kind of sucks to read this lists and realize the roles related to actually making a game are outweighed by the other stuff.
But that’s where having a great discord community and Nomad by my side really helps. And on days where the path forward is hard and uncertain, they can make all the difference. Hooray for cool and helpful people!
I wish all the best to everyone reading this, and a little reminder that Bossy is having another Patreon-exclusive livestream in the Discord tomorrow Feb 2nd.
Adios~