Did you know that between 80 – 90% of indie games fail to achieve commercial success? One of the main reasons for this is the lack of effective marketing. Many indie developers pour their hearts into creating innovative and unique games, but without a solid marketing strategy, these games often remain invisible. Lucky for you, there’s plenty of strategies and tips and tricks to improve your game’s visibility. Today, we’ll look at how to market an indie game, and the role of game localization.
Indie Game Marketing Strategy
In some areas of life, improvising can help but marketing isn’t one of them. Developing a plan, a strategy is going to be really helpful, as it will allow you to stay consistent, and track progress. Here are a few tips on how to market an indie game!
Identify Your Target Audience
The first step is identifying who your game is for. This involves analyzing your game’s genre, style, and gameplay to determine the type of players who would be most interested in your game. Identifying your audience helps you tailor your marketing efforts to reach the right people. This step ties in perfectly with the next.
Research your Competitors
The gaming industry is full of competitors, however, you can use this to your advantage. Analyzing your competitors can be extremely helpful in understanding the landscape, identifying what sets your game apart, and it allows you to safely see what works and what doesn’t without having to risk and test it yourself. The good thing is that you can do it completely for free, here’s how.
- Identify the best selling games of your game’s genre.
- Identify some failed games of your genre and why they failed.
- Unique features of your game, things that set your game apart.
- What are the genre expectations that fans have?
These steps will help you significantly in establishing a marketing strategy, you can see these steps more in detail on howtomarketagame.com.
Engage on Social Media
The keyword here is “engage”. Engaging genuinely with players, fellow developers and fans, is the fastest way to grow your social media. Reply, comment, like, share and follow. Remember, not everything you do, say and share has to be about your game. Interact in a way that is not merely an end in itself, but rather in a way that provides value to readers and users. Don’t forget to post regularly of course, which brings us to the next point.
Share Your Work and Leverage Trailers and Visuals
Think of the first thing you look at when researching an upcoming game. Done? Ok why was it specifically trailers? The answer is simple. A well-crafted trailer can highlight the game’s unique features, gameplay, style, art and can generate interest and build anticipation. Use trailers and other resources such as screenshots and don’t be afraid to share progress, bloopers etc.
Attend Gaming Events and Conventions
Showcasing your game at gaming events, conventions, or indie game festivals provides an opportunity to directly engage with players and the press. These events allow you to gather immediate feedback and network with other developers and industry professionals. Festivals and events are usually the biggest factor that can help you drive up your Wishlists and Steam page traffic.
Utilize Press and Influencers
Reach out to gaming journalists, bloggers, and influencers to review your game or cover its development. Positive coverage from reputable sources can boost your game’s visibility. Consider providing early access or demo versions to influencers who can showcase your game to their audience. If you are releasing the game in different target markets, local influencers are your best choice!
Run Beta Tests and Gather Feedback
Running a closed or open beta test allows you to gather valuable feedback from players before the official release. This not only helps you polish the game but also builds a community of dedicated players who feel invested in your game’s success. A great way to conduct testing and build a strong relationship with players, is to leverage your Discord community.
The Role of Game Localization on Indie Game Marketing
We just saw how to market an indie game, now let’s take a look at how and why localization can have a huge impact not only on your game, but also on marketing and visibility. When complementing it with a good marketing strategy, it can do wonders. Don’t believe us? Check this out!
Expanding Reach to Global Markets
Let’s start with the obvious first. Localization allows you to market your game to non-English speaking players by translating in-game text, dialogue, and UI elements into other languages. This makes your game accessible to a global audience, increasing its potential player base. When choosing to publish your game just in English, you might miss out on some very important markets that might hold a huge potential. You can look at all the tutorials you find online on how to market an indie game, but what if you are showing your game to the wrong markets?
Increased Visibility
If you are looking for ways to market an indie game, you most certainly wouldn’t want to skip localization, and the reason why is quite simple. If you like lists here’s one for ya!
Steam Page Localization
How To Market A Game published a blog on the role that localizing your Steam page has on visibility and Wishlist additions. What came out is that localized pages average 4.5 times more Wishlist additions than unlocalized pages and while Wishlist additions don’t always convert into sales, they are generally a good indicator of potential sales. Keep in mind and research the most popular languages on Steam based on your game’s genre.
The Impact of Localization on the Steam Algorithm
Not long ago, Steam published a presentation explaining how visibility on Steam works. One thing was made clear, localization always plays a role in algorithmic visibility, and it’s heavily favored and advised by the platform itself. Considering it is basically the biggest video game digital distribution platform, you might want to listen to their advice.
The Impact of Localization on Game Reviews
Localization can significantly influence the publicity and marketing of your game by affecting reviews. Positive reviews, often driven by players’ satisfaction, can generate valuable word-of-mouth publicity, drawing in more players and even content creators. However, negative reviews, which tend to receive more attention, can severely damage your game’s reputation. With up to 16% of game reviews mentioning localization, poor localization can quickly lead to negative feedback, potentially turning what could have been a successful game into a disaster.
Conclusion
A solid marketing strategy is what can separate your game from a success to a flop. It’s not just about making a great video game, but also about making it visible to the people who want to play it. Develop a solid strategy, maintain consistency and track progress, and for the best results, you might want to start thinking about game localization, and who knows, it might give you that extra little push that is needed for success.
You know what they say, aim for the stars, land on the moon, and if you need a rocketship, LCP Localizations is one call away!