Marketing an Indie Game: The good, the bad, and the crazy (Part 1)

What is it like to market a game that is not yet known and comes from a newly formed small game studio?

It’s interesting. There are some good, bad, and crazy. Being realistic is beneficial for my sanity, but I am also a bit crazy. I shoot for the stars, I like to push things as far as they can go, and see where they land. If not, am I doing my best? Thankfully, I’m not the only crazy person on this team.

The Crazy.

When Rizal said we should release the Duo Quest board game before Christmas 2024, he said it sometime in October of 2024. A month before that, 1+1 was officially established. People just started coming in between September and October, and he thought it’d be nice for us to start big. I guess everyone is a bit crazy, and said yes. As Elle Wood would say, “Like, that’s hard?”. 

It was crazier than it was hard, to be honest. I’m not sure how we did it, but we managed to do it. Not only did we manage to print our first copies of Duo Quest, but we also sold them out within a couple of weeks after its release. Were we crazy good, or were we lucky? God knows.

It was probably the excitement of starting something new; everybody was pumped, and we are grateful we had a good support system, where a lot of them bought our game. So, if we can do this, you’d guess the next one would be easy, right?

The Bad.

Absolutely wrong.

Where do you go after you go up? A slight dip. That’s pretty normal, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Rather than kicking rocks, we see this as a challenge we can overcome. So, what did we do? First, we identified the challenges. 

The Duo Quest board game is not our main product. We use it as a stepping stone for us to promote our actual product, which is the Duo Quest video game. It’s part marketing, part litmus test, and part fundraising for the video game development. We know people like the concept of Duo Quest, and they are willing to buy the game. Now, the real challenge is, how do we translate that to the video game?

Marketing a video game is different from marketing a board game. Raising awareness and converting interest for these two games are different from each other. For example, a lot of PC games are sold on Steam, and for our video game to be listed among the top 20 newly released games on Steam, we need to have at least 7,000 wishlists by the time it is released. 

Here’s an interesting math: 30% of gamers are PC gamers, not everyone from that 30% is into co-op games, hence the percentage gets smaller for our game. On top of that, even if we manage to get 7,000 wishlists, there is 1.9% to 10% wishlist-to-purchase ratio. Which is a scary thought. But that’s another thing to tackle on a different day. 

Budget is another important thing to talk about. Small indie game companies do not have the budget of a AAA company. A lot less budget for marketing, meaning there is more work, we need to learn faster, and we have to be extra creative. Not an easy task. Especially when you don’t have as many brains or hands to get things going as a AAA company. 

This seems like doomsday. Is everything even worth it?

The Good.

The gratification of seeing people love playing our game on their first try is something unforgettable. We also received very good feedback. These two are the push and reassurance that we need. We know we are developing something good, so we are in the right direction.

One part of successful game sales is the game itself. Creative marketing might get the attention, but a good game makes people stay, buy, and share with others. That bit, we’re getting to it.

Now, we started to see patterns. We are noticing where we are getting the most push and the most exposure. We are using those to our advantage. We’re still working on those things, and I can’t say much yet, but we’re excited to see the results of our plans.

The success of the plans doesn’t solely depend on one person. Most successful work comes from good teamwork. I’ve got great colleagues, and that includes the two co-founders; Kash and Rizal, who are hands-on and helpful in getting things right. It’s important to have a group of people where you can bounce ideas and spread the work. Because marketing isn’t just planning your social media posts, it’s planning the bigger picture and executing it. It starts before you create your game, and it doesn’t end after you release it either. This takes a village – kinda. Getting input from different people is important, and the success of your game depends on a lot of people and their support.

And we hope to get yours <3.