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Fellow game developers, do you believe that marketing for indie games pays for itself, i.e., generates more additional profit than it costs? Do you have data to back up your belief? #gamedev
I should have clarified, I mean "marketing" in the broadest sense, including hiring a marketing person and paying them salary. Not just paid ads.
In my limited experience, it hasn't really paid off. An ad run would 'maybe' contribute to a few hundred page visits, but nothing very valuable.
@lumpn 95% of games from steam dont make even $100 for year.
I do not believe you can make any money with "real indie game dev".
I mean - where you dont have investors on behind or government grands.
This days even $20 million game count as "indie", and Epic says - "you need minimum $200 millions to start even thinking about developing games".
Data - general observation and many blogs where "indie game dev who invested 5-10 years to develop game - they burnout because not even 10 sels on steam".
@lumpn P.S. I remember I seen "promo-ads" on Reddit this year - something like "I made this game come check" - and Reddit ads is - reddit threads so you can see karma on them.
And about 10-ads I seen of "I made this game come check" - had 0 karma for all its time, more than week in ads - 0 karma 0 comments.
When A+ game promo on reddit I seen - atleast 100 karma with multiple comments and some big AAA+ game get thousands of karma and comments in their promo ads on reddit.
@danil @lumpn
Good take Danil. 100 percent correct, in indie dev especially - you are a mere piece of driftwood lost in the sea of games most times. As you said without investors or grants its nearly impossible to attain any real userbase/player count. It's crazy to me that 20 million is considered indie these days; the term 'indie' has become so common place that I think its really lost its initial meaning.
@jimmakes @lumpn from "general consumer perspective" - you have battlepass in Fortnite and ranked in Valorant/League - other F2P AAA+ games just consume consumer time - consumer need "extra motivation" to find and play indie - small fraction of percent does it.
It exact same as in Hollywood-cinema - small movies become just "episode in Star Wars universe".
In game-industry - your "cool game mechanic/concept" - will be part of content in seasonal battlepass in Fortnite.
@danil @lumpn Exactly right, the average consumer will never play a true indie game unless said indie game has a freak stroke of luck that makes their indie game mainstream - which isnt impossible as many indies have done it, but it is INCREDIBLY rare. Just like opensource software, many consumers just do not care to take the extra time to seek things outside the mainstream out.
@lumpn I only have non-game experience with ad buys, and even that rarely paid for itself, unless you can hit targeting exactly on the nose there's just no way, would be really interested if somebody has experience otherwise. (like maybe ads for a specific related subreddit could work?). I feel like sponsored streams/videos can work very well tho, that's what I'll be focusing on for my next release.
@lumpn unless you can afford the big marketing bucks, it’s not worth it. ROI on paid marketing seems to be basically zero until you hit the inflection point where it isn’t
@lumpn Yes, of course. If it didn't, publishers and marketing agencies would not exist. You have to think like a business owner. Dedicate 30-50% of your total budget to marketing. As you said yourself, marketing in the broadest sense. That means also researching WHAT kind of game has a good chance of selling.