Learning from other game devs 5: Marketing your indie game

I've been trying to understand the various options to market an indie game. Now, I'm nowhere near that stage in my game development, but I also am no salesman by training and certainly have a lot to learn in the area of marketing.

I've read quite a few things online and listened to quite a few podcasts where marketing is discussed. It turns out there is not silver bullet; there really are several different things you can do to help promote your game. Many people have suggested doing everything you can to help boost sales.

I've tried to enumerate most of the major options below. Most of these options should be done when the game is either in alpha/beta or is about to be released. One exception is Social Marketing, which should be started as soon as you have a prototype.


Social Marketing (Game Facebook site/Blog):

• Idea: Have a Facebook fan page or blog about your game. 
• Potential Exposure: Low to Medium. Continual.
• Crowd: All demographics. Mainly those people that already know about your game.
• Cost: Time to update sites regularly, respond to user comments.
• Side Benefits: Place to put up video/pics of game. Ability to contact fans of Facebook page for alpha/beta testers. Ability to track the web traffic of blog.
• Risk: If not updated regularly (at least once or every few weeks), fans can get irritated.

Get booths at trade shows:

• Note: This is pure opinion based upon my own reading. I have never been to a trade show.
• Idea: Have a booth featuring your game at a trade show like PAX, etc.
• Potential Exposure: Low. One time.
• Crowd: Hardcore gamers and other game devs.
• Cost: I've heard $3000 or more just for the booth. Adding in hotels and airfare up to $5000.
• Side Benefits: Potential to win an game award at the conference (if they give them out). Get valuable feedback from other game devs, easier access to publishers.
• Risk: Could be a complete waste of money and time. Not everyone does this.

Kickstarter:

• Idea: Start a Kickstarter campaign. Ask for a moderate amount of money... the main point is not to try and fund your development but rather advertise.
• Potential Exposure: Low to medium. Short-term.
• Crowd: Mainly hardcore indie gamers and internet users that pay attention to Kickstarter. To reach a larger majority of gamers campaign likely needs to go viral.
• Cost: Kickstarter takes a cut of the money (I believe), and you're on the hook to develop all the goodies (t-shirts, posters, etc).
• Side Benefits: Potentially gain a strong group of initial fans. Get alpha and beta testers to give feedback, do bug reports.
• Risk: Failed campaign is a huge blemish on your record surely to be mentioned any time to give an interview, etc in the future.

Give demos to YouTube Let's Players:

• Idea: Give demos to popular YouTube gaming channels so that millions of potential gamers can see it in action (And played by their popular
• Potential Exposure: Low to Extremely High. Short-term.
• Crowd: (Potentially) Millions of gamers from every demographic. I believe that the worry "Only kids under 14 watch YouTube" is a complete myth.
• Cost: Zero money. (See Risk)
• Side Benefits: If YouTuber loves game and decides to do a full playthrough, you get even more exposure.
• Risk: Youtubers are merciless and could make fun of and mock your game in front of millions of people. You had better be sure that the game is completely ready and that 100s (if not 1000s) of people already love it.

Get reviews from Gaming websites

• Idea: Give demos to gaming website so that they can review your game. A good review will push you up the metacritic page and be listed prominently on some distribution platforms like steam.
• Potential Exposure: Low to Medium. Continual. Reviews exist forever.
• Crowd: Hardcore and Indie game players that scour gaming sites looking for the next best thing to play.
• Cost: Zero money. (See Risk)
• Side Benefits:Your game could win an award (PC Gamer Editor's Choice), and can make the front page of the site for a few days. Game could go Viral.
• Risk: Similar to YouTubers. You must be confident your game is great, otherwise bad reviews will cause you to lose tons of sales. In other words you likely need a 75+ review minimum.

Do interviews with mainstream Media (TV like G4, print magazines)

• Idea: Do interviews about your game and have
• Potential Exposure: Medium. One time.
• Crowd: Mainly hardcore gamers. 
• Cost: Unknown. Very difficult to get these.
• Side Benefits: You're on TV, yay!
• Risk: TV may not give you very much exposure, as a person may need to be watching at a particular time on a particular day to see anything about your game.

Hire someone to market the game

• Idea: Pay someone that knows what they are doing to help you do all the above things. These people often have connections to help get interviews and game reviews at the major internet outlets. 
• Potential Exposure: Low to Medium. Short term. You are limited by how good and how much work the person puts in.
• Crowd: All demographics of gamers (Potentially, depends on the person hired). 
• Cost: I've heard $2000 to $4000 and up, depending on the amount of help needed. Note this does not include additional costs such as attending trade shows, etc which the person you hire may suggest doing.
• Side Benefits: The other connections the marketer has (such as other game studios they represent) and advice from the marketer themselves could give advice on things such as what features to add into your game or payment models (one-time, virtual currency, monthly, etc).
• Risk: Hiring a person doesn't guarantee sales, and any success really depends on how many connections the person has.

And that's the list so far. I think one thing that is definitely related to these options is getting a great distribution platform like Steam to sell your game. What do you think?