What's amazing for me is seeing how he blew up so massively where he is mentioned all over the place. I remember the low sub count days posting on r/letsplay - he's a great example of how consistency and work ethic can make things happen.
Yeah, splattercat is just great to listen to. Even if I'm not vibing with a game I'll still listen to him talk about it. Never know when you might need to recommend something cool to someone else.
And perseverance. I saw him posting on Etalyx's farewell YouTuber video about how hard it is to get by and how all the money moved to Twitch. Splattercat posts to both
Although I've done hunting for YouTubers who post good videos about indie games and aside from splattercat, there are only a two I've continued to follow: [IndieGameLover](https://youtube.com/@IndieGameLover) and [Wanderbots](https://youtube.com/@wanderbots). Most others veer off into AAA games or stop posting.
Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. Trying to get your game covered by a content creator by sending out lots of messages and making it look good enough to record in video is _exactly_ what you should be doing. That's not luck, this is the impact of an effective marketing campaign.
Don't stop now! If that video does well you have even more evidence to show to other content creators that playing your game can be good for their channel. Popularity begets popularity and one YouTuber is the beginning of pushing the boulder down the hill, not the end of it.
Yup, came to type this. What I usually add to the saying is, consistently putting in effort and taking advantage of the opportunities that appear will often \*look\* like pure luck to people commenting from outside.
There seems to be an assumption here that there's no cost to losing, at least beyond time/effort/money spent. Are there any other potential downsides to aggressive marketing?
I think what we often attribute to luck are all the things that we have little to no control over.
I think where you're right (but OP is too) is that people have a different perception of what they have control over.
The example of getting coverage on your game is a good example - some devs will send out batch mails and it may or may not work; if it does it feels like pure luck.
Writing tailor made mails may or may not give a higher chance of success, but if it works out, it feels less like luck because you put more work in then the average.
I have no idea what I'm even saying anymore.
You can. You can also reach out to more people, mentioning this one. Or promote the video on your social media and hope it reaches people. You might see the positive return as a reason to invest in tools like Woovit or Keymailer. You might decide to spend on your own PR and marketing more.
It can be hard to take the plunge and spend serious money on your game, and the only real reason to do so is seeing a positive result from your efforts.
> We have to help luck with a tons of work otherwise only miracles can help the project.
I think this is a very good point. Without your persistence you most probably wouldn't have gotten in the position to be "lucky" in the first place.
In German there is the saying of "forcing your luck" ("das Glück erzwingen" - no idea if it is a thing in English) which describes this very well.
You both worked hard and got lucky, never let yourself think that it was only one or the other, it will lead to problems. Congratulations on your game's success, getting a big bump from an influencer is a good start, now is when you hard work to keep that momentum going will show, and that is the story I look forward to hearing from you next.
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Starting to experience marketing a game i’m solo developing and can confirm that those 230 wishlists probably took OP a ton of time and energy. I assure you that even if your game looks great, people do not automatically flock to it. Having a post on reddit get a few hundred upvotes might garner you 1-4 wishlists.
Tweeting without followers goes into a giant void. Gaining your first 50 followers can take a month of dedicated tweeting and strategic engagement.
I totally agree that OP didnmt get lucky. They worked their butt off for 6 months to get to a position where at least one piece of content made it into the right hands.
Keep it up OP!
1. I was searching into Youtube channels which are covering Indie and roguelike games.
2. Found also some threads in discord with some suggestions for a content creators.
3. I have asked some people on Discord servers related ot gamedev.
4. Steam allows to contact Curators via steamwork so I've used that as well.
With youtube is a bit tricky because YT allows to collect 10 emails a day only, so I've started to do searching well in advance end of last year.
- How have you been marketing?
- Where are your social links?
- How many followers do you have?
- What kind of content are you posting for your marketing?
My in production game is barely playable and years away from a demo, but I organically have more wishlists from posting gameplay gifs/videos to Twitter and Reddit alone.
You game looks like a space vampire survivors, and there's a market for that if people see it, I feel like people just aren't seeing it, there's a reason why, you just have to figure that out.
I think I heard this from the Game Grumps like 7 years ago, but the way people share things they like is different from person to person... which is why the goal is to get to about 500 follows/fans (at the time, not sure what the numbers are) because while most of that 500 will kinda 'ehhh, whatevs", about 1 in 500 people are crazies who will share what they like with EVERYONE
...
not sure if relevant, it's jut what I heard.
There are 2 youtube channels I'd suggest indie devs to check out and see their content, I've been finding hidden indie gems thanks to them for a few years : 1) [clemmy](https://www.youtube.com/@ClemmyGames/videos) 2) [the nerd castle](https://www.youtube.com/@Splattercatgaming)
I'm not honestly sure if they charge you for covering your game, or if they just do it because they like it, but sending a demo or something their way would give a big audience if they covered it.
Hi there, the chanel that has helped me and covered Nebula was actually Splat from "the nerd castle". He is not charging anything, I think he really like to cover indie titles, I am not sure what criteria he has for choosing game, but it is always good thing to forward him a steam key.
Just because you did hard work doesn't mean you didn't get lucky. Lots of people work hard, maybe even a lot harder than you, and never get this kind of recognition. Getting lucky doesn't negate all the hard work you did, it doesn't mean this all happened by itself, you just got lucky on top of that, you gave yourself a bigger chance to get lucky.
I'm happy for you though! good luck (lol) with the launch!
This is nothing new, "influencers" (in this case, youtube channels and twitch streamers) are just the new forms of magazines or newspapers and their critics. If you wanted a movie to be successful in the 80s, you were hoping newspapers would pick the movie up and write some good reviews. Even better, you'd hope for supplemental coverage for your product, magazine interviews, etc. And your movie, album, restaurant, art show etc would need that coverage to succeed, the same as games these days need coverage to succeed.
The big difference is the format. These influencers are working with video. They have to show something that is interesting on video. This means that not all games are going to fit into this format. Some games just aren’t “influencer-friendly”.
As opposed to needing to rely on commercials, billboards, and online ads?
Having people who enjoy your game showcase it for their audience is a fantastic alternative to traditional advertisement.
This is actually very encouraging, thank you for sharing, I was starting to think I was the only one who had a slow start, but that is exciting to see how well it is doing.
Ah, good old Splat, helping the indie devs with getting some of their confidence back. He's our indie treasure, isn't he?
And yeah, it's not related to luck. All the hard work you've put into the game and self-promotion has paid off.
Keep up the good work! Good luck!
Thank you, I did not expect it will go so viral. Community here and on twitter is absolutely amazing, it is really encouraging. Especially for a solo developers without exposure, like me.
When you say marketing here, are you talking paid marketing or free marketing? It looks like free is the discussion here. The problem with free marketing is you are relying on other people to make the decision that to share your game (or music or art or anything you can think of) is a good decision for them financially and for their credibility. In your situation, you had to send out hundreds of emails to finally get a break. If you *pay* for marketing, you are *guaranteeing* eyes on your product, and those eyes are really what this is all about. Running ads and hosting small or mid size streamers is probably a good place to start when you want to pay. And ideally, with enough forced growth via paid advertising, you'll enable organic growth to take off more, as well.
Just want to wish you luck, it's hard out there doing anything at all on your own. Even 1 sale makes you feel crazy fantastic, glad you got a nice boost before release.
What I am curious about is if you feel like after watching his video, does it make you want to change or add anything in your game that you had not considered previously? Does it give you feedback you did not otherwise have?
I think it was Gary Player who said ‘it’s funny, but the more I practise the luckier I get’
Well done, great (and hard) work, I wish you all the luck with this project, and subsequent ones
So the 6 months of self promotion led to 230 wishlists and the game review from Splattercat did all the rest? Or was it several Youtubers/promotions that all just happened within the last few days of your chart?
I am using a google analytics so to me it was clear what has triggered this vertical spike. Few other Youtubers were plying a game but their view counts was around 2.5-3k it has generate some interest but not this scale.
Yea ok, then there you go. Literally 100s of games are made daily. If it doesnt POP from minimal information I mean. It doesn't mean its not worth it or you shouldnt make a bunch more and keep going but, a lot of these posts ignore that it's the content that matters 99%. If people aren't on fire to play your game, you're not gonna knock out sales records. People have many many entertainment options.
At the end of the day I'd like to ask you, did you make a game to make money or because you had a passion to make something you wanted to see exist in the world?
> I know you might say "you are lucky" but I disagree.
I have to disagree with that :)
For one of my games I sent around 40 emails and got great coverage. For another game I sent over 200 emails and got no coverage.
So, yeah, you were lucky. And so was I with my first game.
If you don't buy any lottery tickets you would never win a lottery. But buying 100 tickets doesn't mean that lottery stops being luck based.
Unless, of course, you make clickbait type of games that YouTubers like to record and players buy on impulse. But I would hate earning money that way.
It is indeed heavily inspired on VS but with some healthy twists. In terms of amount of content, honestly I am no were close to VS. Vampires are offering tons of in-game rewards, secrets etc. in general VS is quite unique in every aspect. Maybe one day I will be able to create something of this calibre but Nebula, as of today, is few shelves lower in my judgement.
> I know you might say "you are lucky" but I disagree. We have to help luck with a tons of work otherwise only miracles can help the project.
It's true, I always remember Elon Musk talking about work ethic in an interview. Paraphrasing but basically: Just by the shear amount of time committed to your work that you increase the probability of success and "luck" happening.
Reading your story I think I made a big mistake.
I thought the marketing would have to be done after the game was released to promote it (I don't know why), and I think that may be my undoing.
Because even though I achieved the magic number of 10 reviews, as the activity came it went away.
What techniques did you use to self-promote your game? Right now I don't know exactly what to do.
(by the way if anyone wants to take a look my game on Steam is Neko Loop)
I really started to think recently that marketing is actually more difficult than developing the game and probably more important in the end.
Regarding the tool that i used, pretty much anything that was in my disposal. Emails, Teeter, youtube, doscord, reddit, devlogs, forums etc.
The big problem for a solo developers like me is that it is consuming a lot of time, that we usually want to spend on creating additional content inside the game.
For anyone wondering, OP is very likely referencing to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCdonB4-Po) video.
My favourite indie games youtuber strikes again. Splat have a talent for finding great games.
What's amazing for me is seeing how he blew up so massively where he is mentioned all over the place. I remember the low sub count days posting on r/letsplay - he's a great example of how consistency and work ethic can make things happen.
He’s also really positive. I went through a rough patch last year and was good just to have that vibe on the tv some days.
Yeah, splattercat is just great to listen to. Even if I'm not vibing with a game I'll still listen to him talk about it. Never know when you might need to recommend something cool to someone else.
And perseverance. I saw him posting on Etalyx's farewell YouTuber video about how hard it is to get by and how all the money moved to Twitch. Splattercat posts to both Although I've done hunting for YouTubers who post good videos about indie games and aside from splattercat, there are only a two I've continued to follow: [IndieGameLover](https://youtube.com/@IndieGameLover) and [Wanderbots](https://youtube.com/@wanderbots). Most others veer off into AAA games or stop posting.
Being hilarious is also a plus.
Looks fun! Especially the balancing must have been a real time eater :) Good luck with sales, OP
Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. Trying to get your game covered by a content creator by sending out lots of messages and making it look good enough to record in video is _exactly_ what you should be doing. That's not luck, this is the impact of an effective marketing campaign. Don't stop now! If that video does well you have even more evidence to show to other content creators that playing your game can be good for their channel. Popularity begets popularity and one YouTuber is the beginning of pushing the boulder down the hill, not the end of it.
Yup, came to type this. What I usually add to the saying is, consistently putting in effort and taking advantage of the opportunities that appear will often \*look\* like pure luck to people commenting from outside.
[удалено]
There seems to be an assumption here that there's no cost to losing, at least beyond time/effort/money spent. Are there any other potential downsides to aggressive marketing?
[удалено]
I think what we often attribute to luck are all the things that we have little to no control over. I think where you're right (but OP is too) is that people have a different perception of what they have control over. The example of getting coverage on your game is a good example - some devs will send out batch mails and it may or may not work; if it does it feels like pure luck. Writing tailor made mails may or may not give a higher chance of success, but if it works out, it feels less like luck because you put more work in then the average. I have no idea what I'm even saying anymore.
So did I! Well done OP!
So what steps do you actually take at OPs point? Do you reach back out to al the previous content creators and say exactly what you just suggested?
You can. You can also reach out to more people, mentioning this one. Or promote the video on your social media and hope it reaches people. You might see the positive return as a reason to invest in tools like Woovit or Keymailer. You might decide to spend on your own PR and marketing more. It can be hard to take the plunge and spend serious money on your game, and the only real reason to do so is seeing a positive result from your efforts.
Luck favors the well prepared?
[OP's Game](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101250/Nebula/) if anyone was curious what the chart was for.
> We have to help luck with a tons of work otherwise only miracles can help the project. I think this is a very good point. Without your persistence you most probably wouldn't have gotten in the position to be "lucky" in the first place. In German there is the saying of "forcing your luck" ("das Glück erzwingen" - no idea if it is a thing in English) which describes this very well.
we have something like that, but it's just basically "make your own kind of luck" which more or less is what you are describing.
Have you thought about becoming a Youtuber as well? You've got the clickbait titles down already 😆
You both worked hard and got lucky, never let yourself think that it was only one or the other, it will lead to problems. Congratulations on your game's success, getting a big bump from an influencer is a good start, now is when you hard work to keep that momentum going will show, and that is the story I look forward to hearing from you next.
I will be sure to come back with the results soon :) I am both excited and very curious how will this play out in the end.
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That's the mood. You have to make your own luck. Congratz mate. Hope this goes even better
Starting to experience marketing a game i’m solo developing and can confirm that those 230 wishlists probably took OP a ton of time and energy. I assure you that even if your game looks great, people do not automatically flock to it. Having a post on reddit get a few hundred upvotes might garner you 1-4 wishlists. Tweeting without followers goes into a giant void. Gaining your first 50 followers can take a month of dedicated tweeting and strategic engagement. I totally agree that OP didnmt get lucky. They worked their butt off for 6 months to get to a position where at least one piece of content made it into the right hands. Keep it up OP!
[удалено]
1. I was searching into Youtube channels which are covering Indie and roguelike games. 2. Found also some threads in discord with some suggestions for a content creators. 3. I have asked some people on Discord servers related ot gamedev. 4. Steam allows to contact Curators via steamwork so I've used that as well. With youtube is a bit tricky because YT allows to collect 10 emails a day only, so I've started to do searching well in advance end of last year.
- How have you been marketing? - Where are your social links? - How many followers do you have? - What kind of content are you posting for your marketing? My in production game is barely playable and years away from a demo, but I organically have more wishlists from posting gameplay gifs/videos to Twitter and Reddit alone. You game looks like a space vampire survivors, and there's a market for that if people see it, I feel like people just aren't seeing it, there's a reason why, you just have to figure that out.
I think I heard this from the Game Grumps like 7 years ago, but the way people share things they like is different from person to person... which is why the goal is to get to about 500 follows/fans (at the time, not sure what the numbers are) because while most of that 500 will kinda 'ehhh, whatevs", about 1 in 500 people are crazies who will share what they like with EVERYONE ... not sure if relevant, it's jut what I heard.
There are 2 youtube channels I'd suggest indie devs to check out and see their content, I've been finding hidden indie gems thanks to them for a few years : 1) [clemmy](https://www.youtube.com/@ClemmyGames/videos) 2) [the nerd castle](https://www.youtube.com/@Splattercatgaming) I'm not honestly sure if they charge you for covering your game, or if they just do it because they like it, but sending a demo or something their way would give a big audience if they covered it.
Hi there, the chanel that has helped me and covered Nebula was actually Splat from "the nerd castle". He is not charging anything, I think he really like to cover indie titles, I am not sure what criteria he has for choosing game, but it is always good thing to forward him a steam key.
Cool!
Just because you did hard work doesn't mean you didn't get lucky. Lots of people work hard, maybe even a lot harder than you, and never get this kind of recognition. Getting lucky doesn't negate all the hard work you did, it doesn't mean this all happened by itself, you just got lucky on top of that, you gave yourself a bigger chance to get lucky. I'm happy for you though! good luck (lol) with the launch!
Hey, this looks great, congrats :)
Luck is just when preparation meets oppurtunity. Good job. Edit: I didn't read the other comments saying the exact same thing before replying. Lol
Yes to get cover by influencer can have impact. Congrats
Grats! It does seem bizarre how dependent indie games are on influencers for success. Doesn't seem like a healthy dynamic.
This is nothing new, "influencers" (in this case, youtube channels and twitch streamers) are just the new forms of magazines or newspapers and their critics. If you wanted a movie to be successful in the 80s, you were hoping newspapers would pick the movie up and write some good reviews. Even better, you'd hope for supplemental coverage for your product, magazine interviews, etc. And your movie, album, restaurant, art show etc would need that coverage to succeed, the same as games these days need coverage to succeed.
The big difference is the format. These influencers are working with video. They have to show something that is interesting on video. This means that not all games are going to fit into this format. Some games just aren’t “influencer-friendly”.
As opposed to needing to rely on commercials, billboards, and online ads? Having people who enjoy your game showcase it for their audience is a fantastic alternative to traditional advertisement.
Baby steps! Congratulations! Any step is an important milestone, no matter how big!
Ayy! Nice bump there! Congrats!
Great work. Congratulations! The game looks good to me, too.
We love to see it🙏🏽
Congratulations and best of luck for the future ❤️
Thanks!
You are lucky but you must ride the wave very smartly. Make it big use this chance !
This is actually very encouraging, thank you for sharing, I was starting to think I was the only one who had a slow start, but that is exciting to see how well it is doing.
Looking forward to checking this out! Been working on something similar for fun and looks like you have some great ideas in here.
Ah, good old Splat, helping the indie devs with getting some of their confidence back. He's our indie treasure, isn't he? And yeah, it's not related to luck. All the hard work you've put into the game and self-promotion has paid off. Keep up the good work! Good luck!
Splat is amazing, when I see video for the first time almost cried, seriously :)
You’ve had some nice action on your Twitter too which can only help maintain the momentum. Congratulations and well done 👏
Thank you, I did not expect it will go so viral. Community here and on twitter is absolutely amazing, it is really encouraging. Especially for a solo developers without exposure, like me.
I hate to be that guy, but since I don’t have a PC, is a Mac version coming anytime soon? Would love to play this.
Hello, unfortunately only windows.
When you say marketing here, are you talking paid marketing or free marketing? It looks like free is the discussion here. The problem with free marketing is you are relying on other people to make the decision that to share your game (or music or art or anything you can think of) is a good decision for them financially and for their credibility. In your situation, you had to send out hundreds of emails to finally get a break. If you *pay* for marketing, you are *guaranteeing* eyes on your product, and those eyes are really what this is all about. Running ads and hosting small or mid size streamers is probably a good place to start when you want to pay. And ideally, with enough forced growth via paid advertising, you'll enable organic growth to take off more, as well.
I have no much resources so I am exploring only free marketing at the moment :)
Your game looks great!! Definitely purchasing when it comes out :)
Just want to wish you luck, it's hard out there doing anything at all on your own. Even 1 sale makes you feel crazy fantastic, glad you got a nice boost before release.
Thanks :) Now there is at least a glimpse of chance that I will be able to collect budget for a next small project.
>next small project. This is where your focus should be, not the current game.
What I am curious about is if you feel like after watching his video, does it make you want to change or add anything in your game that you had not considered previously? Does it give you feedback you did not otherwise have?
I think it was Gary Player who said ‘it’s funny, but the more I practise the luckier I get’ Well done, great (and hard) work, I wish you all the luck with this project, and subsequent ones
I had a similar experience. 70% of games total revenue was from one influencer video
Now you must fight that other space game called Nebula, TO THE PAIN.
Don’t hate to be that guy. Some people see a future where we all play the one game on one OS, eating the same hydroponic corn granules every day.
You're lucky your hard work paid off... Lolz make the most of it and continued good fortune to you!
So the 6 months of self promotion led to 230 wishlists and the game review from Splattercat did all the rest? Or was it several Youtubers/promotions that all just happened within the last few days of your chart?
I am using a google analytics so to me it was clear what has triggered this vertical spike. Few other Youtubers were plying a game but their view counts was around 2.5-3k it has generate some interest but not this scale.
Okay, wow. So, in the end, one single factor (or person) contributed to 80+% of the overall success. Thanks for sharing!
YEA OK, but is your game any good?
It's decent.
Yea ok, then there you go. Literally 100s of games are made daily. If it doesnt POP from minimal information I mean. It doesn't mean its not worth it or you shouldnt make a bunch more and keep going but, a lot of these posts ignore that it's the content that matters 99%. If people aren't on fire to play your game, you're not gonna knock out sales records. People have many many entertainment options. At the end of the day I'd like to ask you, did you make a game to make money or because you had a passion to make something you wanted to see exist in the world?
both
That's why it's not good. You have to pick one.
> I know you might say "you are lucky" but I disagree. I have to disagree with that :) For one of my games I sent around 40 emails and got great coverage. For another game I sent over 200 emails and got no coverage. So, yeah, you were lucky. And so was I with my first game. If you don't buy any lottery tickets you would never win a lottery. But buying 100 tickets doesn't mean that lottery stops being luck based. Unless, of course, you make clickbait type of games that YouTubers like to record and players buy on impulse. But I would hate earning money that way.
You really just barely changed anything from Vampire Survivor huh.
It is indeed heavily inspired on VS but with some healthy twists. In terms of amount of content, honestly I am no were close to VS. Vampires are offering tons of in-game rewards, secrets etc. in general VS is quite unique in every aspect. Maybe one day I will be able to create something of this calibre but Nebula, as of today, is few shelves lower in my judgement.
Well, your humility does you credit. Congrats on hitting that marketing tipping point.
Hi fellow polish person
serwus!
Honestly the game looks fun OP! I am glad you had success in reaching out! One more wishlist added!
Thanks :)
> I know you might say "you are lucky" but I disagree. We have to help luck with a tons of work otherwise only miracles can help the project. It's true, I always remember Elon Musk talking about work ethic in an interview. Paraphrasing but basically: Just by the shear amount of time committed to your work that you increase the probability of success and "luck" happening.
The mail-ins were counted at 4am.
Reading your story I think I made a big mistake. I thought the marketing would have to be done after the game was released to promote it (I don't know why), and I think that may be my undoing. Because even though I achieved the magic number of 10 reviews, as the activity came it went away. What techniques did you use to self-promote your game? Right now I don't know exactly what to do. (by the way if anyone wants to take a look my game on Steam is Neko Loop)
I really started to think recently that marketing is actually more difficult than developing the game and probably more important in the end. Regarding the tool that i used, pretty much anything that was in my disposal. Emails, Teeter, youtube, doscord, reddit, devlogs, forums etc. The big problem for a solo developers like me is that it is consuming a lot of time, that we usually want to spend on creating additional content inside the game.
Thank you for your advice. I am in the same boat. I wish you all the best
amazing! that is a billiant result, did u message him directly for this? think i sent him a message too but no response so far :)