Hi everyone,

i played xna games from the time they were released in Germany (where i live). I wrote about them and XNA development in my blog, but I was always surprised that the big media hardly covered the games at all. This month I started my indie journalism project indienerds.com and contacted a lot of developers. A lot of them didn’t even reply. Some did reply, but they didn´t send out the requested press material. Overall I’d say there is a good reason there is little coverage of indie games in the professional press - most of the indie devs don´t market at all.

Why is marketing that important?

If you have a look at the "Share you sales figures" thread you notice a game called "Breath of Death VII" and that it managed to create conversion rates better than 100%. How did this happen? It´s not a bug - it´s the result of coverage in the media. Kotaku (here) wrote a little bit about the game and yahoo (here) covered it. People bought the game without even having a look at it before. That´s what happens when media tell gamers that the games are a very good deal. Do you have to think long before spending a dollar for a game if you are used to prices that are dozens of times that amount?

What could indie game devs do better?

The first thing a good game needs is a good website. Make damn sure a new visitor to your website knows that there is a cool game presented on the site. Put up cool screenshots, the impressing cover art (Abduction Action did a great job on the cover art) or a YouTube video with the game trailer. Don´t forget that external links are opened in a new window/tab! You don´t want people to leave your site completely. Never forget, that not everybody is at home on the internet!

The second thing would be good press material. Think for a moment you are a journalist. You have to write about a game and you do not have much time, because there is a deadline. And since you are paid for your writing, time is money. What would help you enormously in your task? A good press kit would! The best press kits I found are here - they are nearly everything a journalist could want. And a little more information on the developer itself would be helpful - a company press kit is a good idea!

In a good press kit for a game you find these things:

- A press release giving out short information on the company, a short description on the game, and then more details of the game. All in a copy and pastable file format (.pdf and .doc are a good start; do not use docx - some journalists still work with older Word versions!)
- Your box art and maybe some artist´s art in high resolution - if you use low resolution it might be good enough for the web, but print media can´t use it. Use .jpg or .png for these, they are wide spread and everybody can use those. Don´t use the image compression of jpgs to extremely - artifacts are not something you want in press material.
- The logo of your game and the logo of you company with no background in high resolution (or for the professional press in a vector format additionally). If a writer has to ask someone from the graphics department to work over your logos because the website has an orange background and your logo was created on a blue one it´s likely your game logo won´t be featured. With the consequence that the reader might not notice it as much and is more likely to have forgotten about it the next day when he turns on his Xbox.
- Good screenshots - use screenshots that show the strong points of your game and are interesting. If your game runs at 1280x720, then this is the size the screenshots should have. I won´t repeat the file format information. And make it at least 4. The more the better, because the writer can choose the screenshots best fitting his writings. Just don´t put a hundred in your press kit - it´s about quality, not quantity.
- Make the press information available in a neat package. Nobody wants to download every screenshot one by one out of a gallery or copy and paste each information from you website. Zip it, rar it and have it all in one file for easy access. Don´t use a packer that nobody knows outside the nerd area (I use the word nerd with affection!) - a lot of the writers out there are not that much of a nerd.

The third thing is the most important - send out your press release. Build up mailing lists with the contacts of the gaming sites you know. If your list is smaller than 100 email addresses you don´t know enough gaming sites and have to do some digging. Maybe a team effort here could create a very good one! But most people keep them to themselves because a good mailing list is worth a lot. If you don´t do this, then it´s likely that your cool game, the nice website and all the nice press kits will go unnoticed. That´s why it is that important!

I hope you liked the few pointers and use them. Not only for my sake!
If it gets good results, then I will write another HowTo on viral marketing. This is by the way viral marketing - write something that you think your target audience might find useful and put a link to your website in it. In the hope that some people did actually type the web address into their browser I did not put a link on the address. It´s just more memorable if they type it in. But if you are the kind of slacker that I am - maybe you just copy & pasted it or ignored it. That’s why I have linked it on my name.

Have a nice day,
Gerald

PS: I did a lot of things in my life - some of them included creating marketing materials for sport events and every day products. This is not a complete guide - it´s more like the first steps.

Thanks for sharing this information, it is a really good summary for the first steps.
I would add, that you need a good game before you try to do really lots of marketing first. It costs time and money and it may be wasted if you aren't really pleased with your product yourself. If you're just starting making games, try several small projects to become experienced, then start the one you really want to make and polish it. Especially the bigger sites get lots of information and requests every day. They filter out sub-par stuff pretty fast and you want to make a good first impression.

Exactly - that´s why, besides a good game, you need so many good contacts. You never get them all, but if you just get one or two of the biggies it can make a huge difference!

Very interesting read, especially from the perspective of someone who doesn't know. I was just starting to think along what to do for marketing, granted I wont be doing much for my first game, even though I like it and put a lot of effort into it, I just don't see it as a killer game in terms of every gamers must have item. I'm not a very "out there" person, so my list of game site contacts numbers around 0, but I like the press kit idea, although I don't have a company and a logo! I probably should get a website going as well.

Glad you liked it and it made you considering new options.

You really should create a logo for yourself - you don´t need to have a company or have it registered as a trademark. But building a brand is a good thing.

A website is a must-have if you want good sales numbers. If you just want something simple, then register a blog, for example at wordpress.com, and register a domain that will redirect to it. This can be done fast and if you write there about your development and other indie games you like, you might gather an audience. It´s baby steps and it will need an iron will, because you won´t get the big hits over night. But once you have created a really enjoyable game this will help a lot.

If you are not an "out there" person, think about teaming up with one. I´m thinking about offering these kinds of services to the better but not successful games. Others might too. At the moment though indienerds.com is still taking all my time. I´m starting blogs on gaming sites, i write specials for german sites and am currently investing into paper based press to write as a freelancer about indie games.

The only alternative is creating a game that is so good it will stay in the most downloaded or best rated lists on live for a long time.

Since there is no way to see how many hits this thread gets, i don´t know if this is well received or not. I´m currently making the next HowTo (this time it´s about websites) - if i should post it here, please give me some feedback. Otherwise i will just keep them for my site or internal use. An Aye or Nay would suffice.

I appreciated reading this post, I think if you keep it game-development related it's definitely a good addition to the forums

I like this post too. I bookmarked it as I think it's a good resource. Now I just need to follow your advice...;)

Hi Gerald, I thought that was a great post. Very helpful advice all round - I'll definitely be creating a nice convenient press pack for our game's update and all future games.

I also really like your indienerds site. It's great to see another site doing video reviews of indie games.

I'd definitely be interested to read any future HowTo posts you make.

very good work on this post. I think it should be submitted as a featured article. many people on XNA are just too busy programming to even think about a press kit. we already had a post that addressed a game's cover art and I think this
would go hand in hand with it. very good post and very nice details

thanks for the encouraging words! the next HowTo will go up in a couple of days, i´m working on it now. It will be about websites and what you should do. It will be mostly game related, but i will have some advice that is going out to those that never created one before (and that will be a little less game related, but i will keep that part short). :)

Gerald - as you know, we've been in touch.  And you will probably hear from me again! :)

This is a great guide.  It's obviously heavily dependent on game quality but I think that goes without saying.  If it's pretty clear that your game is sub-par, I'd actually not recommend spending your valuable life hours on promoting it.   Because the reverse side of the coin is that many media outlets will simply ignore you.  And many others will wait until buzz picks up before making note (they want the hits too of course).   That's when you experience what many here know as the "homerun" when you actually cross the threshold from "a couple indie sites covered my game" to "high traffic, well-known website are featuring my game." 

But you can't have the latter without attempting the first, right?

I have a list of 200+ emails/journalists to send PR too.   I am considering sharing it once I have some idea of how useful it is.

Last, I'd suggest we all do what we can to return support to Gerald - as he's one of very few people taking the time to create high quality VIDEO reviews of XBLIG and has a good head on his shoulders.   (did you post your twitter page in here yet Gerald?)

Carl - yeah i know, you have shown support from the beginning and i really appreciate that!

200+ emails is very nice - if only one in twenty writes about any pr release you put out there you will have been mentioned 10 times ... and if you have hot stuff, the rate might be better. I wouldn´t share the list openly - but maybe give it to those devs that really have good games. If everybody starts to use that list for his little game, then the people on the other side of the list might be angry with you and chances of them deleting indie game mails in the future will rise. Maybe the better devs should start an indie dev newsletter for media - this would be something your list would be perfect for (as a start).

I try not to post to many links - but since you ask, now i have: http://twitter.com/indienerds

indienerds:

The best press kits I found are here - they are nearly everything a journalist could want. Just the fact that the site still has no packages for the most successful game is annoying.

Thanks for reminding me that I had still not updated my website with the press kits for YDAB! That was one of those things where you put a "currently being prepared / coming soon" note on the site, and then you forget all about it. Note to self: Never do this again. :-)
Thanks for the reminder! Fixed now.

Doc

Just updated that section - maybe put it back when your next hit arrives :P

just to add and this might help ya out with your next article as well. Derek Yu's game Aquaria has a wonderful press kit and
his Aquaria website in my opinion is one of the best looking game related sites. heres a link:

http://www.bit-blot.com/aquaria/

This is a very nice homepage - i´m missing the press kit under press (instead it´s hidden away under media), but the style is certainly on the beautiful side! And the game looks interesting - hope it will come to the xbox soon.

Thanks for the link.