A series of posts about how to promote your indie game on Steam 1/8

Hello everyone, my name is Bogdan. This summer, I tried my hand at creating computer games for the first time. Along with my friends, I participated in the Ukrainian Visual Novel Jam #3.

Initially, it was taken no more seriously than a bit of fun, since the competition lasted just two weeks, and our team consisted of friends who had never made any games before. At that time, I had just broken up with my girlfriend—or rather, she dumped me. I was depressed and just wanted to vent all the negativity and sadness that had accumulated inside me. The product of this became our visual novel "I Would Still Live Tomorrow."

I had previously thought about creating my own visual novel, and I saw this competition as a practice run before a serious, mature race. But things did not turn out as I had expected.

Our game may not have ranked high in the competition, but it was liked by many readers, which we truly did not expect. After some thought, our mini-team decided that we wanted to make a Steam release of our game.

From that moment on, a serious and lengthy process of creating our visual novel began, which continues to this day. And it's incredibly exciting and interesting! I enjoy learning how to write scripts, develop characters, and generally face new challenges that this project throws at us. But there is one challenge I would like to discuss in more detail, which, as you might guess, is the subject of this work!

The fact is, I have been involved in marketing for the last six years. It happened partly by chance and partly not. I can't say I knew who I wanted to become during my school years, but the movie "99 Francs" changed my life and, you might say, made the decision for me.

So it turned out that my main occupation today is marketing. Over these six years, I've done various things, from building websites, writing strategies, creating and promoting various brands, doing internet and other types of advertising, promoting social networks, and much more.

I've heard various thoughts about the commercial side of indie game development. Some are sad because their games appeal to only a few people, others are proud of it, and some are completely indifferent and create for themselves. I believe that every approach has a right to exist, but personally, I have set a goal to sell at least 100,000 copies of our game. Yes! Considering that visual novels are not a popular genre and given that nobody wants to pay for them.

It is important to mention that in these six years in marketing, I have had experience in many industries, but I have never promoted games. And as a marketer, of course, I know that each specific industry has its nuances and a thousand pitfalls that are easy to stumble upon. However, again as a marketer, I know that the toolkit remains the same despite the specifics. Only the approach, set, and focus on certain tools change, but the logic remains the same.

So, returning to my goal and the purpose of this work. I want to sell 100,000 copies of my game and, apart from the personal satisfaction of fully sublimating my pain from the breakup, show that indie games can be sold. And of course, luck plays a very important role in this process, but in reality, most of it depends on you. In this work, I will discuss the strategy I will use to promote our game. I will talk about various secrets and tricks that you can integrate into your PR campaign, share different services and ideas that will simplify your path, and, most importantly, as I see it, try to dispel the myth that only luck can sell indie games without a budget.

Before moving on to the main text, I would like to clarify something. This book will not promote your game for you. All I can give you is a general idea of the strategy plus highlight the pitfalls you might encounter, but creating content, writing posts, and recording videos will be up to you. I will simply tell you how to do it more effectively and productively.

Enjoy your reading, and thank you for supporting the release of our game with your purchase!