Posted: 2017-06-14 20:47:43 | Posted by iDev | idevgames.co.uk
Making a successful game comes down to one thing, good marketing. It doesn't matter how great your game is, no one will ever be able to find out if they can't find your game in the first place. So these are a few tips on marketing your game without spending a single penny on expensive advertising campaigns or by spamming your friends and family.
I know how easy it is to start thinking of a great original concept. Something completely new for gamers to enjoy. I've even seen some really great concepts getting no more then 5 downloads or plays. It's all because no one is looking for your game as you've made something one of a kind. Unless it has some real world association that people are looking for, you'll never be found.
The concept can be original but you need to have some kind of theme that people may be looking for... Think to yourself what kind of games would you look for? Zombie games? Horror games? FPS Games maybe? Find something and narrow it down, those are all game types which you should think of as broad and will have a lot of competition by other games wanting to be found for these same search terms. You need to find a type of game that the competition might be lower. If people are looking for the game you have made but the competition is low then you might be onto a winner. Simplest way to do this is search in Google for games you can think of that people migh search for and see how many results are returned to give you an idea of how much competition you might be up against.
If you look above at the Google listing for my Russian knife roulette game, you can see the description of my game features all sorts of potential searchable words. Though don't go crazy on it, it's just as important if not more important that the potential searcher reads your description and decides to click on your listing. If it's just stuffed full of searchable words it won't be very good. It just so happens I was lucky as this game has lots of different names that people looking for the same game might search for. Giving you even more possibilities. So spending your time writing a good description, even on really simple games, could get you found for free.
The most important part of marketing is your game. You could of coarse go down the route of thinking of some brandable name like "Snapz". Its easy to remember but it won't help you be found in the first place to become remembered. You will need best of both worlds, a memorable game name and a searchable game name. So as an example again Russian knife roulette game has words that might be searched like "Knife game", "Roulette game" or "Russian game" and everything in between. Keep in mind on sites like this you can see the Google listing has "HTML5 Game" added to every title, so adding "game" in my game name wasn't necessary but I decided to keep it in for this game to keep it the same name as it was on Google play.
Just by applying the above tips you will increase your chances of being searched for and potentially being found. There's far more you could do but if you always take the above in consideration before developing a new game you will definitely have a higher chance of making a successful game.