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How to Build an Audience for your Indie Game
If you work hard making a game, do your best to get people to play it too!
It is a well known fact that professional indie game developers make very little money on average. Excluding the occasional breakout hit games, many developers never receive a paycheck, let alone create a profitable release. Imagine tens of thousands of hours of hard work resulting in absolutely nothing — a tree falling in a forest for no one to hear. It’s all too sad!
It gets even worse. There is a large number of fun, free-to-play games that expect you to pay them nothing and simply want players to enjoy them. Sadly, they receive little to no attention at all. Itch.io has over 300,000 games in their library, many of which are likely game jam submissions, made by small teams over a weekend. I can guarantee that you have not heard of over 99% of the games listed on their website — but they are unique, innovative, and fun!
While this is depressing to consider, this raises a very important question, “How do I get the word out about my game, and get interested people to play?”
Consider Your Game’s “Curb Appeal”
The first question you should ask yourself as a game designer is, “Is my game appealing?” A successful game is well…