🎮 Get Chris' Masterclasses! Ending SOON! cmonkey.co/howtomarketagame

@PlayCrestfallen

6 күн бұрын

Without that masterclass I would have launchex July 1 smack dab in the middle of Steam Summer Sale... BIG MISTAKE AVOIDED!

@LesJeuxDeMilen

3 күн бұрын

Is it normal to have ~ 8 000 players downloaded the demo, only ~ 20 launched it and 0 wishlists (from the demo) on the main game ? I'm asking ... about a friend ... and deffinately not about my game "Memory Adventures in the Jungle" :) If there are any indie game devs here - what's your experience with the demos ?

Thank you so much for featuring me and special thanks to Chris for reviewing my steam page and giving me so much constructive feedback. Im going to rework it this week and have a much more polished product at the end, thanks so much!

@howtomarketagame

5 күн бұрын

Good luck! Glad to help

One of the best marketing lessons is "pay attention to not just what people say, but what they do". Chris says a lot of gold, but watching him work is educational in and of itself :)

The bit about "You're a real game dev" reminds me of something Pirate Software said recently when someone wrote in that they're an "aspiring" game dev and his first piece of advice was to take out the "aspiring" part. You're either a game dev or you're not, and if you make games, you're a game dev. You are what you do.

This is a wonderful material, I wish Chris appeared more often doing analyses like this

@mandisaw

6 күн бұрын

Recommend his newsletter & blog, he does analyses there :)

@01296501923654

2 күн бұрын

In case you haven't seen it, Chris did one of these on his own channel @howtomarketagame a few days ago.

Thanks Hugo + Chris! I bought the course! Chris is so awesome! Funny, charismatic, and considerate. He's straight up and calls it how it is, but still pays mind to the integrity of the journey.

I truly agree with the capsule thing. The capsule is the one the entice you to click the steam page. And its the steam page role to make you click the purchase button. Better to embellish the capsule to maximize click through.

@mandisaw

6 күн бұрын

It's much like a farmer's or craft market - customers really do judge based on the booth/owner presentation. If the booth looks shabby & mismanaged, or the shopkeeper seems unkempt, then folks assume the product is poor & low-quality. Maybe it's unfair, but looks & mistakes matter. It's common in professional settings to have someone else edit & review things before publication. A lot of devs don't take the time/step to have someone look over their page, or they themselves are not checking carefully. Broken image links, or typos, are easy-to-catch, so they give an especially bad impression.

hold on.... 1h30Min Long of pure golden content? Let me grab popcorn, one sec.

@JokeryEU

6 күн бұрын

excuse me, bring your notebook and start taking notes, you cant eat popcorn and add grease.

Thanks so much CodeMonkey for this great video, and Chris for reviewing my Hidden Tactics Steam page ! I'm definitely going to work on a trailer soon, and fill up those missing tags. By the way, your content is one of the main reasons I can be making my way as an indie game dev today❤

@howtomarketagame

5 күн бұрын

So glad to hear that.

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

Nice! Best of luck with the game!

In regards to Smash Bear and making it clear that you’re the villain: Untitled Goose Game does this really well. They have their capsule description as, “It's a lovely morning in the village and you are a horrible goose” which firmly establishes your role as a really annoying goose. If you remove the “horrible” part it sounds more like you’re gonna be helping people (which is definitely not what you do).

Yay more Chris

I really wish Chris did a game pricing talk or a talk of how to market a game years after it was released. I love chris, he always does his research.

@CodeMonkeyUnity

4 күн бұрын

He answered two questions on the topic of "how to choose a price" and "how often to discount" on this video kzread.infonPsGAeqqD64 it has timestamps for the questions. In general, for any substantial game you should price it at least $10, possibly $15. And for discounts, participate as much as Steam allows you (every 6 weeks) but take it very slow. My game has been out for 8 months but I've only discounted 20% max

Amazing information, and right on time (I was just studying this Topic 😂💯👍🏻). Thank You.

thank you, great collab

Bro is an amazing speaker, it's genuinely impressive. Like 24:59 he's making a point about capsules, remembers an example about Mario Cart, and in 2 seconds seamlessly pulls out a cartridge and all that without breaking the flow of speech for even a second. He has this speech perfected to a tee

@howtomarketagame

5 күн бұрын

Been waiting for years to show off my SNES cart collection.

Really helpful, thank you so much! We'll try and get on the next batch of reviews ;)

Nice to see what he means on real life examples. Again thank you guys for the valuable insights! A pity that I missed your call to show my game Cursed Dungeon Raider and to discuss my Steam page, but all examples you did showed enough information to apply them to my game. Thanks!

Thanks for Reviewing our Game "The Void Project" feedback was really valueable i suck at marketing so really needed this

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

Best of luck with the game!

Your impact is profound! 🌟 -- "Dream big and dare to fail."

wait wait. Just let me grab some coffee and cookies first. I'll be back in a minute

another great video for marketing thanks guys

33:00 for the thing about the Game's title I think that a unique name can be better also for the search algorithms on Google, YT, etc, because a lot of times I was searching for some game, but the name was too similar or equal to other things that already exist, if you understand what I mean, so it was harder to search.

Nice video!

awesome!

Thanks!

This is great. I been trying to fix my steam page for Starfighter General.. I devved for 7 years, time to take a break and update my page... And then you post this series! Thanks again Monkey man! Yo helped my DOTS/ECS game come to life

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

The game looks quite complex, great job!

Thank you so much for featuring Weyrdlets!!

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

It looks really awesome and quite unique! Great job!

These marketing videos ROCK!

I just had an awesome idea for a game. Completely unrelated to anything being said in this video other than Chris saying the words "go for it." I have never made a video game before, but this idea strikes me as the perfect blend of silly yet tactical to make for a good first game. The game will be called "Gopher It," and the player will be a gopher trying to steal crops from peoples' backyard gardens. Plus a handful of extra mechanics to make it more challenging, of course!

@CodeMonkeyUnity

3 күн бұрын

heh sounds fun! Go for it!

Ok, he often says basically the same thing, but this is still good stuff.

hey did chris have any youtube channel??

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

Yup he does www.youtube.com/@howtomarketagame

Planned to catch this on Chris Z's channel, but CM got the +1 view :) Good insights! Common theme seemed to be that devs should have fresh eyes look at their page. Someone who doesn't already know the game, who is familiar with the intended genre, and who is detail-oriented & trusted to be honest. Too easy to become "game-blind" and assume players will understand as intuitively as the developer (which is impossible).

Thank for you both so much for that video, there is alot of things I got learned. Just one question, I see that some games have different languages on their screenshots, is that better to stay with English, or make screenshots where text are at minimum? Again as you said better use alot of gameplay on screenshots to show?

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

I believe nowadays you can localize screenshots although I'm not 100% sure on that. But yeah keeping text at a minimum is probably wise, maybe just some UI with numbers and icons although that depends on your game.

eh dat random feeling wanted to buy smth after watching dat guy, very interesting. Subhannallah

Thanks for this amazing content. It was said it does not worth insisting on the same game page after release. How about after an early access relese? If an early access release is unsuccessful, should one take the same advice, that is, to make an update to show your are a caring developer and move on to other projects?

@howtomarketagame

5 күн бұрын

You should try to get to 1.0. Steam players always yell at developers who never graduate from EA

Hasn't added any more Dinkys' to his screenshots! 😛

@burnheart2965

5 күн бұрын

Stubborn, even when a relative expert on the topic gives some solid advice. Sad tbh

@Kaedric999

5 күн бұрын

@@burnheart2965 relative expert on the topic also said at the end of the video not to update your steam page after launch, so sounds like he is listening.

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

heh way too busy doing tons of other projects right now so don't have time to update it right now but I definitely made a mental note. I'm planning to get back to work on that game to prepare for publishing on consoles and when I do that I'll rewatch this video and update the page

@Chris/HTMAG Does a course purchase include later updates? Have seen you update/refresh the courses over time, but it's unclear if it's a snapshot purchase, or if you are licensing access to that course as it evolves & improves.

@howtomarketagame

5 күн бұрын

Yup. The course is updated forever and you do not need to rebuy. If you check out the sales page for any of the masterclass you will see my statement about "LIFETIME ACCESS + CONSTANT UPDATES"

@mandisaw

5 күн бұрын

@@howtomarketagame Got it, thanks!

My game on itch got 100+ download thanks to your video but the game was free so didn't made any revenue 😂

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

Might not have made revenue but I'm sure you learned a lot! Keep on learning!

@NOTAHEK

5 күн бұрын

@@CodeMonkeyUnity 😊 ya I did

Those people's know how to marketing the game's as for my. I just focus to make basic mekanics on my game. To be fer I already made this game public version for testing.

36:50 I think this is good to do specially if you are trying to create a big game but obviously isn't big enough, BUT, don't lower yourself so much, just say something like "this game was created by a single indie developer as a passion and I hope you like it" etc. Just don't be like "I'm not so good I'm sorry if you didn't like it".

@mandisaw

6 күн бұрын

If you can't make a big game, then better to avoid genres that require/expect big games. The real error isn't so much the self-deprecation (although it's a bad look). It's the upfront acknowledgement that you're failing to meet players' expectations. Either you're setting the expectations too high, or undervaluing your game, or worse, you made a sub-par game and you know it. Imposter syndrome is real, and it sucks. But it has no place on your store page - save it for your personal journals, or your conversations with other devs.

36:50 I agree with this so much. This just makes me less interested in your game. It's incredibly manipulative. I get that "devs are humans too" but this is the page for your project, not you. This type of marketing is just as bad as those "after 7 years i finally released my game pls buy 🥺" posts on reddit. It makes you look like a beggar and you yourself don't think the game is good enough to buy.

10/10

Funny thing is Nintendo required devs to put the title screen in their screenshots on Wii U. Chris is like don't do it. 😅 Not sure if that is a requirement on Switch though.

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

Really? That's interesting

Hmm a bit confused on the "Pitching and Funding Masterclass". If you look at the games they use in their example pitch decks, none of them signed with publishers. What is the story on this? Has anyone checked out this masterclass?

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

Are you talking specifically about the game Bloodroots? They did self publish but I believe they got funding from a Canadian government grant which I'm guessing they had to pitch to get and those funds are usually extremely selective so that's likely a great result. Chris has a 30 day no questions asked refund policy (just like I have in my own courses) so you can pick up the course and if it doesn't match your expectations you can email him.

@noFate_games2

5 күн бұрын

@@CodeMonkeyUnity Bloodroots, Anima Flux, Begone Beasts, Rabbit Haul, Nif Nif, Animo Stars Arena, and Aikyam. Basically every game that is used as an example pitch in the masterclass. It's kind of strange in my opinion. I was interested in possibly buying the course, but that's a little off putting. Could you shed some light here?

@CodeMonkeyUnity

4 күн бұрын

I haven't gone through that particular course myself since I'm not really interested in pitching (I self fund and publish all my games) so I don't know exactly but Jason (the presenter) was an exec in the IGDA and various other organizations so I assume he knows what he's talking about. There are a bunch of lectures set up as free previews, so definitely give those a watch to see what the course is like

Good video, and i used the wrong toothbrush.

Could you help me with something on manobehaviorur

@CodeMonkeyUnity

3 күн бұрын

With what? Error?

@ZyzzCustomyt

3 күн бұрын

@@CodeMonkeyUnityThere's no mistake, I wanted to learn more about manobehaviorur because I modify the free fire game, its characters are made by manobehaviorur so I wanted to create an anime character for the game

@ZyzzCustomyt

3 күн бұрын

Can I contact you

I wonder if from marketing perspective letting a big streamer play your game may be a good idea but i dont know how much from his/her audience just wanna watch the streamer playing and avoid buying the game themselves i think in the long run maybe it can backfire.

@mandisaw

6 күн бұрын

Seems to depend on your genre. Linear narrative games don't do well, because people basically get the story from the Let's Play. But games with more procedural elements, lots of choices (gameplay or narrative), or multiplayer, can benefit from streaming. And of course, reviews are different - a positive review from a streamer in your genre can be very potent.

I find it interesting that its been 5 days and you havent updated your steam page for Dinky Guardians. Do you disagree with his criticisms?

@CodeMonkeyUnity

4 сағат бұрын

I'm just way too busy with other projects right now, I've made a mental note to come back to this video when I have some time to get back to Dinky Guardians

Who Makes A Steampage? Why Makes a Steampage?

Evil corp is not that hard to understand, its literally lethal company, even the name is the same

@CodeMonkeyUnity

5 күн бұрын

So what you're saying is it's easy to understand if you have played that game, but not understandable if you haven't played it. There's always more people that haven't played something than those that have. That can be a valid option, but you're intentionally limiting the size of your potential playerbase.

@dodolab7256

5 күн бұрын

@@CodeMonkeyUnity Im not making fun of you and Chris not understanding that game. I Just Hope the developer manages to be a little more original. Cloning a game and selling it is not professional

Thank you for covering our Urban Jungle! 😳💛🥹

@CodeMonkeyUnity

6 күн бұрын

It looks awesome! Great job!

@coolboy9979

6 күн бұрын

Good luck!