zukalous

Link to the talk description CZ Intro: So this is my favorite talk so far. It was so cool what this team does with data to get sentiment about their game. Now both of the speakers work for big companies that have games where they earn hundreds of reviews a Continue Reading

Session link. In this talk Derek Lieu and Dana Trebella ran through some of the most common fallacies they encounter when marketing games. Fallacy: A well-made trailer will automatically get a lot of views False and most don’t go viral Same exactly trailers were posted on two spots and did Continue Reading

This talk was given by a lawyer. Don’t ask me anything about this. The speaker gave a disclaimer that this was not legal advice. Hire a lawyer. I am not a lawyer. I don’t anything about this either so don’t ask me. Hire a lawyer! link to talk description Speaker: Continue Reading

I write this from a hotel room 1 day before the start of GDC. I am in person, giving a talk on making demos and another secret soapbox rant. Every talk that I attend I am going to write up and post here on this blog.  A super mini user Continue Reading

Last month Valve conducted a Q&A with the Slovak Game Developers Association. I love to watch these Valve Q&As because they bring a check to all my wild theorizing. I truly respect Valve for being so open. Their willingness to answer developer questions and allowing us to share our data Continue Reading

So you have some money for marketing! What should you spend it on? In this post I want to spend your money! But only on the stuff that is worth it. The assumption here is that you are a small studio. You are probably working on your first or second Continue Reading

Every 4 months Valve hosts their Steam Next Fest to showcase the games of the platform. It is free to enter, they accept anyone, and it gives you a ton of visibility. But because of that there are always a TON of games you have to compete with.   From February Continue Reading

I don’t have to tell you that competition on Steam is stiff. It is hard to differentiate yourself with so many other games coming out every year. Also Steam is a very winner-take-all marketplace where there is one clear winner in the genre and a whole bunch of also-rans.  Now Continue Reading

Last week I wrote a quick list of tips for tiktok that helped one indie game developer market their game. But their success is not a fluke. In the past week 3 more developers have had phenomenal success with TikTok earning views by millions and wishlists by the tens-of-thousands.  This Continue Reading

Yes, TikTok works and is worth doing (for now.) For a long time Twitter has been every developer’s choice for top of the funnel social network for showcasing their game. But Twitter has become sclerotic (or maybe always was) and unless you have an adorably cute game, even your most Continue Reading