Speaker: Joel Dreskin Link to talk CZ Note: This talk focused on a strategy that was still was mostly based around heavy Press and PR and building “buzz” in anticipation of a big LAUNCH. There wasn’t most post-launch discussion in this talk. One of the big changes I am hearing Continue Reading
GDC 2019: No Time, No Budget, No Problem: Finishing the First Tree
Speaker: David Wehle Session link here The First Tree is a fox game inspired by his own experiences with his family and his Father’s death. CZ Note: The interesting thing about this talk was that David worked alone and was very scrappy. He was not afraid to use pre-made purchased Continue Reading
GDC 2019: Building a Community for Your Game From Scratch
Speaker: Mike Rose Company: No More Robots Link to talk here There was once that “One big thing”. It used to be Press then it was Twitch, then it was Youtubers Well community building never stopped being useful but right now it’s the one big thing again.It has always been Continue Reading
GDC 2019: Put Your Name on Your Game, a Talk by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage
Speaker: Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage Talk link here The thing to understand about this talk is that these guys come from a line of academia which I love because their talks turn into a lecture that remind me of my days studying art history in college. So most of Continue Reading
GDC 2019: Slay the Spire – Success Through Marketability
Speaker: Casey Yano Company Mega Crit Games Talk link here Slay the Spire is an amazingly successful card game that was developed by two developers and a bunch of contractors. The two designers quit their QA based jobs to make this over a period of 2 years. What makes this Continue Reading
Boyfriend Dungeon: the secrets of their email marketing strategy
Boyfriend Dungeon is an indie game being developed by Kitfox Games about dating luxuriously beautiful weapons and then using them to fight monsters. It was originally announced back in October 2017. On August 15th of 2018 the Kitfox team launched a Kickstarter for the game. The Kickstarter took the internet Continue Reading
How to learn who your audience is
If someone were to ask you who your target audience is would you have an answer? Is your answer everyone? Core gamers? Hearts? People who love indie games? You have probably had debates with your dev team over things like “well I think our players would like X because they Continue Reading
Why people aren’t buying your game
There is this cliche that appears in a lot of post-mortems. You also hear it in conversations with other indie devs. It goes something like “Damn consumers! You spend $5 on the same-old bland latte from Starbucks every day but you won’t fork over the same amount for my lovingly-crafted Continue Reading
How to build your marketing system
In my last column I introduced you to the sales funnel. A funnel is a conceptual model for how to move someone from not being aware of your game all the way to laying down the money to buy it. It is a marketing system. It was a pretty heady subject so Continue Reading
What we can learn from indie fiction authors
Ask any indie game dev what the secret to marketing an indie game is and you will hear pretty much the same thing: get featured on the Steam or the mobile App Stores, get covered by the press, get covered by a popular streamer. Launch without those and that game Continue Reading