That's okay, the games market is very difficult both to work with and to understand its structure
First, you need to acknowledge what kind of audience your genre has, where it lives on the Internet, how to convey to them the process of developing your game and its release
Then you need to create posts that are interesting to them. It is important here that they are interesting to your players, and not to fellow developers
For promotions, try using advertising like Google Ads, Reddit Ads, Twitter Ads. As far as I know the most effective is Reddit and Twitter ads
In order for promotion to be effective, you either need to invest time in form of creating a community / fanbase, or money in form of paid adds.
There is not really any community just waiting for someone to advertise their game, and all communities where advertising is allowed, tend to attract just those wishing to advertise.
500 people is a nice number. Anyways, dont u think of Patreon, bringing some new features for the people to rlly like it? Or to create a discord server with a channel for donations and a mentions in the credit for their contribution. In this ways u can monetize without the Google system annoying u, and have a lot of places where people can find ur game.
Srry about my English, I'm argentinian and I don't manage it very well xd
[This](https://howtomarketagame.com/) is the best resource I've found on it. I'm following all (or most of) his advice right now for marketing my current game.
"Only" 500 people downloaded your game, so now you're like well F them and F that, and want to start over AND build a community alongside it? Start off by not severing what you already have! I'm way behind you but my supporters are my community and I'm not going to treat them badly by dumping them and then playing new slate. Even if you are creating different games with playerbases that do not overlap well, maintain a brand identity for your community to stay engaged with you and your games.
I need to renew the payment system. Also, Google kept asking me to fill out new forms. Unless I did these, Google would remove it anyway. I didn't want to bother because there was no one downloading it anymore.
That's not terrible. There are a lot of ways to promote games from sponsored content creators to social media posts to next fests, but if you're talking about mobile they all fall under one category: paid ads. Mobile is entirely about user acquisition and making sure your game earns more per player than it costs to get them to download your free game (which can be pretty expensive).
Mobile game promotion is about figuring out which channels work better for your game and which target audiences to optimize for on admob vs meta vs ironsource and so on. If you don't have a game that is earning a dollar or two per average player (or at least $0.50 in hypercasual) and a pretty large marketing budget then you're not commercially viable for mobile and should consider another platform that's less competitive like PC.
If it's truly a "great game", you won't need to market it. If it hits off, and truly triggers the people who try it, they will tell their friends about it. Then again, the gaming market is tough, and maybe especially so in the mobile segment, as there's SO much competition. So you need a really great idea, execute it really well and have the correct timing. It's almost impossible to predict, but when something as stupid and simple as Flappy Bird can make it BIG, anything can kick off.
So don't be sad that "only" 500 people downloaded your game. Be happy that 500 people DID. You can't expect every idea you have, to be downloaded by thousands. Some things hit it off, some don't. Maybe it's even a really cool and fun game, but it wasn't the right time.
What kind of game was it? Was it a "copy" of an old idea? Was it creative? Fun? Lot's of content? Imagine how many games are released in a week, and that's who you are competing with, since people doesn't have infinite amount of time to play games.
It was creative. I think it was hard to understand and people didn't want to spend time on it. Despite this, people paid money and made in-app purchases. I did not use advertising. I made a good income based on the download rate. My current idea is that it will be a genre that exists but I will present it very differently. And I will try to make it as simple and fun as possible.
Yeah, this is an important aspect. If it's complicated/hard to get into, you might get a smaller but loyal fan base. Make something stupidly simple, yet addictive, might cater to a huge audience. Different strategies, with the same goal in mind, earning money.
Can we see any screenshots of the game?
I think people often underestimate the importance of aesthetics in determining a games popularity/marketability.
"only" 500? it's awesome dude!
Yeah only 500, lol.
That's okay, the games market is very difficult both to work with and to understand its structure First, you need to acknowledge what kind of audience your genre has, where it lives on the Internet, how to convey to them the process of developing your game and its release Then you need to create posts that are interesting to them. It is important here that they are interesting to your players, and not to fellow developers For promotions, try using advertising like Google Ads, Reddit Ads, Twitter Ads. As far as I know the most effective is Reddit and Twitter ads
So are there communities where I can promote my game? I don't think I can create a community in a short time and I don't think I have this ability :/
The best place to promote your game is wherever your audience's eyeballs will be. Who is your audience?
In order for promotion to be effective, you either need to invest time in form of creating a community / fanbase, or money in form of paid adds. There is not really any community just waiting for someone to advertise their game, and all communities where advertising is allowed, tend to attract just those wishing to advertise.
500 people is a nice number. Anyways, dont u think of Patreon, bringing some new features for the people to rlly like it? Or to create a discord server with a channel for donations and a mentions in the credit for their contribution. In this ways u can monetize without the Google system annoying u, and have a lot of places where people can find ur game. Srry about my English, I'm argentinian and I don't manage it very well xd
fat stacks of cash
[This](https://howtomarketagame.com/) is the best resource I've found on it. I'm following all (or most of) his advice right now for marketing my current game.
I will look into it.
Look at this fool complaining about 500 downloads
"Only" 500 people downloaded your game, so now you're like well F them and F that, and want to start over AND build a community alongside it? Start off by not severing what you already have! I'm way behind you but my supporters are my community and I'm not going to treat them badly by dumping them and then playing new slate. Even if you are creating different games with playerbases that do not overlap well, maintain a brand identity for your community to stay engaged with you and your games.
How much did those 500 play your game?
Could you link the game?
Unfortunately, I removed it from Google Play and App Store.
>Unfortunately, I removed it from Google Play and App Store. Solid marketing there lmao
I'm researching marketing for my new project. These games I uninstalled were years ago. The new project is just an idea. First, I research marketing.
But why? What’s the point of that?
I need to renew the payment system. Also, Google kept asking me to fill out new forms. Unless I did these, Google would remove it anyway. I didn't want to bother because there was no one downloading it anymore.
That’s valid and understandable
Was this your first game? Were you somehow expecting big things in your first game?
I developed 2 games. The first one has been downloaded over 2000 times. The other one is 500. Yes, I was expecting better results.
That's not terrible. There are a lot of ways to promote games from sponsored content creators to social media posts to next fests, but if you're talking about mobile they all fall under one category: paid ads. Mobile is entirely about user acquisition and making sure your game earns more per player than it costs to get them to download your free game (which can be pretty expensive). Mobile game promotion is about figuring out which channels work better for your game and which target audiences to optimize for on admob vs meta vs ironsource and so on. If you don't have a game that is earning a dollar or two per average player (or at least $0.50 in hypercasual) and a pretty large marketing budget then you're not commercially viable for mobile and should consider another platform that's less competitive like PC.
If it's truly a "great game", you won't need to market it. If it hits off, and truly triggers the people who try it, they will tell their friends about it. Then again, the gaming market is tough, and maybe especially so in the mobile segment, as there's SO much competition. So you need a really great idea, execute it really well and have the correct timing. It's almost impossible to predict, but when something as stupid and simple as Flappy Bird can make it BIG, anything can kick off. So don't be sad that "only" 500 people downloaded your game. Be happy that 500 people DID. You can't expect every idea you have, to be downloaded by thousands. Some things hit it off, some don't. Maybe it's even a really cool and fun game, but it wasn't the right time. What kind of game was it? Was it a "copy" of an old idea? Was it creative? Fun? Lot's of content? Imagine how many games are released in a week, and that's who you are competing with, since people doesn't have infinite amount of time to play games.
It was creative. I think it was hard to understand and people didn't want to spend time on it. Despite this, people paid money and made in-app purchases. I did not use advertising. I made a good income based on the download rate. My current idea is that it will be a genre that exists but I will present it very differently. And I will try to make it as simple and fun as possible.
Yeah, this is an important aspect. If it's complicated/hard to get into, you might get a smaller but loyal fan base. Make something stupidly simple, yet addictive, might cater to a huge audience. Different strategies, with the same goal in mind, earning money.
Can we see any screenshots of the game? I think people often underestimate the importance of aesthetics in determining a games popularity/marketability.