The Hellish World of Self Promotion for the Indie Game Developer
We've just launched our first game for iOS devices, Dog Park, http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dog-park-top-dog/id481105799?mt=8 (shameless plug), and while we'd like nothing more than to sit back on our haunches (hilarious pun!) and take a breather for a bit it seems like we've just climbed the mountain of development only to encounter the enormous chain of a mountain range that is marketing your app.
Like a great deal of small indie game developers out there, we were heavy on tech experience but not so much in the marketing department. In some ways, I'll confess that my few experiences with marketing companies has often left a bad taste in my mouth: the marketing reps seem to lack knowledge about what they're selling, there's a feeling that they don't care about the product, or worse they seem to think little of the end user. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and I'm in the position of trying to get the word out about our great, new, amazing, best ever, innovative, ridiculous hyperbolic adjective game, I'm realizing what an uphill battle it really is. "Duh!", I'm sure you're thinking - but it's still a "Duh" that you can only really realize when you're finally in the muck of trying to sell on the app store.
It's not enough to craft a new idea into a solid and appealing product, getting it in front of the people who would appreciate it is the real battle. The App Store is full of so many wonderful games that artists and developers have poured a lot of their time, effort, and themselves into - unfortunately it's competing against those games with bigger ad budgets and best connections in the industry. That's not to say a small game can't make it - look at Little Wing as a recent example - and it happens enough that small developers all over the world still keep rolling the dice to try and get into this market. It's just that the odds seem very slim indeed these days to get your game noticed.
So, what do we do as small developers? Do we turn into auto-bots, spamming everyone on twitter and email and hope that eventually something sticks? That doesn't seem very appealing to me and I doubt it does to most of you here, either.
I understand that there's no magic bullet - nothing is easy, things take time, patience is a virtue and all that. I just wanted to reach out to everyone here to hear what their thoughts were and whether they had any tips for a small company (there are three of us here, four if you count Ziggy the Dog) who are feeling a bit emotionally spent these past few days.
Thanks everyone!