How A Pro Indie Dev ACTUALLY Markets A Game

[@CamStokerGI]

What game are you working on? 🎮 Check out my Going Indie Game Kit ($200 off code: GINDIE2024) www.goingindie.co/

[@UnwrittenInkStudios]

Great interview Cam - thank you for sharing this with the community. We are currently developing "To Hades And Back". A rogue-lite 3D platformer where you play as Orpheus, son of Apollo. Using your magical lyre, you must journey to the underworld to rescue your wife from Hades, the god of death and king of Rock.

[@LoftyRobot]

I am working on Exoforge, which is quite ambitious and has been a lot of work. A little late on the marketing phase, but I am pushing myself to get it figured out.

[@snaileri]

TL;DR: 1. Make a game that's fun to play, looks appealing and small enough for you to make. 2. Send emails to influencers and the press 3. Get 10k wishlists, then release, and hope the Steam algo takes care of the rest. No need to watch almost 18 minutes

[@ScoutOW2]

Thanks loads! I assume from the comments they dont also say "have a very successful KZbin channel that acts as marketing"

[@bowbugs8855]

Content of literally every game marketing video on KZbin lol. Still better than those who got lucky with one viral thread/tweet/reel and act like they understand marketing.

[@ScoutOW2]

From my experience in the industry, honestly uploading stuff you make on Twitter is better than going to school. Not only do you market your stuff (slightly), but other devs will also discover you and you can make your connections that way. Its free, less effort and you get more connections out of it. Plus dev twitter is like, the only part of twitter that's genuinely wholesome and welcoming. With everyone just wanting to see what eachother is doing.

[@SimplyPhoenix]

You forgot festivals and Steam Next Fest.

[@legendsofcelestite.officia5398]

10k lol. Good luck

[@patnor7354]

We really don't need the background music...

[@CamStokerGI]

Will fix next time, thanks for the feedback

[@rungeon83]

I don't hate it, think it's an awesome video regardless, but I do like a bit of background music just with EVERYTHING, I sleep with it on..

[@TranquilMarmot]

@@CamStokerGI It's good! Just a little bit quieter would be nice (like maybe half volume)

[@platinumsun4632]

Greal

[@inevgames]

Jonas Tyroller was one of the first people I watched when I started game design and I was inspired by him many times. Thank you for the opportunity to listen to him again!

[@TreeFallStudios]

I always enjoy hearing from Jonas! Just realized you started a second channel! This video pushed it into the feed! Nice job.

[@DavidMadeThis_YouTube]

The KZbin algorithm sent me here without marketing, like Jonas said. Great video! Marketing is certainly a challenge for me. I mostly agree that an appealing game propels itself to some extent, but he didn't cover getting a separate publisher. I've heard mixed results about it but good to see Jonas succeed without it.

[@jayvlyn]

A great guest to bring on!

[@silpheedTandy]

can you make the background music much quieter (to 50% of the volume) ? it is draining to try to hear the both of you over the background music, and i ran out of energy after about three minutes. which is too bad, because the experiences of your interviewee sounded interesting to me. (also, background music with percussion and loud "beats", like the one used in this video, are the most draining / distracting for me)

[@trifilosgr]

I hate background sounds in interviews, this is a nightmare for people with hearing aids most of the time too 🦻🏻

[@ivp_digital]

low key could be a song not an interview xD

[@AndrzejGieraltCreative]

He'd have to re-upload the video unfortunately.

[@tiggersaurusJones]

I thought Erling Haaland was your guest 😂

[@Moziilla.Firefox]

😂

[@poweredbydecaf1915]

I absolutely hope he's right about the algorithm being more important in the future. As a solo indie dev, coding, art, and music are far too time consuming for me to spend my time worrying about marketing and social media.

[@jesseyules]

KZbin is the job. The game is souvenir you buy if you're a fan of the channel.

[@YaenGamedev]

Might be an exception but Jonas makes far more money through game sales than through KZbin.

[@jesseyules]

@@YaenGamedev What I mean is, it’s people who like the channel that are buying the game. And channel fans are what juices the Steam numbers to get the games recommended to others.

[@YaenGamedev]

@@jesseyules For sure you do need some catalyst from the outside to get things started on steam at the moment still. But there is no guarantee that even a successful yt channel will convert to enough wishlists and sales for that. In the case of WYS I think more of them came from the channel and devlogs but not quite as much in the case of ISLANDERS or Thronefall. I think for ISLANDERS they got some successful tweets that got things going. And with thronefall, some popular streamers picked up the game. (people with far more reach than jonas has right now)

[@SimplyPhoenix]

@@jesseyules No. You can definetly sell games without doing much social media.

[@terryriley6410]

@@SimplyPhoenix Nobody said you can't. Just that Jonas did much social media. If you don't have a popular channel you are going to need to up the quality of the game itself.

[@strangeboltz]

Great video! thanks for sharing this interview

[@TorQueMoD]

Jonas is awesome! You definitely want to start trying to build an audience early on because Steam isn't going to hand you your first 10k wishlists. Once you've got that though, he's quite right that you don't really need much more. My only other suggestion is do a playtest as soon as possible to see what people think. Steam's beta program is perfect for this. There's no sense in wasting your time working on a project in secret for years, only to find out no one wants to play it. Sony just learned this with Concord.

[@SmithRamone1]

man your content is gold, keep it up and thank you

[@dwried]

So, put a sexy picture for a thumbnail on KZbin for the algorithm is where it's going. Not much has changed in other words. Lol

[@gameboardgames]

Great interview, thanks!

[@nimennacnamme6328]

Around 15:00 the music becomes really annoying and distracting :(

[@Yogoda127]

Oh my God, I might be mistaken but after playing Dorf Ramantik and Terrascape it seems with Islanders Jonas created a new video game genre!

[@IndieQuest-s8q]

my biggest take away from this is the time span needed to create the game and limiting the sope to your ability , great video

[@RealCoachMustafa]

His advice about the game being more important is similar to what Chris Zukowski says, which is that the game is the first step of the marketing ladder. After I published my first game, I took at a look at what I should do differently with my on going projects. One thing I noted was genre choice, some genres are just not marketable.

[@hotworlds]

Chris zukowski says the genre of will you snail is just not marketable

[@RogueEva]

good interview, backround music in annozing though

[@CamStokerGI]

Will fix next time, thanks for the feedback!

[@RogueEva]

@@CamStokerGI thanks for the video!

[@nathanbrannan5228]

Just a quick style change for your website. If you can, have the color of the "Add a symbol" warning for registering the account be red. I refreshed the page because I thought the Register button was broken. It doesn't help that you said, "It still needs some love," though. I anticipated problems after that haha! All the best!

[@nathanbrannan5228]

Also, I was a little confused when I hit the To-Do lists. I didn't know if I should be clicking the checkbox or not. I thought that was the only feature available. I didn't think about the area next to the checkbox being a distinct button that would take me to another page. And lastly, the page refresh and page swapping when clicking a checkbox might be a little smoother if it didn't need a page refresh or page swap. Perhaps you could hide the element, in-case someone wants to remove it from the completed list and then indicate to the server that it changed via a boolean value of some sort. Whatever the case, great job on the site! I'd imagine you'll be working on it for the months to come and with it alongside your KZbin, you'll do fairly well.

[@rungeon83]

i could be wrong but I'm sure he also worked on Superflight, which is awesome by the way!

[@adamfdev]

That’s a refreshing perspective

[@error17_]

Jonas is a great indie dev. Also a great interview

[@PHeMoX]

6:00 I'm not sure what he is trying to really argue there. But having a good game that will be interesting to a (large enough) audience is _always_ the number one reason why a game could sell literally any copies. There is no 'do marketing in way A or B and get guaranteed sales' nonsense at play. Not ever. It's why the whole obsession over wishlist numbers or even review numbers is so stupid. Steam algorithms aside, most of which is literally completely hidden anyway, many successful games do not have tens of thousands of positive reviews or wishlist numbers, yet sold well regardless. It's because the game itself is good. 95% of traffic comes directly from Steam, because his KZbin channel is really aimed at developers, not gamers. Also keep in mind that the Steam algorithm will give _all_ games a fair chance of climbing within the algorithmic systems. It's how some of these 'made in 3 months, zero marketing done' type games can still blow up on Steam. It's direct prove of why wishlist numbers are a lot less relevant than they are made out to be. 8:00 That's really just 100% speculation from his side, with random numbers. There are no statistics to support such a claim at all. The actual game is 100000% more important. It's why even being on the frontpage for a bit doesn't guarantee you any sale spikes. There's no comparison to any external traffic being driven anywhere. Steam actually values things like people buying the game, playtime and in-game engagement way more than how people respond to say a random screenshot of your game or a developer announcement on a Steam game page. Consumers also really love a properly valued game at an interesting discount (not just at launch). Most indie devs really underestimate this fact too. 10:00 No, all those algorithmic rewards will always follow trends. There's absolutely no reason why Steam couldn't start to overvalue shorter games that are finished in under 10 hours, allowing people to move on to the next 10 hour game. We saw these types of changes in algorithms on KZbin dozens of times. From focusing on 10 minute videos to super long videos that kept the audience captivated, all the way to overpromoting KZbin shorts in almost a TikTok style. Unsurprisingly, some of this stuff changes just to see if it ends up more profitable to them. You can probably find some type of average playtime statistic underneath all of Steam's algorithms that is currently promoted more than say shorter or much longer game experiences. It's just how statistics and algorithms work by definition.

[@nemo9396]

During your game development were there any unique game mechanics that you wanted to keep as a surprise that you did not show to the public following your game's development until its launch?

[@dejanradovic1548]

I have new title from my new game” The boring box & verdict of the ass 😂🎉

[@UltimatePerfection]

5:28 I'd disagree on that one, but go on.

[@Orionhart]

I feel a bit confused about your questions. They seemed like you were reading off a pre-made list instead of reacting to Jonas. For example Jonas already mentioned Islanders was pre-youtube for him and then you asked why KZbin didn't impact Islanders' success. Or the question "how important is the game you make". I could be wrong but that's how I felt when you were asking additional questions. Thanks for the interview regardless.

[@MichaelKocha]

He also mispronounced his name multiple times after Jonas said it out loud. Is this a fake interview taken from another interview of Jonas?

[@Orionhart]

@@MichaelKocha I'm not here to split hairs. Just felt the interview flow could have been better. 🤝

[@MichaelKocha]

@@Orionhart I'll split the hairs. I think this is a bogus interview.

[@JG-nm9zk]

@@MichaelKocha it does have a lot of weird cuts.

[@CamStokerGI]

Jonas and I talked before we did any recording and he told me it’s Jonas (Yonas) or Jonas with the J. Basically whatever since I’m American and he’s German. Definitely not a fake interview, you can check out the uncut here - kzbin.info/www/bejne/nGTXlJ6GfJybgKs That being said, I definitely can improve the formatting. Appreciate the feedback, and I’ll work on the cutting next time!

[@Hersatz]

There is clearly a correlation between being a public figure and being able to sell a product. Seeing it as otherwise is a reckless marketing though process. His games would very most likely not have made nearly as much without thousands of fans whishlisting the game on steam. Social proof is a very powerful marketing tool.

[@DeavtheDev]

That's true but if you listened to him, he only had 10k subs for islanders which was successful. The probability that 100% of his subscribers wish listed that game is like a 0.00000000000003% chance. So it's more than that.... However it does help tremendously if you already have a following.

[@flamart9703]

What a relief! Now I know that I don't need marketing anymore. 😛

[@idk_something301]

I just clicked because great mustache, but the video was great!

[@xr.spedtech]

What happened to your main channel, my good friend with with 80s beard ?

[@Nullzero98]

Why are there so many goddamn birds

[@AntonMDev]

Jonas is the GOAT!

[@sasdasu00dfsdfardo]

5:38 mhhhhh.... something is weird here....

[@CamStokerGI]

Totally respect the feelings. My main channel is called Going Indie. youtube.com/@goingindie?feature=shared I started this second channel because I talk and work with tons of game developers and I felt like my main channel videos weren’t deep enough and weren’t truly helping game devs. I have made and published a game called stranded shootout (tiny game) and I’m working on my main one called Fallen Worlds with my studio. Been in development for way too long. That being said, I wouldn’t say that’s where my expertise comes from. Most likely you are a much better game designer than me and I would never say that’s my strength. But, I am very well rehearsed in the world of startups and business. I’ve started multiple companies, I’ve consulted hundreds, I’m a business professor, and I have a masters in business creation. My goal is not to tell people how to make games but to help them do all the business stuff correctly. Regardless, if this video feels weird that’s on me and I need to do better. Appreciate the feedback.

[@MichaelKocha]

@@CamStokerGI Not me back peddling and removing my comment after I was caught with my foot in my mouth.

[@CamStokerGI]

Haha all good dude, no worries at all

[@trifilosgr]

@@MichaelKochaI would remove it P.S: Especially if I had a YT ch and being indie trying something 🤔

[@andreypopov3400]

The problem is: you don't know if the game looks good and is fun BEFORE you launch a steam page. But to launch the steam page - you pretty much need 50% of the game completed already; have a nice graphics, trailer, screenshots, etc. I've been working for 3 months only on my trailer! And what do you do with a game that shows up not very good? Abandon the project entirely?.. And, well, all of this interview can be summed up to "make good games, don't make bad games, m'kay"... Which is not very helpful >.

[@Justanotherlurker69]

I think will you snail didn't do as well because of the genre. Jonas mentioned that steam likes long play times and if that's true then a game with replayability should do much better than a fixed length game. Hard mode is building a platformer. Saturated. Short play time. Opposite of what steam players seem to want

[@OnyeNacho]

Time for me to zee the Steam charts again.

[@aimojorma7674]

The background music / ambience was a little bit too loud on this one but nice video nevertheless

[@Moziilla.Firefox]

🆒

[@DeavtheDev]

A little hard to hear over the music

[@PinguinoSod]

bro developed fc24 and put himself on the cover

[@pilotdawn1661]

Great interview. Subscribed and Liked.

[@thelightsilent]

its simple you dont market it. The game should markets itself. If you made a bad game then no matter how much marketing you do you wont be able to sell such trash look at modern triple and quadruple A games theyre junk made by people who have never played a video game before and so they dont sell at all. Concord no matter what marketing you do will never sell. Make a good game itll sell and market itself.

[@thelightsilent]

what makes a good game? a few factors such as: 1. is it fun to play, can you play it for over three hours in a row and still want to play some more the next day. 2. does it have good audio music and sound effects? these are key to immersing the playing into the game and can make or kill a game. 3. Is the art style appealing does it fall under a category like cute, simplistic, easy to understand, realistic or none realistic. if the art in your game is all over the place and not following a theme then the game will be a mess and unpleasant to look at. Think of a jigsaw puzzle you cant just mix up the jigsaw pieces from other sets you need them to match each other to make the overall picture make sense and look good.

[@Gino12164]

If you have a great communicatie skills you can sell everything. If you don't just making it and sell it with no marketing. Marketing is a drag todo and time consuming qnd most of the time not worth it. Pick up the skill where you are good at it.

[@dejanradovic1548]

I always knew it, only loosers make a noise😂🎉 thanx! Pple need to undestand the game is a product, if you have the good product, you will sell it.

[@Moziilla.Firefox]

cool

[@krasnavin]

Great videos! My sixth game goes on sale on Steam in October. I will use marketing ideas from your past two vids, and using them as I design my next game. My coming soon game vid: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJabYomYq6iKpLcfeature=shared

[@OnyeNacho]

I don't buy the advice on marketing (or lack thereof). It's just another airheaded "I did not have to do a lot of marketing, Steam just did all the algor magic for me! But you should STILL waste your time with marketing!" story, awash with thousands of them. I see no impressive advice here. Just another game dev who got lucky and managed to strike the social RNG and game the store algorithm.

[@trifilosgr]

Agreed 🎉🎉

[@SimplyPhoenix]

Yeah, because there is no "impressive advice" out there. There are some tricks, but they act like a multiplier. If your game isn't marketable, those tricks won't matter. The truth is, a certain level of success ALWAYS comes with luck. Its always RNG. So the question is: What have you done to up your chances, and how often are you willing to try again? Because the dice will roll for you eventually if you try long enough. PS: You still have to do quite a lot of marketing, but the outcome of it is marginable in comparison to what steam will reward you with if you succeed with your own marketing efforts.