How YouTubers find Indie Games to play! (Maybe yours?)

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💬 Getting KZbinr or Streamer coverage in your games is really important nowadays, it can take your game from unknown to mega hit, like Vampire Survivors.
In order to learn how to get KZbinrs to cover our games let's learn from those content creators themselves on what they look for when looking for games to cover.
If you follow these tips then your odds of getting coverage increase. Although also remember how all these tips are just multipliers that work on top of your game concept. The better your game's hook the more these tips help.
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[@daniel3dart]

NICE! This is a great look into this kind of marketing. CM is killing it with great videos. So glad he is covering so much to help get indie devs like me started.

[@MarushiaDark316]

Something else to keep in mind is that some creators are picky about what types of games they play. For instance, someone who generally only plays FPS games might not respond well to a colony management simulator. Plenty of gamers cross pollinate, but it could be one reason why certain people reject you is they're just not into that type of game, even if the game itself is objectively fun and well-made and well-presented.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Yup great point, some are variety creators, others just focus on one specific genre. No point in sending a key for your Visual Novel to Real Civil Engineer

[@tiqosc1809]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity Some civil engineer enjoy visual Novel

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

I meant the Real Civil Engineer KZbin channel, not a random person who is a civil engineer. That KZbin channel only covers simulation/strategy/builder games, not visual novels.

[@MarushiaDark316]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity On the other hand, if you find popular creators within your niche, it can help it spread. For instance, SmallAnt loves Pokemon, so Palworld was a natural fit for him. Dosh Doshington loves Factorio, so a factory game would work great. PirateSoftware loves Helldivers, and so forth.

[@Itsjustjord]

When it comes to emails I find if I go to cover a game it mainly has to match my content if not you're wasting your time also when looking to cover games I want to be on a level playing field with other creators, so a soft embargo I feel makes me want to cover it, because I always find a good exchange is early access. I would also say that with emails if you do the whole "Catchy title catchy title, now available" I will assume it's a mass spammed email and I've just been included on your spam list and I will ignore it. The best email I find are often straight to the point with the email title for example: Early Access for ItsJustJord, a new mascot horror similar to Poppy Playtime". Then I would click then the contents of the email should just be simple to the point and easy for me to get the key and find your socials. :)

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Nice! Thanks for the extra tips!

[@tymondabrowski12]

What do you mean by "soft embargo" exactly?

[@Itsjustjord]

@@tymondabrowski12 have an embargo date ready for creators that have a copy early, it's only soft because I wouldn't assume you have the legal docs ready for a full embargo.

[@PhodexGames]

Something I have struggled with are influencer names. Like for example your KZbin handle is "Itsjustjord", still in your comment you write it like "ItsJustJord". Would it be wrong if I would write "Hello Its Just Jord" for example? Or does all this not really matter much. Normally I would just copy the name from the influencers handle, but there are often special characters or a specific way of writing it, which looks weird in an email.

[@calebgilbertyt]

This was super insightful, definitely going to research further into this topic. Thank you so much!

[@kimjongduck5335]

Thank you so much for the tips! Very nice and info-packed video. Straight to the point. Well done ! :)

[@sELFiNDUCEDcOMAcom]

Thank you for making videos on industry related dev stuff like marketing. Hope you make more as they are very insightful and useful. Cheers!

[@DeiveEx]

Thanks! That's a lot of useful information!

[@Kaikaku]

Very informaitive video and I like the structure with overview/motivation, details, and summary. Also it might make life of KZbinrs easier.

[@Alaabale]

Wow this is really new but important info thanks for sharing

[@LearnH2L]

The content you produce is always amazing, thanks for supporting the niche. I genuinely think that your videos are being capped because not everyone knows Unity and C#, but marketing like this really reaches a broader audience.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you like my videos!

[@ragerungames]

Great suggestions. Surely going to apply it with my first steam game.

[@immitatedone1511]

Really good advice! Thanks!

[@markguyton2868]

I've made a "game" a while back and posted it, no one will find it, and if someone does they will be greatly disappointed. :3 That aside, marketing scares me and that would probably be the end of the line even if I made a "good" game.

[@davidwusoftdev]

Thank you for the marketing advice!

[@The6thRonin]

Excellent and informative video

[@onemantwohearts]

❤ great video, thanks for the info

[@PhodexGames]

I usually avoid any heavy HTML in my emails, especially if I send out to influencers. The most I would do is a lightweight image or gif. The last thing you want is your email getting removed by a junk filter. Besides HTML emails easily can look like spam. 95% of legit business emails I recevieve are plain text. Just my two cents.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

That is indeed the potential issue. Using HTML can make the email visually more interesting (especially with images and gifs) but yup depending on your email reputation it might get rejected. So perhaps for a brand new domain using plain text might be better.

[@WannabeGamedevv]

Pretty much sameas a developer Splattercat and Orbital potato + browsing game jams summary keeps me updated. Lately i only play the game if im supper interested about it which is actually a bad thing as it keeps me disconnected from the market trends and other players.

[@EissaBader]

Since you have been trying differernt types of videos would love to see a 45 min focused programming session

[@rootbindev]

awesome

[@Karot-fr8vx]

This video was super helpful, but one question I have is how do you find youtubers who play lots of different games like the three one's you mentioned? Most channels I find usually just post videos about the same 1 or 2 games.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Just put game names on KZbin search and browse all the channels. That's what I normally do before I publish a game to update my press email list. Although variety KZbinrs are indeed more rare, I believe SplatterCat is the biggest, then there's also some semi-variety ones like Real Civil Engineer that does variety but only within a specific genre.

[@Karot-fr8vx]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity Thanks I'll try that!

[@Blackleafdragon]

Weird question, was your thumbnail background image made using generative ai? Cool to see it being used to improve workflow for youtubers aswell!

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Yup! I've been using AI to help me make thumbnails for some time now. It's a pretty invaluable tool that helps me make thumbnails faster and make them better than anything I could make with my limited art skills.

[@WAYNGames]

What tool/service are you using to make nice looking email like your example?

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

None, I wrote the HTML myself and I sent it out using my custom PHP script through Mailgun which is what I use for the emails on my website. Although there are tons of email tools that exist, those are probably easier to use, but since I built my own for my website I just reuse it for this

[@NOTAHEK]

Is there a way to have google console account without international credit card

[@Kaillenchristensen]

👍

[@ThinkWithGames]

Great video! Some advice I've heard is that games are great for content creators when the game is an "infinite unique situation generator". This is why games like among us or basically any multiplayer game with no set campaign are able to to take off. It can be played over and over, providing tons of opportunity for content creation.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Yup if the game concept has the potential to create funny scenarios that definitely increases the odds of being covered by some specific streamers

[@dooshimagames]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@APTEM59]

I just noticed that there is the same face on every video thumbnail lol

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

heh yup, I'm not good at making "KZbinr faces" so I just grabbed a random screencap from one of my videos and I've used it ever since. Although I should probably make some slightly different ones

[@Fursando]

Are you Brazilian or from a country that speaks Portuguese?

[@onemantwohearts]

Portugal

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

I'm Portuguese from Portugal

[@Fursando]

Cool I'm Brazilian

[@bathi1953]

Thanks for the insight information.

[@johngrey5806]

I got hooked on Vampire Survivors after watching SplatterCat's video.

[@flamart9703]

I don't like when someone promote their products to me on the street, phone or in front of my door, so I hate to promote myself as well. Maybe I'll just send a promotional mail to myself as you did. :)

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Promoting only feels bad when you don't think what you're promoting is good, but if you worked hard on your game and you think it's awesome and you want people to play it then promoting it becomes a very positive thing!

[@flamart9703]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity Maybe, but I'm just not a trader type person and don't like trader's tricks. Instead spending more time improving my games, I'll need to spend it for damn marketing. And the worst thing is that better marketing will need more time and work.

[@utkugulcu232]

6:50

[@NowKnownMAWO]

Someone want to play my games?

[@ZenGaming6000]

Hey what games are yours? I will have a look at it

[@NowKnownMAWO]

@@ZenGaming6000 I'm currently developing an action-roguelike (such as vampire survivor) named "Arcade Space Survivor".

[@dejungelinafrika]

Me too!

[@Vellar92]

I will try them out. I am no youtuber, but I mainly play indie games. So give a link :)

[@malokegames]

Play mine too, will release next week 😅

[@crazyden2345]

What's up guys and gals welcome to the nerd castle?

[@googleuser4720]

Means nothing when you contact them and they don't reply. They only play what's trending. Meaning people as big as Markiplier have to discover it first. Developers, don't waste your time.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

What do you mean "don't waste your time"? If your goal is success then marketing isn't a "waste", it's a necessity If you don't spend any time doing any kind of marketing then your odds of success are lower than winning the lottery.

[@googleuser4720]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity If what you said worked, then 80% or more games wouldnt be shoved down the memory hole on Steam and other platforms. Youre talking cap my dude!

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

I'm very confused trying to understand what you're trying to say. Yes Steam is hyper competitive and extremely difficult to stand out. But how exactly does "don't do any marketing" help with that? These tips, and any marketing tips, will never guarantee success, but not doing them will certainly guarantee failure, so I'm very confused as to what is your point.

[@googleuser4720]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity Whoa who said don't do ANY marketing? Stop twisting/gaslighting. You won't understand anyway, you aren't most developers out there. Just like a politician who claims they speak for the people.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

You literally said "don't waste your time" Anyways clearly you're having a rough day and for some reason decided to take it out on me. So all I can say is I wish you the best of luck with your games, I hope you find success with whatever methods you decide to pursue. Thanks!

[@mikhailhumphries]

bro nobody going to play my game (thats what im realizing)

[@rayzorite]

us

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

It is tricky! It all starts with having a compelling concept with a good hook and nice visuals. All of these tips are just multipliers on top of that.

[@41ex]

Day 3 of asking codemonkey to make a video on having multiple UI for multiple players in Netcode.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

What do you mean by that? The UI should likely only exist on the local player, meaning on the player that as IsOwner = true; Are you talking about local multiplayer? That will depend a lot on how you design your game, some local multiplayer games have a shared global UI for all, others have local UI on top of each character with world space UIs kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKjKm2ajrLSJosk

[@41ex]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity do you have a discord? If you accept payment for teaching/helping I’d like to pay you to help me

[@41ex]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity well when I’ve been following your Netcode multiplayer tutorial from the Kitchen game, I’m having players have their own POV, while in your game, everyone shares the same screen. In my version where every player has their own screen, the UI only stays on the local player, (the unity editor window) regardless of whether or not it’s a host or client, the UI will always remain on the unity editor window and not the external build window? Any ideas?

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Not sure what you mean by "external build window", if you make a build it should work exactly like it does in the editor. Maybe you have some error in the build, check the build logs. Or maybe your build has a strange aspect ratio, make sure your UI elemnts are correctly anchored.

[@-Crude]

Genuinely, video is good but thumbnail kinda sucks. Why you don't make it simpler and not use ai

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Because I'm not a thumbnail artist, so by using a tool I can make much better thumbnails than without that tool

[@Qornv]

With peace and love, I understand that you're a single person having to do a lot for these videos, but AI thumbnails give such an impression of low quality/effort and they stand out like a sore thumb with so many content creators doing the same thing.

[@shortshortshort]

I agree, codemonkey content is way too good for the cheap looking AI thumbnails. If you have to, I get it, but it sure doesn’t sell the videos for me.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

It's just a tool and it's a tool that allows me to make higher quality thumbnails and make them faster. If I don't use this tool then the result is worse and takes longer, you can browse my video list to see thumbnails before and after. It's especially useful for these more abstract talking videos that have no inherent visual. I understand some people really dislike AI, but it really has been an invaluable tool in my scenario. No one has lost their job, I used to make my thumbnails myself and I still do, but now I have an extra very useful tool. And if you're asking why don't I hire an dedicated thumbnail artist, there's 2 reasons: A) Not enough money, each video makes about $20 (10k views), thumbnail artists charge about $60 per thumbnail. B) Not enough time, I work at a very fast pace and make lots of videos on lots of topics, I don't normally have videos prepared many days in advance so having to wait 3 days to get a thumbnail back from an artist wouldn't work. So after analyzing all the pros and cons I've come to the conclusion that using this tool is massively beneficial for me to continue making more videos and cover more topics to hopefully help you, the viewers, on your game dev journey.

[@shortshortshort]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity Thanks, I understand! For the record, I don’t hate AI at all, I just don’t like the images Dalle-3 creates. I also think your other (man made) thumbnails look better. But I get that it takes a lot more time than prompting a few times and then done. I appreciate you reading and answering my comment. The intent was simply to provide some feedback. All good!

[@iliachakarov7285]

Tbh I don't think this thumbnail looks cheam

[@gravity_mxk5663]

AI thumbnail 🤮

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Yup! AI has been an incredibly useful tool for me, it allows me to make much better thumbnails and make them faster than compared to when I didn't use this tool

[@googleuser4720]

Youre not providing info that actually is useful. Youre basically just saying pay to advertise and see if anything sticks. Nothing might stick.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

What? Nothing I said in the video is paid. Crafting a good email doesn't cost you anything, what are you talking about?

[@googleuser4720]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity You said so yourself, they're not there to help you, you are the one helping them.

[@CodeMonkeyUnity]

Yes the number one goal of Streamers/KZbinrs is to entertain their audience, and NOT to help sell your (or me, or any developer) game. I'm not sure what part of that makes you think "pay to advertise"

[@googleuser4720]

@@CodeMonkeyUnity So why dont you provide information that has the first priority of promoting your game? Oh wait, you cant. So why clickbait it like that? These videos are the reason youtube sucks these days, along with brain-rot shorts

[@pro.giciel9084]

@@googleuser4720 you're the brain rotted one here

[@standpoint945]

I have been cursed,I cannot get pinned please break my curse

[@rayzorite]

cry, spammer

[@Trupen]

👍