Marketing A Game To Success

[@MentalCheckpoint]

Please for the love of what is holy, don't put all your eggs in one basket by making your game's marketing all about horse testicles :D

[@DotDotEight]

I'll do it

[@THExRISER]

Too late.

[@vizthex]

my maze game will be marketed as doom but more space, ez.

[@averageunitydev7089]

My entire game is now going to be about horse testicles. I'm going all in.

[@ThePenguinMan]

I feel like I’m missing some context about this.

[@Scott...]

As long as it isn’t “purposely showing bad gameplay to make you want to prove them wrong” I’m up for it

[@FlameUser64]

God yeah I _hate_ that one.

[@kellynolen498]

yeah the mobile games where the player they show doesn't know basic math it really hurts

[@edalb6624]

@bruh It's because nuke was too weak. Stronger explosive could create enough shockwave so it would create a tide that would throw boy on the coast.

[@JoJoboiWav]

Wym? It ain't a bad idea actually, if it works then it works

[@WovenYT]

@@JoJoboiWav no, nononononono… call the police. This man is mentally ill

[@Vailskibum]

Game development sounds insane tbh

[@DOSRetroGamer]

Only if you try to make a living out of it 😉

[@Growing_Your_Game]

It is crazy, but rewarding

[@Taimisverycool]

It's fun fr

[@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE]

And you sound stupid.

[@EtraGames]

Unity Devs, there is now a gameplay recorder package in the new input system to help with this. (+Good vid Xelu)

[@kryloth3628]

Wait what really ? can you tell me how to find it ?

[@PixelatedBeing]

OOH COOL

[@yereksa2263]

Thank you

[@JelowGames]

so you found a way to capture a video of a game on unity? 😭

[@Scuffy]

@@JelowGames what’s ur point?

[@mattdavisgames]

I remember Lucas Pope saying that when he starts a project, he needs to be able to imagine the trailer for the game, and how that will convey the appeal of the game. If he can't figure out how to sell the game in a trailer, it's going to be an uphill battle and probably not a good idea to work on.

[@metallsnubben]

Hard to argue with his results, Papers Please and Obra Dinn have some of the clearest "hooks" around

[@sebay4654]

I mean I already have a trailer for my game concept in mind but that's because it's a complex narrative piece and I want some form of lure to bring in an audience

[@tokaku]

I did not expect to see funorange appear in this video LOL but great video! I swear I thought this was a video from another place that was huge. I forget that you're still extremely underrated

[@taikoto8199]

Tokaku.

[@AlexanderPrussak]

Misaka Mikoto.

[@st.altair4936]

Alexander Prussak.

[@quuuchan]

St. Altair.

[@envycollar]

nice to see you here

[@Jabrils]

Amazing. Amazing. Amazing video. Glad to come across this channel.

[@uninable]

@Locria Cyber Because it is

[@thatguyalex2835]

New game marketing technique? How about the Steam Deck? It is several years ahead of the times, and allows Valve to let console users to enjoy a portable PC, and play Xbox via streaming on the device. Now that Deck is quite a revolutionary marketing tactic I don't even play videogames, but I love the tech of the Deck, and follow the gaming community to try to understand what my friends are talking about. Lol...

[@karimalramlawi7228]

Congrats for your first comment

[@imaginaoYouTubesoquecomarrobas]

Glad to see that Jabrils found this channel

[@DecisionsRQuestionable]

@@uninable give me reasons I agree but the algorithm don't give a shit about a video

[@FG-418]

Playable Demo needs a comeback! This is how I gave a chance to CrossCode, bought the game, and then the DLC and now recommends the game to everyone. Without the demo I wouldn't have tried it at all, and my life would be sadder for it. For a good example of a how a dev supported modding for their game made it keep it's success you can look at Assetto Corsa. The game is still thriving, there is 4x more active players than the newer version which does not support mods.

[@FudgePuppy_]

I started crosscode and enjoyed it, then it got taken off gamepass so I cant play it anymore

[@albertkrieger5700]

It does feel like they're making something of a comeback right now. Steam recently had a few events for upcoming games from different regions, and almost all of them had playable demos! In some of them literally all had a demo! I hope this trend continues, ’cus there have definitely been some games I really like, that I wouldn't have bought, if I hadn't gotten to play them beforehand.

[@Maddiedoggie]

We've got Deltarune and Friday Night Funkin which are super popular despite only being in demos.

[@Mjamar]

I didn't know you had created Move or Die, i just followed you for your videos. You're definetly awesome, guy

[@kaiokendrick]

Same dude! Discovering someone created two unrelated things that are both awesome is the best.

[@trickytreyperfected1482]

You've probably already seen the video I'm talking about, but he also made the button prompt icons that are used in over a hundred games.

[@Mjamar]

@@trickytreyperfected1482 indeed i saw it, the guy's great

[@LisaMiza]

That raging hatred towards the words "user generated content" was so unexpected xD But damn well deserved 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@UsaraDark]

What's the problem with User Generated Content?

[@LisaMiza]

@@UsaraDark sounds like we're just some thing that does stuff when we really are creative lumps of meat

[@dylanbksp]

@@UsaraDark it kinda objectifies players

[@1vader]

@@dylanbksp Does it? I don't see how player generated content is any better. To me it seems like the dislike mainly comes from the existing mechanics that use the word which imo is a stupid reason. While renaming things in some cases can make a real change just through the change in perspective it brings, more often than not it's just a meaningless and imagined change to make the people initiating it feel good and a year down the line when everybody started using the new term, everything is back to how it was before. Especially so with such a meaningless destinction as the one between users and players.

[@pheonyxior_5082]

@@UsaraDark It kinda reminds of Reblox's stupid argument that they are an "experience dealing platform", so those who use it aren't players but "users".

[@StevenCojo]

Oh man, war3 map editor brings me back. My first games I edited maps/levels for were Age of Empires and a Monopoly game.

[@VithorCasteloTutoriais]

10:45 a great example of a game that is still alive ONLY because of modding is starbound the game is GREAT, but the devs kinda abandoned it, the game ir riddled with bugs and performance issues, so, nowdays, all of the community only play it with the mod fracking universe, in fact, theres probably three times as much content on fracking universe as there is in the base game, and if you are not a new player, playing starbound is synonim of fracking universe

[@kellynolen498]

yeah starbounds devs suck they didn't pay there coders and stringed along interns and volunteers with the possibility of actually given a job that's why there's alot ofcool features but there unpolished there literally unfinished not done the Uncredited coder realized he wasn't going to be paid or get the job or whatever the case and left it's a sad story

[@ninjathis3009]

Wait, star bound isn't dead? o.O I remember being super excited for it because I've always been interested in the sorta Terraria-esque voxel style... What is this mod you're talking about? Is it like on steam workshop or something? A whole separate program?

[@vizthex]

i bought starbound forever ago, and stopped playing when they fully launched it and made that stupid bullshit story.

[@vizthex]

@@ninjathis3009 according to the comment, it's called "fracking universe"

[@raven75257]

@@kellynolen498 the first sentiment is not true. Those coders applied as freelancers, but when the work was done, they demanded to be payed

[@4livetv934]

I had no idea that you developed move or die. I had a blast playing the game, thank you for that :)

[@tryoxiss]

Huge respect for keeping most of the assets exposed in your game, I wish more devs would do that these days so its really nice to see. Honestly I might pick up move or die just to support you even though I don't think I would play for more than a few hours :D

[@Floffy22]

Adding photo mode to a game might also make good marketing. Then the community will post photos from the game to social media.

[@CalvinNoire]

Can't you just, screenshot it?

[@Floffy22]

@@CalvinNoire I mean photo mode like on cyberpunk.

[@CalvinNoire]

@@Floffy22 ooh, okay

[@gavinbowers137]

The sound design and editing are absolutely on point

[@thatguyalex2835]

His accent reminds me of Leminno, and his editing style is similar. I love the combo of this type of voice and video editing. :)

[@sabikikasuko6636]

One way of expanding modding is by making your game open-source. That is, be making your game's source code open to the public. Lots of games did this, and it has the potential to pave the way to an amazing community of programmers that can tinker with your game and have literally full creative freedom. Open-source, or even FOSS, to me is the future of software.

[@dariamakesgames]

Great video! It's probably developers' biggest fear that our game comes out, but nobody notices it. I don't usually like thinking about marketing, but these suggestions are very good, and inspire ideas that I could implement in my own game!

[@Lugmillord]

"You've been working on your game for a long time" - I know, I know... don't rub it in. :P

[@LinkEX]

9:00 Bless this man's decision to include the editors. I've used the majority of Edmund's editors of the Newgrounds-Era Games quite extensively, such as those of Spewer and Time Fcuk.

[@jorgehenriq]

why do I always have this feeling that you're talking directly to me with these videos? are you spying on me?!?!?!?!!? Great video as always

[@cybermousey]

It's subtle, but I agree with you. It should be called "Player Generated Content". Let's hope it catches on.

[@Evanz111]

12:40 - respect to you for blurring out the game name! As considering the topic in question, including it would be exactly what they wanted.

[@TheAruruu]

It amazes me how often I see people say that allowing support for modding is equivalent to letting people steal your game. I've never understood how someone can come to that conclusion. Modders keep a game alive long after the developer has given up on it, and help it grow rapidly in the beginning. There was a time in Minecraft when pistons, and even redstone were nothing but mods. Modders create content for your game, for free. It might not be vanilla content (yet), and you may never formally add them to the game, but that doesn't mean you can't support or even encourage their use. Optifine for Minecraft is a GREAT example of this. It'll never be formally added to the vanilla game, but even Microsoft recommends adding it to the game. There's no genre this is more critical to than building/crafting games. Modding needs to be accounted for from the beginning for this genre in particular, and it confounds me how often it's overlooked, ignored, or downright refused by developers of "grand crafting/building" type games.

[@swedneck]

Seriously, for even more extreme examples just look at open source games, if there's a good foundation a community will pop up around the game and quite literally just do development for you. Mindustry is fully open source and still earns money via sales on steam and android!

[@MartinTintin3]

@@swedneck Yea, a great example is Mindustry. Probably one of the best open source games I've seen

[@Pennervomland]

I think the reason why devs don't publish a demo in correlation with multiplayer dependency is because almost every game has a better experience when played alone. This is why i tell my friend to play the first 2 hours of the game (refund time limit) alone, even though we are probably going to play it together 99% of the time. Playing games together right from the get go if one player is more experienced while eventually lead to a bad time for the other player.

[@indievariety]

warcraft 3 worldeditor changed my life, the first time I ever explored creating my own world in a video game. I think of it as a huge influence of why I'm trying to get into the dev field... Love your content!

[@homebrew07]

How are you not super popular, this is extremely high production quality

[@cleander3645]

i love how he shows tf2 and in the clip the heavy gets killed by a bot (save tf2 pls)

[@OGhavok]

i was looking for this comment :)

[@Chris.Batchelor]

Game demos are so helpful, and honestly I wish more companies had them. I remember never really playing Mario games as a kid, but my friend let me play New Super Mario Bros DS via Download Play. After that, I ended up falling in love, and now I’m a Mario/Nintendo fanboy. It’s crazy how just a simple demo can help turn a regular person into a huge fan.

[@LinkEX]

10:15 "It's also how I got into this industry by creating my own voice tracks for Worms: Armageddon." That's amazing. I've also created multiple custom fonts for that game, and it's one of the few "Windows XP era files" I still saved on a hard drive.

[@TheZenytram]

you forgot one point, MEMES. you must make your game MEMEABLE, make it super easy to share meme of the game.

[@mountaindewitt]

Please upload your Porse Horn folder, asking for a friend doe

[@reillocb]

I'm so impressed he liked your comment doe

[@BasementMinions]

Absolutely great video. I remember watching the GDC talk by the creators of Slime Rancher. They talked about how they created the game specifically to be easy to understand and Visually appealing in GIFS. So thinking about how your game can be marketed and the tools you discuss to increase the longevity of a game are all valuable Tools in a game developers belt.

[@nite_owl_was_here]

I got so surprised when I realised who you were, then i thought "well of course he knows what he's talking about.." I'm learning so much from the few videos you've posted so far, and I'm really excited for your future content :)

[@totaltakeover]

Move or Die's Level editor was my first "real" experience with level editing/designing of any kind; The first time I actually wanted to create something and share it. Or if you count that time at a friend's house where I spammed blocks in Mario Maker 1 and never uploaded it.

[@SpadesRL]

I just want to say that I love your content so much! I never knew that I wanted to learn about game dev theory as much as I did. Although I haven't developed anything myself, I have some inspiration to do so now.

[@TinyTroglodyte]

Wow this channel is great! This is educational to me as a developer, plus have the added benefit of being highly entertaining to sit through too.

[@katewuts]

Jackbox is possibly the best example of most of these as it encourages playing with friends and sharing viral moments to people who may not already know about the game

[@ducksanddragons5310]

Honestly, even though people may no mention it, we truly think this channel is underated for what amazing content you provide to us.

[@KefkeWren]

How strong is modding? The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, a game released in 2002 - that's nearly _twenty years ago_ - still has an active community around it. In the last 30 days, there have been 66 mod release for Morrowind on Nexus. That's more than two mods a day, on an almost twenty year old game. If mods can keep a twenty year old game relevant, think what good modding tools can do for your new release.

[@midasmagnezone4282]

For all the great tips mentioned, for the love of everything great please don't make online-only achievements. It's just flat out annoying to play a game that doesn't have an online server that's supported anymore and have that dread empty spot in your achievement list.

[@vizthex]

ikr.

[@TheOrian34]

Yes, please.

[@2wr633]

this video might blow up i think

[@realtimestatic]

You're on KZbin for such a short time but your Videos are so high quality we could think you've already had this channel for Years! Props man your channel is gonna grow way larger!

[@supremechaosbeing2696]

Have you considered memes? I don't know shit about melty blood but that cat being is ingrained in my head

[@teirusureynard9279]

I think healthy levels of interacting with modders and even people less confident in modificaiton and creation can really encourage things. If someone shares an idea you find good, and it seems feasible, it may be a way of including the community with idea credits or simple things, that may encourage sharing. If someone finds out their name is being added to credits with a special thanks, they're going to want to share it with friends.

[@user-kt3hl5ep7s]

Tutorial: how to make a marketing mess instead of a good game. If you are focusing on the user acquisition even when designing the core of your game, you're probably trying to sell some business crap instead of art. It all sounds just like mobile hyper-casual design principles. Not a single great game was done this way. Marketing is necessary (sadly), but it should never be the main focus unless you only care about money. Which is a valid point for a publisher, I guess. And yes, a good game sells itself very well. There are a lot of examples out there. You just didn't make one

[@cameronross8812]

My absolute favourite of design documents as marketing are the design diaries of Cole Werhle, modern board gaming phenom.

[@Hyacsho]

I completely agree with this list; I've found these on my own when I tried to plan out my own publishing business. I just get heart broken when developers don't care.

[@utkrishtthaman1545]

This channel is amazing, only took a single video to convince me to subscribe Video styles and topics remind me a lot of GMTK however much more on the developer side than the game mechanics, not comparing you to GMTK tho, you're quite unique

[@Hobby_Technology]

I'm absolutely loving this channel! I'm writing this comment because I just noticed how new and small your channel is! It already feels like something much bigger than 20k subscribers. Absolutely stellar work here so far!

[@nopir3898]

Don't have any comments, but I want to boost this vid in the algorithm. Keep up the great content

[@TheRighteousDawn]

It's really good to find deep topics from experienced and accomplished game developers that have titles behind them.

[@wittynickame4870]

This channel is just *chef’s kiss*.

[@guywithknife]

If an achievement were tied to playing with someone on my friends list, I would be pretty annoyed, because I rarely play games with my friends, because our tastes in games don't all match up all the time and often neither do our schedules due to work, people having kids etc.

[@buddt222]

This channel is insanely high quality, I love it! Going through the backlog now!

[@overlisted]

you deserve way more subscribers!

[@bl4ck1911]

For me it was the Re-Volt Track Editor that made me so glad I could make my own tracks and race into them with my friends back then :D

[@pybroiii6155]

i think hatred deserves recognition. the feelings of violence, anger, and hate are really overlooked, and it feels like they're looked down upon and are painted as wrong and not normal. This view of rage and such as wrong feelings to have, and showing those feelings leading to ostracization, makes it so people don't like expressing those feelings and they bottle them up. I think hatred is one of those expressions and its an important case of the freedom and willingness to purge those feelings. Nobody should feel bad for expressing a certain type of emotion, and it should be made clear that expressing these things helps us sort them out.

[@ragnose1]

id also like to add that zachtronics later added features that allowed you to turn off those graphs for players who find them to be a problem for any reason (from pressure to self hate due to having ineffecient designs and other shit)

[@monkemode8128]

Regional high scores are awesome too. I forgot the game but I wasnt able to compete globally but I was able to get in the top 10 in my region

[@BT77778]

This is very helpful, especially for a early game developer as myself can take these advise and use them whenever I am preparing to launch my game!

[@RobLang]

My goodness, that's another cracking video. Some good for thought for my game - at the very least I could make it easier for me to share clips during Dev with some features. Thank you!

[@karimitickaeloogreattemlor3486]

Damn dude, how come each one of your videos is a banger?

[@xpercade8926]

dont know shit about what you're talking about but you got me watching the whole thing to learn more

[@FlameSoulis]

Tip for future modding in 3D titles: there are common formats that hope to work more universally, like VRM. They want to help you, and helping them opens many doors for yourself.

[@Yoobster]

0:06 When it said "maketing" I felt that 😔😔

[@spicykoreannoodle]

this thumbnail looking fine af

[@h3ctic504]

Love the videos! Is there a music list? Specifically looking for the song at 7:30

[@h3ctic504]

@@MentalCheckpoint I look forward to it :)

[@ericbazinga]

4:21- Hypnospace Outlaw? Niiiice.

[@conando025]

Must feed the algorithm, no but seriously great video

[@GonziHere]

I've released nothing (so far), but yeah, I thought about "marketability" of my project a lot and it significantly shaped the design. Which is why I wouldn't do a random 2D platformer for example and it's kinda sad to see how many people just don't get it. If they don't make it just for fun, that is.

[@NeerajLagwankar]

Thanks a lot for including the sources of games you've used in your video.

[@kailomonkey]

Not so hot on the achievements ideas proposed. Unless they form a separate achievement list to the main, so you can still 100% the achievements without requiring friends and modifications. In which case they are good ideas, just having them as a separate achievement list attached to a free DLC of extra content specific for multiplayer for example. The original Red Dead Redemption did this for instance, though it still included some main game online trophies, 2 of which required winning online in a row that weren't so hot.

[@AnnisVeryGoodGames]

Ohhhhhh, "wall and baba is you"... I was puzzling over that level just recently! Anyway, great video and great points. Cheers!

[@lyagva]

4:40 Oh my. Russian word. КОНСТРУКТОР(Constructor).

[@user-qh8vm1me5w]

Underrated, LITERALLY.

[@GuRuGeorge03]

I thought this would be about a concept that is often used in tech. build a small MVP (minimum viable product) or even just teaser, that shows off the most important aspects of your idea and then pitch it to investors or publicly on social media and gather data on what people think of it. make use of polls and stuff. Now repeat this process a bunch of times. u can probably put out a MVP about once every 2 months and after a bit of practice even twice per month. Now imagine the power of this data. U can now compare all the ideas and then pick out the most promising one, based on the data. U may have to spend a few a months or even years on doing this. But the chance of success is almost guaranteed if u then keep iterating the same idea with let's say the game's core features :)

[@GamerReality]

Great video! You're videos are always so informative, original, and high quality! This is the game dev fuel I need!

[@AndrewS-vu4ji]

Literally was thinking about this sort of topic recently. 1. Guess I don't need to make a youtube video about it(probably still will eventually) 2. Wow you're severely underrated. 3. Is your game the move or die that had an OST made by F-777 but went unreleased? Because I literally have it downloaded.

[@c64cosmin]

Are you Romanian, I saw some promotion in the background that was in Romanian, so happy to see the industry is vibrant in our country as well.

[@VilasNil]

I love Zachtronics games, glad they made an appearance in this video!

[@good-sofa]

Mod support is very important indeed! Even for the people who just play. It can keep your favourite game alive after you completed it fifteen times already

[@HANIMEME]

this video is literally perfect, its like the manifesto of good game development

[@liamkortekaas6328]

This is the second video I've watched from this channel, but I am definitely already subscribed. Holyshit man, these are some real high quality video's. Why again do you only have 13k Subs?

[@sbilldmilk]

8:24 appreciate the Mr. Fruit clip

[@Orinslayer]

4:20 hypnospace outlaw representing the internet lol.

[@MateusAuri]

Ok, I did NOT expect to see the FIFA 99 intro in here

[@hundvd_7]

2:32 God, I fucking hate when a game does that In case your game doesn't succeed, or simply my friends don't like it, will just mean that there's an achievement I won't be able to get, and it is 100% outside of my control. Devs. PLEASE DON'T DO THIS

[@hundvd_7]

The demo thing he says after that (and making your game completely free) are good options to make the load lighter, but still. It's just annoying when you just don't happen to have enough friends to play with you

[@hundvd_7]

As an example, I have ~200 hours in L4D2, and I still don't have the STRENGTH IN NUMBERS achievement, which needs a full run of a single campaign of 4v4 players. It's just not in the culture of the game to run a full campaign. People skip less-ideal maps. My friend got this achievement after like 2600 in-game hours

[@danuvip]

you got in my algorhythm! congratulations, great videos keep it up!

[@parkerdangaruss]

hey it would be really cool if you had small text somewhere or some indication of what games are on screen. alot of these snippets are making me interested in the games you show but idk how to find them.

[@user-qh8vm1me5w]

Imagine if this video blows up

[@baronzad2056]

Honestly I just go for the term, "Community Content," usually replacing "content" with something specific: map, weapon, art, etc.

[@camwha5904]

I realize this is not related to the video topic but the clip at 13:15 fooled me pretty well. I am legit having trouble telling if that is real footage or from a game.

[@user-sp6jj3lh2o]

The biggest problem I see is most people think marketing is advertising, promotion or basically communication, when thats a small part of it and probably the most annoying/boring

[@SendFoodz]

Ad Hoc sharing on Mario 64 DS was amazing!

[@errantoverflow4828]

Man this Channel is a hidden gem. Thanks a lot for putting out these great videos.

[@leonardo9259]

2:39 yoooo my man encountered a bot

[@magentialice]

in a world where attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, videos that are an hour or longer in length sure do seem to be getting popular

[@rominkivela9351]

one game that i think is thriving because of modding is Rimworld. the modding support for the game is absolutely huge, and Tynan has made an emphasis specifically on making modding for Rimworld to be easier. sure, there's a bit of a joke about how there's a lot of stuff in some mods that make the mods basically part of the base game, but honestly mad respect to Tynan. one update a while back (i think it was around the time of the release of the Royalty DLC, not too sure on the time of it, might have been the patch going with the dlc) was actually delayed. initially when i heard it was delayed i was pretty pissed. but after i looked into why, it turned out that Tynan wanted to make it as easy on modders as possible. the update was delayed *for* the modding community i recently played a bit of (almost) pure vanilla with a few qol mods for better performance cause im on my bad laptop right now but vanilla alone is still amazing

[@1vader]

While supporting mods is great, adding an achievement for creating a mod is an aweful idea. Many people enjoy getting all the achievements a game has to offer but clearly not everybody wants to or even should try to create a mod. It just leads to a flood of spam mods created by following some step by step guide without understanding a single thing. A similar thing imo also applies to achievements for doing something with a friend, especially so if it requires the friend to own the game as well (and maybe unless the game is already local co-op focused). Some people maybe don't have any friends that are into those specific games which means if they want to 100% the game they now need to find some random person on the internet for that achievement or resort to a cheat to unolock it.