How To Make Money With A Kitfox

Kitfox communications director Victoria Tran opened her Montreal International Game Summit presentation on "The $0 Marketing Plan" Tuesday with an admission.

"The title of this talk is a prevarication," Tran said. "I definitely kind of click-baited information technology. There's no such thing every bit $0 marketing, because for one, I cost money. Any time, resources, or ability you put into marketing counts equally money, and I think that's something people fail to budget for. And that'south a lot of the places where indies can falter because they forget that the time you have to put into marketing counts for a lot."

Withal, if developers are able to invest that time, they tin can encounter a significant return. Tran noted that Kitfox does plenty of marketing, merely they don't do paid ads or streamer sponsorship, and near of their PR outreach is done in-house. Over the studio's 6-year history, information technology has created its own games like Boyfriend Dungeon, Moon Hunters, and Lucifer Within Us, and is publishing a scattering of other developers' titles including Dwarf Fortress and Mondo Museum.

"Marketing isn't magic, obviously," Tran said. "You need to have a good game in order for u.s. to be able to market it, only marketing makes it easier to find. You need to know where your game stands out and how it's dissimilar. You need a unique game premise. I think a lot of devs get caught upward in thinking they demand an extremely new game idea, but that's not actually what we talk about when we say you need a unique game. You merely need a game that you lot can explain to people is new, or seems new. Information technology doesn't actually need to be the most unique game in the globe. You lot demand to form your marketing in a way that makes it unique to the player'southward heed.

"Few people are actually interested in what's better; anybody is interested in what's new"

"So it'south not just nigh being ameliorate. Few people are really interested in what's amend; anybody is interested in what'southward new. So that ways y'all're not constantly comparing yourself to another game, and you're getting your fans excited most something they deem as new. Because it'south very difficult to actually make an entirely new concept."

That process starts with the hook, the brusque description that will capture someone'south interest in the game and become them to learn more. Tran gave an case of a hook with the name omitted: "[Blank] is a fast-paced 2nd activity-take a chance with challenging gainsay, a rich story, and gorgeous fine art." That might sound nice, but Tran pointed out the game to fill in that blank could be Boyfriend Dungeon, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, or The Messenger. If you take the name of the game and proper nouns out of your hook and it's indistinguishable from the hook of competing or similar games, then you probably need a better hook, Tran said.

A look at Boyfriend Dungeon's Steam page

"If you need help making something unique, take out everything you lot would ordinarily utilise to describe the game, and so endeavor to describe it once again without those words," Tran suggested. "So for instance, no using story-driven, puzzle, narrative, action, Metroidvania, roguelike... Does it nonetheless audio interesting plenty to play, and is it easy enough for a non-gamer to understand?"

She added, "Essentially, your hook should arm-twist some strong emotional reaction, whether it'due south good or bad. It's not necessarily informative. Every bit long as y'all tin embed a feeling into the player when they read about information technology -- even before they start playing -- that's when you know you've got a good hook."

However, she noted the hook must actually be core to the gameplay of the game; it won't exercise to take a cool hook if it's not fundamentally related to what the game is. Additionally, she encouraged doing some market place research around the hook; see what competing or similar games take tried and whether or not those approaches worked for them. Practise A/B testing on social media, try out different descriptions when introducing the game to people at events and see what connects with them. Ideally, information technology'southward a ane-sentence description that people volition be able to hands repeat to their friends or family as they talk about the game.

"People whorl by the [Steam] capsules really fast and so you want something that captures attending"

While it'south a little different from the hook, the title of the game is as well of import, with Tran saying it helps to take a name that people can Google easily. A search for the game shouldn't render a movie past the same name or something else with a large cultural footprint when interested people try to notice out more well-nigh it.

The championship and hook will appear on a game's Steam page, just in that location are numerous other things to consider about the storefront, Tran said. Contrary to what some might wait, loads of Steam users don't go straight to the trailers when bringing up a store page; they'll ofttimes scroll through the screenshots commencement, so information technology helps when developers have their most attractive screens up front end, with more explanatory but less scintillating shots pushed a petty farther down the line. Tags can too be helpful, if used properly.

"The 'indie' tag is kinda worthless so tag information technology with something people would search for and are interested in," Tran said.

Games on Steam also benefit from having shop pages link to their diverse social channels and external websites, and Tran underscored the importance of a good sheathing image.

"1 of the things you have to consider is how your capsule looks when people scroll by it," Tran said. "People ringlet by the capsules actually fast and then you want something that captures attention then they'll click on it and learn more about information technology."

Swain Dungeon has had three capsule images in the two years it's been listed on Steam, Tran said, then they've experimented a little with it. At first it had a bright pink capsule that leaned into the romantic element of the game, and that did well at get-go. But they were concerned people idea it was just a dating sim, then they updated the capsule to a muddier-colored panel with a motion picture of a dagger on it. That one didn't perform equally well, so they swapped it out for its current capsule, which features people (because viewers connect more with faces, Tran explained) and a brighter color that helps information technology pop out from the Steam background.

And so what qualifies as "doing well"? Tran said the studio wants a bare minimum 2% click-through rate from people who see the capsule. It'due south possible for a game to do considerably better (Tran noted that Mondo Museum is at around 30% at the moment, but that may be inflated by it being a new release and the appeal of the museum name), but ii% is where Kitfox sets the bar. The studio's upcoming game Lucifer Within Us has a click-through rate just under that threshold, and then Tran said it'south likely to exist swapped out in the future.

Kitfox would like the Lucifer Within Us sheathing art to stand up out more than

Tran addressed outreach to journalists and influencers separately, but both were underpinned by the thought that developers should think almost the needs of the people they're reaching out to, and try to position their games to fit those needs. Journalists tend to encompass games they're personally interested in, stories with newsworthiness, or interesting angles and human interest stories. Influencers need to entertain their audience and experiences they tin can react to, moments that invite clipping and sharing online. Any in-game functionality that lets them contain the audition (say past re-naming characters to members of the chat) is a stiff bonus.

"Social is really notoriously terrible for conversion"

Tran acknowledged Kitfox doesn't practice much with streamers because its games are spoiler-heavy and not optimized for streamers' needs, only even simply giving a complimentary key tin exist skillful enough.

"Information technology might not be equally guaranteed every bit a sponsorship, just people are still willing to work with y'all and class relationships with yous," Tran said. "And that's kind of the important affair when it comes to indies: maintaining the relationships."

When streamers do encompass a game, Tran said information technology's helpful to sentry the stream live if possible and tweet out your thanks to them. Additionally, she suggested targeting mid-level streamers because many of the top ones don't actually drive purchases like on might expect; she reasoned much of their audiences tunes in strictly for the streamers' personalities and not in search of new games to discover.

Finally, Tran talked about social media channels. Gathering emails for a newsletter is a good style to start, whether it's with a pencil and pad of paper at an outcome or by having a sign-upward process embedded in a demo (equally Boyfriend Dungeon has). Once the newsletter is upwards, cross-promoting it with Twitter, Discord, and other channels (and vice-versa) is also a must.

"Any time I have any sort of newsletter update, I e'er link our Twitter and our Discord," Tran said. "Plaster it everywhere. Cantankerous-promote it everywhere. On your trailers, literally wherever you can. Remember to at least link something in your communications with people."

Tran cautioned to limit the number of links to 2 or three every bit people will just ignore anything beyond that. And while social channels can assistance heave awareness, build relationships with fans, and quickly notify you of any issues that crop up with your game, it has one significant drawback.

"Social is actually notoriously terrible for conversion," Tran said. "I'm telling you this considering I don't desire you lot to focus all your time on social media... Put try into social media channels and track how much return you lot become on them. Once y'all see trends on how they do for you, y'all can outset to fade out the ones that aren't worth it."

For example, Tran says she sees well-nigh a ii-five% conversion rate through Twitter, which she sees as adept enough to justify focusing some of her efforts at that place. Facebook on the other hand is lower, so she essentially ignores it.

Finally, she advised developers to put a little joy into their marketing campaigns.

"It's whatever works for your studio," Tran said. "Since nosotros're indies, we might as well take fun with it. Not everything has to be super lamentable all the fourth dimension."

Disclosure: MIGS provided travel and accommodations for GamesIndustry.biz to attend the event.

Source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-11-20-a-kitfox-guide-to-marketing-on-the-cheap

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