Marketing is Part of the Job
In the new world, good games and marketable games are indistinguishable
“How do you know what games to look for?”
People who know about my love of games are curious about how I know about games. And the answer suggests a lot about the changing ways artistic ideas spread through society.
Unlike movies, where you might see a preview on TV, games you tend to discover solely through either word of mouth or a recommendation algorithm. Newspapers, TV, and critics have been replaced by a patchwork network of podcasts, YouTubers, and recommendation algorithms that drive games to the viewers.
How people discover video games is important because they are a much larger investment of money and time than other types of art, both for the audience and the creators. An indie game might take years to produce and be the only game someone plays that year. But an indie book or movie might be measured in months and be one of many someone reads or watches.
This has led to intense debate about how independent video game designers should sell their games. This is one of the sharpest debates in video games. How do you think about selling the games you make?
Market Research as Game Design
Doing some quick research on how to market a game will lead you to well-written resources discussing how to build games to succeed, rather than doing marketing.
As How to Market a Game Describes:
Identify the secret genre tripwires
Your genre’s audience almost unconsciously understands these Anchors. To leave them out or to overturn too many of them is like ignoring cultural traditions. It is like putting your feet on a table or shaking hands when you should have bowed.
There are also plenty of resources on YouTube that discuss these concepts in depth:
The implicit (and sometimes explicit) argument these pieces make is that this isn’t “marketing” because you’re not selling your game to someone, or doing something to hit goals of views. They argue that through iteration and testing (and their framework) you can land on solid nuggets of ideas. Then you can refine that towards a “good game” that will be highlighted by the algorithm (on Steam) and audiences. The algorithm in both of these cases is the recommendation engine that various websites use to highlight new games (or YouTube videos) that someone might be interested in playing (or watching).
It’s not surprising that these methods are broadly successful. What’s surprising is that these concepts are being discussed like new ideas or considered to not be marketing. Market research, whether in the form of focus groups, surveys, interest trackers, has been around for decades now. And tailoring something to an audience, an algorithm, or a content creator is no different from other forms of market research. The primary difference now is that smaller companies (and individuals) can sell direct to consumers.
Like Stephen Totilo describes in his latest article:
But there’s something else to be said for UFO 50.
It might be the most 2024 video game anyone can play this year.
UFO 50 arrives in the same manner 2024 did (and 2023, for that matter).
It blankets its player with a generosity of many great games to play, and it therefore forces some stellar work to get neglected, as the player finds themselves with just too many wonderful things to try.
And even I was describing this in August with the sheer overload of games to play in the last 3 months:
It’s been overwhelming to try to keep up with!
The Case of Arco
But there are also games like Arco. Incredible works of art, backed by solid publishers, that fail to find their footing at launch.
Like one of the authors says on twitter:
This is despite the game developers hitting the right marks when it came to press coverage, wishlists, and being highlighted in various showcases. What stuck out to me reading their tweet threads was how differently they talked about the marketing process. They talked about hitting all the right numbers with wishlists and other metrics, not finding a large, paying audience.
From an outside perspective, it feels like the Arco devs “made the mistake” of digging within themselves to create a game that resonated across the board. They didn’t work with content creators, make iterative small improvements to find the best of fit within the appropriate niche that would hit the algorithm and content creators in a successful feedback loop.
I don’t think anyone making the “make good games” claim would say that only financially successful games are good. But, this is where the “just make good games” argument falls down for me. I think it’s reasonable to question whether there are real flaws with how games are made and distributed if a game like Arco struggles so mightily.
Arco has my favorite game mechanic from 2010
At this point in my weekend I expected to be playing Tactical Breach Wizards, a game I am still quite excited about, but starting Arco I have decided to keep focusing on it instead. Arco, a game I talked about last week in the games I’m most excited about this month has finally released and I’m happy to say it’s a gem.
The state of indie publishing is dire, and it’s in no small part because it’s hard for publishers (and designers) to know what to take bets on. And it feels especially dispiriting if thoughtful, introspective, and excellently designed games struggle to make a mark.
Being an Artist
What this all suggests is that creating commercially successful art is as much about playing the metagame of the artistic and commercial landscape, as it is about digging within yourself to create something great.
Back when there were gatekeepers, it was a smaller, narrower path for a less diverse cast of authors. But, if you could convince a gatekeeper about the quality of your work, you wouldn’t have to think about marketing or product development.
Like Game Developer’s recent piece on Indie Game Development prospects:
Rose says indies have been sidelined on Steam after Microsoft, Sony, EA and other major players chose to bring titles that might previously have been console exclusives onto PC. "Steam is making more money," he says, "but like 50 percent of that revenue is being generated by 1 percent of the games."
In part because of the drop-off for popular media beyond Deadpool 3, Fortnite, or some of the top books like ACOTAR or The Stormlight Archive, and in part because there’s so much competition, being creative is a different ballgame now.
Some of my favorite authors, like Emily Henry or Brandon Sanderson both cultivate followings through email lists, fan interactions, and teases about upcoming work. The idea is to build anticipation through parasocial relationships, to preemptively get people excited to read their work.
Islanders, designed by Jonas Tyroller1 is a clever and simple play on a city-building style genre. It’s successful because of the bright, toylike assets and a design structure that simplifies what are often incredibly complex mechanics into ones that almost anyone can play.
There is still plenty of room for creativity within this world, but the type of creativity has changed. Being a creative also seems to require building fan communities, matching the particular metagame trend, and “learning in public” in the right way to continue building interest for a big launch. And occasionally, it can feel like its own increasingly narrow path.
Curation and Recommendation
When people ask me how I find games, the answer is a patchwork of trusted podcasts and YouTube personalities. It’s also a rotating cast of follows as my tastes change, along with a hunger to try new stuff and an active effort to curate and prune what I’m excited about.
I found Arco because the producer, Nick Suttner, is a podcast host on Eggplant, who I found out about because I’m a gigantic fan of Zach Gage. Nick Suttner used to work for Playstation but has been hopping around some of the more exciting games of the last few years, like Carto and Arranger. So when he announced it, I kept it high on my list.
Finding and protecting niches is a powerful and profitable way to build a successful artistic practice. But leaning only on recommendation algorithms and genre convention can create its own challenges. Arco is the type of game that benefits from human curation. It doesn’t sit neatly within specific genres but playing it quickly made it one of my most beloved games of 2024.
It is truly one of the strangest dichotomies of loving art in 2024. If you want to find solid and inventive takes on interesting genres it can feel like an abundance of riches. But finding things that truly stand out has paradoxically felt harder than ever.
Cover Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
The author of “Just Make Good Games” video above.