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September Q&A 1/3: "Do I HAVE To Do Marketing as I Go?" (Patreon)

Published:
2026-09-04 07:00:06
Imported:
2026-09

Content

This is 1/3 of this month's Q&A. Folks in the 🔵 and 🟣 tiers will get the opportunity to ask new questions in the last week of the month

Files

September Q&A 1/3: Early Marketing Pressure?

Comments

Ignacy

This is something I've been thinking a lot about recently, and I knew that I need to "start early", but I wonder how early is too early / not early enough? I am commited to make my game a polished one and release it, and I know it will take years. But each little progress in such an action game, captured in simple gif file is really cool to show, so shorts with these dev progress bits would be technically easy. I do the gifs anyway. And I am hesitant to start doing that yet, because I will be making open online playtesting only after I have final name of the game secured (it seems wise to also only then start advertising the game? or not?) and locked in stores I want to sell it / or until I have a publishing deal signed. So basically before beta or maybe alpha stage I'm playtesting only in private, which having a local community willing to participate makes it convenient for me. So basically I know it's beneficial to start early, but I wonder how early, and how big of deal will it be that I might change a name at some point and so on...

Supermutt Games (Brandon)

This might help but here's some interesting examples seeing how early some developers have started posting and how much traction it's given them: https://www.instagram.com/leafborngame/ https://www.instagram.com/jankyanims/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/onkyo.game/ I think you'll likely need a name for your game if you plan to make an official page for it, but in the case of @jankyanims he just posted a 3D animation render of an idea and it got a bunch of traction and then he started to build it out as a game, using his general IG page as a launchpad. I think it kind of depends if you want an official game page or if you just want to build a more general following. IMHO, I've been posting almost weekly for a little over a year and haven't gained any traction at all. It's tough out there. Granted I post more general 3D art stuff and that's a whole different grind, but I would guess the most straightforward marketing strategy is just building out a really unique game and trying to get as many streamers/influencers to cover it. Building any kind of noteworthy following is a massive commitment.

Voidy Toidy

Thanks Joe! "Thinking out loud about your game in public" is very helpful. I need to put that on my wall so I'm reminded that I don't have to be a comedian or a AAA studio to share what I'm working on. Regarding "peer pressure", I guess the only peer pressuring me is myself, lol. I think part of the disconnect for me is that I'm not really on social media. No TikTok, X, Bluesky, or Instagram. I may sound dumb here, but it never even crossed my mind that game devs could build a following on Instagram (I only see my wife use it to follow fashion influencers 😅). I guess I can just start with the platforms I use (YouTube and Reddit) and post once a month. Should I sign up for all the platforms and cross-post at the same time? If it's just monthly, I suppose that's not a huge commitment either.

Shen

Re: the advice to post regularly to create familiarity and a particular feeling, the term for that in marketing is called "priming," for folks who like looking things up. It's about subconsciously shaping or planting ideas in ppl's brains about you/the product/your brand so that eventually they're more likely to respond positively or to your messaging in a way that you want.

SporeBloom

Ah yes that's a familiar term. Will read even more on this, specifically what style of introductions are best for priming. Anything off the top of your head here? First exposures will likely be short form video nowadays, or the Storefront (Steam) itself where people generally browse screenshots immediately

SporeBloom

Good points and quite helpful. Socials is certainly a grind, and for organic to take off you really need to feed peoples instincts on core appeals...like joy, conflict/violence, strong curiosity, comedy etc. In the case of Jankyanims, I bet if it wasn't an athletic female, much less likely to snowball lol. @Ignacy Absolutely settle on a name and just start tossing your branding out there so long as it looks quite available where you are going to sell it. If you had to change it later, that's later... Seems like one can A) develop in secret and surprise the world with a festival announce, backed by clout! or B) develop relatively in the open, meaning that it's never too early to start doing 'marketing-like things' that is simply sharing bits of who you are and what you're doing, as mentioned in the vid?