Promote and Grow Game Projects with Uphiro
Have a game idea? Now what? Many aspiring game developers struggle with the next steps of making plans to turn their ideas into actual games. Typically, one would start writing down design details (or put together a Game Design Document/GDD), define the scope, and sketch some concept arts. However, there are also numerous decisions to make from the start, such as, which platform to target, which game engine to use, go solo or find a team, and the list goes on. The planning and decisions will not stop even after the game is launched. Many developers focus solely on the development aspect of things and don’t think much about how to sell the game until it’s about to launch.
As content creation gets easier through AI and general purposed game engines, getting a newly-developed game discovered is more difficult than ever before. Many developers don’t realize that sales and marketing can be started as soon as the game takes shape in the concept phase. During early stage of game development, sales and marketing is all about putting in efforts to find like-minded individuals and keeping them engaged through the game creation process through community building. Community building has become a primary method for small to mid-sized game developers to self-promote games since most of them do not have a large market budget to buy ads or launch games at a large scale. However, building a community is not easy. This article will explain how Uphiro, as a platform, can help you by building an early community and bringing games to life.
◆ What is Uphiro?
Uphiro is a game discovery and incubation platform. The platform focuses on three main areas: 1) game discovery, 2) resources for game development, and 3) community building. Through these three areas, the platform promotes creativity and helps bring more innovative games to the market. From promoting creativity, encouraging early self-promotions, and being inclusive with all game projects, the platform allows game pages to be created with just game ideas. Game pages on Uphiro can be used as official game sites, to show off early concepts, and to allow the platform users to upvote and join the community. Additionally, developers can also ask for help to get the game developed.
◆ Get The Word Out Early
Community building is rarely an overnight success, so the best thing is to start as early possible. “It’s not ready to be shown” is a common doubt many game developers have. Staying stealthy makes sense for games that have validated concepts and millions of dollars in investment, but it does require a wider reach at launch to be successful. Smaller developers can spend more time selling after launching the game, but it is usually not as effective as taking users through the development journey. Showing the game off early comes with many benefits. It gives the developers practice on pitching the game, see if the game is something that excites potential users, and start building an early community. Put in the effort to plan, learn, stay persistent, and communicate to keep early fans engaged throughout the development process often results in producing better games as well.
◆ Problem of Scattered Marketing Channels
There are many channels that can help games reach out to gamers, but the promotional content is scattered around the internet. This normally works if the game has already been released and the developer just wants to cast a big net to direct users to the stores to buy the game, but not so much for games that are in development. Showing a more complete story is important when trying to get attention from early fans. Currently, in-development games usually direct users to the official sites, Steam pages, Itch pages, or Discord channels. Aside from Itch and Discord, most platforms do not properly serve early game projects. Now Uphiro can also be a great alternative for that. The platform has a social media hub where games can show content from other social media channels (or links that users can follow). Additionally, there are community communication tools, such as developer notes and comments, to help game developers stay engaged with early fans to iterate on ideas, designs, and help spread the words (word-of-mouth marketing) when the game launches.
◆ Importance of SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps search engines rank websites based on content relevance, popularity, and technical configurations. It is mainly used to generate organic/unpaid traffic to websites. However, every search engine works differently (uses different search algorithms) so most marketers use “the best industry practices” or guidelines provided by search engines. Moreover, optimizations usually take months before showing results. This is another reason why starting early is the key. Uphiro continuously focuses on the technical aspect of SEO for all of its products and services so that all developers need do is to provide the best possible content for their games.
Aside from promoting game projects, Uphiro is also working on various services to help bring games to life. Again, start early and submit a game to Uphiro as the first step to sell the game. It’s easy and free. There is almost no reason for any game not to be on this platform.
If you are a game developer, please work with us to help us help you. Contact us if you have any questions, feedback, or would like to work together at a closer level.