why games fail

In this piece of article, I'll share a story with tips from the marketing and business side of the gaming industry for indie game developers & gaming studios.

Let's say, you have a game,

upcoming one

already launched as coming soon

in EA [ early access]

or released

What are their mistakes:

don't pay for a cover art

early publishing before securing an audience

don't partner or do an equity split with experts to help them scale

are starting with a big project without knowing the business and making connections

don't listen to the marketer's expert

not listening to the feedback coming from their audience and what they want

not do co-op feature to maximize sales

not do a steam deck porting/compatibility/verification

not do bundles, cross-collaboration

don't do a rev-share or get a shareholder agreement for an equity split with a great programmer to partner with for console porting ( like Xbox)

don't do their market research first

make duplicates from other games

don't make f2p with a monetization model and co-op

don't write their own blogs

don't do interviews before publishing/launching

are putting the game on itchio, before contacting investors, incubators, accelerators, GRANTS

don't move on to multiple gaming platforms like humble, Xsolla, gamejolt, epic games, gog to sell it further

don't bring attention, to a gamer's routine, when they are online, posting only on Saturday.

don't do a live stream,or multi-live stream on social platforms, like x/ Facebook,etc including the steam store page, not only at the events, to be in the loop, gameplay like 2-3h, can be with their face on, or not.

don't give the trailer before everything else starts, to the big event to be showcased, cross-promotion, with the big media outlets, like ign.

don't use stickers, and flyers on the street

don't use QR codes for their discord community or website

don't have a website, with a verified ownership on Google search console

not registering their games on Twitch API, YouTube API, Discord app developer

not having a special forum on their website

not having a subreddit for their game, Facebook group/page, x community group, and more

not having a newsletter before they put a coming soon page live

not having a press kit on their website in the header menu for the press to can be downloaded as zip

not having a media kit, with an article, logos, videos, gameplay screenshot

not having a MEDIA Build with cheat codes

putting on social media videos longer than 7-10 seconds

don't talk on tiktok about their game, there are millions of templates to showcase even footage and your face

don't use influencer outreach

don't collaborate for cross-promotion with influencers on platforms, like tcm, grin, etc

do outreach using scam emails, don't do research for the origin of those emails, just take or buy email listings.

are contacting the wrong influencers, to stream or write about their game

don't have a LinkedIn account

don't use giveaway campaigns, with a creative scope

They use AI for visual, in-game and cover art, etc + voice-over. They need to use it strictly for development, like code, etc not for audio and visual, because this is the cringe

use a black screen on videos

don't have an investor deck, budget breakdown, pitch deck or press kit

and more