A Practical Guide to Indie Game Marketing

Learn how to market for your indie game, even with a small budget and limited resources.
For those who want to earn a regular income from making indie games, marketing can be nearly as vital to the success of the game as the game itself. A Practical Guide to Indie Game Marketing provides you with the tools needed to build visibility and sell your game. With special focus on developers with small budgets and limited staff and resources, this book is packed with recommendations and techniques that you can put to use immediately. As a seasoned marketing professional, author Joel Dreskin provides insight into practical, real-world experiences from marketing numerous successful games and also shares tips on mistakes to avoid. Presented in an easy to read format, A Practical Guide to Indie Game Marketing includes information on establishing an audience and increasing visibility so you can build successes with your studio and games.

Through case studies, examples, guidelines and tips, you will learn best practices for developing plans for your game launches, PR, community engagement, channel promotions and more
Sample timelines help you determine how long in advance of a launch to prepare your first public communications, when to announce your game, as well as recommended timing for releasing different game assets
Book also includes marketing checklist 'cheat sheets', dos and don ts and additional resources

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Marketing Fundamentals

Chapter 3: Branding

Written by Guest Author Tom ByronCase Study: Klei Entertainment

Chapter 4: Developing Your Market Campaign and Calendar

Chapter 5: Marketing Vehicles That Can Work Well for Indies

Case Study: Supergiant Games

Chapter 6: Developing the Marketing Plan

Case Study: The Binary Mill’s Mini Motor Racing

Chapter 7: PR

Written by Guest Author Emily MorgantiCase Study: Additional PR Examples

Chapter 8: Marketing Materials

Chapter 9: Audience/Community Development

Case Study: Telltale Games

Chapter 10: Post-Launch

Case Study: Flippfly’s Race the Sun

Chapter 11: What if Something Goes Wrong?!

Appendix 1: Glossary

Appendix 2: Marketing Fundamentals Worksheet

Appendix 3: Marketing Plan Outline

Appendix 4: Check Lists

Appendix 5: Press Release Worksheets

Joel Dreskin has developed expertise with marketing, strategy development and campaign executions for high profile, enthusiast and indie brands over the past 20 years—including Star Wars, Back to the Future, Wallace & Gromit, Monkey Island, Sam & Max, original IP, and more. In addition to Joel’s experience with game tie-in launches for the Star Wars prequel films during his years with the LucasArts division of Lucasfilm, he drove brand, channel and marketing program development for Telltale Games from the company’s second through seventh years and digital media software initiatives with Macromedia (now Adobe). Joel has recently created and run focused showcase events for indie developers: Indie Press Day and Good Game Club; and has also been contributing to the Media Indie Exchange press/industry mixer events.