PR and marketing for indies is not easy. I would suggest there are a number of factors determining how tricky they find it:<\/p>\n
Of course, this can all be adjusted and overcome, but it’s worth realising not everyone starts from the same position. I guess I win on time in industry and attitude, and outgoigness, but suck on numbers and age.<\/p>\n
Given that it’s not an equal game, there is also the issue of where to concentrate your limited PR\/Marketing firepower. Here are a number of alternate strategies.<\/p>\n
All these methods have advantages and disadvantages. I’ve tried them all (except hiring), to a greater or lesser extent. I wish I could tell you I knew which ones really work the best, and it depends on your personality in some ways. I am paranoid about being called a shill if I mention my own game on a forum. I live in the Uk and am an eco-geek so don’t fly to E3, Pax etc. The semi-autistic bit of me enjoys the number crunching of running ad campaigns. Your mileage will vary.<\/p>\n
In general I think it makes sense to focus your PC on a specific area, otherwise you are going to just ‘bounce off’ and get no measurable results, like most indies do with advertising. I am time-limited, and work on code-heavy games, so my time is super-limited. Plus it’s just me. As a result, I’m thinking the time-intensive (social networking\/conferences) stuff may not work for me. One of the main sources of PR for my stuff is actually this blog. If you scan the archives you’ll know I’ve blogged a LONG time, and this blog is surprisingly popular. of course, the blog predates the social-networking and youtube-videos explosion, so that’s not to say those aren’t better channels. I have facebook pages for gratuitous space battles<\/a> gratuitous tank battles<\/a> and redshirt<\/a>, but I don’t have the time to really promote them as much as I should (feel free to like em!). I’m always re-assessing my priorities, but the answer keeps changing.<\/p>\n What do you use (if you are a dev) and as a gamer, where do you first hear about new games?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PR and marketing for indies is not easy. I would suggest there are a number of factors determining how tricky they find it: Your age (young hip trendy kids know a lot of people through school.\/college etc, probably wider game-playing circle). Your time in the industry (I know a lot of people who I’ve met<\/p>\n