Hello, I am currently developing a simulator and slowly finishing it soon, and I asked myself a few questions, about what to do after the game is done and released:
Where do most simulators get their playerbase from ?
Is it advertising, youtubers, etc.
What is the most efficient way to boost a simulator to the front page ?
What’s the most efficient way for a simulator to get to the front page? That meaning the most robux in profit for robux spent.
What are the different ways to get a playerbase for a game ?
The only 2 I know so far of is advertising, and getting someone to play it.
For any game, the key to getting a good player count is a combination of these. I would start with some ads and some sponsors for all the platforms your game is available on to begin with (I would test run some ads with only a few thousand Robux, and then once you find what works I would start seriously advertising with around 100k Robux or so). Then I would move on to getting sponsorship deals with Youtubers, as that always helps (tip: give them CODES). From there I would just try and grow a community and a group, as having a loyal fanbase means much more than just having one successful game, it also means that you have a jump start on fans for your next one too. If you combine all of these tactics, you’ll be on the front page in no time at all!
A lot of people will initially say ads are best approach to take but when you really think about it they aren’t the best approach because of these reasons:
Ads will only appear for people that are on PC. This means you are only showing ads to less than 50% of the users on Roblox. However that isn’t actually how many people ads are showing to because lots of people use ad blockers so in reality you are really only really showing ads to about 25-35% of all of Roblox users.
Ads also don’t appear on the games page but instead only a select few pages. I am assuming a lot of kids just go to the games page and that is near enough the only page they visit on roblox meaning they probably hardly ever come across any ads.
Don’t get me wrong ads are still a very powerful tool to use but they have there limitations.
What is the better approach then
A good approach would be to get a YouTuber to play your game and make a few videos about it. Lots of people will play a certain game just because their favourite YouTuber is playing it and if that YouTuber has thousands of subscribers then those thousands of people will see your game and may want to check it out for themselves.
However that approach is very impractical for a smaller developers like myself because you need to have good contacts and know the right people to get that YouTuber to even think about playing your game. This then brings me onto say this:
Before you release your game you should try and build up a community. This way you can advertise your game directly to your fans near enough free of charge. If you have a small loyal community you could get a stable player base that will naturally grow overtime as your community grows and your game grows. Here is a little quote from a medium articles about how Dungeon Quest became a front page game literally overnight:
Dungeon Quest exploded into popularity and has been one of the top games since. How was that experience for you?
I remember my Discord had 100 people in it and we were doing a small test run of about 10–15 people. That night I went to bed expecting everyone to be done playing it by the morning, but when I woke up there was over 300+ people on! Next thing you know, a couple hours later there was over 10,000 people playing the game!
Other ways to get a playerbase
Sponsor your game. Sponsoring your game is a very powerful way to get a big playerbase because you could set it so your sponsors appear on every platform.
Simulator’s are probably the most likely to get a ton of visits, considering it’s all some people play.
But yeah like you stated youtubers are a big source when it come’s to ROBLOX games.
GFX art is also a big source in getting visits, if a player sees your advertisement, sponsor, or just find the game and see it has cool art and they’re interested, they’ll most likely click and play your game.
Advertising is a huge way of getting visits and clicks, if your advertisement has detail, cool art.
You’ll definitely get a lot of players to join your game. To get players to stay in your game, it has to be fun and interesting to play. Add things like missions, worlds, something like that.
Good luck on your game.
Spend a few hundred robux on sponsors and ads, see how you go the first time since Simulators are trending games on ROBLOX. If you get a good CTR that means more people want to see your game. (I think), stuff like 50% or higher CTR is good in my opinion, if you get above that your sponsors and ads are really eye catching.
Try get YouTubers, Streamers and other content uploaders to play and record your game. People who watch it might think your masterpiece is good and want to play it so they might find the game.
Try make a good tutorial, and an easy but not too easy game.
Add quests and challenges to make the game seem more challenging and fun. The more things you can have the more players will want to play. Remember to make a good icon and thumbnail that attracts players.