Is there a good way of getting your game known to people without advertising?
I don’t have enough Robux to advertise and I would appreciate someone on how to get it known without advertising/sponsor.
Social media is a wonderful tool. Simply creating and posting on Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram can spread the word about your game.
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I guess this is complicated. You could perhaps find a friend which owns a group with a large community, and he can shout you out. Or you could rely on your friends to invite random people to join your game.
Those type of methods are pretty hard, advertising was just made so you can get a decently sized game fairly quickly.
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Tell people about it, try to build up a small community. Be active, have events regularly and have good quality content. Also try and reach out to you tubers big and small
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If you don’t want to spend any money for advertising…
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You can email YouTubers you like and get them to play your game, you might want to unlock and give everything to them so they can play it as a sandbox. If they liked your game, they might even feature it; basically a shout out. If they expect payment, then you won’t get anywhere. I haven’t done this myself, but I’ve heard this from people who market games.
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Design your game using the Live-Ops philosophy. Non Live-Ops games tend to have their player count lower over time. Expect players to advertise and share your game to their friends. Events and holidays do this nicely. Community Managers might create events to get new players.
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Harbour a social community. Give bonuses or benefits if players were to invite their friends. This is the basic social game paradigm. This is the hardest way to get players, since you might need to hire a community managers. Judging from multiple game communities I’ve seen in Roblox, there aren’t that many that are competent
. Make sure you interview them and don’t hire power hungry and toxic ones, they ruin your community instead. -
Create a unique game that haven’t been done before. Novelty is like niche in a business, and niche is all the rage. No one will play a game you cloned, they will play the game you cloned instead
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The game is this if you wanted to know.
https://www.roblox.com/games/2673993628/Super-Simon-Says-Remake-Beta
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Don’t get me wrong, social media is a plus, but it is negligible in the grand scheme of things. The official Roblox feature doesn’t even get much attention
The single greatest way is to appear on the game sort itself, it is free advertising.
Linked here is an example of a copied version of a mid-level game that goes crazy with players when the game is put in front of more people on the top of the recommended sort.
Of course, appearing on the game sort to get players to know about your game is the chicken and the egg problem.
Assuming you already have a highly functioning game comparable to the average game in the top ~300 on Roblox, how can you get your game to appear near the top of a game sort itself? Well it has to compete with all the other games in the metrics Roblox uses for their algorithms, depending on which sort you want to get your game to the top of.
I see this system breaking down as not every player has the same tastes in games, I think they need to make the front page have a better recommended sort that uses a smart AI system to pick out games players may like based on the player’s previous play history. This would make more games appear on the top of a sort for the players on the games page most likely interested in the game. Sounds like a no-brainer, I sincerely hope Roblox staff have planned this to help out a growing number of niche game developers and pop game developers alike
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The Thing
What’s your game’s THING? The thing that makes your game stand out!
Rogue Lineage is super hard and has perma death, notorious for being harder than Dark Souls!
Bee Swarm Simulator is so cartoony and fun with Bees each with their own personalities and abilities!
Wild West has tons of activities to do and you’re free to play however you want!
Rogue Lineage has it’s realism.
Bee Swarm Simulator has it’s cartoony theme.
Wild West has it’s freedom.
They have their THINGS!
Make your game work with 1 player
I call this the snowball effect. You absolutely need a way to stall lone players in any way you can. This is above and beyond essential.
Rogue Lineage has treasure hunting
Bee Swarm Simulator has pollen gathering.
Wild West has mining.
They don’t need to be as interesting as your multiplayer mechanics, they just need to keep that lone player long enough to attract more players.
Let me give a chart.
Without single player mechanics:
- Joe joins an empty server.
- Joe is told he can’t play until another player joins.
- Joe leaves to go play another game.
With single player mechanics:
- Joe joins an empty server.
- Joe collects coins around the map alone for 10 minutes.
- John sees that there’s a server with a player he can play with.
- John joins the server Joe is in and they play together
- May looks on her friends list to see that John is playing a game she’s never seen before, she tries it out of curiosity.
This process will continue indefinitely as long as players are staying a healthy amount of time. We call this Retention.
Conclusion
From my experience, there’s two broad ways to get a flow of players.
High Monetization, Low Retention
You probably know these. You see a lot of people complaining about their retention ratings being below a minute, despite increasing their sponsorship budget. They invest the majority of their money into a good thumbnail, good images, and a high sponsorship. But not a lot in the actual game.
You’ve probably seen this done with things like Obbies, Simulators, Tycoons, and Minigames. By sponsoring, you can get to the front page without meeting the criteria, such as having a high rating, or lots of players. Players typically are attracted by the thumbnail, join the game, play for a few minutes to try it out, and then leave. But you’ll be getting more players joining it, fast then players are leaving it. And out of all the players who join, some are bound to have some spare robux to spend on the first thing they see immediate value in, thus generating more funds to be put into sponsorships.
This cycle goes on and on until the amount of robux being generated is less than the amount of robux needed to keep your sponsorship. This is usually done when you want to put out many games, rather than updating just one as a live service.
Low Monetization, High Retention
This is the opposite. Rather than spending the majority of their time and resources on marketing, the majority is spent on the game. You probably know games like Apocalypse Rising that uses this. These games typically have a core gameplay loop that is different each and every loop, making it feel like a new experience to the player. Creating a near infinite amount of retention, a game some people play for hours daily. That’s a lot of playtime, meaning lots of opportunities to present monetization elements to players who love the game. People tend to be much more likely to buy things that enhance the experience of something they use often.
These games use the snowball effect to it’s maximum potential. Players play for hours, causing their friends to try it out of curiosity. This typically continues on in a loop until the players have experienced everything there is to experience. This is why these games need constant updates. This cycle typically runs on until the developer simply loses either the ability or the motivation to continue working on it. This is more meant for making a single game and updating it as a live service.
Hope this helps, have a wonderful day and good luck!
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Wow thanks. Would maybe making like obbies within the games for points/perks etc keep the player on longer?
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Anything is better than nothing!
Perhaps you could try an obby and every time you complete it, you get points! With these points you can buy gear and cosmetics! That way the player has a reason to play until more players arrive.
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Here are a few ways to get players to start playing your game:
• Making YouTube videos:
You could start making YouTube videos featuring your game, and linking the game in the description.
• Posting your game on social platforms such as: twitter, Instagram, etc.
• Become alliances with other games, and making joint events.
• Create a community for your game. You could make a group, discord server, etc were you can constantly promote your game and do multiple events.
And many more.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!
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Looks like none of my methods apply to your game. You need that niche to get more players. I don’t think Live-ops is even possible in your game’s design. I don’t think you can have a community in this game. It would be a miracle if a YouTuber were to play it and leave good impressions on their audience.
So that means I give up and stop working on the game because it is no use?
Edit: But I do have a small community. Sometimes when I am playing the game for testing purposes a few players sometime join including my friends.
I think what @Formidable_Beast is saying in a blunt way, is that this is not what many people want to do with their time. I try to be more polite but I can agree. This game seems rather simple. You have to remember that a minute playing your game is a minute a player could be spending playing a game like Arsenal.
Like we talked about, you gotta have that thing that Arsenal, Bee Swarm Simulator, and other free to play games don’t have, but yet players want.
But like I said! A game is better than no game. I’m a glass half full kind of guy. He’s not saying give up, he’s saying this game needs more time “in the oven” we say. Which just means it’s got some flaws that need to be ironed out.
Like the last thing a player wants to see within the first 5 seconds of joining the game is anything that has to do with two things, microtransactions and waiting… Especially waiting. Nobody likes waiting. That’s not fun, and games are supposed to be fun. That’s why a lot of games will try to put you in the action of the game as fast as possible.
Imagine retention like fishing, when a fish starts nibbling on your bait, do you sit there and tell the fish “Please wait for other fish.” No, it’ll take your bait and get away. Do you quickly try to jerk your fishing pole? Yeah, you want to try to get the fish to come closer to the hook.
And when a fish just barely taps the fishing line, do you quickly try to reel it in? No, you’ll scare it away.
My advice: Add more to the game, never ask for the player to wait, like, ever, and slow your roll on your monetization, it’s important, and obviously you want to be rewarded from your work, but if it’s the first thing the player sees, they’ll assume this is another bad cash grab and leave.
In blunt/mean terms:
"Your game asks me to buy stuff before I’m even able to play it! There’s nothing in here! Shame on the developer! Bad game! I’m going to go play Minecraft and dislike this bad game!"
This is what players are probably thinking.
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I think I probably should change it to that the round will begin on single player too. The simon will be the server which will be randomly choosing options. That’s the best I can think of.
But I will need to change/rewrite most of the code,
Edit: Found out that didn’t really need to rewrite the code. Only had to make some changes and make a few functions. It is done now and tested! Tell me if it is better or not.
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but dont do gamepasses. This brings gold diggers in your game and repels normal players.
is it okay? if i do gamepasses ion a team player game? like gamepasses that allowed you to have a weapon melee that do damage higher than normal?
yeah like 3 players.
minecraft is high quality how dare you
ohio is a cash grab, but they have 3K concurrent players