Hi there!
Lately I’ve been seeing quite a few posts wondering how advertising, and in general releasing games works.
So here’s a simple breakdown on how the algorithm(It’s an AI, but we’ll call it that) chooses which games to promote and how that’s related to advertising.
How should you promote your game?
Making a game is difficult, and making a game that has a high chance of blowing up is really difficult, but advertising is the easiest part in both cases.
The “algorithm” is pretty simple, all it wants is:
- High revenue (Monetize well)
- clickability (Good thumbnail, icons and an nteresting idea in general)
- a high total playtime (Get players to stick for long, and come back too)
All of those things don’t necessarily require advertising, but in reality you’ll likely need it.
Here’s how it works; the algorithm basically just needs to see how your game actually performs in a small timeframe(1-2 weeks) with players.
In order to get a meaningful amount of players you’ll need to either sponsor, be famous, or be really good at creating content.
Now I know what most of you are thinking: “Sponsoring is useless, it’s better to make organic content on tiktok, youtube or instagram”, and while that might be true, that not only requires luck but a lot of skill. Making genuinely good content is really hard, it’s not as simple as just setting up a screen recorder and talking a bit. You’ll need a deep understanding on how to actually make entertaining content, which is really hard(Coming from a person who slowly grew a channel to 5k subs).
So your best chance is probably to sponsor, it’s simple, in fact with the new update is pretty much braindead.
So yeah, if you want to release your game, and you’re not a content creator, SPONSOR!
Initial release
While I don’t have much to say about sponsoring in general, because there’s not much to it(Apart from spreading the budget over 1,2 or even 3 weeks), releasing a game in general is very hard, so to help you make that journey easier I’ll give you a few tips on how to improve key metrics in the first few days, and some big mistakes to avoid.
So first off, here’s a few thing you should try to do:
- Polish your game(Helps improve retention)
- Listen to player feedback (But don’t blindly follow it)
- Carefully monitor key metrics (Ex: Low playtime? → Add playtime rewards or improve the core gameplay)
And here’s a few key mistakes to avoid:
- Don’t forget about it!: The release is usually the period in which your is going to have the most bugs and stuff to fine tune, so be mindful!
- Admit defeat when it’s over: If the game has been getting really bad metrics over a quite a few days(Say 6-7), it’s probably not worth it to keep throwing robux at it.
- Spent everything in one day: Spending you entire budget in one day is a horrible idea. You’ll likely get a massive spike off players, just for your game to be dead for the rest of the 10-15 day testing period, which is really bad for the “algorithm”.
Hopefully that’ll help you advertise a successful and profitable game!
Make sure to tell if you think any different about anything I said, and don’t hesitate to leave your opinion.
Also, GOOD LUCK!