How to bring the first project to the end. Part 2. Myths, mistakes and failures

Hello! I already told in the first article and the intermedia article how to bring my first project to the end . But in the end, I realized that these articles relate primarily to development. But what about the promotion?

And now we will consider the myths and errors that I stumbled upon. And, although many praised the game , at the time of writing, it received only 61 downloads!

Well, how can this be?

Error Number Times. Publish your game on Google Play right away

I made a huge, frankly - unforgivable mistake. I initially uploaded the game to Yandex.Disk and began to promote it. However, I also achieved a little, but more than 70 downloads - even that was more. And in the Play Market, I published the game when a lot of time passed (well, there was no money). Just few people found out about the release on the Play Market. And we smoothly move on to the next error.

Mistake Number Two. Spin up the game immediately after the release

Still, there were fans who were waiting for the game. And when she went out, they calmed down on this. In the same Play Market, a sufficiently large number of people did not know about the exit. And so the fans got lost.

Mistake Number Three. Do not rely on your own strength

No matter how you spin, do not spam, do not create accounts on social networks, it will be difficult to attract any acceptable audience. In order to attract attention, you need to look for people who really have access to a large audience. Say, for a full publication on the Play Market, I found a publisher ... well, as a publisher. The studio, which gave a couple of useful tips and published the game for free.

Myth One. Do not believe in "organic traffic Play Marketa"

Of course, he is, but this applies to projects that themselves can take care of themselves. The project will not promote itself, you know ... Well, as you can see: despite the positive feedback from the players about my game, 61 downloads. So this concept is rather conditional and, as I suppose, is more likely to fit the definition of “Unknown sources”, although traffic from the Play Market also plays a role.

Mistake Number Four. Do not hide the game from the players.

I was afraid not to be in time, to spoil the content and disappoint the players, so I started a PR campaign late. In fact, start promoting the game as early as possible . Fans know how to wait.

The second myth. Do not rely on social networks.

In fact, social networks can be beneficial, but it is not as large as expected. But they, without an initially large number of subscribers, will simply take the effort to write posts.

Trouble ... hey, what about themed sites?

Everywhere you look, they always say: go to thematic sites. But, as it turned out, they also did not bring much benefit. With the enormous effort expended, 2-3 people became interested in the game. Even on w3bsit3-dns.com I received only one review: that the graphics are lame. But I knew that. By the way ...

Mistake Number Five. Go in for graphics.

As they say, they are greeted by clothes ... But I didn’t have artists on the team ... if only because I worked alone. During the failed promotion, I came to the conclusion that the players are primarily interested in the graphics. This is logical, but not every developer will think about it. Not every player, looking at the game with mediocre graphics, will understand the gameplay. And Undertale is not given to everyone.

Error Number Six. Add content gradually.

I decided to add all the objects and resources in advance. And I did as I was going to. It turned out more than 80 objects - enough for the rest of the game. What is left? Do levels, cutscenes, bosses and so on. In general, I prepared well for the next updates.

But ... there is no motivation to make the following updates. For whose sake? Spend a lot of time on 50 people who look at him? This is irrational. As a result, 70 percent of the time is already down the drain. And the content promised to be interesting and varied.

Conclusion

I made a bunch of mistakes and completely lost. I brought my first project to the end, left the players generally satisfied with the game, did not deceive their expectations. I did this one in two years. One could even be proud of oneself, but I only confirmed the opinion that usually developers are bad marketing specialists.

And while I was writing this article, an article was published by my colleagues (with a continuation), who also just came to the market. They were more fortunate, and I wish them good luck and success! I understand you.

Well, as a final trailer for the global update to the game: