Over 8000 video games launched onto Steam, the leading platform for the sale of PC games in 2019 alone, that’s over 20 every single day. Every game that releases has more competition than ever before and this can be daunting for most game developers, which is why many decide to work with marketing firms to improve their chances of success. We sat down with one of the bigger firms helping game developers get noticed to find out why so many games get published each day, and how this affects the average creator.
Indie Enhance has been in the advertising business since 2016 and has worked with over 600 game developers.
Elliott, who founded the company started our interview by stating that they “don’t guarantee success” and that their services “won’t make you a millionaire overnight” but followed up by showing us detailed overviews of past promotions and how sales of games they have previously promoted increased significantly during their campaigns. We only saw the analytics of a dozen or so games they have previously worked with, but it was still obvious to us that they have had major success with multiple titles in the past and are one of the bigger players.
Elliott explained that there are two major reasons that there have been so many new games releasing to Steam every day during the last few years. Number one is how much easier it is to make games now due to applications such as Construct and Game Maker. Game development no longer requires full teams and massive budgets, anybody can make a game with little risk. Number two is the way Steam curates games, or rather, doesn’t curate games. In the past new titles needed to be voted for by the community to have a chance at releasing onto the Steam store, but now any developer can pay a small fee and get straight onto the platform, which has led to waves of new poor quality games being offered to consumers.
“The sad truth is that most Steam games make less than $300, and the only ones that make more have good marketing, or get extremely lucky” Elliott claimed.
Elliott explained that most developers earn just a few hundred dollars from their games, which is why so many marketing firms specifically for game developers now exist.
“Most games don’t make any money without well planned out marketing campaigns, and the average developer doesn’t have the connections or the know-how to make one. Everyone working at Indie Enhance is proud to be able to help game developers turn their hobbies into their dream careers” he said.
