When Google unveiled a report claiming Youtube ads boost driving sales better than traditional TV ads last year, the choice between traditional media ads and the rising Youtube ads has become a concern to advertisers.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for indie game developers.
Unlike major companies like Square Enix and Nintendo, small game developers do not really have a choice. After using up all their own savings on the game, budget left for marketing is usually so little that they can barely put up even an online ad. “We had ZERO budget for marketing & other stuff,” said the maker of 60 Seconds!, Anastazja Kulińska from Robot Gentleman.
If one is lucky enough, he may be able to sign a publishing deal with Sony or Microsoft like the maker of Little Nightmare, Tarsier Studios did. This means the developer is able to get all the resources he needs for development and post-development, but this also means individuality and independence is lost.
Those who are not willing to take this risk may get free promotion by Let’s Players on Youtube. By getting them to play an indie game, it will get exposed to millions of subscribers, and thus a successful market exposure.
▲ Let’s Players (from left to right) Jacksepticeye, Markiplier and Pewdiepie
“Certain videos can even spark periods of unpredictable sales spikes. This happened for us after Pewdiepie and Markiplier uploaded their 60 Seconds! videos,” Anastazja continued. While the developer did see a positive relationship between exposure on major YouTube channels and sales, she disagreed that these stars were largely held responsible for the success of her game.
“The initial buzz for 60 Seconds! was the doing of a number of smaller YouTubers who recorded videos about the game shortly after its release.”
Statistics also showed that almost the entirety of sales in Poland (the base of Robot Gentleman) can be associated with Polish Youtubers, who are relatively small globally, recording videos on 60 Seconds!.
Rizar Shah from Kaigan Games, the maker of another Sara Is Missing, also nodded at the thought that small Youtubers with small audiences were also worth focusing on.
“We put it out there, and we got covered by many small YouTubers.” It was only after the viewers of these small YouTubers went to the big channels in swarm and told the stars to play it, did the game get attention by them. Rizar said he would not expect YouTube to bring sales after the release of the official version.
Apart from Let’s Players, gaming related channels also include critics’ channels. Although there is no figures showing that these people contribute to selling copies, some do find them more “reliable” in terms of marketing.
“Those guys probably have better (sales) conversion rates from the audience.” Andre Pong from Gattai Games, the maker of Lurking and Stifled believed that the audiences of game critics like TotalBiscuit were interested in the game to begin with because they were there for opinions that helped them decide whether they should get the game or not, and if the review was good they would very likely buy it.
As for the conversion from big YouTube sensations, “the percentage we got is actually less than one percent…even though it’s (Lurking) free.” Markiplier’s and Pewdiepie’s video of Lurking had over 1.4 million and 5.6 million views respectively, and they even put the link to the game in their description boxes. Still, only just a few audiences actually went to the website and downloaded it.
Andre felt like people were there to watch big YouTubers’ reactions to the game rather than the game itself, and so the conversion rate was not good.
As much as famous Let’s Players do not boost sales as much as expected, they are not the ones to be held responsible for this. Game developers may not have control over how the game is marketed by those people on YouTube, but they should always act and respond according to the trend, said game consultant from Videogame Visionary, Vlad Micu.
▲ Vlad talking with QooApp at Casual Connect
“That’s also the responsibility of the game developer to understand how their games are played and promoted nowadays. When you make a game nowadays, you wanna make it fun to watch. When you design a game that is fun to watch, make it easy and fun to be played by influencers.”
Vlad found that replayability was vital when it came to the entire YouTube gaming scene because the game’s marketing value only came when a YouTuber created a whole series of video about it.
The viewers who watch the series may reach a point where they want to experience it by themselves after realizing how the game can still be fun even though those YouTubers have played it a thousand times. This is where views get converted to sales. This mostly applies on multiplayer and survival games like H1Z1, however.
The fact is, most indie games are not multiplayer and survival online games. They are very small in terms of scale. Robot Gentleman’s Anastazja said the game would have downloadable contents released in the future to keep it fresh for YouTubers as well as the players, while Kaigan Games’ Rizar said his game would not rely on YouTube for sales and that he had sought a way out in this strange situation.
“Youtubers have built a community for our fans, which we didn’t have time to do so.”
These fans will perhaps help market the game by words of mouth. They may even tell their favorite YouTubers to play it, just like they did with the demo. To Rizar and his colleagues, these loyal fans gathered by YouTubers are their best assets, even much better than the famous Youtubers themselves.
“People always ask us when the full game will come out and tell us that they are willing to pay no matter how much we ask. We send thank you to them one by one.”
When an indie developer gets a fan base like this, sales brought by Youtube stars are very likely, not important at all.