Indie Studio - First big Giveaway here on Steamgifts

I'd say "Giveaways" because I'm into giveaways, but if I'm honest, you'd probably get better promotion of your game via Youtubers/Twitch, providing you know where to go and know the right people. If you don't however, that probably won't work out very well.

I'm gonna be honest, I think giveaways are a bit of a waste. If I get a free game from gleam or indiegala, I farm it for cards and hide it from my library. I'm gonna assume most others do likewise. Advertising is expensive and difficult, unless you know what you're doing and have the budget to match, it's a waste of money. Press and PR are probably best, followed by youtube/twitch.

I'd say banner ads are simple eye catchers but there are loads of people with adblock so if some Youtubers and Twitch play for a few eps or a stream, it'd probably get the most publicity.

R u the guy who was doing gleam giveaways n was pretty upset about bots stealing keys. Oh yeah u r, just read the whole text u wrote.
Better than gleam guyz here n steamgifts, its good u r doing giveaway here.
BTW is not necessary bots got all your keys, there r many people just waiting for gleam giveaways n get free games.

I've had your game on my wl for a while, I don't have access to steam rn so I'm. Not entering any ga's atm, but km really interested in this one so I entered for it, do you mind me entering if I won't be able to redeem the key for a few weeks? In case you do please let me know and. I'll withdraw my entry.

About getting your game out there, I think YouTube and twitch would be good for people to know your game, not so sure about getting potential buyers from there tho, I think getting your game feature in some video game focused site. Kind of like pc gamer, would be the ideal way to go, it's kind of hard to get that sort of attention tho, best of luck pal and keep it up.

I think youtube and twitch are probably the best way to get noticed, while I like giveaways many times the games end up being farmed and forgotten.
Thanks for the chance, your game been in my wishlist for some time :)

The best way for indie devs to market their game to the community is to make a good quality game and have friendly forum staff. That is literally it, word of mouth will do the rest.

YouTube is the best way to do it.

fwiw, I find out about games here on steamgifts, so for at least some of us it's effective advertising. I saw your giveaway earlier today and went and read reviews. You have alot of really strong reviews. I'd feature that in your promotion as it'd appeal to a certain type of gamer. I'm probably not your target audience and hence didn't enter, but I think some people will see your giveaway and be interested in it here. It might not be the people that win the giveaway, but some people will be drawn to your game by the giveaway I think.

I got one copy of it from your Gleam giveaway this morning. It was on my wishlist prior to that. I don't know anything about the bot situation you mention. Just letting you know that it was not all bots. I for one think it looks interesting. I do intend to play it at some point and I'm glad I saw the gleam thing when I did. Thanks.

Edit. Looked up your other gleam above. Ah. I have that from a gleam in Dec. I remember that. It was random that game or the black watchman. I wanted the watchmen but got the other. Thats when the black watchmen made my wishlist. So I was happy to see it this morning. lol.

I have no idea about your best bet for advertising. The bulk of my wish list is stuff I've come across here from people talking about them. I end up buying something on my wish list at least once a week. I really need to start playing more. :)

I personally love Giveaways but I think indie studios would probably get better results with Youtube and Twitch.

Depends on the target audience, younger folk seem to enjoy YouTube/Twitch, while I feel that videos are a waste of time (I'd prefer to play the game myself instead of watching someone else have all the fun :)), so my preferred source is reviews/articles from trusted sites. Giveaways are nice but seem ineffective.

Thanks and BUMP!

Explains why there are more GA's for your game than usual, but don't let yourself be discouraged or disgruntled by the few; stuff like that isn't limited to one line of business, happens everywhere. Didn't vote for anything since they're all good options to get noticed in their own way, IMO simply depends on the budget and exposure you already have/wanna get. Think about stuff like cost efficiency, creating a customer experience/loyalty, yadda yadda management and - probably the most important - don't take things too personal from now on (you can't please everybody and there'll always be haters), part of your job now is being a salesperson and - to create a really good product - you need customer feedback and stuff like that, so in a way every form of exposure helps.

If I remember correctly, I stumbled across your game a while ago because of SG and it landed on my wish list. I also got on YouTube and watched some gameplay; IMO a good place to start from if you don't wanna/can't spend big cash on promoting your game.

Good luck and thank you for the opportunity.

For anyone that wants to try NITE Team 4 the alpha is free.

all of them

Honestly, giveaways are how I found out about your games. I saw a giveaway for one of them a month or so on steamgifts, then added all of them to my wishlist since they seem really interesting.

It's kind of funny to ask that question on a giveaway site. You didn't think any other polloption was winning, did you?

I would say press and PR :)

On a site where people try to get free games, most will probably tell you the best thing you can do is give out more free games... Preferably to them... :)

But does it actually help? I don't know, but my feeling is it accomplishes nothing. Any time there's a new bundle or massive free game giveaway I can see in my friend list dozens of people "playing" but there's never any achiements unlocked. Idle Master or ASF, that's the answer...

I'd say giveaway games with trading cards will be idled for the cards, and games without cards will be idled later, when they get cards. Games that never get cards will never even be installed...

My guess is any promotion you do here will reach an audience of people who aren't terribly interested in buying the game if they don't win, but maybe they will add it to their wishlist if it looks cool enough? As a reminder to buy it when there's a 90% discount, if nothing else... :)

As for myself, I bought it in a sale (Purchased 8 Aug, 2016) because it looked like a fun idea, but still haven't tried playing it... :( Sorry! :)

I think you have to get lucky, as a lot of great games never find an audience, while a lot of mediocre games get inexplicably popular. But I just buy games, I don't know anything about marketing them... :) If you want to figure out how to get people playing your game, I guess make the best game you can and pray a lot? No idea, sorry... :( Hope you can find the solution! :)

Showing actuall gameplay is the best advertisement so i went for Youtube and Twitch ... exposure is the best way

Twitch Giveaways from a promoted streamer I think are a good way to attract many people and leave behind a positive image. That is if the game is good enough.

I'd def say you should advertise through Youtube/Twitch. It's the easiest way to get a huge influx of people, basically if you get some large Youtubers interested in your game you're golden. Look for channels that cover lesser known Indie games, I don't want to advertise any here, but there's quite a few I could think of that would probably at least show off your game. I have to ask, have you considered having your game translated into other languages? That's definitely a way to reach a larger audience. This is not the right place to talk about stuff like that, but if ever you'd consider having the game available in Polish, I'd love to help. I've a MD in English-Polish translation. The Polish Youtube and Twitch scene is really starting to grow right now, and I bet there are be many Youtuber's that would gladly play your game if they'd just get the key for it. This turned into a bit of a self-advertisement, but hey - you asked, right? :D