So, this is a topic that I always think about and discuss with my friends and I wanted to bring the discussion here.
What are some cool, cheap (accessible for most of us), effective ways to promote your game without spending a lot of rupees on it? When do you think is the best time to start advertising, posting on forums, indieDB, reddit, sending it to game sites, youtubers and all that juice? Tell us about your experiences, share your thoughts. Let’s discuss this important but often overlooked point of creating and releasing a game!
-I personally would wait till you have something “acceptable” to show -> so which shows the core gameplay, style,… but everything in a decent way (showing too much is not always good)
-The “easiest”/best way to promote your game is to build up a facebook, twitter and youtube community -> there you could connect with other indie game teams, let’s players,… to get a larger community.
-As you already mentioned, threads/posts in forums, indieDB,… will also help you to grow the community.
-You could also contact gaming networks (here in germany there is a tv show called “game one” -> they also show indie games, but then those games have to be either super special or in a really good quality)
-But most important is that you have something really good or special to show -> then the video/post will be spread over the entire internet, because people will like and share it.
e.g in case of this game they show something really special: ?v=NbCtu_yt4kk
After you have a small community, you will also have to hold it -> weekly posts, dev blogs, events,… just be present and let the people know that you are still working on the game