You say that most devs will think of marketing when it comes to launching the game and I’ve seen you say that it

should start way earlier than that. Why do you say that? Lots of times just making the games for themselves and not thinking about how is

this going to land in a market? How is this going to perform after that? I don’t think it’s even emphasized to the point of like how early that these

things need to be done. How early do they need to be done? Honestly, like right down to the Today

I’m joined by a marketing strategist and host of the Indie Game Movement podcast. He’s helped dozens of indie studios

connect with players and interviewed over 200 industry experts. Focus on one, get a process going, and

then start scaling. That’s a more efficient and effective way of doing things than just trying to be everywhere

and then finding out this is way more challenging than I I need it to be, and it’s not helping. We talked about why

most studios treat discoverability backwards, how player first insights actually drive ROI, and why looking at

Steam data won’t save your launch. right intention, the purpose behind the project. That’s really a part of

marketing, but we don’t think of it as such. And therefore, in those moments, we’re like, “Oh, we didn’t do any marketing, and look how awesome it is.”

It makes a lot of other people that are trying really hard feel like crap. From someone who’s helping studios stop

guessing and start connecting, this episode’s guest and founder of Ren Genen Marketing, Andrew Papas.

Andrew, how’s it going? How’s it? It’s going great, Harry. How are you? Very good. bit surreal. I used to be

sitting here with a lot less toys last year and I was on your podcast and now it’s the other way around.

I know, right? Like full circle and uh lots of great conversations for sure.

Yeah, 100%. So yeah, really excited for this conversation because of the amount of people you speak to. Number one,

because you’ve also got the podcast, so definitely relate. And also like your level of work because it’s specifically

with indie devs. So, what I wanted to jump in and I just

found one of these takes online. I really wanted to open with this was you mentioned you get upset when a studio

brags about like not doing marketing but then the game does well and on LinkedIn

I tend to see a lot of those games broken down, right? Yeah. You see, h this game did really well, one person,

let’s learn from it and then you mentioned like you know it tends to

upset me when students keep bragging about this. is like, okay, why is that why does that upset you?

Well, you know, I’d say it upsets me because whether you know people that are calling out to this that, hey, we did no

marketing, um whether they realize it or not, they actually were doing some form of marketing. And and and and the other

side of it too is a lot of times we think of marketing as, oh, it’s nothing but exclusively like, you know, tactics,

awareness efforts, and all these other things. But it really starts so much early on in the early stages of

development even in the concept phase right we we have an idea about something and then some of us just have let’s say

are a lot more intuitive about maybe the you know commercial viability or they have that really strong vision behind it

and seeing it through all the way and then from that it informs a lot of like

decisions core essential decisions that help it track really well. So at a high

level and face value it may not seem like they did much marketing but the the

right intention uh the purpose behind the project that’s really a part of marketing but we don’t think of it as

such and therefore in those moments we’re like oh we didn’t do any marketing and look how awesome it is and on top of

that it makes a lot of other people that are trying really hard feel like crap. Yeah, it’s like Yeah, it’s a good point

because like I think like like you said, some people do stuff whether it’s documenting their life or being really

active where for someone else that’s like a really big strategy like I need to be active on Discord and put some

attention there where for another dev that’s just like, oh, of course I’m going to do that and then they’re not connecting the dots. Right.

Exactly. And and some of us can connect the dots far better than others regardless of what resources we have or

very few. So it it it’s different for everybody. Sweet. So in today’s conversation, I

want to get into of course like marketing practical things for people to take at home. Also just a bit more the

philosophy I think and first principles. So you say that most kind of devs will

think of marketing when it comes to launching the game, right? And I’ve seen you say that it should

start way earlier than that. So why do you say that? Well, the the main reason why I say that

is because, you know, we really got to kind of think about like kind of the purpose behind the

project and and everything else associated, right? Because a lot of times, you know, we see people with

these ideas, these concepts, and let’s face it, a lot of us are all familiar with, oh, these passion projects and

stuff, whether uh, you know, it’s a hobbyist or someone that wants to do it

for, you know, business purpose, make a commercial venture out of it. and well they lead with these initial ideas and

they’re lots of times just making the games for themselves and not thinking about you know h how is this going to land in a market how is this going to

perform after that if you’re looking to starting a business as an indie studio

or anything or even just as a a solo developer small team whatever you you need to really like start thinking

earlier on instead of thinking about marketing much later and I mean I I I

feel at least in a lot of the circles that I’m in uh that’s that’s, you know, almost common knowledge. Uh, but still I

I don’t think it’s even emphasized to the point of like how early that these things need to be done.

How early do they need to be done? Honestly, like right down to the, you know, concept stage. If if you’re

looking, hey, I have an idea about the game, great. Let’s let’s vet it out a little bit more. Now, there’s two sides

to this. uh one I don’t have uh I have some understanding of but I’m not really involved with that uh that process and

that is you know assessing you know the skills of your team like what can you effectively put out there um without you

you know within your means uh because if you can’t it’s like let’s say for a lot of people it’s really hard to lead with

an MMO there it could be a commercially viable uh market to get into but if you

have never done an MMO before maybe that might not be the best move for you. Right? So that’s that’s one part. But

then the other part is really assessing, you know, the market and the needs and

the demands behind that. And that’s an area I think uh, you know, most of us

probably do, but we only do it we only go so far. And in particular what that

is means is you know we’ll go through this process uh of like u you know

quantitative analysis which is essentially let’s do some game comparisons and look at the mechanics

genres and and see how uh this data compiles to say hey is this a viable product is it popular like are is that

in high demand and everything like that. So, we go through that process. We we get a an understanding like, okay, well,

based off of our team’s abilities and based off of what appears to be in demand and these other product uh other

games that are out there, this is kind of the the market we’re going to be we’re going through. We’re going to make a game within this uh genre. Great.

But that’s usually where we stop. And there’s a problem with that that I see. And it’s not like you shouldn’t be

doing this like totally do that uh qu uh quantitative assessment. But when we

stop there, we’re basically leaving like money on the table and and I or just

making it harder for us to, you know, make something and and work towards sustainability.

And and it’s because what I call this uh part of the process is just demand-based

thinking. We’re solely looking at the demand and seeing how we can fulfill the demand by simply adding another uh item

uh to the store, another game to the store. But that’s not necessarily doing anything. You’re just adding something

else. There’s no real uh things that you like we’re going to lead in with uh differentiating in the product. And

yeah, people will go in and assess other products and games in the market too to kind of start doing that process. But um

there’s no real system or or let’s say focus uh or any type of other thinking behind it. So what I propose here is

combining it with another t of thinking which is what I call solutionbased thinking. And this gets into deeper

understanding of the market specifically with players. And what we’re doing here is it it’s taking all sorts of different

information. It could be reviews of these comparison games. It could be uh you know surveys or feedback or anything

else that’s out there and getting down to the problems that player have. Now

for some of us when we think of problems with games we’re like well what problems could players uh have about games? I

mean if you think about it uh we’re in the entertainment business. So, uh, for

entertainment, like are there really problems for people because these aren’t like games aren’t like a necessity for

people to buy. So, therefore, there’s maybe not necessarily a need for games in the first place. So, getting it

creates a conundrum because we don’t think that there’s problems really when it’s in the form of entertainment, but

you know, there’s there’s still psychology behind how players work. And also I think hearing you say that like I

have problems with the way games play right like I’m thinking

like right now I place mostly play mobile games and the way my funnel experience is is gone is is it a rogike?

Is there a full experience and a meta game that isn’t grindy enough to watch ads? And I just have to filter my way

through. Then I’m currently left with Baltatro and there’s this other game where it’s like kind of rogike. There’s

some ads but I’m giving it a go. It’s called High Roll. And yeah, unless I can pick it up and put it down, that’s just

my filter. But hearing you say like what problems are there to solve? Um, I did a podcast yesterday with John Wright and

he was talking about how Dream Games took what effectively Candy Crush has made, which is like an amazing Mercy

game, but then added so much polish and then metagame around it, then a completely different way of marketing it

that now boom, they’ve just been valued at 5 billion. Even you’ve taken what objectively you could call like the

king, Candy Crush, but then they still managed to iterate. And I think it’s because they solved the problem that the

players had with the other game. about just hearing you use the word problem like I’ve never thought about the word

problem here but like yeah I guess even though it’s not a necessity it’s still a problem with what’s kind of out there

right yeah because if you think about it like you know players are looking to they’re

looking for experiences it’s it’s an escape there’s there’s all these other motivations behind it and and I think

that’s the key there is understanding the motivations and and when I say problems too it’s not just problems I I

really boil it down to two main points it’s pain and satisfaction or fulfillment, right? Uh these are all and

those are like the core core drivers like us as humans. And pain in particular, if you think about it, we’re

hardwired to avoid it regardless of what the pain is are just we don’t want we

want to avoid it uh at all costs. We’ll do what we we can until if we can’t,

it’s usually because there’s something else that’s more painful that will take over. So, how does pain fit in with games? So

pain fits into games through again this this information we basically all have

access to and and learning what players are saying about these comparison titles

opposed to just relying you know solely on highle data and metrics about uh you

know how games are performing, how many players they have and stuff because that just informs what they have done. But uh

reviews and everything else gives us uh reasons why they do these things or why

they have pain around these things. And and again like I would say one of the best places for this is reviews because

people even in positive review like you know when we look at reviews we look at like the overall review uh rating and

then we go into like positive negatives and we might just read all the negatives and some of the positive and stuff but

what I have found that there’s actually a lot of positive and negative sentiment in both positive and negative reviews.

Meaning we could have a posit review that’s like glaring uh very well uh

supporting the game in that experience, but then there could be a lot of negative sentiment like I really wish that they improved on this thing or I

got this feeling and it didn’t vibe with me but overall I still like the game. Cuz then what if that person has a next

level experience then yeah it’s interesting cuz like it’s binary right? It’s like you got 1 2 3 four five stars,

let’s say. But then if the five star person has this wrong with the game and then there’s a game that doesn’t have

that, then you could get it’s almost I don’t know if this is right to say, but like better to please the people who are

five stars on this game because they’ve already liked that genre of game to a certain extent. And if you make it like a dream game for them, it’s probably a

lot easier to convert that to your game versus getting someone who got a one out of five and trying to fix all those problems because then you might even

just take them to a four. Right. Exactly. And and if you I mean, think about it this way too. When you’re

having a positive a lot of positive reviews that you know surface a lot of

and and similar problems and this like negative sentiment in some aspects, right? Over over overall it’s positive.

But if this that’s surfacing a lot, what that’s showing you is uh and and again

you you look at this across a whole market segment like of all these game comparisons, what you’re identifying is,

you know, missed opportunities like people that didn’t realize this when they came out with the game. Maybe they

can’t shift. Maybe they’re still not supporting the game after the fact, but yet people are still purchasing these

games that are popular. Those problems are still surfacing. They’re still being identified. And that’s that’s what I’m

calling talking about when people are leaving money on the table. And this applies to everybody whether you’re

really popular game and doing it really well or um you’re trying to um or your game isn’t or you’re just trying to

figure out where to fit in. These players are essentially giving you what it is to then get to that point or

improve upon that. And I and I call that uh basically it just distills down to surpassing existing value.

M that sounds like a lot of work. It does. But like if if you look at the

grand scheme of things too like in terms of making a game uh prototyping

validating the concept and taking it all those stages and for some of us I mean looking at um development cycles of like

you know two five years which hopefully most people aren’t doing five years unless it’s absolutely needed that that

I would say that’s way more work and a lot more risk. Yeah. Yeah. I want I wanted to ask you

on that the I was at develop Brighton recently and I was surprised actually there was a lot of people I’ve gone to a

stage where there are people I’ve interviewed back when I was a recruiter or even just like last year on this podcast and they’ve been laid off and

they’ve gone through that cycle and now they’ve started a startup and they’re looking to raise money and I’ve had

three of those different conversation people join a startup looking to raise money and I was very surprised two

things so the fact that they join a company and they were looking to make a game over five years. I was like, how is

that a plan in today’s kind of economy? Like, how do people know what’s going to happen in five years now that we’ve got

all these recent developments? You got postcoid, you got GTA 6 coming out next year. I don’t know what’s going to happen there. Like all this stuff, and

you have a 5year development plan. Then the other thing is they’ve raised already like a couple million. They just

need a couple million more. So, okay, wait. So, people are some of them raising money successfully for these big

ambitious games. And when I hear you say like, let’s look at the reviews, it

makes sense. But then I’m like, what if I’m making a game which is ambitious enough where it’s going to take two, three years? Surely the review data in 3

years will be different. And then like I’m always kind of I don’t know. I don’t

want you I want to make another Overwatch clone 5 years late or another Batro clone 3 years late, right? And I

feel like as a lot of the games coming out now are just extraction shooters, which remind me of Fortnite. And I’m

like, I can see why, but then I can see why some are going to be suffering, right? Like we’ve had a few um big names

where, you know, Life Cervix big launch and then okay, goes away. I’m like, Jesus Christ.

Yeah. And you know what you you bring up very good points too about the dev cycle, but it also goes both ways in

terms of you know the essentially the market research I was talking about too because you know if for example there’s

been cases where I’ve worked with people on this process and you know sometimes they’re like oh let’s look at Stardew

Valley cuz we’re making a game that’s just very similar Stardew G uh Valley but you know you know quality of life

updates and things like that. But then it’s like but what’s happened though is if you look at older titles in the sense

and and you can see how this applies especially if you have like a very long dev cycle um is well Stardew Valley did

a really great thing but since then newer games have come out that have already surpassed the existing value of

Stardew Valley. How do you measure that when you use that word? How do you measure existing value? is existing value is basically

what’s currently like available on the uh what’s currently available on the market and and meaning like so I’ll take

again the example of Stardew Valley. Yeah, because I’m very curious with Stardew Valley specifically because that seems like a game where it would be

quite subjective whether a game is got more value than the original Stardew Valley. Like is there an objective way

where marketer can say this game has now got more depth, it’s got more play time relative like how how can I actually

know which game to quote unquote remix or get inspired from because

where I’m not in the marketing hat, I’m like okay, what’s the biggest game in this genre? Go there. But you’re saying

that might not be the case because of this value. So I was wondering how do you measure the value a game has?

Okay. So when you’re talking about value, I mean there’s there’s lots of perspectives in terms of value, but what

I’m looking at it from the perspective of this this assessment and, you know, diving deeper into supporting, you know,

this, you know, the demand based thinking, the uh commercial viability of something. Um, we’re we’re not looking

at value like is it a good game or not? Or do people like it? because clearly like pe Stardew Valley is probably uh we

could call it a great game or whatever. Uh and lots of people love it and it’s going to have high value regardless of

you know who you are or whatever. I’m sure most people would say yes it’s a high value game especially the people that love playing it and still play it

but we’re not necessarily looking at value from that perspective. we’re looking at let’s say may maybe market

value meaning you know people in general do look like uh would like to have

something new uh but sometimes at a certain point there might not be familiar with what else is out there

they don’t know about anything else out there and as you know developers and creators you know we look at things like

oh you know I really love this game like think of all the times we are inspired by games we love or grew up with and

what’s the reason we want to create something different and new because usually there might be a pain or something that we think that could uh be

added that could make that experience more fulfilling. So even in that initial process from the creative process

itself, we’re already looking at things that way of how do we surpass existing value in that sense in a probably a

little bit more like technical or or or practical form like hey this is great but I want to make that experience

better and I have some ideas on how to do it. That’s what I mean by surpassing existing value. It’s not to say there’s

less value or more value just because it’s something new. It’s just adding like quality of life features that

weren’t we couldn’t do because maybe the tech wasn’t available or it wasn’t as accessible. Only bigger studios or AAA

could do it, but now we can because of advancements. That’s what I’m referring to in surpassing that existing value.

And there’s that part and then obviously identifying all those pain points that players call out and you’re like, “Hey,

we have the means to address those pain points in our game and that’s how we’re going to solve those problems.”

I want to take us to the listener here like let’s say I’m an indie developer or

you know I’m developing a game and I’m thinking about like postcoid GTA 6

AI we’ve got these three big market forces and like the old game problem has come up on this podcast quite a bit

where there’s so many other games which is taking everyone’s time and it’s just very different to how things were 5 years ago and you’ve been in marketing

in games for a long time so you’ve been through these cycles So I was wondering over the like last year, how have you

changed the way you’ve approached kind of work? Like what has kind of been a practice you’ve stopped doing and what’s

a practice you’ve started doing when it comes to kind of analyzing where to spend your marketing dollars and your

time? Yeah. Well, you know, that’s a great question because when I got into this

business, um, I started on the side, was working at a full-time job like many of

us do in this industry, especially, uh, you know, devs and studios. And, um, and

then when I went full-time and stuff, a lot of the mentality I had was, you know, thinking about it was freelance

based, so I was always thinking about the how or what actions do I need to take, right? And it was very specific around that. And that’s what I picked up

on from the industry and just kind of followed suit and and went there. But in time when I uh but in time what I

started to pick up on and and realize and part of this realization was just from my I guess infatuation with uh

entrepreneurial podcast. I mean that’s what inspired me to do my own. That’s the reason I’m here. Yeah. Right.

If I didn’t have Tim Ferry’s podcast and all that stuff literally I listened to that throughout uni and then it just

became so normal to me. It’s like oh yeah I’ll start a business. And then I realized not everyone has had that podcast education where three years it

just becomes so normal. So yeah, I definitely resonate. Yeah. So like and I’m sure a lot of us

have in some way shape or form uh but you know with uh with all that

entrepreneurship and and because of maybe certain figures and people in that space that I was following I started to

realize uh like real life lessons that they don’t even teach you in college

really or I’m sure some they do uh that like the one of the biggest components about like you know creating products

just in general is really like yes, a lot of people lead with what what’s

something I can create uh myself and solve a problem for. And more likely than not, other people are going to have

that problem, too. And honestly, that’s no different than how a lot of us create games. But sometimes because it’s so

creative and subjective, sometimes we get so passionate about that. and passion’s still important, but we get so

passionate, that’s when you see like again those passion projects that kind of go nowhere because we’re not thinking

outside of the uh the box so to speak when it comes to an audience. But so what I started realizing is um we have

that process and then when once once you got something now it’s like okay we got to get it out there and and what happens

what I’ve noticed is everybody was really focusing on the how or focusing on the tactics and they say strategy but

as far as I uh understood over time when people say strategy they really mean a plan which is still very different

because plan is still associated and fixated with the how the tactics and everything else. Can I ask you then

what’s the difference of a marketing plan versus a marketing strategy? A strategy is really a concept or like

thesis or or an idea like kind of like this vision and it can be pretty focused

and whatnot. Um and you could even go deeper where it’s like let’s say internal facing or external facing

meaning like this is what I share publicly with people what our strategy is and this or or outward facing but our

strategy internal might relate more to culture right so um so not necessarily

public facing but like this is how we’re going to act outward when we create awareness and everything and this is

what we’re going to do internal with our culture but ultimately a strategy is like this theory you have in terms of

what are we going to And it’s a lot of cases I think it’s it’s most helpful if you leave it fairly broad because then

it’s open to interpretation meaning like you can easily pivot but still follow that guiding principle in light and

that’s what the strategy really is. It’s a guiding principle. It’s like your north star. It’s not really definitive

in actions because it’s just guiding you to there and then from from that point then you’re determining what those

actions are. But a lot of times we just lead with the actions. we don’t necessarily think of what the final thing is outside of just thinking oh the

end result is let’s get a lot of wish lists and hope that it sells a lot on Steams but that and and again that leads

into another area which is more outbased thinking but that’s what the strategy and the plan is again just those

step-by-step list what are the actions we take what platforms etc those are the differences and we tend to mix the two

and lots of industries do that yeah so like you brought up wish list there and I can imagine like if you just

had a marketing plan. It would be kind of like that um the trope where you ask GBT to make a bunch of paper clips and

then it like devours the world to make as many paper clips as possible cuz the goal was make paper clips. And if like

the marketing plan is get wish list, well, there’s probably one wish list which is 10% conversion,

one which is like I don’t know 50% or 1% conversion if you’re going like pure wish list. there’s probably there’s

nuance and I’m wondering if you could for people listening like give us an example right of the last year or last

two like a project that you might have worked on like they came to you with

like a game they didn’t really have they had more of a plan but then they had a strategy could you give us an example it

would be good to hear that I I might have to give like a kind of overall or general example and because

yeah a lot of people when they come to work with me it’s like what happens is they they come to me and they say hey

Look, we we have this plan and we want to do this, this, and this. And usually it’s always based off of uh you know,

wish list numbers. How do we achieve this? And these marketing people? No, the uh no, I would say uh majority

of them are just like you know uh studio heads uh just solo developers uh things like that. and they’re and they they’re

they’re you know it’s it’s uh they’re definitely logically based uh thinking

and stuff and like hey we have these goals and we need to break and with these goals we got to then break it down

go backwards and then that gives us like beats and other things and they’re they’re thinking in that uh way. Uh

sometimes it is marketing people too though uh that will come and have a similar uh structure

like but it was interesting you said they have a plan and they’re just coming for you like help us execute but if I’m

in their position at least after listening to the last 20 minutes well maybe they should first let’s vibe check

this plan or let’s check first right exact and that’s what and that’s what’s happening because here’s the thing like

lots of us lots of information out there on the how and it’s still effective it’s still helpful and everything else. But

what’s happening now is people are executing on these things. It makes sense. We we hear like these breakdowns

of of success stories and everything else and it’s it’s all logic. It’s like, okay, this makes sense. I do X and Y is

will be the result. But what happens is as they get further along, whether uh

they’re copying these things outright or just being creative in how they’re uh coming up, they’re not getting the

results that they’re looking for and then they’re getting stuck and then they try something else and that might happen. And then what happens is either

one it it’s starting slowly leading to burnout or two they just are getting frustrated and thinking why isn’t this

working when it worked for this person? And yes, I mean some of these things are they’re anecdotes. they don’t apply

directly, but it still gives you a good uh at least somewhat of a foundation to work from to kind of explore and

experiment, but people are still getting stuck. And that’s when they’re coming and that’s when uh you know clients and

stuff are coming to me because they’re like we’re doing these things. We read about them, but we still don’t know why

nothing is working. And that’s where the answer lies is in the why because their

intent behind it is still uh solely based in a lot of cases on outcomes.

They’re looking strictly at the results. I want wish lists uh and and that’s the end all. And it’s not so much I would

say even though it’s still good to consider what the example you led with before like 1% conversion, 10% all this

other stuff. it it’s really more about instead of looking at things from an outcome perspective which is more based

with the how you want to look at things from a process perspective and that’s the why. um that could be broken down in

different ways, but like the processes of not so much of like, hey, how do we do this and how do we scale? That’s more

of a logical based and and an effective way of making things as efficient as possible, but part of that process is

also like, well, why are you reaching to these particular players? Are they your ideal player base? Um, is there a

broader audience you can tap into? How do you communicate with them? Uh, do they resonate a certain way? Are there

certain things from your project that maybe it’s not so much about this particular feature you think is really

unique, but they’re resonating with another feature or just uh the theme of the game that that’s going to land you

uh you know more wishlist because you’re actually connecting with players opposed to just saying, “Hey, we got this

feature and this feature.” It’s like, and this goes back to a concept where I think the industry as a whole uh has a

problem with is we treat players like players. We don’t treat them like

people. We’re not being empathetic of their other interests and other things that they actually care. Um they, you

know, care as well as the game, but they care more about because when you think

about players and or as people in this way and their broader interest in stuff, you lead with a lot more empathy. You

can become a lot more creative with these solutions and these processes that then get you the results you’re looking

for. and you’re doing it in meaningful ways that are authentic, get results, and make the process more fulfilling for

you. So, let’s break this down. So, you mentioned like going after audiences

that might not be a good fit, but I feel like we you might be able to see what is a

good fit and what is not. So, I wanted to ask you like if a publisher or studio kind of is looking to approach a market,

when have you seen like they’re approaching a market where it’s just like that’s limiting you right now? like that’s not where you should be paying

your attention like how can they even realize that proactively I think one way is to you know

look at what the norm is now right so the norm being okay we have a strate we

have this plan and and we’re just going to execute it you know actually what’s really funny about this too is um it

that’s the way a lot of people look at things and uh last night actually I was talking to a developer from a studio

from uh Australia and they were uh saying I was I was sharing a lot of the

similar things I shared uh uh today with them and at the end of it they’re like

wow you know out of my 10 years doing this I’ve never heard anybody think of

doing things around like the why or leading with empathy and really thinking about players this way. Um, so and and

and it just goes back to, you know, essentially the question you’re asking and they’re thinking and and what a lot

of people think about. So when when studios or or publishers are doing this and because she said too, hey, a lot of

people I’ve ever talked to, other marketers or whatever are always leading with execution, execution, execution,

and there’s nothing else behind it. And it’s because they have this, they have a process that they know works and

everything else, but it doesn’t work all the time. That’s potentially part of the problem with some publishers because

it’s like an 8020 rule. Like 20% or less of the games in their portfolio are

going to carry the weight and the other 80 uh and the 80 the other 80 might not. But that’s what keeps the publisher

model going. That’s what like you know so there there’s that aspect of it. But

sorry to interrupt the analogy I have like in my industry like I am basically

demand generation right and there’s loads of ways to do that. You could have a billboard. You could have post on

LinkedIn. You can do outra. You can do cold calls. These are all different methods. But imagine I sold cold call

training and I did cold calling as a service. Well, if you came to me asking

for clients and I really wanted to eat, I’d probably be able to convince you

that cold calling is the way because I’ve got that expertise. And at least if I were to do anything with your

problem, cold calling would be my best solution. But I’m hearing like if there’s all these marketers around, it’s

kind of like you’re going to be biased, right, of what you’ve done before. And this can even happen on a publisher

perspective, right? If publishers market games in this way and if they get a game

that’s slightly outside the orbit, well, it’s probably very expensive to go and get new expertise or to find out how to

do social Twitter and um kind of Reddit social marketing. Like it’s a very

different skill set. So even if like it seems like a hard problem to solve for a

publisher like the one in Australia that you mentioned like she spoke to all these marketers and I’m imagining those

marketers recommended what has worked for them in the past but you might need someone who’s seen been around the block

I guess like you need to try all these different ways and there’s loads of new ways happening just seems like a hard problem for a developer to understand

like okay where should I be putting my attention here everyone will be biased around what they have done before. Yeah,

it you’re right. It and it totally is and that’s like part of my mission and purpose is to help, you know, solve that

for other people and not I mean not even just directly just spread the word and and throughout the community. But in in

regards to solving the problem, I mean what I would say to to anyone out there,

um regardless if you you have access to resources that help explain the why behind audiences or explain the why to

to the problems that are found within markets or market segments, uh one of the best things that I’ve come up with

that, uh anybody can do and cost nothing is just go through some simple exercises

of uh basically what I call like you know, you’re almost like envisioning or

uh role playing and and what what it and what this process does is you like

whoever you are and you’re thinking about your audience, put yourself just for a moment, like really try hard and

and put yourself in their shoes now and think of, okay, I’m doing this. How

might my ideal player do this? Right now, at first, what’s going to happen is you’re you’re probably gonna a lot of

these responses or or thoughts that come up are going to be biased based off of you what you know, right? Because that’s

the only information that you’re leading with and and and but that’s okay. I mean, and that’s what a lot of us

probably tend to do anyways, which leads to guessing and and filling in our own gaps and stuff. But the important part

of what this process does this this uh exercise it it at least gets the gears

turning in terms of okay what are what else are these people looking at and

then if you do that regularly like okay we’re working on this feature what might people do then you’re like oh wait maybe

we should ask people well just do a simple post on Reddit we’re not promoting anything we’re just simply asking a question and seeing like how

people resonate with that and then maybe you you tweak that and stuff and again that it starts those gears turning. It

starts that process. You start thinking about different and new and creative solutions leading with an empathetic uh

with empathy and this empathetic approach where you’re start going to you’re you’re going to start be able to

come up with new and different and creative solutions to these problems of

hey we’re we’re doing our checklist. We we’re executing but now we’re getting stuck.

So that I would say for anybody out there who’s trying to you know navigate this and and go beyond with what works

and what they know. It’s not to say abandon everything that you have done and you know that process works and

stuff but at least keep that there but consider you know looking a little bit

beyond leading with a little bit more empathy. And it’s not to say people aren’t empathetic. We just get so caught

in what we know and what we’re doing that we don’t generally think that much about, oh, what else could we do? What

else can it be improved on? As you talk, I think about my world. And it’s interesting because in my world,

there’s a lot of things I can look at to check where I should spend my time. So, my world is writing LinkedIn posts

essentially. And I get a lot of lovely data. how many impressions each post get likes,

comments and then I meet people in person and then they say I loved X post

or I loved Y post and it’s always a type of post which is something that made

them feel something right but then to other people who are like my ideal client they also mention those posts but

they also then mention a lot of the ah you’ve given me some ideas I’ve now taken that and I’m like when I am in the

data and and I’m seeing ah this post did 80% as good as this post as good then

that’s the post that everyone’s mentioning and then I’m like okay wait like measuring what’s working and what’s not by numbers is so wrong and then you

said do the role play and I was like I did the role play of like how would I check if I got a connection request from

Harry if this person is worth my time and I’m like okay how do I check I’m like let me see the profile picture did

he put it together nice and then I open the profile right and I will see if it’s got good banner I guess good steam key

art, is it got recognizable names, mutual connections, IP? Is there any decent reviews? Like I would go through

these checks and then I would even make the decision to invest more time to research on the game. And this came up

on the podcast where you can do Facebook marketing for a game by kind of just

being honest by essentially saying basically joining the Facebook groups of similar games from my understanding and

then you basically ask a question like, “Hey, um, I’m building this game. I’d love some advice on this feature and

then you can literally ask the question like you said like okay I’m planning to market this game what would resonate with you and I feel like because I’m

such in my world it’s like let’s obviously not take one person’s opinion let’s take the opinion of all these

people which is more data but then we’re actually missing the nuance and it’s

it’s funny because it feels like conflicted advice like in marketing at college or uni in my case it’s like if

one person says something it doesn’t mean anything. You need to get loads of data, but then if you go loads of data

mode, then you’re not going to actually get the nuance to actually make a decision and do something different. So, it’s like we need to balance both. Um,

bit of a ramble there, but the thinking is, okay, let me ask this question if that’s

okay. So, if I’m looking to get insight from players directly, what would be the

best way to do that without kind of coming across of spammy or silly potentially? Yeah, I mean honestly I

think one of the easiest and fastest ways to do that um in general would be

just read uh well one would be uh read reviews of games. Um now a lot of that

information obviously is going to be uh specific to the game meaning it’s going to be specific to you know that as a

product right so that that’s I would say a lot of that information it can be helpful in a broader sense but it’s a

lot of it is going to infer more on uh the development side um and that uh so the other way to do that then is just

through various communities uh you know honestly one of the best ones you could uh learn from this is uh reading again

you necessarily have to make posts or anything, but just reading information on uh Reddit. Uh so in these spaces,

people are already talking about these games and everything, but the ones that are very active, like check out their

profile and see where else are they active and stuff. And when you start doing that, and again, like the more

data, the better, right? But at the same time, this is like another step into that exercise I talked about like role

playinging. But at the same time, if you go across like let’s say five people that are talking about Coral Island, and

of those five, you look into their post history, not to be creepy or anything, but I mean, you’re just doing this to

learn and better serve them, right? So, you you look at their post history and if they’re very active in all these uh

and there’s analyzers online. You you pop in their name and then it will show you what communities they’re in. uh

little simple things like that. But um if you want to go deeper and see how what kind of conversations are happening

in the other spaces and what those other spaces are, you start getting a better picture and then you go back to your

yourself in terms of what are you know your values and what are your your vision and stuff. You go back to the

game. What are not just the features but the themes and maybe the emotional aspects that your game creates or what

are some of the motivations behind like you know is uh if your game is a

citybuer uh what about cityb building can relate to an actual regular human

behavior that’s fulfilling for them right so when you you go back to these things connect the dots you have this a

little bit better understanding of your these players and then you start honing in and focus by connecting these dots

and that’s essentially the process of alignment And that and through that process, what you’re effectively doing too is you’re

instead of filtering based off of, oh, what platform do I do I market on and

what pl uh do I spend the most time on? I mean, you’re still going to do that. That’s still important, but what you’re

also doing is alignment’s allowing you to filter out and connecting with the right players, serving that specific

audience as opposed to just blasting it out in to whatever channel or platform

in hopes that you’re reaching the right people. Like tailing your messaging is as important as you know what

communities and platforms you’re targeting. Do you do much paid stuff in marketing?

paid ads versus organic verse what have you. So I don’t advertise it but yes.

Yeah. Why don’t you advertise it? I’ve had a few different marketers on recently. I’ve kind of had a streak and

there’s some who just only do paid marketing. There’s some that pretty much only spoke about kind of more the social

marketing side of things. Then there’s some which are just pure mobile marketing which is like its whole um beast. It

definitely is. Yeah. I’m curious like how should people think about types of marketing? Is every

piece of marketing relevant for every game just a different priority list or

there certain games where you kind of want to be selecting these channels more than the other? Like how does a indie

developer decide where to put their attention when it comes to a marketing channel? Yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a good

question and a a hard one to answer because my approach to it generally and and and I I’m happy to talk about paid a

little bit more too in a minute. Um but my my approach to general isn’t like in

theory like all our marketing is basically done

uh you know online, right? Like I mean yeah there are events physical events but outside of that it’s

it’s basically online uh outside of like maybe word of mouth which still is going to happen online but

just to touch on this do you would you include an announcement at an event online

you get me? Like if you’re like for is it Nexfest? Like there’s somewhere you get one big announcement or Gamescom or

what have you of their game and it’s part of the launch of a game. The fact

that it’s in done in a physical spot is that online or I I’m I’m speaking online. If it’s on

the internet, it’s online. So any activity on the internet? But if but so so like

but I mean physical might be you’re at an event you have a booth and then you’re doing promotion or network or you

know whatever that way that and so all all I’m saying is lots of the activities that we do to create awareness and

marketing is is almost exclusively online. there’s there’s very little that’s happening unless you’re going, you know, it’d be great to hear stories

of people going door todoor, right? Um so if if if we look at, you know, and

I might have lost my train of thought for a moment, but I I I know we’re like we’re focusing uh um with like

which channel should we which channels, right? Yes. Thank you. So when we’re doing

this, my my theory is like all all these people are hanging out in these respective areas anyways, but then it’s

just a matter of finding out which ones are going to land. And the the other thing too is like people always want to

know this. And I I I look at it from a different perspective. Okay, so there are probably going to be some that do

better than others. Like you hear people that, oh, Tik Tok really worked well for us. and you might see a correlation with

other games in that genre that are working well on Tik Tok and such. Um, and and great. So maybe that’s an

indication there, right? So you could use like data like that to to go forward with. But my take on it is well a few

things. One, we’re all human. We all have our differences and and everything else. And for some of us, even if like

Tik Tok sounds like it’s going to be the right fit where our players are, maybe it’s not within our means. Maybe I’m not

the one who uh would want I don’t want to be the face of those uh types of

things. I don’t have the means to uh you know hire someone or whatever to do it.

And so that’s not going to work for me. And and maybe if I even like push myself and I’m not allin that could lead me to

burn out and become more frustrated and more stuck. And I think a lot of times we don’t necessarily assess our means or what we

we think we can do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t push yourself, but at the same time, like if it’s not going to work, you know, you’re going to oppose it.

You’re just going to be trying to run up a brick a very tall brick wall for the longest time, and that’s not going to

get you anywhere either. So, I look at from perspective of work within your means, establish something that that

does work for you and and then if it doesn’t, move on to the next thing and then move on. And if those things aren’t

and if you can’t find any areas that aren’t working, then maybe it’s time then it might be a signal. Okay, we got

to go back. Maybe it’s our messaging that’s really not connecting with people. Maybe our hook needs to be a little bit different, right? And then

it’s those other things. So, and and it’s not to say like so because I think it’s very difficult in a lot of cases to

find what is that right channel. Is there a specific channel just for like outside of like a a subreddit that’s

like dedicated to RPGs or cozy games? There’s not it’s really hard to target

based off of how these platforms work and operate. Anyways, so that I look at it from perspective of lead with

something that that you’re in line with uh that works, you’re getting results and then you develop a process behind it

and then you can start expanding to other areas. And what that does is instead of trying to go to let’s say

there’s five places you could do. Well, if you don’t have the means to target five, again, it’s going to lead to burnout. So, focus on one uh get a

process going and then start scaling. And you can even like repurpose some of this stuff, too. that content, it could

be duplicated on another platform. You just might tweak it a little bit for that platform. But otherwise, that’s a

more efficient and effective way of doing things than just trying to be everywhere or in that one place that

people say you have to go and then finding out this is way more challenging than I I need it to be and it’s not

helping. Yeah. Again, the analogies with what I’m doing is a lot like there’s types of

content you can make on LinkedIn. You could do images, videos, you could DM people, you can do live streams, you

could do newsletters. There’s like too many things for one person to do all incredibly well unless you build

processes and then you got all that jazz. And I want to take you to gaming now because I think like when you said

play within your means, it really clicked when you when I understood it like you have a certain strength. even

if something objectively with other games it’s better to be on Tik Tok. If you don’t have the strengths, you don’t

halfass it. Like you want to full ass everything, you know, you want to full ass it if you’re going to actually do it, right? So yeah, I think that’s the way to say

that word. I’m not American, but maybe I love it. I I I’ve never openly said

that to people like like publicly and stuff, but I have always thought Yeah, you got a full ass that.

Yeah, you got a full asset. um the hm you mentioned marketing process and I

can understand it in my world where it’s like before it was wherever the idea

came from then we’re writing a post but then as soon as you get to any reasonable scale you can’t rely on that because then you get burnout you’re like

ah where where is it going to come from so like now our process is interview and then Slack messages and we make sure

that the interview is prepped for and we get the most out of that interview and that’s how we our content for example.

But when you say marketing process that’s a lot of the time from my understanding like it might be like the

founder dev or in a bigger studio it could be the marketing manager but like they’re making a process to make I guess

content right whether it’s paid ad copy or organic. So could you break down like

what a marketing process is like within a studio like what does it actually look like? what what I would explain or what I

would understand it to be is hey we we have some like key images or types of like you know gameplay or whatever that

we want to show right so it gets usually distilled into hey what what’s this uh really good screenshot and a good

screenshot one I I would call out to is saying like it has a lot what I call visual context or has enough context so

when a player looks at it they’re like I get what’s happening here uh because there there can be a lot of disconnect

sometimes the a dev knows what’s going on a player sees is it it’s all dark. I have no idea what what I’m looking at.

So, there’s that. Then there’s going to be video clips, right? And I think that in general though, uh the process is

more about we’re we’re getting this content. Uh a lot of times it’s more visual oriented, which makes sense, and then

we’re then going to like have a plan to and put it out there. Now, that’s that’s

how I see that process working out a lot. But then I don’t think there’s uh and this goes back to what I’ve kind of

shared earlier about like the why, but why is that particular piece of content better than another one? And and the

like what is the intent behind it? Well, and again, a lot of times it’s outcome based. We’re going to see what it gets

for results and and and and go from there. But then I think a different way to kind of look at these things uh to

maybe improve some existing content uh creation processes that in marketing and

awareness processes people have is what is the intent of it and and how is it serving the audience like what is going

to be how do we let let’s say let’s lead with like how do we resonate and connect with players as opposed to just excite

them and and because I I think excitement creates more results but excitement and resonance creates more

trust. trust more uh builds can start building relationships and you can then look to like it’s a big

thing for us like we literally called it trust content before I called it attract content and I realized that’s the wrong

word because if I call it attract content then I’m going to optimize for views but if I call it trust content I

need to actually optimize for what are the comment section saying who’s on the post is it people we want to build trust

with and then it’s really funny how if I just took someone’s directive as go give

me growth on LinkedIn but then I just ignored all the nuance I just realized you just be going in the wrong direction

for like months and ah where are the actual results we thought that more X would equal Y like no we need to check

these boxes right we need to make people feel this so I think I’m I’m hearing you I just want to understand one thing um

Andrew the marketing process like you can have a way of getting you know visual content and then putting it out

there but What I’m hearing is more attention can be made into

how do we measure results or maybe just like internally. Yeah, I guess like for me I’m a very

data guy. So like couldn’t you just measure how much it resonates by looking at the sentiment of the comment section

for example or seeing how many people share it. So like when you say it needs

to have that intent behind, we can still measure that, right? Yeah, I would say so. And and I and and

here’s the the other thing too. The the reality of it too is just because you’re leading with this let’s say uh purpose

or intent focused uh content it it doesn’t mean it’s it’s going to like you know skyrocket or go viral. It it h it

can but it doesn’t necessarily mean that. And and I I I just I’m saying that too because a lot of times we might lead

with something different like this is a new concept maybe for some people and they try it and then it doesn’t work but

it’s like well how long were you trying for? And and that’s where you know consistency is a factor too. But in

terms of measurement, yes, absolutely. It’s honestly I would say it’s no different than how you would measure any

other form of content too. But this time we’re not so much focused on the um you

know the impressions and all that stuff. And uh I would say you’re going to get more value and and understanding if uh

you have comments. Now you might not get comments right away and that’s okay too. But so that’s why I would be like just

you know and and maybe it’s just something that you you try this type of content and another one that has this

intention and another uh when I run ads for people at times I do the same exact thing. This is very very focus based and

everything else and this is what we’re going to go with and this is has a theme behind it like the uh this ad copy is

focusing on more and and a lot of times too I’m doing this for testing purposes so we could validate things faster as

opposed to going on you know uh social media and such but it’s like well this one has a theme around identity this one

has a theme about like it’s a there’s one game I’m doing it’s a espionage strategy uh card uh online card game and

this one might be more about recruitment because we’re like recruiting agents to be in, you know, in this game and stuff.

So, we’re more thematic, right? The other one’s identity because a big concept of the game is like who you are

as the these different agents from different like uh factions all over the world and stuff, right? So, we have

these different thematic ones and then we have ones that are like, okay, let’s just try to excite or or do these other

things and just try it that way because I’m not saying, oh yeah, you always want to be like, you know, connecting and

resonating. I mean, I do, but if the other thing is working, then I wouldn’t say go away for that. And see what you

get for results. See what people are coming in. Maybe you’re getting a ton of wish list from one thing, but you’re getting a lot of people in your

community on other uh on another type of thing. Stick around for the other stuff. Exactly. And and that’s the thing it

goes back to. If you’re just exciting people, yeah, you can still do those things like establish trust, build relationships and stuff, but the things

that are connecting and resonating people are more likely to get those people to be like, “Wow, they’re making

a game for me. Wow, because of how they communicate, I feel like I almost like know them. It’s like they know me almost

and stuff.” And when you’re building that type of connection with players, they’re going to be the ones that are really those ideal ones that are more

likely to become advocates that are more likely to help with like word of mouth and all these other things. And that’s I

think the key difference there. So, but it’s it’s I will say this, it can be hard to measure all that. Like in this

data age where we’re all online and we have multiple devices that we’re swapping between to, it’s super super

hard to connect these things. So, it’s almost like keep an open mind and and be

aware of all these activities that are going on. It’s yes, it’s a lot to consider, but if you don’t look at it

that way, again, you might just keep going back to the habits of we’re only going to be outcome based. And you could

miss these great opportunities when you’re building relationships with people, but instead, you’re just looking at the uh the wish list count.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s the marketing saying, right, like you want six to seven touch points before usually

someone makes a decision. And some of those touch points might literally, you know, have zero conversions and next to

zero every time you run it, but it was required for someone to actually, you know, spend a bit more time digging in

and then buying the product on this next one. So, like you said, um I found

something interesting now I’ve implemented in my business uh and I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s um every time you bring on a client, you write

the entire buyer’s journey from the first time you’ve exchanged words to when they actually gave you money. I can

imagine this for a game as well. And I was very surprised. So like I thought

all of my projects would be like around 30 days. They sent me a message on LinkedIn, went on a conference, actually

did it for like six of my highest clients. It was a 200 day sales cycle or

something stupid. And the first time they messaged me, one of them messaged me day three of my business and I

replied to him saying, “Ah, yes, let’s work together.” And then I had the call,

then they never followed up. And I didn’t even clock that. Then literally at Nordic Game this year, we booked

another meeting and then it finally hit the thing and then they’ve become a client. And I was like, I thought this

was a 30-day exchange, but it was actually they were involved in my world for literally 200 days. And I just never

considered that when before I was like, oh yeah, go conference, get x amount of meetings. But like, okay, imagine I only

went to conferences and never shared what I was thinking online or never did these podcasts. Completely different

thing. So that’s how I explain my podcast expense on the accountancy thing because like I don’t know it’s very hard

to measure exactly what if it’s affecting what but I know it’s definitely you know a big plus.

So all right I have an idea you gave me an idea that I think a lot of people might like

um w with what you just shared I think it’s brilliant. It reminded me of something similar I read in a book great

book. I highly recommend everybody reading it. It’s long but it’s worth it. Uh influence uh the psychology of

persuasion. Um, and then and there’s a section in that book that talked about this guy that they were talking about

who’s great at car sales. Um, he didn’t have a lot of like I guess training or something, but over the years and one

thing that he did everything I I don’t know if it was every month or every year, he sent out a card to like pass

people and it was I read this book. It’s a very good book. It’s on Spotify as well for free if

anyone’s paying for Spotify. Awesome. So anyways, that factor alone

is one of the things that he attributes to why he was so successful and made so much money at his job and and obviously

he was still personable and everything with these people, but it was just just having that touch point that made all the difference. Um, but back to what you

were saying, like first off, I love that you did that. That’s like I’m like, “Wow, that’s that’s freaking brilliant.”

And to really understand that because what does that do? That gives you more understanding of of what that journey looked like and everything else. Now I

as you were saying I was like why don’t we figure out a way to apply this to you know studios and developers right

well I think we could right we could just ask 50 players could do you mind telling us your bias journey we give you some currency because one thing I want

to say Andrew I’ve already shared this with like a third of a couple of my clients and one of them said that’s

crazy that you say that because we worked with one big studio code development project and then they

released a game so I emailed them saying hey congrats on the game hope you’re well and then they replied saying ah thank you Um, actually this email just

reminded us we need you for the next project and then they signed a big deal literally and when they sent the email

the the guy who was telling me he was like yeah I wasn’t thinking much of it but then you realize people just forget

they just don’t know who you are and they knew you were there and another thing in my buyers journey I found out

maybe it’s relevant to games five of my biggest deals it wasn’t the founder that

found me it was the manager the marketing manager a friend who’s like ah this person’s relevant maybe you should

talk to him. Like at least half of mine wasn’t the actual person making the decision. It

was a trusted person that then recommended them to check it out more. And I can imagine that in games is all

the time. Like for me, I outsource a lot of my decision-m for games to streamers. So just see, hey, are they talking about

it? Yes. Cool. Maybe I should now talk about it, too. Yeah. Absolutely. But so I I want to

take it a quick step further and and apply it to for maybe like a B toC. So like you know uh studio to

player. Yeah. Now obviously it’s going to be hard depending on dev cycles and and changes

and everything else to find out like hey cuz okay that’s great but they can only buy the game once it’s available right

but then it’s like well let’s break down like key points that are important during this this whole process. Well one

is um you know getting your demo out getting to play that maybe another one is you’re launching a Kickstarter and

stuff. So if you can get a sense of uh maybe uh you’re not going to get like be

able to attribute any information of like hey uh like say in your case how many touch points did it take before

they actually bought the game or whatever or maybe after the game launched that’s going to be a more uh current topic but let’s say before. So

then again maybe you can start going through some exercises of of what are the current expectations uh in the let’s

say well I’m using market here in a much broader term of let’s say uh maybe we’ll

take like a Tim Collins approach to good is great another great book um where you

assess all the games that meet this criteria and let’s say games that had a Kickstarter games that then had a demo

games that went to early access and then games that launched right so you have like these you know four major big touch

points and now let’s assess um out of all those games what ones did very well

and you can set that criteria and then you distill it further and be like okay and what were the time spans in between

that and if you you find an average let’s say it’s let’s just say five years of all

those things happening and and I would say that’s acceptable because you have you know if it’s successful you have

funding from Kickstarter you have funding from early access and then clearly you have your launch right so I’d say that’s a good number and Now,

when you start breaking that down, you can get an assessment of, well, what is the average time that those events

happen? And that and and within that number, you’re like, can we hit that number, maybe go a little bit beyond it,

or can we shorten it? And if you’re able to shorten it and hit all those things,

you’re essentially almost um setting uh clear expect uh you’re you’re within the

expectations of what the general market or player base has for those types of, you know, journeys, right? And if you

can deliver on that, it really just goes back to my uh principle from before.

you’re surpassing existing value in the terms of you’re you’re able to um so the value there is the the expectation and

you’re now a able to cut that time frame down and then if you can nail that down and duplicate that process with the next

project and the next one like that that that could be a pretty cool model. Uh but again that just all

came from you sharing how you better understood what that journey was like for people. Have you heard of a video sales letter?

Yeah, I think I have or I think I know what you’re referring to. So, it’s like someone comes to the website, they’re welcomed and then it’s

usually you and it’s quite got quite a formulaic type of process right now. The

one that’s down. It’s like, hey, quick origin story of me and why I’m like the man or the woman.

Donald Miller does a lot of that stuff, I believe, or similar. Anyways, yeah. And it’s like a short video. You

explain like, look, you’re in this situation. We can help. Here’s how. Let’s go to the next stage. And then

what is funny is I found a podcast can just be a better video sales letter. So

what I had is I had a podcast with one of my mentors, Jacob Pegs. He’s now

changed his video sales letter to my podcast with him. So when he gets someone into his um funnel, he points

them to say, “Hey, um before we book a call, make sure to watch this podcast so

you can learn more about what I do and what have you.” And what we found is when someone watches a podcast, the

reply rate goes through the roof and the conversion rate on the call for him was a lot higher than versus what he had

before. And I think the reason why is because you’re taking them through those journey a lot quicker. So a podcast can

build trust. You can show expertise. You can see what it’s like. You can see the energy, see the vibe. Where if you had

to do that through text or you had to do that through snapshots of a game, it would just objectively take more time

and usually stop start time. So you might have to see the same thing four times in a row. So I found it

interesting when you were saying, okay, what find what points were hit in other successful

campaigns. Okay, it took them x amount of time to have all these moments. Could we not just have it quicker and maybe

have I don’t know a behind-the-scenes dev situation or there’s a situation if

they want to join the discord and get a lot of information very quickly they can. So like little stuff like that

where we understand what points does a buyer need to go through to kind of get

more confident in a buying decision. It’s like, right, are we artificially

making them wait because we have to release the feature trailer, which is only going to come out 3 months before the game. So, they’re never going to be

able to make that wish list decision before they actually see that. And then we’ve just missed out on all that stuff. Like, we can just make sure we can hit

those points as soon as possible. Yeah. And I I’ll add one more thing to that because one of the biggest challenges that everybody faces, every

industry is time, right? We all have a limit source and we have to be mindful

of who our audience’s time is and players especially with all the different games out there and and just

life. We have to be very very cognizant and mindful of time. But if if you’re doing these things in a process in a way

that’s clearly setting those expectations, you’re establishing that trust and in creative and and fun ways.

Well, you’re you’re you’re going to be prioritized because you’re connecting and resonating and building that

relationship. And then you’re also because you’re setting those expectations, you’re and and having

maybe different types of touch points and and bigger touch points, right? Like those around those bigger events, then

when those expectations are set and you’re establishing that thing, you’re going to be more top of mind than

anybody else. And that’s how you can potentially capitalize on player time more than, you know, the next game.

Yeah. I think also making sure like these are entertaining, right? like do

someone enjoy consuming this whether it’s an ad or a social ad. Um we’ll close off soon, but I don’t know if you

saw any of the marketing on shorts or Tik Tok for the new Superman movie. I haven’t.

Yeah, it’s really interesting. It’s basically looks like influencer Tik Tok stuff, but it’s like Superman, Lois

Lane, and they’re just making fun of each other. It looks like The Office basically. and like there’s bloopers in

it, but like it’s from the original studio and that’s how they’re doing their marketing. Obviously, they have stupid budget right now, right? But like

all the comments I was looking at it was like this is the best way to market a movie, blah blah blah because it was like a fun and at the end of the show

they were saying go watch Superman. Go watch Superman. Oh yeah. Like it it was it was very it was very cool.

So so many quick uh two quick examples of that. One was um you know Ryan Reynolds with Mint Mobile. I will I will

talk non-stop about his ads because they’re just so fun. They’re entertaining or main thing was anytime

they came on it was the one ad I would never skip because I just always got to Yeah, it was always different. It was it was

fresh enough and even the same one I’ll be like, “Okay, this is I I just watch it.” It was it was fun, lightweight. Uh

it was great. Uh, another thing too is, uh, with there was one client I worked with where I did do ads and we were

trying to like what can make an ad that much different and we didn’t do a deep dive on their audience or anything, but

I did ask a lot of questions to get to know it better and we’re like, let’s lead in heavy with this and and I even

use this as an example in my GDC talk from this year and what what we’re getting from comments and stuff where

people are like, I wish list this game uh, purely just from this ad alone

because like and And people are like, “Wow, it’s really intriguing.” But there’s a lot of comments associated with that. And it’s just because we

really took the time and energy to think about what is it going to get going to be different and come out more and and

kind of like get these people and they were calling out. It’s it this is the ad and I the reason I’m wishlisting is is

because the ad and then you know the page the Steam page and everything else does the rest by communicating what that

experience is and making sure you know things align. So yeah, it’s it’s crazy how that stuff works. I wonder what you

had for the hook there because I’m imagining I’m just thinking a couple steps here like the Superman qu there

were ads, right? I mean, when I think about it, yes, it’s content, but they put money behind it. They paid the actors to make these shorts to promote

the movie. So, it’s Yeah, it’s marketing, but it’s funny when I’m watching it, it just feels like

I don’t I don’t I don’t scroll is what I’m trying to say. It’s not like coming in this summer. I’m like, okay, bye. So,

I’m wondering what hook did you use for that ad? Was it a video ad? Was it a banner ad? Was it

So, it was it was simply like a static image ad. And it was all I would say it’s primarily in the copy, but the game

itself is very similar to like Portal. Okay. And and we were using a lot of the humor

associated with Portal. Humor, right? So, it’s massive. But and

it’s not like crazy humor or trying to be like super invent because sometimes humor can be hard but like some of the things like in the description field

it’s like wish us this game or don’t. Like we like yeah like we uh you could you could do

this or don’t. We don’t care either way. And people like okay you got my attention like I want to know more. And they’re like all right I’m in. I love

Portal. And we didn’t even mention anything. We never said anything about Portal but just from the the humor and

the and the context alone they already made that immediate connection. Yeah, very nice. Awesome. Closing off here,

Andrew, you in a very unique situation have also interviewed 200 gaming leaders

and this is just a personal curiosity, you’ve kind of had like an unofficial

education, right? when you’re looking across all these people that you’re interviewing,

what’s if you wanted to close this podcast and maybe something we haven’t covered today, um what would you want to

leave them with kind of based on the conversation you’re having that maybe people aren’t thinking about but they should?

Geez, because there’s so many things, you know, uh at the end of our podcast, um you know, we always ask the questions

like what would you summarize? are, you know, uh, three tips that you or suggestions or advice you’d give people

listening. Yeah, I’ll give that back to you. What are three suggestions you give to someone listening to this podcast?

Um, you know, I I I know this might come off a little biased because it’s a key area that I’m focused on, but I I will

say it’s is supported by a lot of guests saying this too is like do your research. And what that means is not

just know the numbers, but again do the exercise, do the work of knowing your audience or get to know your audience as

best as you can. I mean, hey, we’re we’re going to have to take guesses regardless of how much information we

have or don’t, but why don’t you do it with, you know, the right intent. So, know your audience is one. Um, the the

next one is, geez, it’s it’s hard to come up with three on the spot, but I’ll just say

with what I think would be good, and I think uh you know, the sentiment of all the guest um you know, compiles to is

you know, really lead with empathy. And and again, I I want to call out I’m not saying that I don’t think people in this

ind industry are empathetic. They definitely are. This is why when I was initially going into film and then moved

over to games, I’m like, “Oh my god, this place is so much better than the film industry.” So, you all are awesome

and and empathetic, but when we’re but we get tunnel vision, we get, you know, too focused sometimes on the things that

are going on in our own bubble, in our world. Just lead us with a little bit more empathy. Um, you know, one per one

guest, Philanima Schwab, actually, um, she made something that stood out to me and I try to practice too. And when I

say lead with empathy, don’t just think about your players and put them, put yourself in their shoes, but think about just other people as a whole. Um, she

would do kind of like little things where she would go out and if she saw someone and they had like a nice outfit

on or something, she would go compliment them like because she said a lot of times I wouldn’t do that. And then I’m

like, why not? Just say it. You can make a difference in that person’s day and their life just by saying that. And she

did that and she noticed like so many other cool things. So, while it’s a specific thing and maybe a little bit uh

unique compared to most guests, that’s when I that really stood out to me. And I think just leading with a little bit more empathy and carrying that even

beyond players uh can make a huge change. Um, and then, you know, I guess

the last one, uh, a few guests have called out to as well is just,

you know, it’s okay to challenge stuff and and keep an open mind. Meaning, if if people keep telling you, nope, this

is the way, this is the way. Um, ah, great, you know, awesome comment. But it

it means that there are you it can be broken. It could be explored or at least

like improved upon. And because if we lead with this idea of hey this is the

way we have to do things and and everything else it’s it’s just going to make it harder to stand out. So if

you’re thinking of other ways and and things uh like just keep an open mind because I think that’s one of the main

things that’s really limiting us is that we we don’t look beyond these things and again what helps us do that is with that

whole purpose and practice of being empathetic. So I would say that my three things do uh do the research uh be

empathetic and uh you know keep an open mind. No, I love it. And yeah, it’s when I

listen to you speak, it’s hard for me not to think about my world, but there’s a lot of overlap and I’ve learned those

lessons on my side. So I think they’re quite universal. Oh, absolutely. Because a lot of these things that I have learned and and how

I’m applying it here came from the entrepreneurial space. It came from my experience in agencies where uh yeah it

was B to uh B stuff uh some B TOC but it was different industries and everybody

thinks oh my situations is different than theirs and another thing it’s like it really isn’t but it feels that way.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Great. Andrew, thanks so much. How can people get in touch if they want to work with you,

want to continue the conversation with yourself? Sure. Well, um I’m on LinkedIn. I’m pretty active in posting a lot of like

similar types of insights that we discussed here. Um, so you can follow me on LinkedIn. I think it’s like Andrew

Papis, uh, Renzhen or just Andrew Papis and you should be a link in the description.

Um, also my website uh it’s uh uh it’s renenmarketing.com

and uh also uh that’s where you can find the podcast too called Indiegame uh uh

sorry uh Indiegame Movement uh and where we talk about uh the marketing business of Indie Games and and as you mentioned

before Harry you have been on the show before with a lot of other people um and it’s you can you know listen to the show

on the website or wherever you listen to podcast so Spotify Apple, wherever you

should probably be able to get it. And um another thing I’ll call out to uh something new that I’m going to do soon.

It hasn’t launched yet, but I am launching a a new newsletter uh that uh

essentially is really focusing on uh lot of stuff we’re talking about, but it’s

also it’s about it’s called decoding impact. And the newsletter is really going to be focusing on actionable

insights, frameworks, uh you know, and mindsets about like how we kind of

decode this why, this intent, uh execute on it, and then deliver with purpose.

So, it’s something new. I I it’s really focused on these key early stage and

other different things that I think uh could be really uh impactful and insightful for a lot of people. So,

those are the ways to, you know, reach out to me, connect, follow me, whatever. Um I’m always happy to talk.

Sweet. Yeah. So for everyone at home definitely uh follow Andrew on LinkedIn and definitely subscribe to Indie Game

Podcast and curious the in the newsletter might be out by the time this

podcast comes out. So if it is out it will be in the description and is it going to be on Substack?

Good question. I honestly haven’t um gone that far with that but at some point I’m sure it probably would be or

whatever. But for right now I would say just subscribe on the uh the website. You’ll find it in the nav render

marketing and you see newsletter and and it has more information in terms of what you expect too.

Sweet. Andrew, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you Harry. It’s been a pleasure.