Things, I would like to have known before and while developing and publishing my first game - Trash Invasion.  Here are explained things, which I learned on the go and through experience. In this article are also listed some useful Dos and Don'ts for marketing.

OTHERS STEAL YOUR IDEA:

There is always this uncomfortable feeling that someone else might steal your idea. If you are an indie developer, just starting out there, nobody cares about your ideas so much that they will start stealing them right away. Developers or even companies are buried with their own great ideas already, and they will never have the time or resources to ever pursue. Some could of course "steal" other ideas after they see lots of revenue, downloads, etc. Something tangible for them to make sense of. Pure idea, even implemented as a game, still hasn't passed the market viability test and has a long way to go. So don't worry about that, make that game and publish it. If you really worry about that stealing of ideas, I always liked how the famous author Cervantes handled the fake Don Quixote book (written by another author) by just writing a better sequel.

DO I NEED ALPHA, BETA RELEASES?

I remember I even had a "Closed Alpha" :) Unless you are a big studio with lots of things, which need to be kept secret until final release, I would say skip these two options (or go only with Beta) and just release publicly. You simply don't need to bother with these, because you will be able to make updates to the game as you make improvements and fixes and people don't need to bother with joining as alpha, beta tester (it's quite a hassle and a turn away for players to join a mailing list and beta program). 

On the other hand, you have to be careful, because you might get negative reviews if your game is in too early stage, so better communicate that to your players. It is also important to consider that the Beta releases could be very useful for two things (build a hype about the game - that only a small portion of players have the privilege to try the game early) and (build a mailing list with users with whom you can interact with later for marketing).

Here are some useful Dos and Don'ts regarding marketing, which I learned (the hard way haha), but it was worth the try.

DO:

Use two Twitter accounts for easier cross-retweet, like, comment and spread the word further. Make sure you are active with both in order to get decent following. I would recommend having a personal one and one for your brand or game account. More than two accounts is also possible, not sure how twitter would react to this though and if you have enough time to maintain them all. In other words, in the very beginning you need to have that boost from somewhere (and if you are someone who just made a Twitter account, that would take time). So boost yourself until you start to get noticed.

Establish social media - Twitter and Facebook early, you will appear in more searches in Google and on those platforms in general. Start making connections with other developers, artists and publishers for cross - promotion, giveaways, development support, etc. It could turn out you end up with a valuable partnership. For example, an artist who is building a portfolio might want to join you or a want to be a streamer could start showing insights about your development process and grow his audience.

Playtests a lot. With family, friends, your dog (hehe), go to forums, Betafamily (I am quite happy with it, I have used its paid and free services, and it is really good).

Identify your audience, where they are, who they are, where they hang out and get in conversation with them.

Look for some game jams and competitions and try to win something.

Craft your story. What is your story? Who are you? Why we should care about your story. Keep away from things like: I quit my job to make games; I spent 10 years making this game; I am working on this besides my full-time job, and I am a parent, bla bla; I made this game from my parent's garage or basement - those are cliché, don't work anymore. There are thousands of stories like this, we are tired and bored with those. Be creative, be honest.

Prepare professional icon, feature image and trailer. Outsource this to someone else. Unless you are an artist or graphic designer.

DON'T 

No need to spend a dime on Facebook or Twitter unless you are rich already (why would you be making a game anyway). Those platforms are good for awareness of your brand and project. You will get very less amount of downloads, if you are lucky, in the terms of between 5-10 for a 5-day campaign with a budget below 100 bucks - at least what Facebook advertises to you, as of what you will get. In reality, this could even be 0 downloads. I believe this would also hurt your Google Playstore conversion rate, because during the campaign, people will visit your store listing. It will be hundreds of them and if they were not your target audience, they won't install the game - this hurts the conversion percentages and the store algorithm will take this into consideration. Also, ad campaigns on social media require multiple A/B tests with different wording, video formats, images and this costs a lot of money, experimentation and time.

Waste time on social media, which doesn't convert and is risky. For example, I don't wish to waste my time on making a presence on YouTube. It is a full time job to make videos, content for YouTube only alone. It would take years until you build audience there. Better would be to use contacts and others with presence or who wish to build presence to talk about you or your game. Better, you got a nice story to tell.

Ask others to rate your game (even on those rate exchange places). This is not a good way to boost your ratings. They are not your audience, it is waste of your time, their time and Google could sanction you either by removing your app or simply reducing your conversion rate, because those users will uninstall your app, right after they review it. Sometimes they would even delete their review. It will hurt your presence in the store even more.

Don't promote at the end after your game is finally there. Promote with your very first prototype. Users will tell you if that is what they want as a game or not. In this way, you will know if you are going to proceed or not.

THANK YOU FOR READING

There are other tips and things, which I am yet to discover. For now, I will keep going with Trash Invasion game, because I am curious how far it can go. I will keep documenting my findings.

If you would like to know more about the game:

Play on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.differentwaygames.trashinvasio...

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DifferentWayGam

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DifferentWayGames

itch io: https://differentwaygames.itch.io/