One of the most common questions I get asked
is how did I market The First Tree so well? What was the special ingredient that made
GIFs of the game go viral on reddit, Imgur, Tumblr, and Twitter? Like a lot of answers in life, there isn’t
one simple reason why the game did so well in attracting an audience. In fact, I could attribute a lot of it to
just being lucky, but something important I learned is that luck is only part of the
equation. Here are the reasons why The First Tree marketed
so well. Reason #1: The visuals were eye-catching. The bright colors of the fox contrasted well
with the beautiful lush forests. I tried to follow the basic art rules of complementary
colors, contrast, and negative space. Usually, the whole environment was one color
while the fox was a bright orange. Imagine you’re scrolling through Twitter
at a hundred miles per hour; it makes sense this colorful, striking image would catch
your eye for at least long enough to go to the website and learn more for 15 seconds. The visuals set it apart from all the other
2D games as well. Here was a beautiful 3D adventure game that
didn’t look like other indie games. It looked beautiful on its own, which is important
for the initial three-second window of selling your product. Reason #2: It reminded gamers of things they
already loved. By far, the most common comment I read was
how the game reminded them of Okami, the Capcom adventure game starring a hand-painted wolf. That game had such a big cult following that
they’d attach themselves to my game immediately just by association. The comments would always remark how it reminded
them of their favorite things like Miyazaki films, Firewatch, and Journey. In fact, a Kotaku article that got me a lot
of press had it in the headline: Journey plus fox. People normally don’t want something completely
foreign and unique; they want something they already love with a little twist. I haven’t even mentioned the legions of
fox fans who will buy anything with a fox! You want to know the real reason my game did
so well with a $0 marketing budget? It had a fox. My first game was abstract and didn’t have
a visual character to rally around. In The First Tree, you were a fox, which was
front page news for kids, teens, and adults alike. When they found out it was a story-driven
title with a beautiful music score, that attracted fans of a different kind who loved any game
in that particular genre. It hit the mark for lots of different communities,
and that’s why the market was so big for such a niche, experimental game. Reason #3: I posted GIFs constantly. I took some advice from the makers of the
cute farming game Ooblets, who said that their goal in development was to focus on the visuals
first. This allowed them to start posting images
and GIFs as soon as they could, even though the true structure of the game hadn’t been
completed (or even started in some cases!). Marketing is a drop-by-drop accumulation,
so I knew I had to start as early as possible. I focused on the graphics first so that I
had something interesting to share, and I would capture video using OBS or Fraps. I would convert it to a nice, five-second
gif and post every week. Some of the gifs went viral, most of them
didn’t, but I made sure to do it every week in a variety of places. This was also good marketing data, because
I knew what scenes of my game resonated with people and what didn’t. I had the likes and views to prove it! A lot of features in the game were added just
because of that data, like the giant bunny glitch gif that went viral on Twitter and
reddit, which led to me adding it as an easter egg in the first level. That data also helped me piece together my
main marketing materials like my teaser trailer and Steam screenshots. Reason #4: Call to Wishlist. Even though this is Marketing 101, I never
did it with my first game. Even when a gif got some attention online,
it was still a huge lost opportunity because I didn’t tell people to act! Normally, marketers call it the CTA or call
to action, but for my game, I decided to think of it as my Call to Wishlist. I always tried to add a comment telling people
where they could wishlist the game or add their email to a mailing list. Even though it still helped during the crucial
first hours of launch, I definitely could’ve used my email list better. However, telling people to wishlist the game
is always a good move, and that’s because the Steam wishlist number is the most important
indicator of success. Valve could safely interpolate from that number
if my game was going to be popular or not. If my game was popular enough, Valve would
promote it more, which led it to being more popular, and thus, the happy cycle continued. Before I knew it, I had made $75,000 during
the game’s first week which meant Valve could trust in my game taking up valuable
store real estate, and would continue to promote The First Tree elsewhere in the store. All of the marketing efforts I made over the
course of a year were actually all for one single day: launch day. For now, your goal is to find those people
who want to buy your game and make sure they’re notified when your game launches. It will take time, and you’ll have to get
really good at making eye-catching gifs, but it’s essential. I’m going to repeat it: it is ESSENTIAL
for indie devs to market their game if they want an audience of any kind.
Four tips as I caught them in text form:
Eye-catching visuals. Bright colours of the fox that stand out on the background.
People want something familiar but interesting -- close to what they already love, but with a twist.
It had a fox. Big market for stuff with foxes.
Posted lots of gifs over a long period of time (starting early in dev) with call to action to wishlist. Market your game to succeed.
Congrats!!
insightful thanks for making this video
Any suggestions for a non-artist programmer? A lot of the success came from the marketability of the visuals, but I fear that's not something I might be able to do myself early on in development when I'm using placeholder art.
How much do you think quality of the game factored into your success.
Anyone else remember that post from a few weeks ago where the guy said he had tons of wishlists and barely sold anything and everyone jumped down his throat saying wishlists aren't indicative of shit?
I will say, I saw this game a lot, but I largely ignored it because I didn't know what kind of game it was.
I still don't know what kind of game it is.
This guy's GDC presentation was very inspiring; I totally recommend checking it out if you're an aspiring game developer, with seemingly no time and a full-time job, looking to break from the mold and follow your dreams.
I think this can be applied to just about any small business where you’re selling a product to consumers