How to Market a Game Before Launch

Step 1: Define Your Target Audience and Positioning

Before you create a single social media post, you need to know who you are talking to. "Gamers" is not a target audience. "Players who enjoy roguelike deckbuilders with strategic depth and a dark fantasy aesthetic, aged 18 to 35, active on Reddit and YouTube" is a target audience. The more specific your audience definition, the more effective every marketing decision becomes.

Your game's positioning is how you describe it in relation to games your audience already knows. This is not about being derivative. It is about giving potential players a mental model for what to expect. "Slay the Spire meets Darkest Dungeon in a browser" immediately communicates genre, tone, and platform to anyone familiar with those references. Your positioning statement should be one sentence that any player in your target audience can immediately understand.

Study where your target audience spends time online. Which subreddits do they follow? Which YouTubers do they watch? Which Discord servers are they in? Which hashtags do they use? This research directly informs where you should focus your marketing efforts. There is no point posting on TikTok if your target audience lives on Reddit, and there is no point writing blog posts if your audience only watches YouTube.

Write down your target audience, your positioning statement, and your top three marketing channels. Refer back to these decisions before every marketing action you take. Consistency and focus beat scattered effort across too many platforms.

Step 2: Set Up Your Marketing Channels

Create your social media accounts early, even before you have content to post. Secure your game's name on X, TikTok, YouTube, and any other platforms relevant to your audience. Account names should match your game's name exactly or be as close as possible. Inconsistent names across platforms create confusion and make you harder to find.

Set up a Discord server with a clear structure. Create channels for announcements, general discussion, development updates, bug reports (for later), and off-topic conversation. Write a welcome message that explains what the game is, when it is expected to launch, and what the community can expect from the server. Do not add dozens of empty channels. Start with five or six and add more as the community grows.

Create a website or landing page for your game. At minimum, this page should include your game's name, a description, screenshots or a trailer, links to your social media and Discord, and a way for visitors to sign up for email updates. If you are building a web game, this landing page is also where you will eventually host the playable game or demo. Use your own domain rather than a free hosting service to build SEO authority from the start.

Set up an email list using a service like Mailchimp, Buttondown, or ConvertKit. The free tiers of these services handle thousands of subscribers, which is more than enough for most indie games. Place email signup forms on your website, in your Discord server description, and in your social media bios. Email remains one of the highest-converting marketing channels because it reaches nearly 100% of subscribers, compared to social media posts that reach a fraction of your followers.

Step 3: Create Your First Marketing Assets

Your first marketing assets do not need to be perfect. They need to be interesting. A single compelling screenshot that shows your game's art style and hints at its gameplay is enough to start generating curiosity. A 5-second GIF of a core mechanic in action is enough for your first social media post. A 30-second clip of unpolished gameplay with developer commentary is enough for your first YouTube Short or TikTok.

Capture screenshots deliberately, not randomly. Every screenshot should demonstrate gameplay, not menus, loading screens, or debug views. Frame the shot to include your game's most visually distinctive elements. If your game has a unique art style, lean into it. If it has satisfying animations, capture them as GIFs. If it has dramatic moments, time your screenshot to capture the peak of the action.

Write your game's description in three versions: a one-sentence pitch (for social media bios and conversations), a one-paragraph summary (for store pages and press kits), and a full description (for your website and detailed press materials). Each version should communicate genre, what makes the game unique, and what the player experience feels like. Avoid vague language like "innovative" or "unique experience." Use concrete descriptions: "a turn-based tactics game where you command squads of puppets in a crumbling theater" says far more than "a unique tactical experience."

If your game is playable in any form, create a short gameplay video, even an unedited screen recording with your voice explaining what is happening. Raw, authentic development footage performs surprisingly well on social media because it shows the game as it actually exists, not as a polished marketing presentation.

Step 4: Start Sharing Development Progress

Devlogs are the backbone of pre-launch marketing for indie games. A weekly or biweekly development update, shared on social media, your website, and your Discord server, accomplishes three things: it demonstrates that the project is active and making progress, it gives your growing audience a reason to check back regularly, and it creates an archive of content that new followers can browse to catch up on the project's history.

The most engaging devlog content shows transformation. Before-and-after comparisons, progress over time, problems encountered and solutions found, and "how I made this" breakdowns all perform well because they tell a story with a beginning and an end. A post showing a rough sketch next to the finished in-game version of a character gets far more engagement than either image alone.

Share your development process honestly, including the setbacks. Posts about bugs you squashed, features you cut, and design decisions you struggled with humanize the project and create emotional investment. Your audience is not just following a game. They are following a story of creation, and stories with conflict and resolution are more compelling than stories of smooth, uninterrupted progress.

Use platform-appropriate formats. X and Threads favor images and short videos. TikTok requires vertical video, ideally 15 to 30 seconds. YouTube rewards longer content with 8 to 15 minutes being optimal for algorithm promotion. Reddit rewards detailed written posts with screenshots. Match your content to each platform rather than posting the same thing everywhere.

Establish a consistent posting schedule and stick to it. One post per week, every week, builds more audience than five posts one week and nothing for a month. Consistency trains the algorithm and your audience to expect and look for your content. Block time for marketing on your development schedule just as you block time for coding, art, and testing.

Step 5: Build Your Wishlist and Email List

For platform games, your store page is the most important marketing asset you have. Create your Steam page as early as possible, ideally 6 to 12 months before launch. Steam's algorithm tracks wishlist velocity, the rate at which new wishlists are added, and uses it to determine how prominently to feature your game. A page that accumulates wishlists steadily over months signals sustained interest, which the algorithm rewards with more visibility.

Every piece of marketing content should include a call to action that drives traffic to your store page or landing page. The call to action should be specific: "Wishlist on Steam" with a direct link, or "Play the demo at abratabia.com." Generic calls to action like "check out my game" are weaker because they do not tell the audience what action to take or where to go.

For web game developers, the equivalent of a wishlist is an email signup or Discord join. Since web games typically do not have wishlists, you need alternative mechanisms to convert interest into a committed audience. An email list gives you a direct channel to announce the game's release. A Discord community gives you an engaged group that will play on day one and generate the initial word-of-mouth that drives organic growth.

Participate in Steam Next Fest, itch.io game jams, or web game portals that feature upcoming games. These events put your game in front of audiences who are actively looking for new titles to follow. A strong demo performance during Steam Next Fest can add thousands of wishlists in a single week, representing months of organic marketing effort compressed into a few days.

Track your wishlist and email list growth weekly. If the numbers are flat, your marketing is not working and you need to change your approach. If they are growing steadily, continue what you are doing and look for ways to accelerate. Set a target number and a deadline, and work backward to determine how much marketing activity is needed to reach it.

Step 6: Begin Press and Influencer Outreach

Press outreach should begin 2 to 3 months before launch. Start by building a list of journalists, bloggers, YouTubers, and streamers who cover games in your genre. Read their recent coverage to understand what kinds of games they write about. Follow them on social media and engage genuinely with their content before you ask them for anything.

Your press kit should be complete and professional before you send a single pitch. It needs your game description, screenshots (at least 5, in both widescreen and square formats), your trailer (or gameplay video), key facts (platform, price, release date, developer info), and a link to download the game or access a press build. Host the press kit on your website at a URL like yourgame.com/press so it is easy to find and share.

Personalize every outreach email. A generic email that says "Dear Sir/Madam, I would like to present my game" gets deleted immediately. An email that says "Hi Sarah, I saw your video on roguelike deckbuilders last month and thought you might be interested in our new game, which combines deckbuilding with real-time combat in a browser" shows that you know who you are contacting and why your game is relevant to their audience.

Expect a low response rate and do not take it personally. Journalists and content creators receive dozens of pitches daily. A 10% response rate is good. A 5% response rate is normal. Follow up once, about a week after your initial email, and then move on. Persistence is fine. Harassment is not. If they are interested, they will respond. If not, your game is not a fit for their audience, and no amount of follow-up will change that.

Send review keys or demo access at least 2 weeks before launch. Content creators need time to play the game, form an opinion, and produce their video or article. If you send keys on launch day, the coverage will not appear until the launch window has already closed, and you will have wasted your most valuable marketing moment.