Given how hard discoverability is today, shouldn't devs start talking on forums again?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Since Nintendo Power is dead, gaming news websites besides Gematsu stopped being useful a decade ago, marketing costs have become exorbitant, and search engines have become increasingly nonfunctional (both searching Google and also Amazon's and Steam's storefronts), how are games supposed to get discovered now? It is becoming very difficult to find a game that might appeal to you besides word of mouth. Should devs make more of an effort to go to popularly visited forums and put themselves out there, rather than sitting in their discords no one knows about? Or is there some other way game devs should be using to get discovered?

[Oyster Sauce]

The average gamedev Discord post gets more ****** flag reacts than we have users. If they wanted a forum with reach, they'd just use Resetera or do a Reddit AMA (which they already do). Plenty of devs have posted on RPGCodex many moons ago, but none stick around on the ******-saying forum for obvious reasons.

[Tadeusz]

In the end, it's up to the gamers to discover games that they like. If devs go to forums en masse to promote their games, that could ruin the forum experience.

[Oyster Sauce]

The average gamedev Discord post gets more ****** flag reacts than we have users. If they wanted a forum with reach, they'd just use Resetera or do a Reddit AMA (which they already do). Plenty of devs have posted on RPGCodex many moons ago, but none stick around on the ******-saying forum for obvious reasons.

Also, a few devs have posted here and their threads aren't exactly popular.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

The average gamedev Discord post gets more ****** flag reacts than we have users. If they wanted a forum with reach, they'd just use Resetera or do a Reddit AMA (which they already do). Plenty of devs have posted on RPGCodex many moons ago, but none stick around on the ******-saying forum for obvious reasons.

Also, a few devs have posted here and their threads aren't exactly popular.

Very much so.Truth of the matter most of the people who potential buy these kind of games would be on major social media platform Oyster Sauce mentioned. No way in hell mid to large size developers would go on niche forums like this ,since it can turn to PR nightmare not to mention devs theses day have no backbone to any social media platform from sites.

[Vaako]

Since Nintendo Power is dead, gaming news websites besides Gematsu stopped being useful a decade ago, marketing costs have become exorbitant, and search engines have become increasingly nonfunctional (both searching Google and also Amazon's and Steam's storefronts), how are games supposed to get discovered now? It is becoming very difficult to find a game that might appeal to you besides word of mouth. Should devs make more of an effort to go to popularly visited forums and put themselves out there, rather than sitting in their discords no one knows about? Or is there some other way game devs should be using to get discovered?

https://www.youtube.com/@ClemmyGames/videos

I mostly use this channel for smaller titles, one out of the hundreds he recommends might pick my interest.

[Vergil]

Creating an entirely separate forum where users have to make an account instead of using Discord where people already have pre-existing accounts will just result in less users. Not to mention forums are an alien concept to most zoomers anyway. Discord fulfills the purpose of creating a big echo chamber hug box that's easy to regulate and discard unwanted discussion there's zero benefit to forums for these people. As for exposure paying influencers and streamers to play/talk about your game is infinitely more useful than making a post on a mostly dead medium like forums/gaming news websites.

[rusty_shackleford]

I hate game developers

[Element]

Since Nintendo Power is dead, gaming news websites besides Gematsu stopped being useful a decade ago, marketing costs have become exorbitant, and search engines have become increasingly nonfunctional (both searching Google and also Amazon's and Steam's storefronts), how are games supposed to get discovered now? It is becoming very difficult to find a game that might appeal to you besides word of mouth. Should devs make more of an effort to go to popularly visited forums and put themselves out there, rather than sitting in their discords no one knows about? Or is there some other way game devs should be using to get discovered?

Some make youtube devlogs and build a semblance of an audience that way. Word of mouth from there, though.

[Vergil]

Are there any game devs who were stupid enough to move all the marketing to bluesky and boycott xitter aka shouting into the void?

[pillbox]

They can be discovered by livestreaming their suicide.

[rusty_shackleford]

I hate game developers

Except for the ones that post on RPGHQ, of course.

[rusty_shackleford]

The average gamedev Discord post gets more ****** flag reacts than we have users.

fwiw, this is underestimating the amount of guest lurkers which is the primary advantage over discord.

[Oyster Sauce]

IF GUEST LURKERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL: MAKE AN ACCOUNT REALLY QUICKLY AND REACT TO THIS POST

THANK YOU KINDLY

[rusty_shackleford]

IF GUEST LURKERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL: MAKE AN ACCOUNT REALLY QUICKLY AND REACT TO THIS POST

THANK YOU KINDLY

Bots are excluded from the guest number, it's why we no longer have hundreds of 'users' online or get anywhere near the all-time high

[Oyster Sauce]

IF GUEST LURKERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL: MAKE AN ACCOUNT REALLY QUICKLY AND REACT TO THIS POST

THANK YOU KINDLY

Bots are excluded from the guest number, it's why we no longer have hundreds of 'users' online or get anywhere near the all-time high

I don't get why so many people register every day to do nothing with their accounts. Its not like they're required to download mods or anything.

[Vergil]

Given how hard discoverability is today, shouldn't devs start talking on Myspace again?

[GhostCow]

I don't know how any could have trouble finding games when steam has tabs for top sellers, new releases, and upcoming releases as well as a tag system

[Vergil]

I don't think discoverability is hard. There's just a lot of people making dogshit slop that people ignore. If something is good it will be discovered and passed around. I call this the "your mother" system.

[Oyster Sauce]

I don't know how any could have trouble finding games when steam has tabs for top sellers, new releases, and upcoming releases as well as a tag system

Not worth looking at because it's nearly all shovelware garbage, unless you're discovering the new Assassin's Creed or Monster Hunter

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I don't know how any could have trouble finding games when steam has tabs for top sellers, new releases, and upcoming releases as well as a tag system

When I go to Steam top sellers, I have to type in "JRPG" and then scroll half way down the page before I start seeing anything really great and definitely worthwhile playing and recommending to other people. I type in "visual novel" and aside from Phoenix Wright, I cannot recognize any actually acclaimed VNs there.

[Oyster Sauce]

I don't know how any could have trouble finding games when steam has tabs for top sellers, new releases, and upcoming releases as well as a tag system

When I go to Steam top sellers, I have to type in "JRPG" and then scroll half way down the page before I start seeing anything really great and definitely worthwhile playing and recommending to other people. I type in "visual novel" and aside from Phoenix Wright, I cannot recognize any actually acclaimed VNs there.

All acclaimed VNs are like 20-30 years old and freeware

[Brugmans]

IF GUEST LURKERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL: MAKE AN ACCOUNT REALLY QUICKLY AND REACT TO THIS POST

THANK YOU KINDLY

Bots are excluded from the guest number, it's why we no longer have hundreds of 'users' online or get anywhere near the all-time high

I don't get why so many people register every day to do nothing with their accounts. Its not like they're required to download mods or anything.

Hidden Content

This board requires you to be registered and logged-in to view hidden content.

[Vergil]

I don't know how any could have trouble finding games when steam has tabs for top sellers, new releases, and upcoming releases as well as a tag system

When I go to Steam top sellers, I have to type in "JRPG" and then scroll half way down the page before I start seeing anything really great and definitely worthwhile playing and recommending to other people. I type in "visual novel" and aside from Phoenix Wright, I cannot recognize any actually acclaimed VNs there.

All acclaimed VNs are like 20-30 years old and freeware

They shouldn't be on Steam at all considering they're not video games.

[Oyster Sauce]

When I go to Steam top sellers, I have to type in "JRPG" and then scroll half way down the page before I start seeing anything really great and definitely worthwhile playing and recommending to other people. I type in "visual novel" and aside from Phoenix Wright, I cannot recognize any actually acclaimed VNs there.

All acclaimed VNs are like 20-30 years old and freeware

They shouldn't be on Steam at all considering they're not video games.

A lot of things shouldn't be on Steam

[Oyster Sauce]

IF GUEST LURKERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL: MAKE AN ACCOUNT REALLY QUICKLY AND REACT TO THIS POST

THANK YOU KINDLY

It turns out they're not real, it's just AI analyzing my digital fingerprint

[rusty_shackleford]

It turns out they're not real, it's just AI analyzing my digital fingerprint

Those go under bots, we have a few dozen on the site right now

[Vergil]

Unfortunately there's a very large plurality of brown posters who might as well be bots.

[MC_Sea]

In the end, it's up to the gamers to discover games that they like. If devs go to forums en masse to promote their games, that could ruin the forum experience.

This is a very good point. One of the major reasons I stopped going to /v/ 10+ years ago is because of all the indie devs that would spam their pozzed garbage. It flooded the frontpage with tons of fake threads about "Indie Farming game #276", "Quirky Depression RPG", or "Wholesome DEI Puzzle Solver". The worst part is that most of devs didn't even bother responding to genuine questions asked in the thread. They just treated the forums as nothing more than a glorified advertisement area.

[tehdude27]

You need a good marketing budget regardless. Look at KCD2. Commercials on Twitch. Paying influencer reviewers to only give good reviews. Day 1 Twitch play on the major streamers. Carried a niche game to multiple millions in sales before most people could decide that it was too niche to be a mass appeal game.