Indie Game Movement - The podcast about the business and marketing of indie games.

Maintaining productivity for any indie studio is absolutely essential, but studios that transitioned over to a remote setup over the past few years now face new challenges in keeping teams productive and healthy. In today's episode, we discuss some of these challenges, interesting benefits that come from a remote setup and how the core solution to addressing growing pains of going-full remote is c...

Collaborating with content creators is one of the most impactful ways to amplify awareness and grow your game's community. However, structuring programs sometimes can be a struggle when ensuring they support and benefit content creators too. Today we explore practical strategies your studio can use to amplify your marketing, engage your community and hit goals while simultaneously supporting creat...

Exploring ideas and concepts for a new project is always fun, especially when you're ready to develop a prototype. But sometimes passion, drive, and even opportunity can be a distraction that could easily send you off course. Today we're going to dive deep with our guest and discuss their process of exploring concepts, implementing prototypes, and how to keep things on track, even if it means comp...

We all understand the importance and value an IP has and rightfully so. However, sometimes studios don't see beyond this, finding it difficult to visualize and unlock their IPs true potential. Today we're going to explore creative approaches, simple yet powerful mindsets and other monetization strategies that can unleash your IPs full revenue potential while working towards sustainability. Ep 311...

We all have a tendency to get close to our projects and sometimes miss the forest for the trees, especially when it comes to player feedback. But even if we don't, the playtesting process can be cumbersome and even overwhelming, making it a challenge to navigate and understand what actions need to be prioritized to improve the quality of your game. In this episode, we'll be discussing how you can...

Validating any game concept can be a huge challenge for game creators. And if you're not hitting the target dead on, it can cost valuable time and resources. But just validating a product in a demanding market doesn't mean it's enough to stand out. Usually, this comes down to looking at the whole picture from a different lens. Sometimes, that means distancing yourself from the crowd and taking a r...

The world of game marketing is a shifting landscape. Recent years have shown a trend toward short-form content for advertising, communicating and selling video games. Today we'll be discussing some of those trends, effective ways to employ them in your projects and other concepts to keep in mind when tackling your marketing. Ep 308 Shownotes: rengenmarketing.com/308

Creating effective PR campaigns is a very tedious process. On top of that, executing campaigns doesn't guarantee results. However, developing a better understanding and streamlining the process can create lots of opportunities to communicate your story and maximize your game's awareness. We'll be discussing how using data insights can help make decisions on how and when to execute effective PR cam...

By now, most of you should know that this podcast is about the marketing and business of indie games. But another core theme carried throughout the show is empathy. We've talked about this in numerous ways in how it pertains to your audience, but never really defined the different types of empathy and explore the impact it can have across the industry. That's why I'm really excited about this epis...

Anytime you're looking for opportunities in the game market, understanding your game's audience is a great place to start. Unfortunately, the process isn't usually defined well, making it hard to understand audiences, let alone how to apply their needs to your product design. Today we're taking a deeper dive with our guest into exploring this concept of "knowing your audience" further, discovering...

Animation has been connecting people to characters across the world for generations. With animated game trailers rising to prevalence in the indie game community, we're taking a look at the role they play, as well as some of the outcomes they encourage. Ep 304 Shownotes

The gaming industry is a global industry that continues to grow at a rapid rate and being interconnected virtually is a main contributor to this. Despite being connected, there are still segregated areas and communities that face multiple challenges when creating a presence and establishing recognition in the industry. Thankfully, our guest today shares how to overcome these challenges, question l...

When it comes to finding your game's fit, identifying opportunities and creating value for players is something we all like to lead with. While important, there are a lot of other essential and core concepts that usually go unchecked, making it a challenge to stand out even if there is market demand. Thankfully our guest today shares how implementing these concepts can better define your path whil...

With the stigma around mental health discussion slowly starting to go away, more and more industries are being tasked with examining their own mental health implications and ways to overcome these challenges. With games being a high stress environment, we're taking a look at some ways to manage mental health while working in the industry.

Your systems and processes as a developer or studio can dictate everything about your project. From how you source your funding to implementing your game's vision and communicating that to players through marketing, it's all done by having systems in place. The challenge with this is we may not always be aware of how each of these areas can be more defined in terms of how it relates to time, resou...

Whenever we think about what makes a great game, generally speaking it boils down to the positive experience players have. However, when making games, the focus shouldn't be making a great game, but making the right game for a particular audience and delivering more value than what's currently available. But even with this shift in mindset, studios and developers can still struggle with how to com...

Making any game has its challenges, but making one that caters to a niche audience can be an extremely daunting task. Between discovering a limited market and having few games to compare yours to, what you thought was an opportunity could quickly look like a big risk. Thankfully our guest today shares how a little market research and an understanding of your audience allows you to be more authenti...

Information can be a valuable and powerful tool for anyone. Whether you're providing or receiving information, it can make all the difference in helping others reach their goals and your own. However, the context and intent of how information is created and received can impact our decisions, and direction and influence others. That's why we'll be discussing the importance of how to navigate and us...

The path to success as a game studio is full of obstacles and opportunities. Reflection and outlook are a common theme here on the show, as well as the theme of fostering a healthy culture and mindset. And that of course, starts with having a strong foundation and doing things a little differently. Today we're meeting with the co-founders of Astral Clocktower Studios to explore how they took a thr...

Whenever we consider how to beat the odds and stand out with our games, lots of times we tend to only focus on the product itself. This manifests itself in various ways but it often boils down to focusing on a lot of different things that don't always lead to solving big problems you or your studio face. So in this special masterclass-thought experiment episode, we're going to discuss and contempl...

There are a number of reasons to start an independent game studio, but the practical side of the process can be quite daunting especially when you don't have any kind of a track record. Today we'll be discussing some aspects of starting a new studio and how you can leverage past experiences to build traction with your game while receiving support from partnerships.

Working in the games industry has become more and more coveted as the medium has evolved over recent decades. With this boom of up-and-coming devs, more and more misinformation pervades the conversation. Today we'll be debunking some myths about what it means to join the game industry while sharing ideas on how we can improve it…and even yourself.

The marketing of games is a delicate balance and requires a lot of careful thought. Between hitting your development milestones and determining how those can align with your marketing, there's not always a straightforward answer to what you should be doing and when. However, our guest today discusses ways to approach this and how to implement events and other beats into your marketing strategy so...

There are lots of different ways to create awareness for your games, from events to marketing beats, but none quite get the blood flowing and momentum going than having a committed and loyal fanbase. Today, we talk with Alx Preston and Yiyi Zhang of Heart Machine and take a look at their past and upcoming titles to discuss how their fanbase influenced important decisions and drove them to build im...

Andrew and Mustapha have a lot of exciting updates we're happy to share with you in this update, and you might say that one of them is a "game" changer.