Marketing for indies is a huge topic, but here are some basics:
1. Make sure that your game idea fits the market and has something cool about it (a "hook") that will help the game to sell itself because it looks interesting and people want to talk about it.
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2. Get a Steam coming soon page live as soon as you can make a video (not a full trailer, just a teaser) and begin to collect wishlists.
4. Close to launch compile lists of streamers (who cover the same genre or just fresh indie games) and press, and Steam curators and spam them all with keys.
There's way more you can do such as building a community of course.
Good news everyone! It does seem like my formula of Steam week 1 sales = wishlists x 0.5 still holds true in 2019, at least based on a few devs I've spoken to.
How many do you need? Here's an example to break even in week 1:
- Budget = $100K
- Gross sales required in year 1 = $154K ish.
- Unit price = $15
- Full price units required = 10,266
- Pre-launch wishlists required = 20,533
If you plan to break even in the first year, then you can divide the year 1 total revenue by approx. 5 to get the week 1 total. So:
- $154K / 5 = $30,800 week 1
- Full price units required = 2053
- Pre-launch wishlists required = 4106