How and where to promote your adult games correctly?

[TranscendentThots]

You can also access it from F95 (click here). All my games so far are on F95.

Weird. I searched for it yesterday and got 0 results. Maybe I typed something wrong?

 

[osanaiko]

That's kind of you to say. What little I know about marketing, I learned by watching GDC and GameDevUnderground videos on youtube.

There's still something to be said for a focused summary of a bunch of source content. Of course if the source content is not accurate it's still garbage-in-garbage-out, and the only way to know for sure is to actually try to execute a marketing push.
But it is a hell of a lot better than nothing. So, again, thanks for providing it, I hope it helps Vizinty and any others who stumble across this thread.

 

[TranscendentThots]

I'll definitely check this out, but the fact that the adult games makes it even harder. Where should we share adult games outside of the F95Zone?

I recommend Reddit for your "mainstream" Awareness/Interest/Community engagement. Check out

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and do what the existing successful developers are already doing. BE SURE to read each specific subreddit's rules, BTW. Every community has their own rules and you don't wanna get banned.

(BTW this is a good idea, in general. Do what more successful devs are doing, until you have an experienced, well-informed, strategic reason for changing things, backed up by your previous industry experience. This may surprise you, but I, too, have an idea for a "special personal project" in the adult games space. But my plan is to make 3 crowd-pleasers per every 1 "artistic" personal project. That way, if nobody cares about it, I still have the other three games' revenue to fall back on.)

I really liked this post, but if we think about it like that, every platform is a shelf. What do we need to do other than share on platforms like this?

Watch the video on marketing funnels so you understand the basic concepts:

1. Awareness ---> Users need to find out that your game exists.
2. Interest ---> Users need to like what they see and want to know more.
3. Engagement ---> Users need to want to be a part of your game's community, whether they end up buying it or not.
4. Call To Action ---> Users need to know what you want them to do (in your case, send you money one way or another,) and they need to agree that it's a good idea to do it, and then they need to do it.

It's called a funnel because it's "wider" at the top and "narrower" at the bottom. Only people who are already interested in your game will join your game's community, for example. Therefore fewer people will join your community than are interested, for example. (Since we assume you'll never convert 100% of the potential community members.)

Next, you need to perform each of those steps somewhere on the internet. People in Group 0 (The General Public) need to be given a chance of entering Group 1. People in Group 1 need a chance to enter Group 2, etc. (Ideally, you'll do this as cheaply as possible. Currently, "cheaply as possible" is almost free, costing only your time and attention.) You should not host these websites yourself, but it's nice to have a dedicated website like yours, just in case the other platforms suddenly decide to ban adult content.

By the way, you can add me on Discord if you wish. I liked your advice and would like to hear your thoughts now and in the future (Viznity#2801).

Discord is currently rolling out a new user naming system, so I expect utter chaos when trying to add people, but I'll try. It's just a temporary inconvenience. Hopefully it won't even affect this action. But who knows?

 

[TranscendentThots]

Speaking of Discord, does anybody think the staff would take issue with my shiny new sig?

If not, then I suppose I'll let you all know in a few weeks if it was an example of effective marketing.

 

[osanaiko]

Speaking of Discord, does anybody think the staff would take issue with my shiny new sig?

If not, then I suppose I'll let you all know in a few weeks if it was an example of effective marketing.

Staff of F95zone taking issue? I can't imagine. I don't recall any rules about linking off-site being disallowed.

 

[TheMagicalGurl]

Hi!

I'm

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. And I've been trying to develop adult games since about 2018. However, I couldn't focus on the marketing part because of trying to develop the game. This part requires a separate time and knowledge is also required.

I was able to develop a game which is my original idea, but since there was not enough support, I tried to develop new games to attract the attention of different users. It was "

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". I made parody games of

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,

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and

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in case the original idea might not work. The reason why they are short in content is that I could not create my own community. I really suck at this. When there was no community, I started to think that there was no interest in the games I made. Nevertheless, I continued this work on my own motivation. When I did not receive financial and moral support, I could not provide enough motivation and I had to stop the development of games before I could bring them to the development stage I wanted. Also I was alone from the beginning, still I am.

Check out my

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,

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and

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. How do you think I should proceed? It was not a problem at first, but it cannot continue like this for many years. 2018 to 2023... this is not a little time. Because when there are no supporters or the community, I can't see any motivation to continue this job right now. My games have always been free to gather community. Yet, failed.

PS. I'm currently working on my new game "Linda and the Roommate" and that's the purpose of my asking this question.
Probably this game could be my last bullet. And I would like to promote this game correctly.
View attachment 2617931

How and where to promote your adult games correctly?
Thanks in advance for your recommendations!

Have you not looked into this channel yet which you are in because you have the dev tag??

Monetization - Reddit & itch.io - Self Promotion, Subreddits, and itch Sales | F95zone Monetization - Reddit & itch.io - Self Promotion, Subreddits, and itch Sales | F95zone

Also, reply in ^ thread with questions from people that know...

 

[DiviDreamer]

Unpopular opinion - Make the good game and players "promote" it for you.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Unpopular opinion - Make the good game and players "promote" it for you.

There's a seed of truth in this. Marketing doesn't trick people into buying a bad game or watching a bad video or worshiping a bad content creator. It's just a

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. It can make a good game sell 100,000 units instead of 300. It can't make a bad, incomplete, or abandoned game sell 300 units instead of 0. Because any number multiplied by 0 is still 0

That can be a tough pill to swallow, since 90% of content sucks, and which 10% of it doesn't suck is subjective, so there are going to be times in which the public decides that something you don't personally care for is now popular.

It's not because consumers are stupid. It's not because the developers had a huge advertising budget. It's not even because of the IP. Even Marvel Cinematic Universe movies occasionally flop.

That said, there is a science to marketing, some pretty straightforward best-practices that have emerged, some dos and don'ts of the internet and of the adult content market in particular that can be taught and learned.

If your game is already good, organic word-of-mouth will introduce more players into the mouth of your funnel. There's just a lot less friction where, instead of having to google your game's name, or godforbid, type the URL into a web browser, they're getting links to it as part of their usual porn feed, and they impulsively decide to poke at a particularly juicy render and a link to where the picture came from pops out.

 

[TranscendentThots]

First of all, I read all your posts and thank you very much for your interest. You made me happy! Now I will answer all of them in turn.

But without marketing "the existence of the game" is unknown. Yes, Rick and Morty is known for the TV series content. However, the game I made to that content is unknown. Actually, that's the problem. People who don't know the existence of this game can't play it, right?

I tried the first 20 minutes of the game "Rick & Morty: A Way Back Home". And it still didn't give me the content that was the reason to open this game, "porn". In fact, most games are like this nowadays, maybe I should do that too.

Some players don't even care about the story, they just want to reach the content. That's how I was in the past.

In my games, like the 2007 flash games, they have instant access to adult content. I already took flash games as an example. Since I spent time with them in the past, there was always a desire to do the same. For example, these adult flash games from Zone-tan are among the best in my opinion. Or 3-ways flash game is also my favourite. You should absolutely try it.

Since I make it like a flash game, it is short in content. Maybe you add new sex positions and animations, but when you suddenly reach the content, the game may be consumed too quickly and cause the player to lose interest because they have taken everything. Therefore, I completely agree with your idea of "add a story to the game" you mentioned above.

I know I have to pay attention to the story now. And that I shouldn't present adult content to players directly in front of them. They have to work to get it, right? That's where the fun of the game comes in.

You played the first scene of "Rick's Lewd Universe" and closed it. After the scene you played, there is one more adult scene. And then I tried to make a place where you can walk around, click on new places, even though it doesn't focus on the story. This game was made with reference to an episode of Rick and Morty. So we are on a different planet. But in the long run, there was always the idea to go back to Earth and make content similar to the one in the game you gave an example. You can also see this by playing the game, the contents of that place were not open yet because the development had not yet reached that stage. However, the World button was visible in the UI. You can think of it as showing players a preview of what content they might get next if they support me. It is clear from both the comments and the Patreon page of the creator that the game you gave is expected by many people. If I had even the slightest hint of it visible to the community, maybe that game would be in a much better shape right now.

For example, games that have this kind of interest need to do something to make their name heard. That's what I actually want to know. On Twitter, Patreon, Itch.io, Instagram etc... it doesn't work if you just share it. What should we do as an extra?

I'll check out "Dan Harmon's Story Circle", thanks for the advice!

Start with #1. Loop until the MC either has everything they want (happy ending) or is too broken to continue trying (tragic ending.) More info

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.

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And since you like Rick & Morty references, this is what happens when you neglect your story:

 

[Viznity]

Start with #1. Loop until the MC either has everything they want (happy ending) or is too broken to continue trying (tragic ending.) More info

You must be registered to see the links

.

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And since you like Rick & Morty references, this is what happens when you neglect your story:

View attachment 2629045

Alright, I'll see what I can do!

 

[smk2k]

1. Optimize your landing pages using platform-specific best-practices. For example, if you're on Steam, look for youtube videos on how to do better numbers on Steam. Explicitly state your core mechanics in the short description. Pretty graphics everywhere. Tag it correctly. Once you have more than one game, make a bundle, so players thinking about buying one game will see a great deal on offer. [...]

When your game is on steam, make a

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which allows players to subscribe to get notified of your new games without having to wishlist them first.

Finding new games by browsing the Steam store is shit, and the recommendations queue is not much better. If I liked your first game, I'll likely enjoy your new game too. Subscribing on developer homepages is ideal to be kept informed of new games I might like. Your upcoming releases are also much more visible on your developer homepage than in the Adult Only categories' Popular Upcoming tab.

 

[TranscendentThots]

When your game is on steam, make a

You must be registered to see the links

which allows players to subscribe to get notified of your new games without having to wishlist them first.

Finding new games by browsing the Steam store is shit, and the recommendations queue is not much better. If I liked your first game, I'll likely enjoy your new game too. Subscribing on developer homepages is ideal to be kept informed of new games I might like. Your upcoming releases are also much more visible on your developer homepage than in the Adult Only categories' Popular Upcoming tab.

I mean... obviously, yes. Fill in all of the rectangles Steam gives you to fill in. I thought that went without saying.

But even using Steam as hard as it is possible to use Steam, you can't rely on Steam to show the link to your developer homepage to random new users. You will still need to direct traffic to your developer homepage in order for anybody to actually subscribe.

Either way, Steam is still a shelf. It won't sell your games for you. It will just allow people to buy them. There's a difference.

But you're right, making a nice developer homepage, making the most of customization options on your storefront, and all the other best practices can help turn it into a nicer shelf.

 

[Deleted member 2282952]

Unpopular opinion - Make the good game and players "promote" it for you.

I am new to the adult space, so I haven't yet personally confirmed what is the best, but after working on many mainstream industry games in the past (and now) - there are 3 pieces to success:

• Piece 1: Make a product so good it speaks for itself. This requires knowing your audience and being flexible to make adjustments to meet expectations without sacrificing your vision
• Piece 2: Write content on your primary blogs (which, for me in Adult games, is F95 and Patreon - cross-posted to other channels for SEO) - even if no one reads it. If you have piece 1, eventually, someone will read it, and they will read more, and become your supporter if they see you put in the real effort.
• Piece 3: my unpopular opinion - if you want to make this a job, the game must be "Steamable" aka fit into the content guidelines to be published there. Without Steam - breaking even is tough, and not because of the money you get from sales, but from the community you can build, and the SEO and social validation that you build.

 

[VeoStudios]

Firstly, I think you should create a development thread for your new game, build interest in it early.
Secondly, you say you receive no financial and moral support, unless your game shows a great promise off the bat(good story being set up, decently sized demo/first release, good renders/art, etc) thats not going to happen for a while.
Don't get discouraged, stick with the game and improve based on feedback and with time it will hopefully speak for itself. Thats a better way of doing things then making a game, abandoning it or keeping it limited in scope because of lack of support as that doesn't really attract patrons. The longer your in a market the better, or something.

 

[XTZ Adult Games]

In order from most to least effective:

1. Literally just start a Developer Thread on this forum. If someone else started the thread, claim ownership of it by submitting a support ticket at the top of this page. Link from the first post of your game's forum thread to your patreon, your ko-fi, your steam page, whatever. Link from your sig to your game's thread. When you update your game, update the pirated version of your game in your game's thread.
2. That's it. You're done. Congratulations, you just set up an entire marketing funnel that bypasses all currently-allergic-to-sex advertising and marketing channels. Discovery, Interest, Community Engagement, Call To Action. All taken care of in one convenient place. Eventually it slams face-first into payment processors at some point, but that's purchasing, not marketing.
   
   Want to add visitors to your funnel? Make posts on F95Zone that say things people want to hear. They'll see your sig, they might click through the link to your game. If they like the screenshots, they might download it. If they play it, they might choose to join your patreon or buy it on Steam or buy you a coffee.
   
   What's that? Well, yes, it's the stolen latest patrons-only build. They have literally bypassed the system they would normally use to pay you... only to occasionally turn around and go back and pay you voluntarily. You are literally pirating your own product to them. Doesn't matter. It works anyway. The people who have disposable income and play your game and like it will choose to pay you anyway. Your game just has to be worth their time, first. The only way they know that is if they play it. Think of piracy as your demo system. It'll happen in the background anyway as other people do it. You might as well get involved in the process so you can take control of the messaging.
   
   These people are your fans.
   
   (And don't try the Game Dev Tycoon gambit. That only worked because legitimate mainstream channels through which to market the game not only existed, they had a stranglehold on the developer's marketing options. But you're not some publisher's sock puppet. You're an indie. You can afford to work with the pirates rather than futilely fighting them.)
3. Other social media. Okay okay, maybe you could start posting screenshots and gifs on social media platforms that allow adult content. Your twitters, your reddits... that's... about it, last time I checked? Call-to-action in the first reply, NOT in the initial post, because calls-to-action are cringe. You want your posts to feel like free bonus porn in your viewers' feeds, and if they decide to go digging around to find out more about your project, that's their idea. But this costs time and energy and you need to observe different platform rules and nettiquite for each site, so it's usually best to just pick one with a lot of members and focus on that. The middle of your funnel is basically users searching that platform for more information about your free porn. Make this easy, but don't do it for them. Nobody likes getting ads in their feed. They like getting free porn.
4. Wait. Your gameplay is hard, right? If not, add some counter-intuitive choices and some navigation/inventory/relationship systems until it is. I'm joking, but there's a seed of truth in this: complex gameplay leads to word-of-mouth. This is the toughest pill to swallow, (and also the most work to implement, and you especially shouldn't do it after your game is already "done" and a finely-crafted, enjoyable experience without it,) but bear with me for when you start designing your next game:
   
   If your game is complex enough and deep enough that it would be worth it for players if your game had a GameFAQ? (Check the existing GameFAQs for popular adult games to see what fashionably-complex gameplay looks like.) Note that I am not telling youn to make a GameFAQ for your game. That's not the point. People will not download a GameFAQ, because everyone's on tiny rectangles and can't read for shit. But they will watch youtube videos explaining how to do it. Note that I am not telling you to make a walkthrough video, either. Other creators will make these videos, if your game is good enough and complex enough to warrant it. The rest of a grassroots community will emerge, too. People will ask each other how to unlock Girl X's route in the comments. It's insane how much literally organic word-of-mouth and community-building other people will literally do for you if they like your game but it's just too big for all of the choices to fit in their head at once.
   
   Don't fake it! It's important not to try and fake this level of complexity with cheap deaths, difficulty spikes, and especially don't tack it on to a functional, competent, finished visual novel that was more fun without it. But for your next project... maybe look at a walkthrough for one of the most popular games. See what the player has to do in order to clear a route. If adding to your new game is something you could do? Do it. It will literally print a fandom for you, just from players asking each other or their favorite sex-positive influencer, "How do I get that one ending?"
   
   Don't worry about trying to link it up to the rest of your marketing funnel. The viewers already know your game's name. They somehow already play it, whether it's a public demo or the pirated patreon version that's a month ahead of the public demo. Once they have disposable income, I'm sure they can google your patreon. Just include a discreet link in the corner of the title screen. Which reminds me:
5. Advertise your new games within the title screen of your old games. Just maintain a barebones "what's new" HTML page somewhere that you control, not indexed by search engines, and have your game attempt an http connection to it on bootup. The game contains a default ad for your patreon if connection fails. Plaintext, maybe one or two small images. Super cheap to host compared to the game itself.
6. Optimize your landing pages using platform-specific best-practices. For example, if you're on Steam, look for youtube videos on how to do better numbers on Steam. Explicitly state your core mechanics in the short description. Pretty graphics everywhere. Tag it correctly. Once you have more than one game, make a bundle, so players thinking about buying one game will see a great deal on offer. Now, a certain percentage of the time, the mental math magically shifts inside the gamer's mind from "should I buy this" to "which version should I buy?" Ride the sales ski slope correctly. Etc. This is your endgame. The bottom of your funnel. Make every view count.

We could go into reasons why MLs don't work with adult content, or the uncertain future of twitter, or the importance of staying on top of the latest platform rules changes, but most of that is other developer hats. For the purposes of marketing an adult game in the general case, you just need an F95Zone thread and one mainstream platform for the people who dont use F95Zone. (Probably reddit, since it has the most users.) Don't fight the pirates. Pirates are your fans! They actually want to pay you, if they can. Just not if they're broke or if your game is bad or if you're one of those dickheads who tries to single-handedly fight the entire concept of piracy.

So, yeah. You play your cards right, and an F95Zone thread will actually boost sales/patronage/tips. It's fucking weird, but this is the world we have.

I accidentally stumbled upon this thread, and I'm glad I did.
This answer taught me so much!
Already started implementing it.
Thank you, TranscendentThots !

And Viznity, I saw some of your art on YouTube (of the Frozen chick). Nice work!
Don't have much time, so didn't play yet, but really looks good. I wish you luck!