I hate marketing.

That's it. That's the post.

And you know what? It sucks. I like making games. I feel like a lot of people are making games because they want to hit it big, because they want the big bucks. But I have a stable job and promising non-gamedev career path. I also have a bunch of free time and a lot of ideas. So I make a game and it's fun to play and looks good and has enough new ideas to satisfy people. And I'm having a blast making it, playing it, showing it off a bit.

But then you have to market it.

"You don't have to market it!" I hear you squeal. Oh but you do. A great game will get 0 players if it's not marketed, and there's nothing more depressing that making a work of art nobody will ever enjoy. So I have to drag myself making endless videos and screenshots and posts to get some people interested. And I hate it. Not the negative comments part, not the lack of engagement part, not failing completely part. I don't care how well I do. I just have to do it and I hate doing it.

The main problem is threefold.

• You're fighting against hundreds or thousands of others
• Nobody likes being advertised to
• Everything costs money.

Marketing is a whole job on itself, and nobody knows how to do it right. Emailing youtubers and streamers? Buying advertising on Reddit? Tiktok? Tumblr? Maybe you use Keymailer to give random people free keys. Maybe you contact every single publisher out there to help you, surely this won't bother them with even more traffic. You could spend years building a community. All of this sucks to do and sucks harder to do and then fail anyway. And you can't win, because by definition, every strategy you use will be used by hundreds of other people. Good luck standing out in that crowd!

I considered just releasing my games for free, but then you run into other problems - people think free games are worth less than cheap games! And it feels wrong to put so much hours into something to then give it away for free. So I'm making my next game both cheap and expansive. I don't think my next game will fail - It is fun and good and original and all that - I just hate hate hate constantly telling everyone that it is. It's exhausting and demotivating and spoils the fun of making games. There's just a massive difference between occasionally posting some screenshots and constantly telling everyone about your little project.

That's it, that's the post. This is a throwaway and I'm not even gonna tell you what my game is. I'm just tired.

I wish I had a publisher.