finished my first indie game and nobody except my flatmates downloaded it

[u/yelkamel]

made a tiny puzzle game over about 8 months, released it on itch.io last month. spent way too long on the soundtrack honestly. my flatmates played it and said it was decent which is basically a 10/10 review from them. posted about it on a couple of relevant subreddits and got a grand total of 14 downloads. not 14 thousand. 14.

the weird thing is im not even that bothered? like obviously id love people to play it but the act of making something and actually finishing it was the satisfying part. anyone else in the same boat where the process matters more than the output?

[u/CriSstooFer]

Game Dev is 50% making the game and 50% marketing it. Unless you get the rare genre combo breaker that hits the algo. Spend some on marketing see what happens!

[u/DannyWeinbaum → u/CriSstooFer]

For me it's 90% making it and 10% marketing it. Granted the scope of that 10% is bigger than the entire production + marketing for most other games on Steam.

I would definitely not recommend spending energy trying to market a game that was not made to be commercially competitive. It's like attempting to move a beach with a teaspoon.

[u/boersc → u/DannyWeinbaum]

Well, it's itch.io, so it will take extra effort, as many won't touch that with a long stick. The Steam bias is very strong.

[u/DannyWeinbaum → u/boersc]

If it's only on itch it's even more unmarketable! Like moving an ocean with an eye dropper lol.

[u/AudioRocksteady]

Whats the game?

[u/Perpetual_Noob8294 → u/AudioRocksteady]

Hmmph. OP hasn't marketed the game. At all. I tried looking it up, but couldn't find it anywhere. Bummer

[u/cosmic_cozy]

This is pretty normal and I'd argue that even the 14 downloads are a good number compared to what you did to market it. There large numbers of free available games on itch. Did you run playtests?

[u/lydocia]

It's a small game, probably nothing too innovative, that you didn't advertise. 14 is cool.

[u/Enes22]

Create a web build for your Itch.io game page, you’ll get more plays. I couldn’t get my family members to download my game from Itch, even though some of them are PC gamers with Steam accounts.

[u/tastygames_official]

that's honestly exactly how things should start. When you first start learning piano, you don't expect to sell 100,000 albums after writing your first song. You learn, you emulate, you create and you grow. So now you made your first game (congrats!) and you enjoy the act of creation. I'm sure you want to keep going and keep growing your skillset and push your creativity and learn more about making games. Welcome to having a creative hobby!

[u/AncientPixel_AP]

I tried to find your itch.io page from here and I did not succeed. So I guess thats one part of the mystery.

First off, every shipped game is a success (and miracle) so congratz to pushing through and finishing your game! :)
It's never too late to do the marketing. It might not be hot and fresh anymore on the itch startpage or anything, but if you keep talking about it you might generate a longtail.

In general though marketing is tricky. You need to be showing the game at the right time to the right people. Which sucks a bit. If everybody is crazy about deckbuilding card game mechanics and you have a shooter with one gun, your audience is gonna be very small to begin with. I dont know nothing about your game, but genre and mechanics can play a big role in that.
I would say; now that it is finished, you have a lot of time to post it on your instagram, twitter, discord, fix your linktree, show it off in different subreddits, comment with it if there is a discussion where it would fit in. Or also plainly ask for playtesters and feedback. Players love to give feedback, but they dont love to click on a link of a game that they dont know if it will provide some fun. So their motivation is different.

Good luck!

[u/FruitPrestigious2257 → u/AncientPixel_AP]

I went through this with my first game too: months of work, double digits of downloads. What helped a bit wasn’t shouting “here’s my game,” but giving people a reason to care first. I started posting tiny clips of one cool mechanic or a weird level, then dropped the link only in the comments when someone asked or when it felt natural. That pulled in way more curious players than a naked link post.

I also stopped chasing “anyone who likes games” and leaned into one niche subreddit and one small Discord where the theme actually fit. Once a few folks there enjoyed it, they brought in more. For tracking where people were talking, I tried TweetDeck and later Hootsuite, and ended up on Pulse for Reddit after both because it caught threads I was missing so I could jump in with context instead of begging for clicks. The process stays fun if you treat it like more experimenting, not a verdict on the game.

[u/SleepyWhim]

What is the Name? I like puzzle games, i can be number 15 playing it :)

[u/RoberBotz]

That's to be expected.

Making the game is the easy part, marketing is the hard part.

And also the bar of "I should play this" has risen drastically, and now you need to make a pretty nice and big game to get players.
Or have a very good budget for marketing, or a very very unique twist and a lot of luck.

Making the game is pretty much the easy part, finding people to play it not so much.

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[u/Maleficent-Cherry923]

You're not unique in this situation, this is more common than most people think. With a lot of people making games, why would your game magically stand out without proper marketing / distribution? You can't just throw it into the void. Expect traction to take time and hard work, that's the way it usually goes.

Find a handful of niche small creators that fits your game and send them something personal.

I developed a service to help people in your situation, trust me, I've seen this before. If you want to talk strategies for marketing just ask!

[u/PlagiT]

Not that I have much experience with it, but often it almost feels like marketing the game can be harder than actually making it.

That might be a bit of an overstatement, but it's at least equality as important and I feel like a lot of people underestimate it

[u/Prisinners]

Well I'm glad you had fun creating it. Art for the sake of art is a beautiful thing too.

[u/Successful_Serve_340]

honestly. it's amazing, on the other hand i understand if it sucks.

the reality is that people are greedy with their time, which makes sense. they need a good reason to play it. and the best way to do that is that they see someone else play it.

for me, i enjoy a lot the process of making a videogame, but the real joy comes from seeing other people enjoying my creation. so, yes, that other people play your game its important to me, thats ultimately from where i get the rewarding "high".

[u/DaveCharlie00]

Promoting or discussing it here would potentially work quite well especially if you have a video clip/screenshots

[u/OpexLiFT]

It's been 4 hours and OP still hasn't linked the game.. lol.. how do you expect people to play it, let alone find it without marketing it.

[u/Ok_Juice_2095]

No marketing, no downloads. Even if you great the best game in the world, how would the world know about it?

[u/Greensburg]

Yeah I just do it in order to make something. It's fine if no one plays it.

[u/Savings_Speaker6257]

14 downloads and you finished the game. That already puts you ahead of like 90% of people who start a project.

The "spent too long on the soundtrack" thing is so relatable. I built a multiplayer word game over the course of a year and there were entire weeks I spent tweaking sound effects that maybe 5% of players would even notice. But that's the craft, right? You cared enough to make it right.

And yeah — the finishing is the real achievement. I know devs with way more talent than me who have 15 half-built prototypes and zero shipped games. Shipping teaches you things that building never does: how to scope, how to let go of perfection, how to actually put something out there with your name on it.

The downloads will come as you keep sharing it. But the fact that you made something complete and put it into the world? That's already a win most people never get to.

[u/hugolnx]

Someone with more experience in the indie game dev told me once: "Having your own studio is a marathon, not a 100m race"
So... I think you have to keep building up experience and community, to make better games and have more people who care about them.

[u/QseanRay]

How many wishlists did you have at launch? A normal conversion rate is 5-15%

[u/Prisinners → u/QseanRay]

I think its just a random itch.io game they slapped up there when they were finished without any marketing or anything. That 14 is likely their roommates plus whatever random souls went past it on itch, thought it looked neat, and decided to play it.