I just released my game called Bub-O Collect and was wondering if anyone has any advise on getting the word out about your game? I'm still so new to this that any tips or insight would be much appreciated. Thanks!
I don’t have the experience of advertising a game personally, but I have I see the Playdate Console subreddit and the play.date discord being used to promote games the most outside of itch.io. I’m sure it would help to spread the word among friends who are interested and ask them share a social post (twitter).
Edit: I bought your game and it’s quite fun! Love the vibe.
1 Like
Thanks for the advise! I’ll hit those up next. I’m also trying to find someone who’s reviewing Play date games on YouTube.
Thank you for the kind words about my game! So glad you are liking it. Please share the Bub-O love!
1 Like
I released on itch just 4 days ago, so early days - but I can share current itch referral breakdown
- From Itch itself 71%
- From Reddit 27%
- From this forum 1%
- From the Playdate community wiki 0.5%
- From personal website / blog 0.5%
So the Reddit post was certainly worthwhile
2 Likes
Interesing to hear that the number from this forum is so low. May mean its gamers not devs looking for games on itch 
which is hopeful for us all
1 Like
Oh this is super useful! This is line with what I'm seeing too. Almost all of my views are coming from itch and people on itch searching "Playdate". It's good news! That means there's a real hunger for new games for this little system.
I'm trying to space out my drops as well. I'll post on Reddit tomorrow. I'll let ya know if I see a big bump.
1 Like
My stats, since 2022-04-21:
These won't add up to exactly 100% due to rounding errors
| percent | source |
|---|---|
| 85% | itch |
| 5% | |
| 5% | playdate-wiki |
| 2% | devforum |
| 2% | blog mentions |
| 1.5% | google search |
I only recently made a post on reddit, early results from that are good.
| percent | project |
|---|---|
| 52% | Daily Driver (Tech Demo) |
| 17% | Prototypes for Playdate |
| 13% | Audition |
| 9% | Today |
| 8% | Horse Race |
| 1% | ST-DIN (Playdate font) |
| 0.5% | Supermini (Playdate font) |
2 Likes
Here's how mine currently breaks down:
81% itch
6 % dev forum
4% reddit
2% twitter
.08% playdate wiki
I might have messed up the math a little, but you get the idea.
I think we're really benefitting from being in the "launch window" because there's not a TON of Playdate games yet so we aren't being buried on Itch (yet).
Yea, just anecdotally, the way I've been "keeping up with the scene" is just going to itch and sorting the "Playdate" tag by "Most Recent"
Interesting. For me, all of the page views are from the devfourm. I wonder if it has to do with my game not including playdate in the description or title. Given what I see from these stats, this will probably have the most effect:
- Put your game on itch, and make sure to have
Playdatein your description - Make a post on the subreddit, and link your itch page
- Announce your game on the fourm (and also link your itch page)
- Request a game review from a Youtuber
With my latest game I've created the Itch page before the game is finished. Will I appear in most recent when I upload the binary, or have I blown my chances now?
From itch.io's "Getting Indexed" FAQ:
Can you update the “publish date” of my project. My page got indexed a later/I just updated it
The publish date is set when you publish your project, we will not change your publish date. You may use devlogs to announce a large update and that may contribute to how your page is ranked.
Often developers reach out to us about updating their publish date because they want to appear on the top of Most Recent. Our answer to this is: Recently released is a very bad place to launch your project! We sometimes get 100s of games added per day, depending on the recently released list is not an effective way to get your game discovered. We recommend instead that invest your energy in promoting your game on any channels that you have access to. Encourage your friends and followers to check out and share your page and that will have the most impact on how it appears on itch.io.
2 Likes
One other thing, it seems like on itch you need to have the word playdate in either the title or tagline for it to show up in search results. Everything with it in the title gets listed above everything with it in the tagline. Compare where bloom comes in with the default 'popular' ranking on
Vs. where it comes in
2 Likes
Yep. That's important. Another key thing is to have Playdate in brackets if you have a common game name. This'll make sure players recognize your game is for Playdate and ensure you don't accidentally scam them!
My game showed up in most recent but at the very bottom of the page where no one will look. I created the page two years ago.
1 Like
I also sent out my game to a youtube reviewer with no expectations of even hearing back from them. I couldn't believe it whenthey posted a review! 
Add this to your list of ways to get the word out.
3 Likes
Alrighty. So know that my games page has a lot more visits, I think I can finally take a look at the data (properly):
The page has gotten 307 views over the past 30 days.
29.31% (90 views) have come from Latest games tagged Playdate - itch.io
I feel like this is an important component to look at. The newest Playdate games page is one of the best ways to find new games for the Playdate (besides, the season of course).
19.54% (68 views) have come from here, the devfourm. Besides the "Newest Playdate Games" page, the games page is one of the better areas to look for new games.
13.68% (42 views) come from new & popular on Itch.
New and popular is basically just "latest games" but with the number of views tacked on. I would highly recommend looking at latest games instead of new & popular
28.01% (29 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 = 86 views) come from various ways to look for Playdate games. The tag page is the only unique one (20 views), with the others coming from various spellings of Playdate (playdate, Playdate, PlayDate, Play Date, etc.,)
The rest come from various other sources on itch (my feed, last 7 days, etc.,)
We quietly pre-released a prototype Playdate (Dropbox link to v1.0.6) game last week as a submission to the mental health game jam happening earlier this month. We plan to officially launch it at the end of June (when the Jam unlocks our restriction on uploading updated builds 
). We will do a more formal marketing write-up in the dev forum to show some of the stats from it, if that's useful to anyone.
But one thing we've noticed already, if you have the means and time, spend as much effort as you can on making the itch page itself very impactful and themed. I'm happy to share my process on how we approached making this page, but it was some relatively straightforward HTML and CSS, and a little banner image trickery that others have used before.
The page was only in limbo for a week, but I am happy with the performance and position of the Circular page on itch now that the game is launched. It's appearing in all the places I would want it to be. I did do a "major update" devlog to celebrate the launch. Even so, next time I'll create the page on launch day!
Regarding Reddit, it's the only place so far that I've encountered price bashing. "I'd buy your game, but not for that much", which is pretty soul destroying. A week's worth of work deemed less valuable than a burger.
2 Likes
Thanks, now I know what I was missing. I should have done a major update. Oh well, people still find it apparently. 
Still weird that they bump the game when a dev log is added and not when the status is changed to "released".
1 Like