Marketing your Visual Novel for Kickstarter

Hello everyone! Welcome back to another devlog – this time with a slightly different twist. Today, I’ll be talking about something that a lot of VN devs seem to struggle with: Marketing. Specifically, marketing your VN for Kickstarter.

Going into The Divine Speaker’s Kickstarter, we were all nervous but confident. We knew that we did as much as we could beforehand to run a successful Kickstarter and we were happy with our starting position.

45 days later, we finished at 183% of our goal, $29,499AUD.

Disclaimer: This isn’t the be-all-end-all of marketing. This is just what worked for us. Your experiences might differ, and that’s great too!

First of all, let’s start with:

Why should I market my game?

Well, do you want to sell your game? Do you want your Kickstarter to succeed? If the answers are yes, then you need to market your game.

These days, more games are coming out than ever before. You don’t want yours to fade into the crowd, you want it to stand out. You can have the most intricate storyline, the most beautiful artstyle, the best voice actors out there, but it’ll all go to waste if nobody KNOWS your game exists. You have to get your game in front of as many eyes as possible.

Even if your game is free, market it! You’re putting all your love and soul into something, and you want people to play it.

When should I start marketing?

Straight away! No jokes, as soon as you have something to show. Backgrounds, sprites, CGs, sketches, anything! The earlier you start the better.

We started our Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook pages September 2018, when all we had were the sketches for Raen and Fawn. At the time, I thought “Am I starting too early? Is anyone going to be interested in this”? The answer was yes, but it wasn’t instant. Don’t feel discouraged if your first posts only get a few likes. Build up from there!

Finding your audience

A major part of marketing is working out who you’re marketing to. Is your game BL, GL, otome, GxB, or a mix? Depending on the crowd you’re advertising to, you’ll want to showcase different things.

Working out your genre is a good first step in knowing your crowd. Take some time to research other similar games, and see what they’ve labelled themselves as. Here’s a few basic ones to start with (Please note: there’s always outliers. This is just something to get started with, and not a definitive list. Also, just because I’ve linked these games doesn’t mean they were successful in their marketing. It’s just to see how they’re classified):

• A male protagonist and male love interests, anime style: The obvious answer is that you should aim your game at women between the ages of 18-30. This age group can vary a little, depending on the content of your game. There’s more western Yaoi/BL games coming out than before, but it’s still a good market with a hungry audience. Players have a few expectations: art similar to JP games and good-looking guys. You can also aim your game at people that haven’t played VNs before. Webcomics are in fashion right now, and readers would have an easy time transitioning over to VNs. Otome fans also may have some interest, depending on your art style. TDS falls in this category. Also, check out Legend of Rune and My Burning Heart.
• A male protagonist and male love interests, western style: Western style gay games tend to do very well. Your main audience for this genre is men of varying ages. We found the 20-40 crowd very active for this kind of game. While these games can still be appealing for women, you’ll find that it’s a mostly male orientated genre. Players of “gay” VNs tend to prefer realistic art style and more built men, rather than the typical bishounen. Take a look at Coming Out On Top, Yearning: A Gay Story and Blood and Lust to start with.
• A female protagonist and male love interests: The usual crowd for this kind of game is young adult women, between 18-35. While it would be easy to think the otome crowd is the one you’re after, they have a few expecations when it comes to the games they play. These players are used to Japanese, anime style games, with lots of routes and good-looking men. If your game is more realistic, you would want to lean out of the anime category and look for players that are interested in narrative adventures and GxB romance stories. That doesn’t mean discount the otome crowd, of course, but make sure to expend your demographic beyond them. Start with looking at Backstage Pass, XOXO Droplets and Zodiac Axis for more anime styled games, and Akash: Path of Five , That Which Binds Us and Cinders for a more realistic twist.
• A male protagonist and female love interests: This is the category that usually gets the most games released, so you’ll be fighting against many similar games. The usual crowd is men aged 18-38, but this varies depending on content (whether it’s 18+ or not, too). BxG games also vary a lot depending on the writers and how the story is written. The typical hentai will attract mostly males, but you can also get a female playerbase with a well written game. Check out Love Esquire and Chemically Bonded.
• A female protagonist and female love interests: This is another category that can vary depending on how you create your game. A lot of players are men, but you can also attract female players easily. Many of these games are anime styled, and they tend to do well. Check out Butterfly Soup and Heart of the Woods.
• A mixed group: Your game might feature more than one protagonist, and/or a mix of love interests. Games with lots of options tend to do well with females, but it really depends on the content of your game. You could market it to otome fans and BL fans easily, but be careful not to overextend and make a game to pander to a large audience without nailing the content. Many BL fans don’t enjoy games where you can pick between protagonists because they feel like otome games with some BL tacked on haphazardly. Check out Softly, with Teeth, Royal Alchemist and Love Shore.

Obviously, these are just categories for you to start with. More likely than not, your game will fit into a few different categories, or even none of these at all! Treat it like somewhere to start your investigations, and branch out from there.

Marketing Campaigns

If you know anything about TDS, you’ll know that it focuses mainly on a long, fantasy storyline, rather than being purely smut. However, this didn’t stop us from using suggestive art for advertisement. In fact, it was a major part of our marketing campaign.

Of course, there’s varying opinions about this. Some people worry “I don’t want my game to be associated with lewd things” or “I want my game to be known for it’s story, not just adult content”.

These are reasonable thoughts! When you put a lot of effort into an intricate storyline, that’s what you want people to notice. But you can’t see a storyline at a glance.

We found that suggestive and nice looking art is good at catching peoples eyes and making them want to learn more, whilst an amazing game and storyline will help to retain those players.

Here’s some examples of our promotional art:

However, this totally depends on the kind of game you’re making. If it’s a family friendly adventure, you probably don’t want to post anything lewd, but you should still keep in mind that graphics are the best way to catch someones attention. Promotional art is fun for both the audience and you! Have some fun with it. Make some AUs. Post polls to get people involved in the decision making process. Go wild!

The more you post, the more people will associate you with a brand. Make them WANT to learn more about your game, to follow you, to play your demo.

Another thing to keep in mind: Art style matters a lot for a commercial game. You can’t go in with amateur art and expect to make $100,000. Keep your goal reasonable and attainable.

Statistics (Where did our backers come from?)

We found that 63% of our backers pledged via Kickstarter. Just having your Kickstarter active is advertising by itself, so I suggest aiming for a 45 day campaign minimum. Now, onto some interesting numbers (this isn’t all of our stats, but some handpicked ones):

Lots of numbers! As you can see, a lot of our backers came organically from Kickstarter.

From our social media, Twitter was our biggest referrer. Tumblr and Facebook didn’t do so well, but there may well have been more backers from these places that simply went to Kickstarter and searched there.

A lot of our big backers came directly to our campaign from youtube playthroughs and posts on social media, too! Some people came directly from itch.io, but more likely than not players that enjoyed the demo went to our Twitter and then found our KS there.

You’ll also notice we receieved $135 from Lewdgamer. That might seem like a small amount, but just reaching out to people can help to boost your total. If you contact 50 people and 10 end up making posts/playthroughs, it’ll already be worth it.

If you haven’t already checked it out, go take a look at this amazing spreadsheet of BL game crowdfunds created by the BLGW crew.

Okay, but what should I do to make my Kickstarter successful?

A question I can’t exactly answer! I’ll tell you what we did, and you can take what you want from it. First of all, the things we did to prepare:

• We created our social media pages 8 months before our Kickstarter. Try to post most days, and make use of hashtags (#vndev, #vnlink, #gamedev, investigate!). Screenshots, CG teasers, sketches, there’s loads of things you can post!
• Consider doing promotional images. As we talked about above, we did art for characters birthdays and holidays. It’s a lot of work, but it garnered a nice amount of attention.
• We created a Patreon, where we posted CGs, behind the scenes goodies, and sketches exclusively. While this isn’t NEEDED for your Kickstarter, you’ll attract more people to your Patreon just by running a KS. It’s worth having!
• Build a website. They make your game look more professional and trustworthy. It’s also worth setting up a mailing list, ready for your launch day.
• Consider a Discord! It’s a great place for announcements and it lets you create a personal connection with your players. Be active and friendly!
• Create a demo. I can’t stress this enough. Historically, VNs with demos have done much, much better than those without. Especially if it’s your first game! Show players that you can deliver what you say you will. Make your demo interesting, and a nice glimpse of what’s to come. For TDS, our original demo was 9,000 words. We found this enough to showcase the universe and story.
• Create a promotional video or opening to showcase your game. For us, we created a voice acted “skit” introducing our main characters. It was a bit of fun, and enjoyable for players. You can see ours here.
• Create a press kit and contact list. For us, we researched youtubers, streamers and bloggers that had previously played/posted about BL visual novels. A week before our Kickstarter launch we contacted them by email with a copy of the demo and invited them to play our game. We then marked on our contact list who responded, and we’ll use the list again next time! If you’re interested in seeing our list, contact us!
• Network! Other devs are your friends. They’ll have great tips, and they might share your Kickstarter around too. Crossovers and partnerships help everyone!
• Consider creating a countdown to your launch on social media.
• Have your PR and posts ready and written BEFORE you launch. This means you can post on social media as soon as you hit that launch buttton!
• Research rewards and physical merch for your KS. Dakimakura, keychains, tote bags and wall scrolls tend to do well. Spread out your rewards, be creative.
• Make high tiers! Just do it! You might not think anyone will drop that $2000, but you never know who may come along.
• Contact BLGW on Tumblr to see if they’ll share your posts. They have a nice amount of followers that may be interested in your game.

During your Kickstarter:

• Don’t stop posting! Find things to post about every day! Get your game in front of as many as eyes as possible.
• Post on different forums and websites. Some to consider: AarinFantasy, LemmaSoft, Reddit.
• Find Discord servers that allow promotion!
• Reach out to other VN devs. They may share your KS to their followers. If they’re also running one, you can promo each other in updates!
• We commissioned a bunch of fanart. We looked for artists with followings that would like our game, and commissioned them to draw our characters and post to their social medias.
• If you have a mailing list, write some newsletters.
• Consider Facebook/Twitter/Google Ads! Just make sure you know your audience.
• Our social media goals encouraged players to share our Kickstarter around in exchange for more art. Word of mouth is a huge boost to your campaign.

There we go! There’s a bunch of things you should consider doing in the lead up and during your campaign. Following these won’t necessarily make your campaign successful, but they’re sure to help.