Blue Shell Game Marketing Agency
Together, Alyana and I created a business plan for a marketing agency that helps focus on indie games and provides them with the resources and connections they need to promote their games. Most indie games die before they ever take off from the runway, and we wanted to fix this.
How can we help indie games succeed?
This is the problem that my teammate Alyana and I wanted to solve for the Baron Business Plan Competition. We both brainstormed solutions until we landed on the idea of making a marketing agency that helps out small independent game developers in marketing their games. Some of the greatest games started out as indie games- Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Among Us, and more. The truth is, however, that despite making up the majority of games, indie games often fail before they ever reach their target audience. Despite making up 96% of all games on Steam, indie games only account for 40% of sales, according to VGInsights. To address this issue, we wrote up a business plan for a company known as “Blue Shell Game Marketing Agency.”
The Plan
We wanted to provide solutions for independent game developers while still recognizing the hurdles in their path. There is no shortage of creativity or skill on the part of the game developers, but rather a lack of marketing knowledge. This one singular pitfall can result in the failure of an entire game, which sometimes can be a years long project. We acknowledged the budgetary issues and created three segmentations for different game developers. Our eBook and service plans created value for developers at any stage of their journey.
Accomplishment
Aly and I ultimately won the competition with our idea. Though we were nervous about competing with people much more experienced than us, we rose to the challenge and overcame the obstacles. Despite being so popular, I was really worried that we wouldn’t be taken seriously because of the stigma around gaming -many still see the industry as childish. However, we followed our passions for gaming and combined it with marketing to create a niche for ourselves while helping game developers. I am very glad to have had the opportunity to participate and learned a tremendous amount about the games industry.