How to get people to play your game

Last month was the one-year anniversary of Artificial Nexus, and to celebrate both it and the big 1.1 update, I reached out to a bunch of streamers and got them to play it! Overall it was a big success - a lot of fun was had, the game was put in front of a bunch of people who might not have found it otherwise, and the response to it all was overall positive! 

The flipside of it is that while the streams and game themselves were fun, reaching out to those streamers? Not so fun. I don’t know whether it’s just me (it probably isn’t), but contacting a large group of strangers and asking them to pretty please play my game I swear you’ll have fun is kind of stressful, not to mention a lot of work. It’s something that, despite the necessity of it, I always really struggle to do. What if they all say no? What if they think it looks stupid? What if they laugh at me for reaching out?

If you’re reading this, then there’s a good chance that you also have issues reaching out to people to play your game, or are looking for advice on how to do so, so I figured I’d share a bit of knowledge with the world and talk about how I do these things! Hopefully it will help you in some way, and you too can get your cool game out there and in front of streamers. So without further ado, let’s start!

Identify Similar Games

Before you can start contacting streamers, you’re going to need to know who your target audience is. Sure, you could email BigNameStreamer with one million followers and ask them to play it, and you might even get a response, but if it’s not a game for them, then they’ll probably deride it, or at the very least highlight its flaws. So you’re going to want to find streamers who have played similar games and enjoyed them - they’ll hopefully also enjoy your game, and there’s a good chance that their audience will be watching them because they’re similarly into games of that genre.

Thankfully this step is fairly easy, because you probably already had a few games in mind when you were developing yours, so you can start out with a list of those games. That being said, there’s a few things to keep in mind when identifying similar games:

• Is the gameplay the same, or similar, between your game and one you’ve identified as being similar? Artificial Nexus has some heavy Metal Gear Solid influences, but a lot of Metal Gear Solid fans will want something faster-paced than a visual novel/puzzle game.

• Is the tone between games similar? Ace Attorney and Danganronpa both feature critical scenes in courtrooms that involve logical deductions, but the former is a much more cosy game than the latter; there’s overlap in appeal but it’s not universal.

• Are the connections actually there, or are you stretching them? I know of one puzzle game that describes itself as “perfect for fans of Ghost Trick, Professor Layton, Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, [and others]”, and while there are elements of those games that are present, the majority of them show up very sporadically.

At the bare minimum you should identify two games that are similar to yours, but provided that you can find them, there’s no reason that you can’t go higher. Just remember that while more similar games means that you’ll be able to reach out to more streamers, it also means more work for you to contact people.

Identify Streamers

Now that you’ve identified games that are similar to yours, it’s time to find people who have streamed them before! While you can do this directly through Twitch by searching for a game, it’s not the best system - it’ll only show people who have played the game recently, and it can be difficult to get a gauge on whether they’ve liked the game enough to return and replay it multiple times.

The system I’d recommend for identifying streamers is SullyGnome - using it, you can search for a game and then look up who’s been playing it, and for how long. It’ll also show additional stats such as how many total hours their streams of that game have been watched, and it links directly to streamers’ Twitch accounts so that you can contact them from there.

Now that you’ve got a list of streamers in front of you, how do you identify who to contact? I’m going to be a bit controversial here and say that you shouldn’t be too concerned about the number of followers that people have. If somebody agrees to play your game and likes it, then you’ve already gotten one person on board, and they might bring it up as a positive experience in the future, spreading it via word of mouth. Similarly, even if only, say, five people watch the stream, that’s still five more people that you’ve reached. On top of that, you’re helping support small streamers by including them, which as far as I’m concerned is a good thing.

Beyond that, there’s a few other points to be aware of when identifying streamers to contact:

• Check to make sure that the person has played the game enough that they’re interested in it. If they’ve only done an hour or two, then it’s probably not one that they were overly enthusiastic about.

• Make sure that you contact people who speak the language your game is in! (There’s a filter in Sullygnome for this). There’s no point in reaching out to someone who’s going to have issues understanding your game.

• Is this game one they look to have played because they like the genre and gameplay, or is it an outlier amongst other games that they’ve played? If the latter, it might be a sign that they played it because it won an audience vote, or they were gifted it and were obliged to play it.

Once you’ve found your list of streamers, there’s just one left thing to do: contact them.

Contact people

Obviously you’ll need to find the contact details for the streamers that you want to message, which can be surprisingly tricky at times! My default is to see whether they have a YouTube, which sometimes has an email address displayed (by clicking More on their profile, and the View email address button in the More info section, if present). When that isn’t an option, you’ll have to hunt around a bit - sometimes they’ll have an email in the About section of their Twitch profile, or on another site that’s linked on the same page.

It’s also worth noting that you don’t necessarily have to use email to contact a streamer - if they have a Bluesky or other social media account and their DMs are open, there’s nothing stopping you from using that to message them, and I know that some actually prefer to be contacted via social media. I’ve also had times when I’ve found a promising streamer, but can’t find a way to message them privately - when this happens, I usually just cross them off the list and move on.

Once you have a way to contact your chosen streamer(s), it’s time to send the actual message. So, what should you say? I’m going to be a bit controversial again and say that it doesn’t actually matter. Some people say that you should attach a gameplay clip to your messages, others that you should include some stats about how many wishlists your game has, or that you should keep it short and sweet. 

The reason that I say it doesn’t matter is that people are, surprisingly, individuals. Some people will love a succinct message like the following:

Hi, BigNameStreamer,

My game Cool New Game is coming out in a week and I’d love it if you played it on stream. Here’s a key if you’re interested: AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD.

Thanks,

Developer Name

Others will need to be sold on why they should play your game:

Hi BigNameStreamer!

Did you know that Cool New Game is an awesome new visual novel that’s coming out next week? It’s true! It’s got over thirty hours of content and has already gotten over 10,000 wishlists! We’ve also got plans for multiple types of DLC to be released over the next three months to expand on the story, which will add over ten hours of content to the game!

If that’s not enough, how does this sound?

• Over 700,000 words! 📖

• Voice acting in five different languages! 🗣️

• Fifty different endings, based entirely on your choices! 😮

• A fully orchestrated soundtrack with over three hours of dynamic music! 🎵

I’d love for you to be a part of this incredible experience, so please feel free to play the game using the following key: AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD!

Thanks,

Developer

Personally, I use the following structure:

• Introduction

• Explanation of the game

• Why the streamer should play it

For example:

Hi, BigNameStreamer,

My name’s Harry, and I’m an independent visual novel developer. I’ve been working on a game, Cool New Game, for the last year, about having to survive in a fantasy world that’s slowly freezing over. Players have to decide what lengths they’ll go to in order to survive and what lines they will or won’t cross. (If you’d like to see more about the game, you can find its Steam link here).

As you’ve previously played Hot New Game, I was hoping you’d be willing to play my game on stream some time soon. Both feature a survival mechanic and challenging the player’s morals, and I feel that if you liked Hot New Game, you’ll also enjoy Cool New Game!

Here’s your Steam key - please let me know if there are any issues with activating it: AAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD.

Cheers,

Harry

I’ll admit that it’s not that flashy, but it’s what I feel comfortable with, and it feels most human to me, which is why my messages tend to be along these general lines. My advice would be to do the same: write what you feel comfortable with. If nothing else, it means that when people reply to you, you’ll be putting on less of a mask in your replies, and you’ll have more energy to keep looking for people and to reach out.

A few more things to note:

• Streamers often have their schedules worked out a bit in advance, so you shouldn’t reach out to them too late - if you do, then you run the risk of them not being able to fit your game in among their existing plans. For the Artificial Nexus anniversary, I initially reached out with about two months to spare, which was more than enough time for the initial wave of streamers.

• Some streamers won’t respond to you. My personal reaction is to shrug and move on, but I know that some people say that it’s worth reaching out a second or even third time to somebody. I’ll let you decide what you feel it’s worth doing yourself, but for what it’s worth, I’ve been on the other side of things, with Steam curators reaching out and asking me for keys. I’ve never received an email which I’ve ignored, only to get a follow-up email and think, “You know what? I actually should respond to this and give them a key,”; I’m more likely to be annoyed by them.

Conclusion

If you’ve never reached out to streamers before and have had no idea how to do so: congratulations! You’ve now been given the secret knowledge needed to find people, contact them, and hopefully get them to play your game. The real bulk of the work is in finding the right people - once you’ve done that, you can be a bit more freeform in what you want to say.

If you’d like to say some things to me, there’s a few methods available, but the best two are the contact page and Discord. Best of luck in finding streamers for your game!