Hi All, I'm a total noob to Reddit and I hear a lot about how great an avenue it is for indie developers. Can anyone recommend a good place to start for pimping my games? Is it essentially a forum discussion or just a way to share and comment on links? Thanks for any advice, Tom
I never had too much success with reddit... But you can try /r/iosgaming and /r/indiegames. Usually the self promotion stuff isn't easy to do on reddit.
Reddit has strict global rules against (excessive) self-promotion, and you generally need to participate on each sub-reddit or you'll be considered a spammer. Only about 6,000 subscribers to /r/indiegames it seems--never visited that one before. The bigger one is /r/indiegaming, but the mods there are overly strict, in my opinion. I think /r/iosgaming is more relaxed, but has fewer readers. Read up on their self-promotion rules before you post there.
Unless your game has a narrow theme appropriate for some themed subreddit, just drop a link to /r/iosgaming and that's it. Don't even try to charm /r/games or /r/gaming with a mobile game and better completely stay away from Reddit if you're using free-to-play mechanics. Users there could be very cruel towards any developer that is "destroying game industry" in their opinion.
Avid reddit user here! As with all communities, rule #1 is to actually be part of the community. That means participating in posts and providing good discussion. What this doesn't mean is just posting about your game - even if it is on the appropriate days. Reddit users are really good at fishing out those that are just trying to do some drive-by marketing. And thank-god they do. One of the easiest ways to become involved is on /r/gamedev. There is even an IRC chat room, if you are into that sort of thing. There is a daily reddit thread for random discussion - again this is not to be used for "HEY LOOK AT MY COOL UNITY GAME!", but you can post any questions you have there. Perhaps even get feedback on some new icons you are working on. Once you've been part of reddit a few weeks, you'll notice that there is indeed a few times you can self-promote. But it will take lots of posting and lots of interaction to get a handful of comments. The real power is not necessarily self-promotion, but all the other discussions that pop-up about game development in general.
As someone who has had some success on reddit, be totally honest. If you are there to promote your game, just say so. A headline that reads, "I'm a small Indie Dev, and I just released my first platformer will do way better than", "Donkey jumper is the best game ever! DL NOW".
