I'm a new game developer, getting close to releasing my first game. I'm not sure I've done all the things I need to do for a release. Was wondering if anyone knows of a good checklist of things to do before release? Like getting advertising set up, alerting review sites, do I need a presskit? etc.. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing.
Game marketing: http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-indie-game-marketing/ App marketing (but still helpful for game developers): https://github.com/adamwulf/app-launch-guide Our list: prepare promo materials for App Store and press kit (icon, description, screenshots, ~30s video) find optimized keywords for App Store (see App Launch Guide above for details) + write a good Google Play description* integrate analytics, like http://www.gameanalytics.com/ setup press and review tracking in http://www.promoterapp.com/ prepare a press kit with http://dopresskit.com/ compile a list of sites to submit your game set release dates in stores and get ready send press kits on release *search in App Store is based only on name+keywords, but search in Google Play is also based on first 167 symbols of your game description And I suggest to ignore Twitter and (especially) Facebook. Their conversion rates are very low so you will probably waste your time unless you have huge amount of followers.
Good list! Also don't forget to post about your game in the upcoming games forum! If your game is Approved but not released yet you can send out early access promo codes to review sites so they can prepare a review for launch. Also consider Youtubers as a list of people to send your game out to. http://youtubeforindies.com/about-yfi/ is a great active resource for finding Youtubers.