Don't let your fans' videos drown in an ocean of content, follow these simple tips to ensure your game gets the attention it deserves on Twitch, Youtube and Mixer.
One of the most cost effective methods of promoting your new game with a broader audience is to send out keys and early builds to media outlets, YouTubers, and Twitch streamers.
A big streamer playing your game can make a big difference, however you’ll lose a bit of that momentum if people can’t find videos of your game, or in the case of Twitch see the game rise in popularity on the site.
Luckily for you it’s easy to ensure that you are getting the most out the keys you give away.
All you need to do is plan ahead and make sure you’ve sorted all the metadata and tags before you send out that first key.
Since starting my podcast Pixel Sift last year, and spending an increasing amount of time streaming games online I’ve noticed that few if any of the games developed by smaller studios have been tagged correctly. Streaming is still relatively new but it’s here to stay.
Correctly tagging your game means that any video content you create and upload will be linked correctly with fans who are making videos, as well as appearing in search results. You might only get one shot at the press when you release, so make it count. There are three major sites that you should have everything in order before sending out press keys, the obvious, Twitch and YouTube (and YouTube Gaming), and the new Beam.
The following steps have been pulled from the official sources.
In order to get your game correctly listed on Twitch you will need to follow a couple of steps.
The most important thing is having your game in the Twitch directory first, but like posting to social media, a good cover art image will catch people’s eyes and it might just convince them to click through.
The king of online video is still one of the most popular places on the web for video game content. Getting the metadata correct for Google’s search spiders is relatively easy, but it isn’t forgiving, so you’ll need to make sure that you’ve got everything right.
YouTube launched the YouTube Gaming portal as a new live streaming platform, in addition to collecting pre-recorded video content under games.
If your game can’t be tagged on YouTube, it won’t appear on YouTube Gaming in their algorithmic feeds, and will be excluded from automatic results and searches. People can find your video using search, or through a link but if you’re trending people heading straight to gaming.youtube.com won’t see it there at all.
Mixer is new service that launched in January 2016 promising very low latency streaming, and viewer interactivity. Purchased by Microsoft in August 2016, Mixer looks likely to becoming an increasingly important platform. At the moment a number of prominent streams will dual-stream to both Twitch and Mixer, so it’s a good idea to make sure you’ve got your game details up to date.
Mixer pulls it’s database of games from Player.me, a social collaborative database of gamers, games and companies. Player.me was purchased by SplitmediaLabs developers of the popular XSplit streaming software.
To add your game to Player.me head to this link. In the bottom right hand corner of the games browser you'll see a big "Plus sign" in a circle. Hit that to start adding your game.
Once you’ve uploaded all your game details, including description, cover art, background page art, and it has been processed your game can be tagged on Beam. I’d allow at least a week for this process to be completed.
