<aside> 💡 Tip: Start a Steam page with screenshots, a trailer if available, and a game description. Do this first, without a demo or game. Also you can only release the prologue first, and keep it as coming soon, for years,to gain wishlists, you can open a short-term campaign event, as playtest ,on Steam Next Festival,and then remove it, also, on the events, don’t forget to stream in loop with https://robostreamer.com/ . You can also create events on steam such as a giveaway contest, you will win a Steam key for an unreleased game, by registering in our Discord community, don’t forget to add a ticket bot, in Discord. You can make the giveaway on Gleam, too,or socials, promoting the post.

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<aside> 💡 Tip: Use Google Search Console to verify ownership for the domain, then index your game page on it, Google Developer Console, to take all the metadata for your game title, screenshots ,name of the game, any other information, like developer name,publisher ,release dates etc.

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<aside> 💡 Tip:

Why? Because the pitch deck is meant for funding. Press kit, to have it ready, after the funding is in, and prologue for a good entry on the forums, blogs, news + press kit, etc. The cover will be used everywhere, on socials, and for the events The trailer will be used too, at the events, and give it to influencers to post it on their socials, building the hype. Also, it can be used to stream in the loop, every day, on multi-streaming, on multiple platforms at once.Even on Steam But before all, you need a pitch to get some $ , incubators, accelerators, investors, and grants.

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Every great game had to start somewhere. It's a grueling and rewarding process that industry veterans know well, from the long hours to countless iterations. As your game approaches its final form, the fruits of your labor emerge as you launch your gold master to the masses.

But before presenting your finished product to eager players, what if you used the alpha and beta phases to build community, generate revenue, and gain valuable player feedback? In this post, we'll explore how leveraging key developmental milestones can work in your favor and examples of other games that executed these tactics to their benefit.

BUILDING COMMUNITY DURING PRODUCTION

The average time for a game to stay in production can be anywhere from 1-4 years, depending on various factors, from the type of game you're creating, if it's a follow-up to an established game, or if it's the first of its kind. One thing you can be sure of is keeping an existing community interested in your next release or starting to cultivate a new base of players is a long and gradual process. The earlier you can begin fostering loyalty and attracting prospective individuals during earlier development stages, the more fans you'll have a month, a year, or even a decade later.

Starting Your Community in the Alpha Stage

When a game has reached the alpha level, it's already gone through several production phases, including the first playable stage, the vertical slice stage, and the pre-alpha stage. You now have a mostly complete product, ready for a group of QA testers to begin the great bug hunt. While this phase is a dance between the dev and the quality assurance teams, it also presents an excellent opportunity to gain early fans.

Early fans are your first ambassadors and advocates, often becoming your most loyal followers. They believe in you and will provide everything from staunch vocal support to financing to help bring your vision to life. To ensure these people stay with you and help spread the word, engage with them by showing that their support matters to you and is integral to producing the best game. In the same way that a QA team helps find issues and reports on the feel and balance of game mechanics, your fans can also offer valuable insights.

Show them your early work and be honest with the difficulties and challenges you're working to overcome. This honesty can help strengthen your relationship with your fans and generate more understanding as you face various hurdles throughout production. The best way to build your community is by showing your game to current players of similar titles to help grow your initial audience exponentially.

Taking your New Community into the Beta Stage

As you progress down the production pipeline, moving from alpha to beta, your team focuses on optimization. In beta you have a fully complete game. Most, if not all, bugs have been fixed, and any lingering placeholders are built out. This is exclusively a testing phase. The dev team's goal is not to add but to lock up all features.

The community you started to grow during the alpha build is also ready to graduate to this new production phase. Your efforts will largely be the same as before, only now your focus will broaden as you begin outreach to bring in new, potentially less loyal, players.