About a month ago, we released our browser game “Greedy Goblins,” and we’re interested in expanding from the browser game into a full title.

However, we don’t know the best avenue to take to get it made. Our main issues are:

• Funding - Should we pitch the project to publishers? Should we try crowd-funding? etc.
• Marketing - How do you even make a project not become a drop in the pan without becoming a content monkey for social media?
• Getting on Storefronts - Is it better to focus on mobile and/or pc? Is self publishing even viable?
• Expanding the dev team - Is it better to build your own team, or partner / contract an existing one?

We don’t have the experience and/or insight to answer these types of questions; so that’s why we’re taking our questions here. What we're looking for is.

• Suggestions - (bonus points if you've had personal experience
• Linking Resources - Being pointed towards where to learn about this
• Being contacted for potential collaboration on this project - DM or CubePunks@gmail.com

All ears, ready to listen.

-KageKMB from CubePunks

If you're looking for a publisher to assist you, then 2 Left Thumbs is a trustworthy partner you can count on to do right by you. https://2leftthumbs.manakeep.com/

This thread was brought to my attention.

I'll answer as well as I'm able!

Funding

Does it feel like there's a high demand for an expanded game? Small games are a good thing! They can teach you a lot.

I would recommend exploring alternates to going "all in" too quickly. Publishers are especially risk-averse at the moment. And crowd-funding takes a LOT of effort to put together. Either route to suck up weeks or months of work.

Marketing

And like you mentioned, there are about 15+ games releasing on Steam every day. You would need to spend a minimum of ~half a year building the Wishlists needed to get noticed. Based on your insane trailer, it wouldn't be impossible to get noticed! But you'd need to be working every possible angle to get the word out. There aren't really viable alternatives to brute-forcing promotion as often as possible, in as many places as possible.

Storefronts

Steam costs about $100 USD. Itch is Free. Starting out, no other storefront really matters. But if you want the game on Steam, make that happen asap! Anywhere else is likely secondary to that.

Don't bother with Mobile in the short term. It's the most punishing platform out there. Visibility is 0, as you're competing against companies that are pouring millions of dollars into promotion. It's only a real option once you/your game are already known. If you're dev pipeline allows you to do so with little-to-no-effort, you might as well try? But don't expect much there.

Expanding dev team

Unless you have a list of to-dos you can't do yourself, keep things small. Worry about managing larger teams when you have more experience (and likely when you have funding to support that). Work with people you trust to both share your vision, and to execute on your intended timeline.

Self-publishing is still viable! But you'll have to teach yourself a lot about marketing.

Finding a publishing partner is tough. Focus on small titles with a small team. Learn as much as you can. Then you can use that experience and track record to leverage deals on bigger projects.

Suggestions

Put the game on Steam either for Free, or for just a couple bucks. You'll get a LOT more eyes on the game with a Free release though. It'll cost $100 store submission fee, and the time you put in learning how to promote and launch a page/game. And while you wouldn't earn off a Free release - if you keep the timeline short, that knowledge will be worth far more than you spend.

• Set yourself a deadline (eg. 3 months from live store page, to full launch). Don't aim for a target Wishlist count, as that can be insanely difficult to achieve.
• Use the existing game as a public demo - and take part in something like the Steam Next Fest to learn about Event participation.
• Do trial and error promotion through as many different avenues as you can. Keep a close eye on what works and what doesn't.
• Learn as much as you can about optimizing a Steam page, and best practices to make that as appealing as possible.

At the end of that, you'll have a Steam page, a wealth of knowledge in handling promotions, and a greater confidence in how to build up and launch a game. Then you can always make Greedy Goblins 2, or Greedy Goblins DX based on the feedback you receive. Or if that Free launch performs well, you could sell additional levels as a DLC!

I hope that helps!

There is no boot that fits every foot. But I hope these general recommendations can make that path forward feel a little less impenetrable :)

Publisher needs mostly extend to marketing and certain types of programming (ex. Steam integration). 

We have no issue with spending our own time expanding Greedy Goblins if we can get reimbursed for the time spent. Reimbursement doesn't even need to be in the form of game sales - we'd be open to donations (Kickstarter, Patreon, even just PayPal donations). The oversaturation of crowdfunding, especially in videogames, makes us wary if this viable though. 

However, if this can be achieved, the follow-up game/update scope can be scaled according to donation/presale thresholds. 

Steam integration is a pain in the ass. But far from impossible. I'd recommend simply looking up posts around these forums, and whatever engine you're working in. You should find some useful answers, and can probably band it out on the scale of days.

Kickstarters are still viable, especially if kept small.

If you only need like <$5000, you can absolutely pull that off!

However, you'll want to build up 50-100+ Followers on that pre-launch page to jumpstart it when the campaign launches. THAT'S when campaigns get drowned out. When there's nothing in place to support them on Day 1. If it's dead on arrival, every newcomer will pass it over, and the ball never gets rolling.

• If you go that route, make the Kickstarter pre-launch page ASAP.
• Make the Steam page second. Make sure the Steam page prominently links back to the Kickstarter.
• Focus on marketing the Kickstarter pre-launch page for several months. Get that Follower count up!
• When it launches, it will freely route people back to your Steam page. Two birds!

If you hype it up before, and keep the target goal reasonable - you'll have your funding, and be primed and ready for an expanded version of the game to launch on Steam.

(Then being sure to follow some of my other recommendations for bringing the game to Steam)

I notice that of all the concerns you list, "how can we expand the gameplay?" is not one of them. Perhaps that's because you already have ideas for how, but it definitely should be a focus. Greedy Goblins is a very simple game, and that's perfectly acceptable as a free game, but there is a world of difference in what players' expectations become once they have spent money on something (even if it's as little as, say, a dollar)

You will really need something for your game to stand out and give people a reason why they would want to buy it, especially when they can easily emulate the very retro games it is inspired by for free.

Unrelated... And this is just speculation on my part... I wonder if you may run into PR issues regarding the sexualized tones. The tongue-in-cheek objectification of women present in your game (moreso in its accompanying comic) may fly on Newgrounds because of the culture here, how we all grew up with that kind of thing, and can see the intended irony behind it. But elsewhere... I can imagine modern audiences might take issue with it. At the very least, you should have a plan for how you will respond to that kind of criticism if you do receive it.

I would suggest including sexy male wenches as well as the females to balance things out, but maybe that's just because that's what I would want to see personally, lol.

we didn't ask questions about gameplay to prevent the thread from turning into "it'd be cool if you added____." we have like we have an internal list of gameplay additions and want to open the doors to suggestion, but feels like jumping the gun focusing on that right now. how something goes about being made, has an influence on what gets made, and the questions like "do we need to be pitching our project directly to a publisher" has us like:

but as far as expanding gameplay goes - core game was built on "make solid building blocks and make levels out of them." so the starting point for the sequel is add more building blocks, and thus object variety in game.

As far the content - it's all 1/2 homage, 1/2 parody. we were aiming for heavy 80s influences; comic was inspired by video game magazine's often bizarre tie-in comics, plots were written after movies from the time (including low brow comedies), box art leans into classic wester cartoon vibes vibes, and gameplay is 8bit.

Either people are going to get it or they don't. Comic has been called both hilarious and offensive in the reviews, not everything it made for everyone's taste.

Maybe a gender swap mode could be added in the sequel - #gay-mode is trickier cause it'd be world peace because the main conflict hinges on there only being only 1 woman in all the land.