Getting a game found, before and after you ship
Everything on this site about getting a game found, in the order it usually matters: the store page first, then the name, then the people who write about it.
The hubs that carry most of the work
Everything tagged for you
The groundwork, without anyone else's storefront in it
All three basics hubs: Website · Social media · Community
Where to start
Games are the oldest part of this site, so most of the work already lives on its own pages. This one exists to point at them in a sensible order rather than leave you guessing which door is the front one.
If you are shipping on Steam and have not built the store page yet, start at How to publish a game on Steam. It is the longest guide here and the one the rest hangs off.
If the store page exists and you are wondering what to call the studio, or what a publisher finds when they search for you, that is Indie game branding. If you are about to email people who write about games, that is Indie game PR.
The order I'd do it in
Not a rulebook. It is the order that wastes the least effort, based on what tends to be reversible and what does not.
The store page first. It is the page that converts, it is the page Valve surfaces, and almost everything else you do ends up pointing at it. Fixing it late means every link you built in the meantime pointed at a weaker page.
The name second, and only if it is still movable. A name is a deadline disguised as a vibe: once it is on a store page, a Discord and three articles, changing it costs more than it saves.
Press third, because it needs the first two to exist. Nobody covers a game they cannot look at.
Channels last, and honestly. Social is the thing indies are told to do first and it pays back the least. Social media for creatives has the long version of why.
The part that is not games-specific — your own website, the one channel nobody can take away — lives on Your website: the channel you own.
What this page is not
It is a signpost, not a guide, and it deliberately does not compete for a keyword of its own.
That is not modesty, it is arithmetic. The obvious phrase for a page like this would be something like indie game marketing. But the strongest games page on this site already targets how to publish a game on steam, and a second page chasing an overlapping phrase would mostly take search traffic from the first one. Two of your own pages competing is a cost with no upside, so this one stays a door.
You will see the same note on the other area pages. Where a phrase was worth taking, it was taken and said so. Where it was not, the page says that instead of pretending.
Common questions
I am not on Steam. Is any of this useful?
Most of it. The store page guide is Steam-shaped, but the name, the press and the channel advice apply to itch, a console storefront or your own site with very little translation.
Do I need a marketing budget?
No, and the guides here assume you do not have one. Where something costs money, the price is named and so is the free version.
How much of this is from your own games?
None of it is from a game I shipped myself — I have not published one. It comes from working alongside developers who did, and from running this site and Crit Pick in public, where the numbers are checkable.