Cross Promotion: The Benefits of Collaborating with Other Developers

Indie developers can gain wishlists and sales at no cost by cross-promoting with one another, according to a GDC 2021 talk by Philomena Schwab, co-founder and game designer at Stray Fawn Studio, as recapped by a marketing blogger who called it the best marketing session of the conference. Cross-promotion means developers supporting each other's marketing or promoting jointly, making it especially useful for teams lacking budget or existing exposure. Schwab cited that 65% of developers have cross-promoted multiple times in their careers.

The talk outlines four core approaches: shout-outs, knowledge sharing, themed sales, and tool sharing. Her Reddit post about a friend's game, Omno, earned roughly 80,000 upvotes. A lunch conversation with Landfall developers revealed that offering a free demo in exchange for email signup built a strong mailing list, a tactic she later applied to a successful Kickstarter. She organized a Swiss games sale on Steam by recruiting local developers and a popular headliner title, since Valve requires one for such events. Pixel Maniacs' free Twitch-notification tool illustrates tool sharing.

Additional tactics include running a private Discord for more advanced developers, adding Steam page widgets linking to friends' games (which Schwab estimates drive about one third of her wishlists), bundling three to seven games, and pitching bundles to Humble. Another studio bought Steam keys for her game Nieche at about $1 each as Kickstarter rewards, and the campaign income more than covered the cost. Her nature-game community site, PlayfulOasis.com, produced few wishlists directly but led to relationships behind a successful World Environment Day sale on Steam.

Further ideas include featuring friends' characters in games, sharing conference booths, pooling press and streamer contact lists, and sharing artists for work such as capsule art. The blogger notes that sharing professional contacts is GDPR-compliant, while sharing fan email lists is not. Developers who skipped cross-promotion typically had not considered it or did not know other developers, so attending events to network is recommended.