Boss: Everyone knows

Play this quiz

Store page pick

Remy is choosing words for the hidden App Store keyword field for Garden Defense. Which list helps players find it?

  1. tower,pests,plants,cozy,strategy
  2. best,game,ever,download,now
  3. Garden Defense,Garden Defense,Garden Defense
Show the answer

tower,pests,plants,cozy,strategy

Keywords are words real players type when they look for a game like ours. Hype words are not searched, and repeating the name wastes space, because the name already counts.

Quick check

Store screenshots, trailers and short videos all follow one shared rule. Which one?

  1. Show exciting, real gameplay right away
  2. Start with the studio logo slowly spinning so people remember it
  3. Show art of things that might be added to the game later
Show the answer

Show exciting, real gameplay right away

Viewers decide in a few seconds, and stores require the real game. Real, exciting gameplay up front is the hook. The logo goes at the end.

Demo cut

#studio-plans, Remy
Steam Next Fest demo idea: the whole game, all 12 levels, free. More content means more wishlists, right?

A demo is a free slice of the game that players try before buying. What should the team tell Remy?

  1. Cut it to the best 15 to 30 minutes, end on a hook, and put a wishlist button on the last screen
  2. Yes, give away every level so players see everything
  3. Show only the tutorial, so nobody sees the fun parts before buying
Show the answer

Cut it to the best 15 to 30 minutes, end on a hook, and put a wishlist button on the last screen

A good demo shows the core fun, then stops on a moment that makes players want more. Giving everything away leaves no reason to buy, and a tutorial alone never shows why the game is fun.

Player message

#bug-reports, @cosmo_kid
Game freezes when I pause twice fast on my tablet, level 3. Also what city do the devs live in? I want to visit!!

Discord is 13+, so a parent moderates our server. Which reply should the team draft for the parent to post?

  1. Thanks, that bug report is really clear and we are fixing it. We keep personal info like where we live private, though!
  2. Thanks! Here is our city, come and visit the studio anytime.
  3. Ignore the whole message, because it asks for personal info
Show the answer

Thanks, that bug report is really clear and we are fixing it. We keep personal info like where we live private, though!

The bug report is great: what happened, which device, which level. Where the team lives is personal info, so it stays private. A friendly reply handles both and keeps everyone safe.

Quick check

Blocking GPTBot in our robots.txt keeps Hyper Shards out of ChatGPT search answers.

Show the answer

False

GPTBot is OpenAI's training crawler. ChatGPT search uses OAI-SearchBot, and OpenAI says each setting is independent, so a studio can say no to training and still be found and cited.

Ad label

@shiplord, video caption
Hyper Shards is the best shooter I have ever played!! Go get it now!

The studio paid for this video. What is wrong with the caption?

  1. Nothing, the creator likes the game
  2. It needs a clear "#ad" or "sponsored" label right at the start
  3. It should name the parent who paid
Show the answer

It needs a clear "#ad" or "sponsored" label right at the start

Paid promos must be clearly labeled so viewers know it is an ad. A parent from the studio handles the deal and makes sure the label is part of it.

Read the numbers

search-console-report.txt
Page          Impressions   Clicks/home               5,000       50

Click-through rate (CTR) is clicks divided by impressions. What is the CTR for our home page?

  1. 1%
  2. 10%
  3. 50%
Show the answer

1%

50 divided by 5,000 is 0.01, which is 1%. A low CTR hints that our title and meta description in search results could be more inviting.

Quick check

Two weeks after launch, our new press kit page still never shows up in Google. What should Remy check first?

  1. The Page indexing report and the URL Inspection tool in Search Console, after submitting the sitemap
  2. Nothing, Google shows every page the moment it goes live
  3. Buy followers on TikTok so Google notices the site
Show the answer

The Page indexing report and the URL Inspection tool in Search Console, after submitting the sitemap

Google can only show pages that are in its index. The sitemap tells it which pages exist, Page indexing shows why a page is missing, and URL Inspection can ask Google to crawl it again.