Influencers and creators

Other people's audiences

Some people have big audiences who watch them play games: YouTubers who post videos, and streamers who play live on sites like Twitch and YouTube.

When a creator plays our game and has real fun, their viewers want to try it too. Plenty of small games became hits this way.

Pick the right creators

A giant creator who only plays horror games is a bad match for Garden Defense. Look for creators who already play games like ours: cozy defense games, or arcade space shooters.

Small creators count. Someone with 2,000 fans who love tower defense can bring more players than a giant channel that doesn't. Small creators are also more likely to reply to a studio they have never heard of.

The press kit

• LogoIn good quality, ready to use in a video thumbnail.
• Screenshots and trailerReal gameplay they can show their viewers.
• Short descriptionA few lines on what the game is and why it's fun.
• ContactThe studio email address, which a parent looks after.

A press kit is a page or folder with everything a creator needs to show our game, so they never have to ask.

Free game keys

Creators shouldn't have to pay to try our game. For a paid game like Hyper Shards, we send a game key: a secret code that unlocks a free copy. Stores like Steam let studios create keys for press and creators.

We send one key per creator and keep a list of who got which one. If a key turns up somewhere it shouldn't, the list tells us where it leaked.

Reaching out

Creators get lots of emails, so ours is short and personal: their name, why our game fits their channel ("you stream arcade shooters every week"), one line about the game, and links to the trailer and press kit. A parent sends it from the studio email.

Send it a few weeks before launch, follow up once at most, and never be pushy. Watch out for key scammers, who pretend to be creators to grab free keys and resell them. Check that the email matches the one on their channel.

Paid promos say "ad"

• Label itWords like "#ad" or "sponsored", easy to see right at the start and in the video itself. The app's paid promotion label helps, but the FTC says not to rely on it alone.
• A parent signs the dealA sponsorship is a contract with money involved, and contracts need an adult. A parent handles the emails, the agreement and the payment.

Sometimes a studio pays a creator to show its game. That's called a sponsorship. In many countries the law says it must be clearly labeled as an ad, so viewers know it is paid for. In the US, the FTC (the government agency for fair advertising) enforces this.

Bolt says: Superintelligent Game Studios labels its own links the same way: the partner links in our Studio tools are always marked as partner links.

Say thank you

When a creator plays our game, we thank them, share their video in our Discord and fix the bugs they found. We also note which videos brought players, so next time we know which kinds of creators fit best.

Creators remember studios that are kind to work with.

Bolt says: Creators bring us players from other people's audiences. Next: paying for players directly, with ads.