I've set the release date for Leadwerks Game Launcher to Tuesday, July 21, right after the Summer Games Tournament ends. Your games will have the highest visibility during the first week the application is launched.

 

 

This is a great chance to demo your best ideas. Remember, you don't need a full finished game, just a simple playable concept. The goal is to make something fun!

 

Leadwerks Game Launcher is a unique application on Steam. The closest thing to it is the built-in game playing capability that GameMaker has. Unlike GameMaker, our game launcher is a standalone application for the sole purpose of putting your WIP games in front of an audience on Steam. Free self-publishing on Steam Workshop is a groundbreaking idea, and we are fortunate that Valve is trusting us to be the first with this. So let's show off what this community can do!

 

I've also set up a deal with Arteria3D to make it easier to get 3D models for your games, so you can focus on the gameplay instead of making art. During the Summer Games Tournament you can get access to all Arteria3D's existing content for $75. Their models come in FBX format, which means they will work easily with Leadwerks:

http://arteria3d.myshopify.com/products/leadwerks-special

 

The Leadwerks Workshop also has a ton of free content available.

Marketing

The first step of marketing is to know who your audience is. There's a certain type of user the game launcher is aimed at. Someone who just wants to play Call of Duty isn't going to be into this, but there's other people who are interested in creative indie experiments. The type of user who would try games on Desura is who we are aiming at. Our store page will make it clear that these are in-development, incomplete, creative experiments. The kind of user we're targeting is looking to participate in the development of new and interesting game concepts, and will be pretty forgiving of bugs and rough edges if the game is fun.

Promotion

Any screenshots taken in Game Launcher games will automatically appear on our site here:

http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/page/screenshots

 

These will also be automatically reposted to a new social media account for Leadwerks games:

https://twitter.com/LeadwerksGames

 

I plan to add automatic tagging so that your game's title is tagged in the image. I will also add a simple web API so you can automatically display a feed of screenshots from your game in your own social media page or on your game's website.

 

I'm requesting an "Early Access" release. The marketing budget for the final release will be based on the initial reception of the game launcher. If people like playing the games, I can promote this in many outlets, because it really is a groundbreaking idea.

 

That's all for now! If you run into any trouble post on the forum, and ask me if you have any other questions. Good luck!