We've now got 40 games in Leadwerks Game Launcher and I am giving serious thought to the final launch. The application is presently in early release mode with about 2500 users. We want that number to be 100,000 users. Leadwerks Game Launcher is a really unique application; it's distributed exclusively through Steam, it's a standalone app, and it's free. This is not really like anything else out there, so how do you most effectively promote it?

I am running an experiment with Facebook ads. I figured we wanted a young male demographic, in the U.S. (for now), with an interest in Steam, Zynga, or Desura. This may be adjusted in the future with more tests. For example, we should be able to optimize campaign by comparing results between these keywords and focusing on the most effective ones, and by varying the wording of the text.

There's not much data yet, but at this point we can see we presently have a calculated user acquisition cost of $0.83 per user (money spent versus link clicks). Based on that calculation, we can assume that reaching 100,000 users through Facebook advertising would cost $80,925. Which is actually something I can make happen if needed, but I don't think we will be relying exclusively on Facebook ads for this. I think our exposure through Steam will be our most significant channel, and it's free.

Anyways, I had the idea a year ago that promoting a bundle of Leadwerks games would be more effective than having each developer individually promoting their own game (although you are certainly still encouraged to do so). Now we're starting to see the manifestation of a more consumer-oriented Leadwerks Software, and it's very interesting. I think a lot of things will be learned in 2016.

I thought this post would be interesting information for you guys. I do not trust Facebook's ad statistics and this requires confirmation through Steam stats, but I am starting to gather data.