It is time we stop talking about the "problem" and start building the solutions.

omorrow, I’m diving into the data that no one has ever talked about before of how developers are actually marketing today.

And then the specific infrastructure they need to succeed in a saturated market.

In 2025, 20,000 games were released on Steam.

66% earned less than $1,000.

Only 1.5% earned over a million.

The problem isn't that there are too many games. It's that we are trying to force a 2026 volume through a 2012 distribution model.

The Saturation Playbook is always the same:
• Build robust tooling.
• Buy targeted traffic.
• Measure performance in real-time.
• Feed the algorithms the right data.

So, where is gaming? We are stuck in the "Steam or Nothing" era.

Right now, PC Gaming needs to think outside the box.

3) High-Performance Marketing Tooling
They built the "Growth Infrastructure" that gaming is still missing.
- Analytics: Movio, Fandango Marketing.
- Discovery and Community: IMDB, Seed & Spark, Playlist Push and others.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Apple TV+, YouTube, Vimeo On Demand, Tubi, and Roku.

2)Diversified Business Models
They gave the customer different ways to pay:
SVOD (Subscription), FAST (Ad-supported), Transactional VOD (Rent/Buy), Licensing libraries, and Fan-funding (Patreon/Kickstarter).

How did these industries survive a 3x to 75x increase in volume?

They stopped relying on a single storefront.

They built an entirely new infrastructure of discovery and monetization:

1) New Distribution Ecosystems
They moved beyond the "theatre-only" or "CD-only" mindset.

Movies:
In 2000, 5,000 films were released.
By 2019, that number hit 17,500/year.

Music:
In 2018, 20,000 songs were uploaded daily.
Today, it’s over 100,000/day.

Books:
In 2007, there were 20,000 self-published titles.
By 2018, there were 1.5 million.

Also, marketing courses! Coming this for month #indiedev #gamedev #solodev www.glitch.fun/publishers/m...

TLDR:

1. Know your data
2. Use AI to find gaps and optimize your marketing to maximize your wishlist/user acquisition

And here’s where it gets powerful:

AI can take those insights and automatically adjust your campaigns, reallocating budget and showing the right ads at the right times, maximizing conversions while minimizing cost.

This is a use case that doesn’t produce “AI slop.” 😎

Traditionally, analyzing all that takes hours, expertise, and lots of spreadsheets.

Now? You can simply ask:

“Analyze my marketing data and tell me my performance peaks and lows.”

It’s not subjective like artwork, it’s objective performance based on your real data.

As you market your game and start collecting data, you’ll notice clear patterns:

🕐 Best time/day for highest CTR

💰 Best time/day for lowest CPM or CPC

📲 Best time/day for lowest CPI

🎨 The creative that drives the most engagement

#marketing #gamedev #indiedevs

Whether you’re an indie trying to stretch $100 or a studio managing $100K, the goal is the same:

👉 Lower cost. Higher scale. Greater profitability.

✅ Takes 2 minutes to create
✅ Up to 50% of players visit a game’s website before installing — give them something compelling to see
✅ Automatically linked to CAPI for smarter optimization
✅ Results we’ve seen: $0.10 CPCs, 6–8% CTRs, $1.30 acquisition costs

Show #investors how lowering acquisition cost directly boosts profitability — it’s math they understand.

🚀 That’s why we built Glitch.

We give away FREE conversion-optimized landing pages for games and here’s why they matter:

| CPA | Players Acquired |
| ----- | ---------------- |
| $1.00 | 100,000 |
| $2.00 | 50,000 |
| $3.00 | 33,333 |

Lowering CPA means higher returns, stronger retention curves, and a de-risked investment case.

💰 For VC-Backed & #AA #AAA Studios

Scale is everything. Every dollar determines how many users you can bring in and how strong your investor story is.

With a $100K user acquisition budget:

If you acquire that player for $1.30, your profit per paying player is $5 which is a 50% margin!!!!

➡️ Spend $100, you make $385 back.
That’s not risky math that’s smart marketing.