Reread your whole description with a super critical eye (try to take on the perspective: "I think I'll like this game but I want to make sure it's for me" and then deliver on that. Convince people why it's for them. Convey the core experience special and forget the rest.

Derek Lieu did a great talk on trailers and how trailers often just list a bunch of features rather than communicating the experience - as if a restaurant said "we have chairs! and forks! and waiters!" instead of "we're an indo-chinese fusion restaurant with sushi!".

The store page's job is to "confirm" a potential customer's hopes. If a customer is at your store page they're already interested, so the store page needs to confirm "yes, this is the kind of game I was hoping it would be".

I'm on a quest to make commercially successful indie dev wisdom available to everyone, if that's your jam, follow me for more.

If you're starting out, don't worry too much about being flashy. Focus on telling a good story. You'll realize this too in a big way the first time you have a low effort but great story video go viral.

This one is weird: Quality matters much less than you think. A compelling story is king, the content, the video, the sound, the animations and transitions are all there ONLY to support the story.

Shorts are very different from long form. Long Form content sets the context with the Title and Thumbnail so viewers come into the video with an expectation. Whereas shorts are often presented TO the viewer rather than being a choice. So you MUST establish context quickly.

Tell a story! Storytelling is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of making viral content. Study this more than anything.

Start with movement. Nothing begs the user to swipe away more than a still frame and a voice over

Your content must appeal to a wide audience, even beyond that of your game's audience in order for your content to reach your game's audience.

would still enjoy your content.Learn how to make compelling content that entertains a wide audience, and your niche will find you.

Learn to be a good storyteller and it will highlight the natural value and interest in what you're already doing.

My advice to my past self would be: gamedev is inherently interesting. You don't have to follow trends in social media. Just show people what you are working on but make it a story (this is important).

super mixed about my latest short - I thought it would be a dud, and it's _far_ outperforming anything I've done to date.

It didn't have the best editing and the recordings weren't perfect but the story was good.

This assumes a $10 game with a 50% profit margin.

This is important for gamedevs to understand because if you're going to make your Dream Game and it's going to take you 5 years. You'd better be prepared to sell at least 50,000 copies to make it worth it (assuming you're aiming to be a full time indie)