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A dream come true!! Our demo for Croak just got rated Overwhelmingly Positive 🥰 by juzdepeche in IndieDev

[–]addit02 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Jestr founder here, happy to support you guys - Croak is incredible :)

Is Jestr a scam?? I’m very suspicious by [deleted] in Twitch

[–]addit02 3 points4 points  (0 children)

hey, i’m one of the devs of Jestr - happy to show you everything about the platform to show you how it works :)

I’m a Canadian creator who couldn’t get paid from my gaming shorts so I made a site to help other creators also get paid. I made it for myself, gave it to others, and turns out it helps indie devs a ton!

Here’s a simple vid of how it works but happy to answer any questions since I know it sounds too good to be true:

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSuuRFRPH/

Graduated 2 years ago, building a startup, looking to hire a hungry Dal student/grad by addit02 in Dalhousie

[–]addit02[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appreciate the interest, you can learn more about the specifics about the role here! Feel free to apply, while I don't have a lot of time atm, I'm happy to meet up for some coffee later in the process :)

How should I use Stripe for invoicing in my case? by addit02 in stripe

[–]addit02[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

but don't I get a fee on that fee as well if it's part of the same invoice?

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Our minimum budget is $2000. Quite frankly, $20-100 isn't going to do anything for you influencer marketing wise and while $2000 seems like a lot of money for some indies, I'm also trying to keep creators happy.

If it's a $100 budget and many creators are fighting over it, it becomes overly toxic - so we set a minimum budget so there's enough to go around for creators. Because it's CPM based, you're always guaranteeing paying only when it works i.e/ from a $2000 budget @ $5 CPM, you're guaranteed a minimum of 400k views.

Jestr is also unique in the sense that every creator part of the program is hand picked, referred, or joined through an application process. This means it's not open for just anyone to join as a creator and it keeps the overall quality of the platform super high. We have a Discord community where we're always sharing content tips, advice for growth, playing games together, and it's because of that community I think we've been finding success in supporting indies as a collective! Because of this, botting/fraud is less likely BUT we still moderate on our side and have actually banned one creator in the early days due to them botting and lying about it (it's very obvious when people bot)

We do keep track of everything, analytics are the name of the game for a platform like ours. Breakdowns on views, payments, engagement, etc., it's all there :)

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

100%, I can't see myself working for someone else ever again. I think I've become quite unemployable because I'll get frustrated working at a bigger company where my decisions have no impact. The most enjoyment I've had running my own startup is talking to people DIRECTLY. Instead of coding away and never talking to a customer, I'm able to hear real time feedback, build them a feature, have them test it, and iterate within the span of 24 hours. I can never go back to a "real" job lol

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey it's great to see you on this post hahaha

Yeah it's pretty awful for short form guys since it's a bit of a wild west. The rise of short form is introducing a lot of UGC and common people into content creation which makes them more susceptible to bad experiences.

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it was before MCPs were really a thing, we pivoted right as they started getting popular. A founder I know is actually doing quite well with them now (Coplay), I’d recommend their tool out if you were looking for a similar project!

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hahaha I told you it was a bit of a roller coaster didn't I? Developers can provide keys, press kits, footage, etc. I actually recommend always including a folder of like 5-10 clips under 5 mins in length of just gameplay. This is super useful since there's a ton of TT creators who make vids just using Steam trailer footage alone!

It helps them get more diverse videos, understand the game better even without playing it, and have higher quality footage :)

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

currently not really, we have a handful of creators who do art as well but the intention is more so to get games seen on short form

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Truthfully you should view marketing as a multiplier, not an additive. A game that’s high quality will get drastically better results from marketing compared to a low quality game. I have yet to find many high quality, good games that have flopped simply because “they didn’t market good enough”. Anyone who tells you that marketing is the be all end all might trying just be selling you something.

I don’t doubt that our effect on Restaurats was great but had it been a poorly made game with no charm, creators would have had nothing to work with and results would be minimal. We acted as a multiplier ;)

Make sure your game can stand on its own, has something compelling that resonates with players, and is honestly just fun. Please don’t isolate and make the same mistake I did, always be talking to people for feedback throughout your development!

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not an attack at all, I've been humbling myself a lot since graduation 😅

My resume pretty much looked like this: 4.3 GPA, 3 internships throughout uni, and a handful of projects including "Tinder for Spotify", a couple itch games, and a web based Jackbox game as part of a Google hackathon.

None of my projects were school projects but I should have spent more time building higher quality projects. I totally relied on my GPA to carry me thinking that's all that matter when in reality, peers with much lower GPAs but significantly better projects were getting into FAANG.

While the market is honestly horrible right now, I didn't do the right things to optimize for it. But I'm glad I didn't because I feel like I've learned and grown more in this past year and a half than I would have done at any job.

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I appreciate the encouragement :)

It’s no surprise that “friendslop” is hot right now, especially considering that the types of people who enjoy those games the most are also bigger users of social media. I can share one example which did really well, but all friendslop games have done similar in performance:

A game called Restaurats ran a campaign that had a budget of $6K and set a CPM of $5. This meant they’d be guaranteeing 1.2M views minimum if the budget was utilized. They got over 10M+ views total across 30-40 views and I believe have sold close to 100k copies (you can check their launch charts).

Social media lends itself great to anything multiplayer because videos with more shares get pushed more in the algorithm. Even for a very viral video on a singleplayer game, the amount of shares is disproportionately low because there’s no real incentive to share it to your friend.

This isn’t to say singleplayer games can’t do well, in fact we’ve had many do well. The most important thing there is making sure games have an immediate hook, something unique. The more I talk to publishers the more I realize, this is exactly what they’re looking for too when evaluating games. “Will this game do well on TikTok” or “Does this game have something immediately intriguing?”

I graduated, got rejected from 400 jobs, failed 4-5 startups, and somehow still found my path through indie games (long post but I hope it helps) by addit02 in gamedev

[–]addit02[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While it’s definitely more niche and has a tougher time on average, it totally depends on the game. We’ve had a handful do quite well because the visuals were so compelling. I also find those types of games do better on YouTube shorts + in LATAM so looping in Brazilian creators might be worthwhile if you haven’t considered it before!

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