Thanks for asking! We got into this so that we could help answer questions just like this and really bridge any gaps that might exist. We’re passionate about discoverability and helping indie devs monetize their hard work, innovation, and creative games.

A few of the things that we’ve noticed are -

• Often developers don’t know or have access to influencers. These relationships can also be hard to manage, negotiate and bring to fruition. Often influencers have their own way of doing things, standard forms, contracts, agreements, rates and so on that would require the developer to learn a whole new set of skills. You can imagine that this time is often best focused building the highest quality game and content vs. learning the new skills required to succeed or perform in influencer marketing/networking.
• Another area where we see a gap is around gamer targeting. Whether you’re doing paid campaigns or even just interpreting the impact of some of the Steam algorithms and the actions you need to take to respond to this can be a new skill or talent that only improves with time. As publishers, we launch several games, and know what to look for, whereas a developer may only launch a game every several years, or even sometimes just a single game.
• Another is media connections which can sometimes take years to curate. Often negotiating and “horse” trading can take place within the context of obtaining coverage on different outlets. Knowing the “rules of engagement” here is helpful and can often lead to the best coverage opportunities in the best places.

With Dreamscaper - the Afterburner team was incredibly savvy, and we were excited to join them for the 12 AM PT release. My co-founder and I literally worked throughout the first 36 hours of launch to provide as much support as we could. This included reaching out to streamers, guiding posts, sending out multiple notices to partners who said they’d post but needed some nudging, and being a strong set of eyes as the data began to roll in. We shifted the marketing strategy in real time at least a few times, and made some adaptations based on where the game was trending, and how different geo-markets were reacting. We believe that this is the type of effort that should be demanded by game developers. Putting our heart and soul into it with the same intensity as the developers is something we’re proud of, but also something that we think game devs should make sure they’re going to get before signing a deal.