My game, Luck be a Landlord, has been featured in hundreds of YouTube videos. This contributed immensely to my overall sales, and the game would not have been a financial success if so many YouTubers hadn't featured my game (thanks!).

This begs the question many indie gamedevs ask: "How do I get YouTubers to play my game?" Let's talk about what I did, what worked, and what didn't.

The Paid Coverage

Many devs pay YouTubers 4 to 5 figure amounts to make a video of their game. This is a perfectly valid solution, but is outside the realm of possibility for many people. It's something I couldn't afford when I started marketing Luck be a Landlord, and I've still yet to pay for coverage, so we won't be talking about this aspect further. It's entirely possible to successfully market your game with a $0 marketing budget.

The Right YouTubers

The first step is to find YouTubers who are likely to cover your game. I've found much more success emailing YouTubers that cover games similar to the one I'm trying to get them to play. For example, a few of the popular YouTubers I emailed were Olexa, Northernlion, and Aliensrock. All of these channels primarily focused on newly released roguelikes, and all of these YouTubers made several videos on my game. I had much less success emailing variety gaming YouTubers, so find your niche!

When actually looking for YouTubers who cover games similar to mine, I just searched things like "Slay the Spire Quick Look" or "New Roguelike Review." Similar queries based on your genre of game should work as well.

The Actual Email Addresses

To find the correct email address, most YouTubers have them on their "about/more" page or in their Twitter bio.

I keep a spreadsheet of all the email addresses I'll email with each update, along with a unique Steam Key for each address. It also doesn't hurt to keep a column for how you'll refer to each YouTuber, in case you know a name they prefer to go by instead of their username. Don't just assume you're on a first-name basis with them, though.

Now let's get into how to actually construct your email.

The Subject Line

For the email subject line, I have two major tips:

1. Use relevant emojis. This helps catch eyes and convey a theme for your game. For example, I broke up sentences with slot machine emojis (🎰) instead of periods.
2. Have the text "🔑 STEAM KEY INSIDE 🔑" somewhere in your subject line. A person is much much more likely to click on your email if they know that you've taken the step to provide them with a key for coverage.

This results in a typical Luck be a Landlord email subject line looking like this:

🎰 Luck be a Landlord 🎰 Slot Machine Roguelike Deckbuilder 🔑 STEAM KEY INSIDE 🔑

I've found a lot of success with this kind of subject line, so I highly recommend you use something similar. You can't go wrong with...

<emoji> <game title> <emoji> <genre/hook> <key emoji> STEAM KEY INSIDE <key emoji>

The Body Text

Let's break down my standard Luck be a Landlord YouTuber email:

Your actual text will vary greatly depending on your game, but feel free to use mine as a template if you get writer's block.

The Mass-Sending

When actually mass-sending emails, make sure that the Steam Keys are unique for each email and that you replace variables like {{Name}}. To do this, I use a Thunderbird plugin called MailMerge, but I'm sure there are alternatives for other email clients.

This is important: When you actually send out the emails, stagger them. You can easily get stuck in a global spam filter if you send too many emails too quickly. I usually send groups of 10 emails every 10 minutes to avoid this.

The Tips & Tricks

• When a YouTuber covers your game, add them to a separate spreadsheet so you can change the email body text when you follow-up with game update emails. You can remove the Steam Key and put something like "Thank you for your continued coverage of my game!"
• Personalize emails where possible. For example, ProtonJon, a YouTuber/Streamer whose content I enjoy has a segment on his stream called "fortune cookie." Because of this, I replaced my typical "🔑 STEAM KEY INSIDE 🔑" with "🥠 STEAM KEY INSIDE 🥠" which helped my email stand out and get him to cover my game.
• Don't be afraid to follow up! I emailed my list of YouTubers every time there was a major update to my game, and it led to a lot of videos where they said things like "Luck be a Landlord gets updated really often."
• When a YouTuber makes a video of your game, leave a comment about something you enjoyed about the video. Don't just leave a generic "Thanks for the coverage!" It feels like you didn't take the time to watch the video.

Most of this article can apply to Twitch Streamers as well, but I've found a lot more success emailing YouTubers. If you have any questions or comments about my methodology, please send me an email or let me know in my game's discord.

Until next time!

-Dan