By skyforbes 
If you are not making short-form content on TikTok/YouTube/Instagram for your app or game, you are seriously missing out. 😵💫
Millions (maybe billions) of people scroll reels on various platforms everyday, that is where they live — and that is where you should market.
Stop chasing gaming influencers/streamers and become your own — that is what these guys did.
Here are a few case studies of indie devs, who kept sharing videos about their games on social platforms and achieved success.
1st case study: Bopl Battle
Johan Gronvall sold 500,000+ copies of his game, Bopl Battle, on Steam, with 0 efforts on paid marketing and UA.
Check out his video here, where he talks about his whole process and what worked:
His videos get millions of views on YouTube & TikTok, and sold 500,000+ copies of his game!
He can now ‘predict’ which of his videos will do well.
2nd case study: Virago
Virago is a narrative, serious mobile game made by Sunday Akor. He leverages TikTok and YouTube, and his game reached the Top #3 free games in the USA.
I had a quick call with Sunday, and his biggest skill is storytelling, which he integrates into his videos and hence reaching millions of viewers that download the game.
3rd case study: Highway Racer Pro
Highway Racer Pro is a racing mobile game that went viral on TikTok and reached #1 spot in the racing category. Their videos show straightforward gameplay without any fancy editing.
The developer behind Highway Racer Pro is a big studio and not any indie dev — they made $100,000+ post-launch, all through the support of TikTok.
New era of marketing: Short-form videos
Learning to create videos that sell or reach a wider audience is an underrated skill today.
If you have a perspective that can convert any game or app idea into an engaging video, you win. You can reach viewers in different parts of the world and sell your idea or product to them.
It works, I have tried it for my game: Squishy Cats. I don’t have crazy million views, but my videos convert. People watch them and go the app store to search and download.
[If you have a high-quality game/app and need help with short-form marketing, reply here!]
A few tips on what worked for me on TikTok:
What to do:
✅ Authenticity wins
✅ Share behind the scenes — talk about your journey, progress
✅ Have interesting hooks and opening sentences + visuals
✅ Warm up your account before posting
✅ Keep an eye on analytics and iterate
✅ Keep watching different creator and seeing what works
✅ Experiment with formats: voiceovers, captions, footage style etc.
What not to do:
❌ Don’t overpost, max 2–3 videos/day
❌ Have basic narration that goes like: “Download my game pls”
❌ Don’t repost old videos or other channel videos (algorithm is very smart)
❌ Don’t clickbait
❌ If from India, don’t use VPN to login — your account will be banned
This is the golden era for indie-devs with AI tools + leveraging social media, all you need to do is build and ship 😀
Join my game-dev discord, where we talk about:
- Web-Games
- AI+Games
- Apps
- Short form marketing
Until next time,
Anoool