Introducing IMPRESS!

Hello - and thanks for stopping by the blog!

Meet IMPRESS - the new games marketing, community and publishing tools platform on the block.

Whether you’re on your way to publishing your first game, or are a seasoned games publishing wizard: rest assured, you’re in the right place.

As game creators, we often hear that “games development is half the battle”, and that “marketing is essential for success”. It’s all true — but when time, budget, skill and focus are limited, what can you really do?

Find a publisher? Pay an agency? Raise investment and hire in? DIY? Each option will have its own benefits, drawbacks and caveats, but whichever you choose: some amount of responsibility will always land with you.

With that being the case, we answer that question with our mantra:

Improve your knowledge Improve your toolkit Improve your practice

History

Existing as an indie game studio from 2012 - 2022 before starting IMPRESS, we’ve lived that mantra to the fullest.

We self-published titles across Android, iOS, Steam, Nintendo Switch, and even OUYA too! We built a bespoke C++ game engine, a breakfast-defence simulator, a few “cult hits”, loads of Ludum Dare entries, and many projects for paying clients to stay in the black.

(Yes, we’ve actually been on the block for a while!)

 

Journey

Responsibility for marketing, promotion, community — all things in games publishing — landed with us so many times. It was a whirlwind of a journey. We embraced a lot, we failed a lot, we learned a lot and we grew a lot.

We learned about the tools, processes and techniques used in marketing, inside and outside the games industry. We learned a lot about ourselves too. Most crucially however, we learned that things could be done better!

Where we found friction or limitation in the ecosystem, we built bespoke tools for ourselves — just like we had with our game engine before Unity was the gold-standard!

We built a press/influencer CRM before ‘influencer’ was a term; we built social scheduling tools at the same time as Buffer; we built media/coverage monitoring tools to make sure to thank everyone who tried our games; and we built key distribution to bring ownership of our games’ audiences home.

With every new requirement, we spent the time to knuckle down and narrow down to what was most important.

 

Today

Our experiences as an indie game studio led us to where we are today: sharing our knowledge, tools and best-practices with you!

Sharing our knowledge Sharing our toolkit Sharing our best practices

With and for you!

With knowledge and education to improve your tight marketing chops, and by sharing insights and industry patterns and trends, we’ll help you get your game discovered.

By using smart marketing & community tools designed with a games industry lens, and built for independents without compromise, we’ll simplify games promotion.

In bringing everything together, we’ll streamline workflows, make automation work for you, and take your worries and overheads off your plate. We’ll empower game creators, champion the independent games ecosystem, and change the games industry for the better.

 

Roadmap

We’re taking the slow and steady route, and remain fiercely independent with no external investment or stakeholders. That’s just who we are. We work for you now: the indie devs, the indie publishers, the overwhelmingly warm, kind-hearted and diverse global games industry.

We’re starting small, and launching with our friendly neighbourhood Coverage Bot. We will release more of our tools over time.

Coverage Bot is helping you be more reactive to your streaming and community champions, helping you track your mentions around the web, and helping you grow your audience – all streamlined, to help you grow your business!

Early customers love what we have so far, and we can’t wait to share more!

  Find out more about Coverage Bot  

 

The Ask

Fortune favours those who take action, so sign up today, and join us on this new leg of our journey — help us, in helping you!

For our educational posts and updates straight to your inbox, please subscribe to our mailing list. We’ll be sharing more here and there in the coming weeks.

If you’re on board with our vision of democratised games publishing, please do us a massive favour — talk about us in your indie communities, introduce us to your indie friends, and spread our message far and wide.

You now know what we’re here for, why we’re here and what we stand for.

Let’s achieve great things, together.

The complete toolkit for video game publishing is just around the corner…

Ashley - Game Developer, prev. Force Of Habit - Founder, IMPRESS

---

P.S. It’s dangerous to go alone, take this! 🗡