Atrio: The Dark Wild releases in Early Access on August 10. This will give fans their first full hands-on experience with a survival-horror/automation game 3.5 years in the making. Being a blend of horror aesthetics, Don't Starve, and Factorio, Atrio strikes an interesting balance between a variety of different influences. Marketing such a game was difficult for Isto Inc., and getting it published through traditional AAA methods would be difficult. As such, independent development is often the only way for games with more niche appeal.
When traditional methods of advertising might not be enough, independent developers can turn to platforms like YouTube. In a recent Game Rant interview, Atrio: The Dark Wild designer Stephen Huang discussed doing exactly that. According to the Isto Inc. developer, the game's YouTube presence was instrumental to building its hype. In a market where indie automation games swim among a vast sea of products, something unique was needed to bring the title to attention.
Why Indie Games Need Unique Marketing
Unlike many of the most anticipated games of Fall 2021, indie games do not usually have huge marketing budgets. For example, games like Minecraft, Terraria, and Factorio had to largely rely on community support and grassroots marketing to achieve their respective levels of popular recognition. It's a problem that a majority of indie games face, according to Huang. The designer attributed a lot of the game's success to the studio's canny but entertaining approach to marketing.
The recent increase in independent games as a market is a really good sign for a healthy industry. However, this current boom is not always great for developers. When creating the game, the overabundance of great indie games already on the market was something that concerned Huang and co-developer Kyle Nissen.
"The market is so competitive, and this was our first foray into real games. We didn’t know what sells and what was interesting. If you put the product on its own in a field of incredible products, we would’ve just got lost in the sea."
Like many forgotten video game genres, indie titles have a tendency to fade into obscurity when placed in a saturated market space. So, the eternal threat that independent developers face when creating a new game is the possibility that people will not latch onto it. The solution that Isto Inc. and Huang decided upon was YouTube.
How YouTube Saved Atrio: The Dark Wild From Obscurity
Artio: The Dark Wild's YouTube channel has been there for most of its development, Huang said.
"Without YouTube, no one would have ever heard of our game. I think YouTube has been the catalyst of all our success."
Early Access shapes player perception in a huge way with games in development. The YouTube channel for Atrio also helped shape player expectations. While other traditional marketing techniques might be very hard for indies, Huang said "YouTube had a lower barrier for entry in that regard."
Alongside providing marketing to a vast potential audience, the platform massively grew Atrio's community. The game was no longer just an exciting and ambitious automation game somewhere in the horizon, it was also central to a YouTube channel boasting 1,528,119 views since launching in 2018. While that might not be nearly as many views as a controversial PewDiePie video, getting over half a million views on an update was still impressive for the developer.
YouTube's impact on gaming is well documented. As such, it is no surprise that prospective fans started interacting a lot with the game's development process. In fact, there was so much interaction between gamers and Isto Inc. through YouTube that they were even featured in a video where the team showcased the ways, "The Internet Played my Game and BROKE Everything."
The Limitations of YouTube for Game Developers
Isto's "Devlogs" for the upcoming project have certainly done a lot to distinguish it from other exciting indie games. However, Huang is unconvinced about the ability of these videos to demystify the development process. Although a lot of the studio's videos have titles referencing the creation of Atrio, Huang said, "There’s almost a dishonesty to what we do."
"We are trying to sell a video, and not show you what the development process is like, because it’s brutal. It’s not fun at all. Well, that’s not true. It’s super fun and I’d never want to do anything else, but you know what I mean."
After some consideration, he said "watching someone getting stuck in your game and coding around bugs for hours is not sexy." So, while the content that Isto puts out might not be totally true to what developing a game is, it certainly is more exciting.
Atrio: The Dark Wild will release in Early Access for Steam on August 10, 2021.