Travis Has Coffee With Mandalore: How Gamedevs Can Build Relationships With YouTubers. The Right Way.

Mandalore A.K.A. MandaloreGaming is probably one of the chillest people I know on the internet.

I first met Mandalore while managing an outreach campaign for my first digital marketing client, a team of indie game developers making a spaceship RPG. I managed to get as far as getting him to actually play it. My client was thrilled just for that. He was a big fan and it was a good moment for him.

Mandalore has been making gaming YouTube videos since 2011, and has since built a creative and highly engaged audience of PC master race übernerds. At time of writing, he has over 608k subscribers on YouTube.

Mandalore specializes in niche or obscure games with a darker tone. Some of the games he reviews have cult followings that make them very popular but only on certain corners of the internet.

Not only that, but he’s reviewed a fair number of indie games as well. His videos, which routinely get hundreds of thousands of views, have helped to popularize cult classic indie games like Sunless Sea, Cultist Simulator, and Darkwood.

If you’re a gamedev reading this, then comment below if this has happened to you:

There you are, slurping your ramen noodles, chugging a RedBull, and pleading a list of YouTubers to just take a look at the game you’ve poured your heart and soul into for years, only to be met with radio silence.

This is actually a really common problem. It’s not easy to get noticed as a small indiedev team. Content creators in gaming get inundated with dozens or even hundreds of review requests a day. Why should they listen to you?

Well, if anyone knows the answer to that question, it’s probably this guy. Here’s what he has to say on the matter.

I. First off, I’d like to know more about the man under the helmet. What are some of your hobbies and interests outside of YouTube?

You seem to be quite an outdoorsman. You’ve talked about raising horses in a couple of videos, and I’m aware that you raise plants. Where did that come from?

What about your taste in music? I always had you pegged for a metalhead. Am I anywhere close?

Mandalore:

Well as for hobbies I’ve definitely been more inside over the past two years. Since first I was out of commission from a spinal disc slipping, and right when that was getting more tolerable Covid unleashed. Things are just starting to relax where I live. Still left a lot of room for indoor times with friends like movie nights, and occasional restaurant visits if conditions were right. 

Unfortunately even getting involved with strawberry farming was basically impossible too since the state wanted as few hands as possible on edible food, though I’ve been looking into maybe growing some stuff on the apartment deck. Ideally I’d get into beekeeping if I had proper land for it. 

The whole horse thing just happened naturally I guess. The local area has a sort of community center/farm that had lots of both farm animals and wildlife around so I was around horses more as a kid. Didn’t make for a bad job as a teenager!

As for music I listen to such a variety I don’t even know what my preference is but I wouldn’t describe myself as a metalhead even though I listen to some. I don’t even fit in the “I like everything but rap and country” umbrella since I know that’s a popular answer. The times I listen to just an album alone is rare since usually I pick stuff out at semi-random.

Me:

Straight up. COVID, unfortunately, ruined a lot of things people used to enjoy. I do think it’s interesting how the pandemic transformed our society from an extroverts’ world into an introverts’ one.

That’s also a pretty unique response e.g. music tastes. Unfortunately I have the opposite problem where I get so hyper-into niche genres of music that it makes it hard to relate to sane, healthy, normal people.

Let’s move on.

II. Who are the content creators you yourself are inspired by?

When you were getting your start as a YouTuber, who were the YouTubers and streamers you looked up to and said to yourself: “I wanna be like them when I grow up?”

I noticed a Doug Walker/Nostalgia Critic homage in the Brigador review. Maybe him?

Mandalore:

Haha not exactly. I think I saw Doug Walker/AVGN era stuff when I was still a kid/early teenager so that influence had mainly died off by the time I started. I also missed the boat on the big later ones like JonTron and don’t really watch streamers often. 

I would watch RedLetterMedia from time to time when I was getting started with doing the reviews, though of course that was more focused on movies. Matt Barton’s MattChat channel was cool for learning a lot about RPGs.

Though as for games I was mainly watching lots of smaller channels since most of the games I was interested in weren’t particularly covered by larger YouTubers, so that was a niche I ended up helping to fill accidentally. I guess when it came to YouTube at that time I was just watching a lot more general stuff outside of games and wasn’t really looking to surpass or “become” anyone in a sense.

I think that’s why it worked, albeit slowly. There are many, MANY JonTron clone channels apparently.

Me:

And PewDeePie.

And Markiplier.

I mean no hate if you’re into that, but that’s not what’s going to make you stand out.

III. How many outreach marketing emails do you get from game developers pitching you their game on a regular basis?

(I think in the DopeTalk interview you said you average about 3 a week. Is that still the case?)

Of those, how many would you say you respond to?

Mandalore:

No, I think that interview was 2-3 years ago now? It’s monstrous now. Anywhere from about 5 to 20 a day, since sometimes it seems marketing firms might need to get their stuff done by the weekend so I’ll sometimes get a lump of mails on a Thursday or Friday. There’s so many that I respond to -maybe- 1 a week, though there are sometimes stars align and it’ll be two or three. There have been plenty of times where I haven’t at all.

IV. What makes you most likely to respond to a developer pitch, play their game, and review their game?

As a follow-up: what are some of the most creative pitches you’ve seen in your YouTube career? Did they work?

Mandalore:

I think the biggest reason to respond I’ve had is if the mail actually reads like it was written at least partially by a human being and it’s not a pure form letter. 

The methods like saying “we know you like strategy and [GENRE] games by watching your channel!” or “I just got done watching [LATEST VIDEO]” are used so often and so repetitively in the second sentence or so in these mails that it’s safe to assume it was pulled from some kind of database to give it a small amount of personalization. 

Though ultimately, it really is the game that matters in my case since I’ve gotten terrible, terrible mails full of errors and horribly machine translation but the game itself looks like it could be fun. 

Of course the opposite has happened before, where the developer pitches exactly what their game is, why they think it’s special, and reasons why I’d like it that has made me take a look at it. It’s a lot more digestible to read “I saw in your review of a space game that you liked this mechanic, and we have it available here in ours plus we expanded on x” compared to reading something as sweeping as “YOU LIKE GENRE!”.

Those mass marketing emails I get sent from game companies would be a lot more appealing if they were asking for my credit card number too.

— Mandalore (@Lord_Mandalore) October 22, 2020

As for pitches with creativity, I’ve had some that have worked but haven’t gotten a video yet but are in the pipeline. There was once a “why you should try our game” powerpoint, a short trailer made specifically for the email contacts that was unlisted and basically made fun of how similar the other mails were, along with one where the developer outlined their life story basically and then amounted to saying “I almost went crazy, here’s my game”. Anything where I’m focusing more on the pitch rather than the giant signature logo is huge.

Me:

Lol. I had me a chuckle at that one. Emails like that are the reason why I get told to eff off an average of 5 times a day in my agency dayjob.

The takeaway I’m getting here is that personalization is key. You respond to outreach emails that include enough detail that you’re convinced they’re meant for you and specifically you and not schmuckhead number 81 on the outreach spreadsheet.

Would you say that’s accurate?

Mandalore:

Definitely. I’m not big-headed enough that it’s the only thing I respond to or something like that, but it does make me imagine there’s an actual person behind the desk and maybe the mailing list is smaller than usual. I worked in a call center once too so I definitely know the feeling of people getting mad that you’re wasting their time!

Me:

I see. So targeting is also key here in that case. Present your game as being a good fit for someone’s channel, and outline why.

If that’s the case, then it seems that rather than sending templated emails that are harder to personalize, the better option is to write individualized pitches to YouTubers who specialize in your game’s genre or tone.

Or in other words, the best method of outreach is manual, not automated. Which is harder to scale but ultimately creates better results.

Mandalore:

Exactly. If the game already is popular enough, mass scale would be better at that threshold, but personalization targeting at a lower one to initiate stronger interest at a niche level is much more effective.

V. What can indie game developers do to build genuine, mutually beneficial relationships with content creators?

Apart from what we’ve already discussed (e.g. personalized, targeted outreach), what single thing can gamedevs do to get YouTubers and streamers to respond to them without getting immediately ignored or flagged as spam?

Mandalore:

I think the best thing indie developers can do is be honest with their pitch. Though it’s also a two way street with content creators. 

If a dev wants to pitch their open world RPG their small team is making, they probably shouldn’t use phrases like “it’s like Skyrim!” or something similar that could set expectations too high. Content creators should be responsible in tempering their expectations and not being a be dick to small teams because their game isn’t AAA quality, but small teams shouldn’t try to promise the universe at a lower price point unless they have exceptional confidence to do so. 

There are content creators who will mainly be interested in the arrangement purely on business interest over how many clicks they could get over anything related to the actual quality of the game itself, so that also warrants consideration in who to pitch it too. 

If your game actually is similar to a popular one, targeting a creator for that popular game successfully inevitably leads to a “IT’S LIKE DESTINY BUT X?!?” video which will at least get some attention in the fanbase, but won’t necessarily lead to a lasting relationship since the creator might use it for a single curiosity video for their audience then dump it. 

Finding someone who is genuinely interested in what your game is about rather than what the numbers will mean can do wonders.

As for the second point, as we discussed before, personalization is the big one. Especially since some people will flag form emails as spam. 

I’ve gotten perfectly legitimate pitches from legitimate companies that Gmail flagged as spam by multiple people, or even mails that [retroactively] have gotten flagged as spam even when I was talking to the developer before. Your reach especially dies out if your mail is coming with a false virus warning since some creators have people to manage their mail who might instantly trash it.

Me:

This is an interesting point, and one that rings true in my experience. When I sent out emails for the Zero Falls team, my first digital marketing client, my hook was “It’s like 2D EVE Online” which predictably got me nowhere. 

So:

• Be honest and clear about what your game offers
• Be reasonable with your expectations
• Don’t try to hard to be like other more popular games

VI. Tell me a little about your content promotion process. 

What, if anything, did you do to grow and nurture your audience in the early stages of your channel, in the months before and after the Limbo of the Lost video when things took off? Do you have any tips or strategies that gamedevs can use to replicate your own success?

What went into the secret sauce?

Mandalore:

Tags I found are useful for a video’s tail, but not really for an initial push. I think most of my growth came from over years of doing what I did reliably, though search tags did help to find people who were looking for a specific game and would then see what else was on the channel. 

All that SEO stuff might not be entirely reliable when translating it to email marketing, so I’m not sure what I could apply there. I would say establishing a brand theme would be good. New Blood is a pretty small publisher, but they’ve gotten notorious just from their social media posting. 

Something you see frequently at E3 and other corporate events is some brands trying to change their image constantly. In the case of something like Ubisoft they can’t decide whether or not they want to be this social rebel studio where they proudly display how diverse their teams are, but insist their games aren’t actually political. I think their latest stint is calling their first party titles Ubisoft Originals or something like that to evoke a similar feeling of Netflix or another movie streaming service, though they’re really not a studio that makes those kinds of light gameplay movie games. 

Or even looking at something like a food chain, you’d see Pizza Hut briefly rebranded as Pasta Hut, or IHOP becoming IHOB to promote burgers. Dramatically shifting into something new tone-wise constantly can sometimes work for big studios, but it’s probably not a good idea when you’re establishing what your studio is about.

Me:

So, if I’m reading you right, it basically comes down to branding. 

Having a distinct, identifiable look and feel that is unique to your game and no one else’s, and then being consistent with that everywhere you have a web presence e.g. your Twitter, your newsletter, your trailers, and your Discord server. Something that makes your core demographic of players stop and go: “this thing is meant for me.”

Is that about right?

Mandalore:

Yeah absolutely. If your studio wants to have an image of “we love tabletop games and are into fantasy and D&D jokes”, then your Twitter should be posting memes related to that or generally engaging with the topics presented. It’d be very strange if they came forward with that kind of identity but then in emails became very unpassionate about the subject and likened it to popular non-TTRPGs or if their social media was confined only to announcements or engaging in anything generally gaming rather than their niche.

VI. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is on record as being your favorite game of all time as per the I’ll Review Anything interview. 

With that being the case, what’s your favorite indie game of all time, and why?

Oh indie game is such a tough one, there are so many games I’ve poured tons of time into in that space. 

I probably have the most hours in Factorio since I was following that through most of its early access lifespan. It still might have to go to Mount and Blade Warband, though it was published by Paradox so I’m not sure how much it counts though it went back to the developers at some point. There are so many different ways to play the base game, and the modding scene is huge. I’m sure 2 is going to do really well.

VII. In previous videos, you’ve roasted walking simulators as being games that have the pretense of being artistic without offering anything of real substance.

With this in mind, what are the kinds of games you would like to see being made? What gaps do you see in the indie game circuit that need to be filled?

It’s not exactly the lack of substance, but more the lack of using the medium. A game called Adios came out recently which you play a man soon to be dead just having some final conversations with some friends and family, but there are all kinds of objects to interact with and choices to be made in the dialogue. 

The kind of walking sim games I don’t care much for are the ones that don’t really take advantage of the medium over something like just making a 3D animated short film or movie. What Remains of Edith Finch is actually excellent in that regard since there are so many segments of interaction, but I haven’t played Gone to the Rapture yet. 

I do think titles like Adios or Pathologic 2 would be nice to see more of where you can really play around with how you interact through dialogue and mechanics with the world in a way you could never do with a movie. I think the indie scene will be covering just about everything over the next decade as better tools are more and more easily available and creatives can make their projects come to fruition.

Subscribe to Mandalore’s Channel here, and you can follow him at @Lord_Mandalore on Twitter. Tweet Steven Universe memes at him and tell him I said hi.