Influencer marketing for indie game studios

List three to five recent games your players also love. Those comparables are your best search terms: the creators who covered them are the likeliest to want yours.

• [comparable] review
• games like [comparable]
• [genre] indie games
• new [genre] games this month
• [genre] demo
• cosy games
• cozy games
• underrated roguelikes
• [comparable] first look

Search both spellings where they differ. Then sort what you find by the kind of coverage, because each suits a different stage:

First looks and demos

The first hour, or a demo. Suits a game that isn't out yet and wants wishlists.

Let's plays

Long playthroughs across several videos or streams. Suits games with depth.

Reviews and roundups

"Is it worth it" verdicts and "best indie games of the month" lists. Suits launch week, when viewers can buy.

Short clips

A funny moment or a clever mechanic, in under a minute. Suits games whose best bit needs no context.

Nakodo doesn't search Twitch. Streamers who also post videos on YouTube or clips on TikTok can be found there; streamers who only stream on Twitch won't be. For YouTube's gaming corners, see gaming YouTubers.

Valve's Steam keys documentation describes keys as single-use codes that add your game to a player's account, for selling on other stores and for giving free to beta testers, press and creators. For creator work:

• Before launch, use Release State Override keys. They give access before release, and Valve says they're meant for small beta tests and press and creator access. They must never be sold.
• First game? Leave time. Developers launching their first game on Steam wait three weeks after creating an app ID before they can request keys.
• Giveaways need care. Keys shouldn't be given away free unless Steam customers get the same deal, apart from very small giveaways of under 100 keys.

Steam's Curator Connect sends review copies to Steam Curators, playable straight away with no key. You can filter Curators by the tags they cover, language and operating system, and see their followers on Steam and on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. Curators have no obligation to accept, play or review your game.

Give every creator their own key and log who has which. Other stores and consoles have their own systems, so check their developer documentation before you promise a copy.

• Agree the embargo before you send the key. An embargo only binds creators who accepted it, so ask first and send the key once they've said yes.
• Put the date, time and time zone in the first line of the key email, and say what it covers: videos, streams, clips and screenshots.
• Give each format the time it needs. A long review takes longer to make than a clip, so ask each creator how much notice they need.
• Know how Steam labels early reviews. Steam marks a review written from a copy received before release as a "Pre-Release Review".

Valve's user reviews documentation tells developers not to solicit reviews in exchange for games, DLC, money or other rewards. Sending a copy to press or internet personalities for previews or reviews is the exception, and that covers a creator key. Only reviews from accounts that bought the game on Steam count towards its review score, and players can mark a review as for a product they received free, which Steam recommends for press copies.

So ask for an honest look, not a positive one, and never make the next key depend on a review. To see what a video did, give each creator a store link with their own UTM tags. Steamworks UTM analytics reports visits from tagged links and the wishlists, purchases and activations that follow within 72 hours, finalised four days after the visit. Before launch, compare wishlists per creator. See UTM parameters.

A free key is a gift, and regulators expect gifts to be disclosed:

• US, FTC. The FTC's answers on its Endorsement Guides cover games directly. A creator paid to review an unreleased game should say they were paid; calling it a "sneak peek" isn't enough, and might be deceptive even if they were only given the game. For long paid live streams, it suggests repeating the disclosure.
• UK, CMA. The CMA's guidance for brands counts "gifts of any products" as payment, and says the post needs labelling even when the brand asks for nothing in return.
• UK, ASA. The ASA's advice on recognising ads on social media says the "Ad" label applies to everything from a post about a gifted product to a full collaboration, and that "Gifted" on its own is unlikely to be clear enough.

Put the disclosure request in the key email. Platform labels are covered in YouTube sponsorship disclosure rules.

Nakodo searches YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, not Twitch, Steam Curators or the press. It reads your studio's website, the homepage and up to 5 key pages, and writes a brief you can edit. Put your comparables and genre words in its keywords, set a low follower range if you want small channels, and add off-topic words, such as genres you're not, so accounts that mostly cover something else are set aside. Each creator gets a score from 0 to 100 with written reasons, as how it works explains.

Nakodo then emails the best fits that publish an email, or only the creators you pick, with your studio's name as the sender. It answers what it can from your offer, passes the rest to you, and introduces each creator who says yes in the same thread, with you in Cc. You send the key and the embargo yourself.

• Nakodo doesn't request, send or track keys.
• It never shows, sells or exports creators' email addresses.
• The Free plan searches Instagram and TikTok; YouTube is on the paid plans. See pricing.