Indie game influencer marketing, arranged before release — not hoped for.
Distribution and reach was the dominant failure in 46% of the launches we diagnosed by hand. Not the game. Not the page. Nobody knowing it existed. Creator coverage is the mechanism that fixes that, and it is the one most studios leave to chance.
Nobody arriving is the number one cause.
Across the hundred failed launches we read individually, distribution and reach was the dominant diagnosis 46 times — nearly half. Post-launch velocity took another 38. Between them they account for 84 of the 100.
On the wider segmentation of two hundred scored games, the largest single group — 40% — was invisible with too little feedback to even judge. The second largest, 30.5%, was liked but invisible: games with decent reception that nobody found.
That second group is the painful one. Those studios did not make a bad game. They made a game nobody was told about.
Source — 14,084 paid Steam releases, 2024 cohort. Method and limits
Names, angles, and answers.
Matched shortlist
Named creators whose audience overlaps your genre and size band — not a scraped list of the biggest channels.
Per-creator angle
Why this specific game is worth their next video, written per creator. The reason a cold message gets read.
Outreach & follow-up
We send, we chase, we report. You see who replied and what they said.
Deal structure
What to offer, what to never offer, and what a fair key-plus-terms arrangement looks like at your scale.
Match, approach, secure.
Read the game
Genre, mechanics, tone, and the audience it actually serves — which is often not the one the studio assumes.
Match the creators
We cross the game's signals against the network and shortlist the creators whose audience genuinely overlaps.
Approach with an angle
One personalised message per creator, built on a real observation. No mass mailing — it does not work and it burns the contact.
Secure and schedule
Terms agreed, dates locked against your release calendar so coverage lands when it counts.
One streamer moved Among Us. One.
In July 2020 Sodapoppin picked up a two-year-old game on a recommendation and brought other streamers with him — 631,000 hours of watch time in the first month. Waiting for that is a lottery. Arranging three structured coverages six months out is a plan.
READ THE AMONG US TEARDOWN →Public case study. Not a Shypiard client.
Do you guarantee coverage?
No, and be careful with anyone who does. We target three structured coverages and report honestly on what was secured and what was refused.
Do we have to pay creators?
Not always. At small and mid scale, early access plus a genuine reason to care often does more than money. We tell you when paying is the right call and roughly what it costs.
How big are the creators you approach?
The ones whose audience matches yours. A 4,000-viewer channel that plays your exact genre converts better than a 400,000-viewer generalist, and answers its messages.
We already have a press list. Is that the same thing?
No. Press coverage and creator coverage move different audiences on different timelines. Both are useful; only one reliably produces wishlists before release.
See which creators fit your game.
The free diagnostic includes a first read on creator fit — which channels match, and what would make them care.