But it's a lot of money tho. If your goal is marketing, then isn't it a more efficient cost per user acquisition to just buy adwords or whatever online ads instead?
It's virtually impossible to make AdWords work for their business model, and if it were not impossible it would require someone intelligent to implement, and unlike game developers SEM specialists expect to get paid on a regular basis.
This is largely a function of the unit economics of indie games being terrible compared to e.g. the unit economics of a free to play MMORPG.
This is largely a function of the unit economics of indie games being terrible compared to e.g. the unit economics of a free to play MMORPG.