Reddit Marketing for Indie Games: What Actually Works
Reddit can drive genuine wishlist traffic for your indie game. It can also get you banned, downvoted into oblivion, and publicly shamed. The difference comes down to one thing: whether you're acting like a community member who happens to make games, or a marketer who discovered Reddit exists.
TL;DR: Reddit's immune system rejects marketing. The only sustainable approach is genuine participation over months. Short gameplay GIFs outperform text. Screenshot Saturday is your best recurring opportunity. Genre-specific subreddits often convert better than large general gaming subs.
Key Takeaways
- Moderators see your full post history. You can't fake being a community member.
- Build karma and reputation before posting about your game. Participate first.
- Short gameplay clips (under 60 seconds) consistently outperform text posts.
- Genre-specific subreddits (r/roguelikes, r/tycoon) often drive more wishlists than large general subs.
- Limit yourself to one post per subreddit per month. Screenshot Saturday threads are the exception.
This is part of our wishlist-building series. Reddit isn't the highest-volume wishlist channel. Steam's own internal traffic and content creators drive more wishlists for most games. But Reddit offers something those channels don't: direct, unfiltered feedback from the exact audience you're trying to reach. And when a Reddit post does take off, the wishlist impact can be significant.
Reddit's Immune System
Before we get into tactics, you need to understand something fundamental about Reddit: the platform has a highly tuned immune system that rejects marketing. This isn't an accident. It's the core feature.
Reddit communities are moderated by volunteers who take their jobs seriously. They've seen hundreds of developers drop in with "Hey check out my game!" posts that add nothing to the conversation. They have tools to detect this behavior, and they use them aggressively.
Chris Zukowski shared a revealing look at what Reddit moderation actually looks like, courtesy of Richard from Zemore Indie Consulting, who moderates r/indiegames. The mod dashboard shows a poster's community karma, post history, account age, and which subreddits they've contributed to. When a flagged account shows 1 karma point in the community, most contributions in unrelated subreddits like r/aww and r/drawing, and an obvious pattern of self-promotion, the ban comes fast.
Contrast that with what moderators consider a "good contributor": someone with 400+ karma in the community, regular participation in discussions, an older account, and most activity in gaming-related subreddits.
The lesson is simple. You can't trick Reddit. The moderators see everything. It's like trying to use a Game Genie on an online server. Your only option is to be genuine. Developers who've built successful Reddit presences consistently report that it took months of authentic participation before their game-related posts gained traction—there's no shortcut through the reputation-building phase.
The Subreddit Map
Not all gaming subreddits work the same way. Here's a breakdown of the ones that matter most for indie game marketing, what each one expects, and how to approach it.
r/gamedev (1.8M+ members)
This is the largest game development community on Reddit. It's primarily for developers talking to other developers. The audience skews toward people who make games, not people who buy them.
What works: Detailed technical devlogs, postmortems with real numbers, questions about game design challenges, and honest discussions about marketing results. Posts that share knowledge perform well.
What doesn't work: "Here's my game, wishlist it" posts. Pure promotion without substance. Anything that looks like an ad.
Wishlist potential: Low for direct conversions (the audience is devs, not players), but high for relationship building. Other devs will share your game with their audiences if they think it's genuinely good. They'll also give you brutally honest feedback on your Steam page, trailer, and marketing materials.
Screenshot Saturday: r/gamedev runs a recurring Screenshot Saturday thread where developers post progress updates. This is the most marketing-friendly space in the subreddit. Post consistently, show real progress, engage with comments on other people's posts. Over months, you build name recognition.
r/indiegaming (700K+ members)
This is a player-facing subreddit for people who enjoy indie games. The audience is primarily people who want to discover new games, which makes it much more relevant for wishlists.
What works: Short gameplay clips (30 to 60 seconds) that show something interesting, unique, or visually striking. Before-and-after comparisons showing development progress. Posts that spark discussion about a design choice or mechanic.
What doesn't work: Static screenshots with no context. "I made a game" posts that are just a capsule image and a Steam link. Anything that feels like a press release.
Wishlist potential: Medium to high. A post that hits the front page of r/indiegaming can drive several hundred wishlists in a day. But most posts get 10 to 50 upvotes and generate a trickle at best.
r/indiedev (300K+ members)
Overlaps significantly with r/gamedev but tends to be more casual. Development updates, progress GIFs, and "feedback please" posts do well here.
What works: Short clips of your game in action, especially if they show a satisfying mechanic or visual effect. Honest "am I on the right track?" posts that invite constructive criticism.
What doesn't work: Same as everywhere else. Pure marketing. No context. No engagement.
r/playmygame (60K+ members)
One of the few subreddits explicitly designed for self-promotion. The audience is small but receptive. People visit r/playmygame specifically to find new games to try.
What works: Gameplay videos, demo links, and clear descriptions of what makes your game worth trying. The bar for quality is lower than r/indiegaming because the entire subreddit exists for this purpose.
What doesn't work: Posting without a video or any visual hook. Even in a self-promo subreddit, you need to give people a reason to click.
Genre-Specific Subreddits
This is where the real value often hides. Generic gaming subreddits are crowded. Genre-specific communities are smaller but filled with exactly the audience you need.
Some examples:
- r/roguelikes and r/roguelites for roguelike games
- r/tycoon and r/BaseBuildingGames for management and building games
- r/survivalgames for survival games
- r/horrorgaming for horror
- r/cRPG for RPGs
- r/4Xgaming for strategy
- r/incremental_games for idle/incremental games
These subreddits often have rules specifically allowing game announcements from developers, especially if the game fits the genre. A well-received post in a 50K-member genre subreddit can drive more wishlists than a mediocre post in a 1M-member general subreddit, because the audience self-selects for interest.
Find the right ones for your game. Search for your genre keywords on Reddit. Look at the sidebars for rules about self-promotion. Lurk for a few weeks before posting. Understand the culture. In practice, developers who invest time in finding the right niche subreddits often find they convert better than the large general gaming subs where their posts get lost in the noise.
What Gets Upvoted
Across all gaming subreddits, certain types of content consistently perform well. Understanding these patterns helps you create posts that contribute to the community and drive awareness for your game.
Short gameplay GIFs or clips (under 60 seconds). Reddit's autoplay feature means video content gets eyeballs. A 15-second clip of a satisfying combat mechanic, a funny physics glitch, or a beautiful environment will outperform a paragraph of text every time. Post it as a native Reddit video, not a YouTube link (native gets better reach).
Honest devlogs with real numbers. "My game launched a month ago. Here's what happened." Posts that share actual data, wishlist counts, revenue ranges, marketing lessons, get massive engagement because they're rare and genuinely useful.
Before-and-after comparisons. These work on Reddit the same way they work everywhere: the transformation is inherently satisfying. Show your game a year ago vs. today. Show a mechanic before and after polish. Show a character model before and after an art pass.
Questions that invite discussion. "How would you handle inventory management in a game like X?" isn't marketing. It's community participation. But it keeps your game in people's minds and builds your reputation as a thoughtful developer.
Behind-the-scenes technical content. How you solved a particular rendering problem. How you built your procedural generation system. How you handle save game compatibility across updates. Developers and technical players love this stuff.
What Gets Removed or Downvoted
Anything that looks like an ad. If your post reads like marketing copy, it'll get flagged. Write like a person, not a press release.
Posting the same content to multiple subreddits simultaneously. Reddit calls this "crosspost spam." Moderators can see your post history. If you posted the same GIF to r/gamedev, r/indiegaming, r/indiedev, and r/gaming within an hour, expect removals and possible bans.
Accounts with no history in the community. If your first post in a subreddit is about your game, most moderators will remove it. You need to have participated in discussions, commented on other people's posts, and built some karma in that community first.
Misleading posts. Don't frame a marketing post as a question. "What do you guys think of this mechanic?" when what you really mean is "Please wishlist my game" is transparent and insulting.
Frequency abuse. Posting about your game every week in the same subreddit will get you banned. Once a month is a reasonable maximum for most communities. For Screenshot Saturday threads, weekly is fine because that's the purpose.
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The Long Game: Being a Redditor Who Makes Games
The developers who get the most from Reddit aren't running marketing campaigns. They're participating in communities because they genuinely enjoy it.
You're an indie dev. You probably play indie games. You probably have opinions about game design, programming tools, and the state of the industry. Share those opinions. Help people who are stuck on problems you've solved. React to other people's games with genuine enthusiasm or constructive criticism.
Over months, you build a reputation. When you eventually post about your own game, the community already knows who you are. They've seen your comments. They trust you. That trust converts at a much higher rate than any clever marketing post. What tends to happen in practice is that genuinely helpful community members get upvotes and supportive comments on their game posts, while obvious marketers get downvoted regardless of how good their game looks.
This approach is slow. It doesn't produce a wishlist spike you can screenshot for Twitter. But it builds a foundation of goodwill that pays off repeatedly across your entire career, not just for one game.
Timing and Frequency
Best times to post: Reddit traffic peaks on weekday mornings and early afternoons (US time zones, roughly 9 AM to 2 PM EST). Posts published during these windows get more initial upvotes, which triggers Reddit's algorithm to show them to more people.
Screenshot Saturday: These threads typically go live early Saturday morning. Post early to get visibility. Include a GIF or image (plain text comments get buried). Respond to every comment.
Post spacing: For non-recurring threads, limit yourself to one post per subreddit per month. If you have a major milestone (trailer launch, demo release, notable sale), you can post more frequently, but only if each post offers genuinely new content.
Don't post the same day across multiple subreddits. Spread your posts across different days. Monday in r/indiegaming, Wednesday in your genre subreddit, Saturday in Screenshot Saturday. This keeps your presence steady without triggering spam flags.
Case Studies
Tower Factory is a good example of a game that benefited from Reddit presence without any viral moments. The solo developer maintained an active presence in relevant subreddits, shared genuine development updates, and built interest slowly. The game launched to modest numbers but grew steadily over 12 months, eventually approaching 1,000 reviews. Every content creator who played the game generated measurable sales bumps. Reddit didn't drive the majority of wishlists directly, but it kept the game visible in the community and attracted attention from content creators who browse these subreddits for new games to cover.
The broader pattern from Zukowski's research: Reddit is most valuable as part of a multi-channel strategy. It's not the primary driver (that's Steam itself, then Next Fest, then content creators). But it's a high-quality channel because the people there are actively looking for games. A well-optimized Steam page and strong visual assets make your Reddit posts more effective because people who click through see something professional on the other end.
Reddit Ads: Probably Not Worth It
Reddit has an advertising platform. For most indie games, it's not worth the spend. The cost per click tends to run higher than other platforms, and Reddit users are actively hostile toward ads. The return on investment for indie game wishlist ads on Reddit is poor compared to organic posting.
If you have budget to spend on marketing, it's better allocated toward professional trailer production, content creator outreach, or even Facebook/Instagram retargeting ads, which have better wishlist conversion rates despite higher CPMs.
The exception: if you've had a post go semi-viral organically and you want to boost it, Reddit's "promote post" feature can extend its reach. But this is amplifying existing success, not creating it from scratch.
The Bottom Line
Reddit works for indie game marketing when you treat it as a community to participate in, not a platform to extract wishlists from. The developers who succeed on Reddit are the ones who'd be posting there even if they weren't marketing a game. They're the ones giving feedback on other people's press kits, answering questions about game design, and genuinely engaging with the content.
The wishlists are a side effect of participation, not the goal. It's the bonus loot from playing the game properly. If you can't make that mental shift, Reddit probably isn't your channel. Focus on content creators and festivals instead. There's no shame in playing to your strengths.
But if you enjoy being part of these communities, keep at it. The compound returns from months of genuine participation far outweigh any single viral post.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much karma do I need before posting about my game?
There's no magic number, but moderators look for patterns. Having several hundred karma in the specific community you're posting to, accumulated over weeks or months, signals you're a real participant. First-time posters with minimal history get flagged immediately.
Should I post the same content to multiple subreddits?
Not simultaneously. Reddit calls this crosspost spam. Space posts across different days: Monday in r/indiegaming, Wednesday in your genre sub, Saturday in Screenshot Saturday threads. Moderators see everything.
Are Reddit ads worth it for indie games?
For most indie games, no. The cost per click is high, users are hostile to ads, and the conversion funnel is too long. The exception: if you already have an organic post performing well, boosting it with a Spark Ad can extend its reach.
What's the best time to post on Reddit?
Weekday mornings and early afternoons in US time zones (9 AM to 2 PM EST) typically see the highest traffic. Posts published during these windows get more initial upvotes, which triggers Reddit's algorithm to show them to more people.
Related Guides
This article is part of our series on steam wishlists. Start with the complete guide:
Also in this series:
- How Steam wishlists actually work
- How many wishlists you need to launch
- Using your press kit to drive wishlists
For more free channels and strategies when you have time but no budget, see our guide to marketing your indie game on zero budget.
Last updated: February 2026. Thanks to Chris Zukowski (howtomarketagame.com) and Richard at Zemore Indie Consulting for mod perspective data.