The fact that this card says "four or less" instead of the much more normal and expected Collected Company-esque "three or less" is VERY funny, it really changes the dynamic of what exactly you can spin into.

deciding the movie is mumblecore in post

I did that kind of coverage for a bit way back in the day, for Waypoint. It's great, I wish outlets now were doing it, but also any indie game you've heard about is probably already too big to benefit from that kind of blogging!

And covering those kinds of games is really hard. Definitionally those are the games you haven't heard about. Most are noncommercial and very weird. That's the scale where like, a blog hit on a website can be difference-making for someone.

Sometimes getting noticed by media can make a difference to a first-time indie because it gives them that initial pool of an audience but the times I've seen this happen, it's more about someone getting connections/attention for their future projects than about selling a given game.

The games that benefit the most commercially from media coverage are games that are getting sustained, repeated coverage. Those games are, of course, games that are already hits.

This is why studios care so much about wishlists – wishlisting signs you up to see that game over and over again, which is the most reliable way to make you actually buy it. The conversion rate on someone's first exposure to a game is not that great; most people buy relatively few games.

Does getting press help? Probably, as far as anyone can tell, to some extent, but it's not like press is "withholding" viable success from indies by not giving them coverage. It's all washed out by the factors that really matter, eg storefront placement.

People have just always confused the cause and effect. Games get press *because* they're successful, not the other way around.

every day thousands of people wake up and go "someone is jacking off wrong"

Soooo worth it, godspeed

Used to be only men could be "extremely divorced" and "sleeping on a race car bed" so in a way, this is progress