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[BigBeauford]

Perhaps I shouldn't be as irritated by this as I am, but why are low budget indie developers having content creators showcase their games when it is months(years) out?

I can't tell you how many times I've watched Splattercat play a game that mildly piqued my interest, only to find out its months away from release or longer. Sometimes I will wishlist the game, but by the time it's released, I'm often scratching my head as to why I wishlisted the game to begin with, and will usually just remove it.

Bottom line is these developers need to take advantage of our short term impulses by releasing these titles to coincidence with a playthrough from someone the audience follows.

 

[Punished Miku]

Because they probably have no marketing budget to make an impression short term. All they can really do is talk about it and get others to play it.

 

[IAmRei]

indie plan usually like this:
showing the games, then the development took longer, and lot of people who wishlist the games are forgot why they wishlist it : ))
this because the game budget is not secured well, which is why the game took longer, because no financial support to secure the need for living cost
or some of budget needed to finish the games, such as plugin or assets, which costly depend on the devs financial, so when there is no financial, they will need to find how to slap
the needed budget by looking for other source, such as freelance or working with other game dev or other means.

and also when the dev showing the game to influencer, is the time the game is ready to be showed to them, to validating the course is okay to continue or not
and after that, the development could meet something wrong or turns out to polish they need more time or even the dev need more people or something else

so the time cannot be predicted, unless there is financial secure to make sure the game delivered in "n" time

source: based on my experience

 

[March Climber]

First two replies summed up:

 

[Sephimoth]

To build wishlists and spam Twitter so by launch they have somewhat of a following

 

[Holammer]

Might be a case of "survivorship bias" from OP, there are many indies that go on the market unseen and unnoticed, without any news coverage.
The ones you see are the ones selling.

 

[Fbh]

If you are a low budget indie dev you'll probably take any chance to promote your game.
Starting promotion early just gives you more time and chances for your game to be showcased by content creators and discovered by potential buyers. Also as far as I know having a decent number of people wish listing your game improves discoverability on Steam, so starting early with that makes sense too.

Betting it all on your game getting picked up by a content creator and gaining some notoriety in the last 2 months leading up to release seems risky.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Because they probably have no marketing budget to make an impression short term. All they can really do is talk about it and get others to play it.

Exactly, and getting content creators to stream your game is a safe bet to get a good amount of attention/eyes on your game.

A lot of things cost a lot of money, especially in game development. Indies gotta do what they can with what they have, be it a very limited budget, or no budget.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Wishlisting numbers are actually important to getting a publishing deal, if they are seeking one, so small indie devs can drum up interest early on and show those numbers in a pitch to a publisher.

 

[Durin]

They're indies...they'll take whatever promotion they can possibly get from creators with a large audience, and wishlisting can help with funding or securing publishing deals.

Any creator with a decent sized audience probably gets inundated with requests to play games, and a small dev likely isn't going to have money to pay them...so the content creator is doing this out of curiosity/interest, and likely if a bigger game releases at the same time that creator is going to cover that at the right time to get views.

Expecting indies to cater to a short-term interest, as though they have any real power/influence in the situation is weird to me.