Develop Liverpool 11: Greedy Bankers' Alastair Aitcheson on the power the 'personal touch' can have on the press

Given Alastair Aitcheson's background isn't in games development, it's perhaps no surprise his talk at Develop Liverpool focused not on coding complications, but rather the art of indie promotion.

Aitcheson – who is the man behind both Greedy Bankers on iPhone and iPad follow-up Greedy Bankers vs. The World – said the advantage smaller outfits have over the bigger boys is the ability to connect with members of the gaming press in a more personal manner.

"It really pays off to be friendly," Aitcheson said, advocating both forming relationships over Twitter, and pestering contacts – to a degree – via email.

"Just be a nice guy. Tell your story. Ask genuine questions. The press love people who can serve up copy to them – you've got to make it relevant."

Interestingly, Aitcheson also suggested he saw the iOS gaming community as a suitable place for developers to test out their ideas, meeting the needs of players with updates.

"Games on iPhone should be 'simplex'," he said, claiming emerging complexity – a game with simple core mechanics that flourishes into something more complex – is the best route forward.

"Work on delivering a minimum viable product, or MVP. Get the game out with your core features – what makes the game great - intact and then use feedback to make it better."

But even if you think your game is already a good proposition, if you can't sell its unique selling point to the press in one sentence, perhaps it isn't as great as you thought.

"I'm not going to say Greedy Bankers is perfect – nothing I ever do is perfect and I don't think anyone should think their game is perfect. If you can't describe it, then maybe there's room for improvement."

Press persistence

Once you have your product, then Aitcheson believes you should get it out there – go to events and put it in people's faces.

"When Greedy Bankers featured at GameCity in Nottingham, people kept saying to me how good it was that it had been selected, but in truth I just emailed them to ask if they needed any games and they said yes," said Aitcheson.

"There's nothing wrong with appropriate persistence [when it comes to the press].

"Let's be honest, we are the future of the games industry. Someone in this room could be the next Miyamoto - hopefully the guy talking at the stand right now."