Videogame Positioning
Learn with me how to create games that sell.
Every year, thousands of new video games are born.
Most vanish without a trace.
Not because they weren’t made with love, not because their creators lacked talent, but because they never won the most important battle of all: the battle for the player’s mind.
If you’re a technical founder, you probably know this pain. You’ve poured months, maybe years, into perfecting mechanics, polishing art, and ironing out bugs. You’ve believed that if you build something great, people will naturally find it, love it, and share it. But when launch day comes… nothing happens.
No sales spike. No buzz. Just silence.
It’s not your fault. You’ve been taught to believe that marketing is about communication, about telling people your game exists. But that’s not marketing. That’s just noise.
In today’s saturated market, the only space left to claim is in the mind of your potential player. That’s what marketing really is: positioning, the discipline of defining how your game is perceived before anyone even touches a controller.
I’m often asked how I analyse games from a positioning point of view and quickly form an opinion about whether they’ll succeed or fail. The value of doing this, for me, comes down to a few things:
See clearly why some games break out while others disappear
Understand trends and competitors before it’s too late
Spot the positioning gaps that make or break a game
Make better business decisions
Over time, I’ve turned this way of thinking into a system, a process I use not just to evaluate other games, but to help developers shape their own projects into something players actually want.
I’ve now packaged that system into this newsletter so you can learn it too, if you’re ready.
Read below for more details
The games industry moves fast and unpredictably. One week, an unknown indie explodes into the charts; the next, a hyped title with millions in marketing fails to connect. A new genre catches fire seemingly overnight, while another burns out just as quickly. For developers, it feels chaotic, but underneath the chaos there’s one constant: the games that win are the ones that are positioned clearly in the minds of players.
Positioning is the difference between a game that gets ignored and a game that gets chosen. It’s not just marketing copy or a store page description. It’s the foundation of your entire business strategy. Without it, you risk building something nobody understands or wants. With it, you give players a reason to care, a reason to talk about your game, and a reason to buy.
That’s why I study launches, failures, and player trends so closely. Most industry noise I skim and move past. But when I see a positioning decision that mattered, a niche embraced, a competitor ignored, a message that resonated, then I stop, break it down, and share it as a quick essay. And when a topic reveals deeper patterns worth weeks of work, I turn it into a full teardown: a deep dive into the positioning choices that made or broke a game.
Most industry news I skim and move past. But when I see a launch, a positioning mistake, or a trend that feels important, I stop and write a focused 1–2 page essay to break it down. This helps me sharpen my point of view and capture the nuances of why some games succeed while others don’t.
When something seems especially valuable, I turn it into a deep dive: a structured teardown where I spend weeks unpacking the positioning strategy, competition, and opportunities. I then shape that research into a presentation that developers can use as a practical reference.
Finally, I stress-test my ideas by discussing them with other founders, designers, and industry veterans. Those conversations refine my frameworks, and make the insights even more useful.
In the past, these work products have been transformative for me and the teams I’ve worked with. I believe they can be just as educational for you.
So, to this point, I have decided to share here the work that I do so that, if you want to, you can learn how to use positioning to make a game that sells.
Here is the plan:
I’ll keep posting my thoughts and observation on my Medium account.
I’ll share here every week a quick essay of my ongoing thoughts on game launches, trends, and positioning lessons.
Once per month, I’ll host a chat to talk about the content I’ve written, talk to subscribers and include time for Q&A.
Once per month, I will publish a deep dive, a consulting-style teardown with slides + write-up on how positioning shaped a game or market trend.
I also offer a huge discount on the annual subscription because I want to reward people who are serious about learning positioning to create a game that sells. Commit for a year and you’ll get every essay, deep dive, and live Q&A for less than $1/day.
My deep dives:
I’ve structured my deep dives around five primary themes I believe are essential for building games that sell. These themes may evolve, but they provide a starting framework for learning positioning:
Game Positioning tear-downs: why some games break out while others disappear.
Player Psychology & Trends: how players make choices and what really drives adoption from a Positioning point of view.
Monetisation & Business Models: aligning your offer and pricing using positioning and player psychology to sustain success.
Market Shifts & Platforms: understanding PC, console, mobile, and new spaces like Web3.
Marketing & Messaging: how to communicate your game’s uniqueness so players pay attention.
Subscribers will get access to beautifully structured breakdowns that assume no prior marketing knowledge, with practical lessons you can apply immediately to your own projects.
I’ll be publishing the first deep dive on October 15th starting with a case study of a video game company.
The full content calendar for the next year will be published shortly, however, subscribers will be able to comment on what they want to be covered in future months. I’ll make sure to announce next month’s topic in advance so you know exactly what’s coming up.
You should expect beautifully formatted, easy to understand presentations that assume no prior knowledge, with accompanying write-ups that will get you up to speed quickly on each of these topics.
If you are interested, you can subscribe below.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed above are correct as the date of this document and are subject to change without notice. Materials referenced above will be provided for educational purposes only.
