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X vs Bluesky – which is best for marketing your indie game in 2025?

X vs Bluesky – which is best for marketing your indie game in 2025?

As Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) continues to shift in focus, many users are spreading their wings and soaring over to Bluesky. This rising platform offers a refreshing sense of freedom, giving users more control over the content they see and how they engage with it. 

In the week following the most recent U.S. election, Bluesky reported that it gained over 1 million new users a day. This reflects the news that the day after the election, 115,000 users deleted their accounts on X. This trend reflects discontent with changes on X, such as Musk’s controversial policy changes, increased content moderation challenges, and the prevalence of misinformation.

Bluesky’s appeal lies in its decentralized structure, which gives users autonomy over their data and promotes a healthier social experience. Many users appreciate the platform’s commitment to fostering positive interactions and reducing toxicity.

For indie game developers with limited time and resources such as yourself, it is important to stay organized and prioritize your energy. This raises an important question: which platform offers the better opportunity to promote your game effectively? Let’s break it down.

What is X?

X, formerly Twitter, is a social media platform for sharing text, images, and videos with followers. It connects users through hashtags and feeds that match content to interests. Since Elon Musk’s takeover, it has introduced monetization features and prioritized paid memberships.

Indie developers have always found the platform effective at promoting their games due to the large communities that exist there. This can be seen through the popular use of indie gaming-related hashtags such as #ScreenshotSaturday #TrailerTuesday and many others.

Pros:

  • Large User Base: As of April 2024, X currently maintains a substantial user base of approximately 660 million monthly active users globally, although this number is expected to drop by the end of the year.
  • Active Indie Community: Despite Elon Musk’s changes to X (formerly Twitter), the indie game development community continues to remain highly active and engaged on the platform. While some developers have migrated to Bluesky, X still hosts a substantial portion of the indie gaming scene.
  • Marketing tools: X offers digital ad opportunities, subscriptions, and Spaces (audio chat rooms) which can allow for a more diverse marketing campaign for indie games.

Cons:

  • Saturation: The large number of users on X can be seen as a benefit when it comes to exposure, however, it also means that you are competing with a larger pool of users (including other indie developers). The median engagement rate on the platform is reported to be around 0.029%, which could indicate a struggle to convert followers into purchases or wishlists.
  • Monetisation: The subscription model (X Premium) offers perks like longer tweets and verification badges but creates a divide between paying and non-paying users. Whilst this could be seen as a positive for developers willing to pay the price to increase visibility on the platform, the verification badge is often seen as a “badge of shame” that is not earned in the same way older verification badges were.
  • Toxicity: Some users have reported a higher level of harassment on the platform in recent years.

What is Bluesky?

The large difference between X and Bluesky is that Bluesky is a decentralized platform, which is a fancy way to say that it allows users to be in charge of their data, instead of relying on one company in the way X does. To learn more about this we recommend checking out the Bluesky FAQ.

Pros:

  • Early adoption: With Bluesky still finding its feet, there is a big opportunity to become one of the larger voices in your niche whilst follower counts are still growing. This means less competition compared to the saturated environment on X, making it easier for your posts to stand out and gain traction.
  • Excited community: The indie gaming community is already thriving on Bluesky, with both developers and the press using it as a primary or supplemental platform to X. The Starter Packs feature (mentioned below) makes it easy to connect with these groups and become a prominent voice in the community.
  • Starter Packs: Bluesky lets users create or join curated lists of accounts, such as “Cozy Indie Games” or “Video Game Press,” which can be followed with a single click. These lists help tailor your feed to your interests and jumpstart your networking by encouraging follow-backs. Creating or joining these lists can also give your follower count an early boost and help establish your presence in the community​.

Cons:

  • Limited Audience: The smaller user base means less overall reach compared to X, although many users are citing increased engagement on Bluesky following the mass exodus from X – especially in the realm of indie games, as can be seen here with a post from the developer of Mythwrecked, Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou.
  • Uncertain Future: As a new competitor in the space, Bluesky’s long-term sustainability cannot be guaranteed. However, as long as you maintain a strong following elsewhere (Discord, Facebook, Instagram & X) then you mitigate the risk of growing a community on this new (potentially more volatile) platform.

Where should I put my focus?

The easiest and best solution sounds a bit like a cheat answer, and that’s to use both. Tools such as Buffer allow you to schedule posts for both with ease.

Although, for those who do not use scheduling tools or want to put more effort into one platform – our recommendation would be to put focus on Bluesky and join the quickly thriving indie game community that is growing on the platform.

The increased engagement that users are seeing on posts and the ability to be featured in Starter Packs could allow your game to grow a more dedicated audience in a shorter time.

Once you’ve established a presence on Bluesky, you can leverage your growing community to direct users to your Discord server, creating a central hub where fans can engage more deeply with your game and its development.

It’s important to note that Bluesky currently has no plans to implement digital advertising features, which means X, Meta, or Reddit will be the better avenue for paid media campaigns… but that’s a blog for another time!

What if I already have an audience on X?

If you already have a community on X that frequently interacts with your content, then it is important that you don’t leave this community in the dust. As an indie developer it is important to play to the strengths that you have. An active community is invaluable – after all, they’ve already shown interest in your game. Moving entirely to a new platform could risk you losing out on the momentum that you have already created.

Instead of leaving your community on X behind, we recommend cross-posting to Bluesky while maintaining your presence on X. By starting a new account on Bluesky and sharing content from both platforms, you can nurture a new audience while still interacting with the pre-existing followers on X.

After posting on Bluesky for a few months, you can then assess your engagement and follower growth on the platform. A rule of thumb is to compare Bluesky’s reach with your existing reach on X. If the new platform is gaining traction then you can decide what the best way to split your time is between X and Bluesky.

The Bluesky Starter Pack Guide

As a reward for reading this far, here’s a Starter Pack list to help you get started on Bluesky! Following relevant Starter Packs can give you a solid foundation on the platform and might even lead to follow-backs to grow your audience.

If you see a Starter Pack that aligns with your niche—such as a “Visual Novel Indie Game” for you Visual Novel devs—then don’t hesitate to message the creator and ask to be added!

For more information on Starter Packs, check out Bluesky’s official blog here.

Game Dev Bluesky Starter Packs:

Amazing Indie Game Devs (1 & 2)

Cozy game connoisseurs

Game Composers Starter Pack!

Game Dev & Artist Starter Pack

Indie Arcade Developers

Indie Game Creators

Indie Game Publishers

Indie Game Studios

Niche indie game developers

Neurodivergent Game Devs

Queer Indie Dev Starter Pack

Solo Indie Devs

Strategy Games and Devs

UK Games Developers

UK Small Indie Game Devs

Video Games and Studios (1,2, 3 & 4)

#TurnBasedThursday Community

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