While I'm willing to trust myself on technical and creative output, the topic of getting the word out that I might release something interesting and worth people's time seems to have become increasingly daunting. Most popular technical channels like HN / specific sub-reddits require active community participation and "karma-farming" just to be able to post something, which is hard for me to spend time on (I'd rather work on my stuff). Twitter(X) / Bluesky have low visibility for gamedev topics. All text-focused websites seem to have become really hard organic marketing channels especially after AI slop came in.
IG / Tiktok / Twitch would be channels I'd rather use when I get into the actual spending-marketing-dollars mode (i.e., inorganic; which is also when I'd get into Steam / App Store level marketing as well).
So far, Youtube seems to be the one place where the algorithm might not be quite as punitive as the gates that other places have put up, but it's not a place for getting high-quality feedback (surprisingly videos on LinkedIn do rather well - on engagement but not sure that's the right channel).
What do folks here in a similar situation do?
No one is going to care that you "might release something interesting and worth people's time" in a market that was saturated even before AI slop. What do you actually have that's worth anyone's time?
You build organic traction through community participation, and getting people interested in something real and sincere. You have to put in the effort.