next »

[PompiPompi]

I wonder if it is inspiration, or more of who is being the loudest.
I have thought about it, and I have an example from "cinema theory" of some famous experiment.
In this experiment they showed an audience some movie. The movie had shown a face of a man, and before they showed that man they showed some unrelated scene. Then they told the audience to say what they thought was the person's mood.
Eventhough they showed the exact same person with the exact same expression in all the movie and the exact same mood. The audience was seeing in each different part of the movie, that the person has a different mood. They said that in one bit he was happy, in another angry in another one sad.
But the person really had the same mood and same expression in all the bits. So what was different?
The difference was that the unrelated scene before they showed the man's face, was different. When they showed a scene of war, the man seemed to be angry. When they showed a romantic scene, the man semed to be in love.
The man was not inside those scenese, he was just showen right after those scene. And you can see how unrelated scenes can project on the value of what comes right after it.
In the same way I thinkhype is made. Some unrelated content, project on the value of the game in a subconciouss level.

[ANtY]

I would like to know too... I released playable prototypes, 2 trailers, screenshots, I am on youtube, twitter, blog, another blog, IndieDB, Steam group, facebook group, I maintain 2 posts here on this forum, I post in other forums, a community in Orkut (I am from Brazil), I maintain posts in 2 Orkut communities, I maintain a post in Anywherebb (a forum with about 20 regular visitors, usually peaking 6 simultaneous visitors, but most of the helpful fans came from there, the ones that gave information on bugs, that even went to mod my not completed game, or some guy that took the source of the engine and made the game work on Mac).

Yet I am usually at 200 in IndieDB, and don't got in the IOTY top 100... And my game was on IOTY trailer, was one of the game of the month in July (or August, don't remember), and some people (like important blog owners) told me they are willing to write about the game when I release it (they don't wanted to talk about the not done version).


So I also ask: What I am not doing to show my game around?

My guess that the issue is the genre, people that like the genre become fierce fans (handing me out music for free, modding, compiling Mac version, fixing english errors in the english version...), while people that dislike the genre just tell me "your game has high quality, now let me see those shiny new pixel-art game"

Not even my post about the arcade cabinet attracted attention it seems (at least the only people that ever commented about the arcade cabinet were actually my father and my sister boyfriend... I see the post view count in forums steadly climb, but slower than other topics, and no comments).

Forgot to say, there are also a forum and a irc channel, but the only visitors are those from Anywherebb... so :/

I have almost the same situation with my game.

[bobbyric]

I'm a little confused, posting on forums won't make your game popular.

popularity = effort.

Your game has a target market, so go after that market.  If your game doesn't have a real target market, well, then, it's going to be tough going.  Minecraft is the game I've ever known to have no budget and go insanely viral.

In any case, you have to put effort into it.  My game looks like a million bucks and even while it goes *slightly* viral, it's peaked out with no real activity.  So when we finally release I'll just have to make more noise again.

just to re-interate:  popularity = effort.

[PompiPompi]

bobbyirc, well the problem is, many game developers don't know how to make this kind of noise or popularity effort. They see other doing stuff, but they don't understand why ot works.
It would be helpful if people who know how to do it would explain how it works.

[bobbyric]

Cheap/free stuff, you send e-mails (A LOT OF E-MAILS) to news portals.  Call print and online publications, etc, make gameplay trailers, demos, podcasts, make your own forum and work hard to get it active.

Stuff that costs money: press releases, lots of press releases, go to game development conferences, give your card/promotional material etc.. to people.

There's a lot of topics about this on the forum.

I mean if you're smart enough to program a game you gotta be smart enough to figure out what a marketing department in a major company is doing, that you're not, but are capable of doing... xD

It's a process and takes effort, a small drop of water in a big pond won't make a wave, so you have to make yourself a hurricane.  That's what Super Meat Boy did.

[PompiPompi]

Don't assume smart people are good at everything just because they are smart.

[speeder]

Also bobbyric, some people don't have the time to do that.

Currently I am using 60% of my time in marketing, and only 40% making the game itself. And I am working 12 hours daily.

Yet I am seeing little results, like I said people don't even read my posts in the devlogs forum.

I guess that is because I decided to make a game I wanted, not the game the market wants, that is the unfortunate truth, if you want to get your game popular, you have to do one of those:

A: Be already popular and use your past popularity (Edmund McMillen for example, have a string of success)

B: Have pixel art graphics (like, the post mentioned here and some others, where the game does not even exist, but you show pretty pixel art and people fall in love with it).

C: Have a wierd game (cactus stuff, Blueberry Garden, etc...)

D: Make another generic FPS (take a look in the IOTY award on IndieDB, most of the games there are generic FPS).


In my case, for A: This is my first game I am pushing around.
B: I am not an artist, and no artist wanted to help (since I had no obvious past games).
C: My mind is too logical and serious to pull wierd stuff (I actually hate blueberry garden, I think it is one of the most idiotic things ever, I have no idea on how it won IGF... I might be sounding like Super Joe, but I agree with lots of stuff he say, if you disregard his aggressive tone, what he is saying IS true).
D: Meh...

[bobbyric]

Speeder I definetely feel your pain, our trailer climbed up to 17,000 combined views across youtube, gametrailers, etc.. and we were getting quite a bit of news exposure while I was marketing the game, then once I stopped all that exposure very quickly trailed off

Right now I'm 40% game development, 60% day job, and 0 percent marketing because we're so close to release.

Definetely it's difficult to do everything, but all you can do is continue to do the best to your abilities and try to figure out what your priorities are.

A: Be already popular and use your past popularity (Edmund McMillen for example, have a string of success)

Yeah take takes time and effort and experience, you just have to keep working.

B: Have pixel art graphics (like, the post mentioned here and some others, where the game does not even exist, but you show pretty pixel art and people fall in love with it).

Hah I know, right!?  The indie scene is in love with the retro pixel 1980's artwork.  I've spent my life savings on the artwork for my game, and while people love the animations, it definetely seems like my own threads are not nearly as popular as games with pixel retro graphics.

Yet I was contacted by casual places like Big Fish Games the second they saw my trailer...  I did build my game for mass appeal.  So the "masses" are interested, but indie game devs, not so much.

But again it comes down to market...  A friend of mine recently invested his own life savings into an independent film and I kept telling him "You need to have a target market" but said his target market was "myself".  Now he has an expensive movie nobody wants to watch and doesn't have much to show for what he just spent his life savings on.  Bad move.

D: Make another generic FPS (take a look in the IOTY award on IndieDB, most of the games there are generic FPS).

Strangely enough this thread is the first time I've heard of IndieDB.  But looking at the site, I don't see why people seem so concerened about it.

I mean, if people just want the game to catch the attention of their peers...  That's fine.  But if you lots of people to play your game, you have to think outside the indie box.

[ANtY]

make your own forum and work hard to get it active.

Some tips about that?

[bobbyric]

which part making a forum or getting it active?  forums will not only help you stay motivated, but they will also help give you a good idea of your game's internet activity.  My trailer went up 3,000 views after being posted on a brazillian site, but zero of those people converted to forum posters, because they aren't really my target market (being an english game)

there's some free forum softwares like phpbb, i use vbulletin but that cost me money

As you promote your game people will come to your boards for various reasons, most of mine came to comment on the demo.

I released both our demo and trailer at the same time which helped us get our first forum users.  Of course most of the feedback right now is "Awesome!  But uh, please fix this, this and this

[Melly]

I believe a large part of it is indeed luck.

Sometimes you're lucky that your game is picked up by the right news outlet/blog/magazine, which millions of readers. And those millions of readers are roughly in your game's target demographic. All of a sudden you're an overnight hit. Sometimes you're just somehow lucky that people in general took enough interest to spread the word about your game everywhere, turning it viral.

There's also finding your audience. Different places have people who like different things. Your game may not gather much attention here in TIGS, but maybe somewhere else you'll get a hundred replies of interested individuals, if not much more, depending. People aren't that willing to go out of their way to find something they'd like, when they barely know it's there. Sometimes you have to find them.

Then we have previous fame and prestige, like some independent developers with a well-known name. That one isn't very useful to take in consideration here if you have none, besides the fact that you should persevere so you'll have a better chance of becoming a well-known figure eventually.

Then there's the first impression. The awe-inspiring screenshots, the trailer that blows everyone away, and so on. If you don't have good-looking shots yet, maybe it's better to focus on design artwork. Marketing drones for large publishers love to blatantly lie to customers with early game trailers, because they want to impress people, and sometimes the game itself is far too early in development to satisfy their needs. This is not something I recommend doing though.

In the end it may be a better idea to not reveal much about the game until you have something that can impress people.

Having a quality product is needed, yes, because very rarely does a shitty game become popular, unless there's something else involved (like a completely ridiculous and viral marketing campaign, like Stalin vs Martians, and even that game didn't seem to prosper much past the initial curiosity of people because it was so broken, though I haven't followed it closely).

Trying to be creative is key. If your marketing is more unique than the average, there's probably a better chance it'll be noticed, regardless of the game you're marketing.

These are just my untested beliefs, so please take them with a mountain of salt.

[bobbyric]

You make your own luck.

any dev that thinks "well my game just wasn't lucky, but theirs was" is a weak cop out.  they were smarter, either in the way it was designed so it caught on or got the right person intersted. you make your own luck, bottom line.

[jrk]

D: Make another generic FPS (take a look in the IOTY award on IndieDB, most of the games there are generic FPS).

Well, it's because IndieDB is ModDB with a few indie devs in between. And the ModDB people joined the community because they like/make mods for ... mainly FPS titles. So it's no wonder that their favorite genre gets the most votes.

[Evan Balster]

A great way to do community-building is to let your players get (or at least feel) involved in the development of the game somehow.  Unless the game disinterests them completely, the development is (often) a wondrous puzzle-box that they would be fascinated to have any interaction with.

It's also a great way to *get* feedback.  I have a forum, and though it's inactive now since the game is down, there are a fair number of registered users who have discussed ideas and issues extensively in "wish list" and "feeback / bugs" sections.  (In my case, the forum also serves to let users share ingame creations, which is a large part of my project.)

On the news and social networking front, responding to interview requests when you get them and possibly doing press releases after you've gotten some attention are a good idea.  (My game is free and... unusual, which might explain my own little bits of luck with this)

Really, it's a shame that the "marketing your game" articles haven't been mentioned yet.


Also, PompiPompi: you're absolutely right.  I'm disgusted to say it as I hate the 'art' of marketing, but perceived value and quality are everything.  That's why they give you special cloth to clean your television screen and sunglasses; the appearance of fragility implies fine craftsmanship.  That's why pieces of media release crytpic information at a slow rate; the appearance of mystery implies valuable information.

In Jungian psychology, a critical period of falling in love involves the man projecting his 'Anima'--a prototype of the ideal female--onto his lover (and vice versa) until he comes to "truly" love her and accepts any shortcomings she has.

[speeder]

Cellulose but how you got people to use the forum in first place?

I've made a forum, but it has 3 users... People don't join because the forum is empty, but the forum is empty because noone join... :/