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[worldalpha]

As I have been developing my game WorldAlpha I have come to realize there is a lot to do to market my game effectively.  Coming from a web marketing background, I have been mildly successful.  That being said, I looked early, and continue to look to see if there are marketing firms out there that specialize in helping indie devs.  Not a huge Marketing PR firm, but rather one that would help with the nuts and bolts of creating an effective website, using social media, finding beta testers, giving out beta keys, as well as creating buzz about the game.  So, far I haven't really come across one.  Here are my questions.
 
1.) Does this company exist?  If so what is its website?
 
2.) Would you as a game developer use this type of service if one existed?
 
3.) Would you pay a decent amount for this kind of service? (Kind of subjective, but I'm getting a feel if indie devs would expect this type of stuff for "next-to" free or would be willing to pay a decent monthly for it!)
 
Look forward to the answers.

[Muz]

Tried to start one in a couple of years back. After calculations, the profit would've been minimal (probably less than say, opening a burger stall). There are simply not enough clients. This was before the smartphone boom, though.. since mobile sales depend so damn much on marketing, you might have better luck these days.

Indies can get a little suspicious of people who try to market their games. A lot of indie developers have little trust of others; that's why they go indie. Back when I looked into this, the common opinion was that you didn't need to market to make money, and there are a lot of people who think that marketers are out to steal their hard earned work. There's probably more awareness for marketing these days, idk.

There are a few companies that do marketing. Can't find any that are still alive, but they pop up regularly.

I think the best approach is a few specialized individuals who work as dedicated marketers for a game, similar to soundtrack composers or something. It probably takes as much time/effort to market a game as it does to make it. A marketing group would simply get too much hostility from indie developers.

(btw nice game... would sign up for beta, but MMOs eat up too much time)

[Paul Eres]

if i recall, an indie named joseph lieberman (no relation to the vice presidential candidate) actually ran a company that marketed indie games for a % of the profit. not sure if he's still in business though

i think it's definitely a field open to expansion though. but yeah there's a lot of hate of indies towards marketers, so there'd be a lot of resistance

[Xienen]

At this point, I'd love to give up a percentage of Break Block's income to a marketing company just to allow me to not worry about promoting it anymore.  We're currently trying to make another game from the ground up, so we are spread thin already.  I would not, however, be interested in simply paying some amount of money per month for the service, as that removes the incentive for a marketing company to really do their job.

[joe_eyemobi]

I came across a group post in linkedin about a guy who was looking to start an indie marketing business:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Marketing-Development-Partners-Indie-game-4433494.S.178867569?qid=d72c522a-ffdf-46cc-9135-3459cd5a921f&trk=group_items_see_more-0-b-ttl

I have no idea what his credentials are though or if he's picked up any clients since then.

[Mister Dave]

His credentials are here:
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=13456538&authType=name&authToken=ZpGR&trk=anet_mfeed_profile

Basically, none in game marketing. He lives in Shanghai City - might be some communication issues there depending on what avenues you have (http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,4836,00.asp).

I had an experience with an inexperienced game marketing company who was newly formed. They took my money, went through the motions and then went out of business. I won't suggest they were a fraud (though it seems that way from certain perspectives) but it wasn't a very good experience for either of us other than learning what not to do (an expensive lesson). I don't think they were able to drum up any profitable clients within the indie industry. The few I had contact with afterward had worse things to say about them than I did.

The CEO had extensive marketing credentails, but none of them related specifically to this kind of work. I see that above all as the biggest problem they had - no real experience in this field. I don't want to put a damper on your search, but you should be very careful about what you're buying.

[Impmaster]

Well, there is Devolver digital. They published/marketed Hotline Miami and Luftrauser. I recently read an article about indies being comfortable with them because they were indie as well, and wouldn't take over anything.