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[mutinygames]

Hey guys, new to the forum (first post)...

I'm part of a 5 man development team and we're getting really close to releasing our first game TUG: A Space Truckers Odyssey - within the next month.

We already have a demo out already (http://mutinous.com/products/tug), but I have a few questions in terms of marketing efforts as we're finding it difficult to get traction.

Does anyone have any experience or advice for:

1. Promoting a demo or game from a company that does not yet have a track record of successful products? (First real game title to release)
2. Getting demo or the full game reviewed by indie sites?


Thanks in advance!

[petertos]

This post is not gonna help you: I haven't released any game like yours which requires a download and dunno how you could promote it. But hey, welcome to the forums! 

[Impmaster]

The best advertising for indies is word of mouth. This means that you have to get it onto a few gaming newspapers and hope people see it. If you want it to be on gaming newspapers, try and send a few emails. Try and focus on what makes your game special and different from the rest. Also send an email containing screenshots or a full version of your game. Without something to show what your game is like, you will not get their attention.

[Uykered]

Tell people about it, there's tons of gaming sites everywhere. Make sure it's a high quality game.

[Graham-]

Make a really solid press release. You want people who click your links to be getting the best content. Also have a good game (duh) - haven't tried yours.

Next you want to email everyone. You can also spam forums. We are banning people for that now here so you have to be careful.

This is a nice resource: press kit.

Also:
  . building buzz
  . indie marketing

[SterlingDee]

It's been posting so many times in different places, but just in case you haven't seen it, Pixelprospector's list of game marketing posts and resources is very useful:

http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-indie-game-marketing/

[Graham-]

Dude, that resource rules. Holy shit.

[Mister Dave]

Getting the word out is something you have to do by trial-and-error. Don't make the error of posting on every forum you can find. That will get you on forum spam lists faster than you can say "spam list". Then you have 3 times as much work to do to get unbanned from those forums. That's a don't do.

One thing that will crank up your SEO is to post your free demo on http://en.softonic.com/. It may not get you industry buzz, but SEO counts for something too.

[feminazi]

dum post ur gam in the feedback section

[SterlingDee]

Dude, that resource rules. Holy shit.

Yeah, I know eh. I thought for some reason that everyone would have heard of that list...it's legendary.

[petertos]

I would suggest not doing things randomly, but make a plan. For instance, talk with the blogs are going to publish your information on WHEN they are going to publish it. Prepare a timeline. Make new cool stuff for the release. If you can't make new cool stuff, just make cool stuff. Take your time to prepare everything. It is very important that you establish nice relations among blogs and other publishers. 

[Graham-]

Yeah, I know eh. I thought for some reason that everyone would have heard of that list...it's legendary.

No not me. Glad I know now.

[ANtY]

Make a trailer/gameplay video, so ppl don't have to download a 120 MB demo to know what's the game about

[Konidias]

I'm honestly leaning toward the idea of not making a demo for your game. I know that sounds counter-intuitive... but after a lot of reading up about it, it actually makes sense.

I mean really, how many games have you purchased after playing the demo? I have purchased none. None games.

You either sell a person on your game before they even play it, or you don't get the sale.

All a demo does is lose you sales. People who play the demo are more than likely just going to either not like the demo or like it but play enough of the demo to not really care to buy the full thing.

A video of gameplay, a trailer... good screenshots... a good sales pitch... word of mouth... getting some people who will do play throughs of your game on youtube... That is what sells your game. Not the demo.

[Graham-]

Well on XBLA the rules are different because you can download the full version from inside the demo. If you can do something similar then you're in a good position - i.e. not on XBLA, within your own system (or in XBLA).

Maybe other networks are the same? I don't know about Steam. Gawd....

Anyway there's an Extra Credits ep on this. Whatever. They said demos aren't that great. I think F2P works though. You release a thing that is a complete experience then let people play. Those people will then share their like of it or paying customers will. New people will just come for the "demo" because it is so complete.

[Konidias]

Yeah there are circumstances where a demo can work but I don't think the standard "release demo, link to a purchase page" method works.

The way I see it is this... if you do all the work to get a person to your download page and interested enough to download the demo... you have sold them on wanting to play it already. At that point you need to sell them the game, not give them a demo. It's like you are purposely giving your customers a reason not to buy the game.

When I bought Minecraft it was because I saw some guy doing a lets play video on youtube and I was like "okay, this looks like fun"

When I went to the Minecraft website, I actually almost didn't buy the game because they had the watered down old version of it online that you could play for free. I tried that and wasn't impressed. The thing that really sold me was the guy playing the full game in the video. How much fun he was having made me want to play the game more than anything.

[Graham-]

Yeah you need to show the game in its best light. You also don't want to give the demo to someone who is already sold on the product. And you want the demo-to-purchase process to be painless.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yeah there are circumstances where a demo can work but I don't think the standard "release demo, link to a purchase page" method works.

The way I see it is this... if you do all the work to get a person to your download page and interested enough to download the demo... you have sold them on wanting to play it already. At that point you need to sell them the game, not give them a demo. It's like you are purposely giving your customers a reason not to buy the game.

When I bought Minecraft it was because I saw some guy doing a lets play video on youtube and I was like "okay, this looks like fun"

When I went to the Minecraft website, I actually almost didn't buy the game because they had the watered down old version of it online that you could play for free. I tried that and wasn't impressed. The thing that really sold me was the guy playing the full game in the video. How much fun he was having made me want to play the game more than anything.

this may just apply to you, or just to minecraft; i think it's silly to extrapolate from this to all games should not have demos. i've been selling my game, immortal defense, just based on the demo. until recently there were *no* let's plays of it at all on the internet (someone recently did one, back in january, and it was released years ago). yet it still sold decently well for a game maker game that wasn't on steam -- a few thousand copies, about 20k-30k$ in sales. most of those sales were because of the demo; the demo was a full 1/3 of the game, and if they wanted to play the last 2/3 of the game they had to buy it. people got hooked on the story from the demo and wanted to see how the story ended. generally people have told me that the demo is the reason they bought my game

so basically i think what you say is true for some people and some games, but there *are* definitely people who buy games based on demos, especially if the demo isn't some short 5 minute thing but actually a significant portion of the game (my game's demo was about 6 hours long)

also, this isn't strictly from the marketing perspective, but would it *really* feel good to trick someone out of their money? to make them buy a game that they would not have bought if they had played it first? that seems like something an AAA company would want, not what an indie would want

[Graham-]

Yeah so two points:
  1. Your demo was as good as the game.
  2. The demo gave enough to hook but not enough to satisfy.

[petertos]

A demo is like a strip tease, there's a moment you have to stop