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[GroZZleR]

Hey everyone,

I launched the kickstarter and greenlight campaigns for my game, Remnant, on Wednesday and I just can't seem to get any news sites to talk about it.

The kickstarter is going less than stellar, about 7.5% funded so far.  I thought I set a pretty realistic goal and have a pretty decent looking campaign.  The greenlight is going really well, already 60% of the way way to the top 100 and our stats crush the top 50 average (58% yes vs 30% yes).

I just can't get any coverage at all -- blasted 150+ emails to the generic [email protected] or [email protected] and contacted a dozen or so editors directly but not a single response or write up.  One site offered if I paid them $10, which was pretty appalling.

Anyone have advice here?  Know someone who knows someone who could put in a good word?

Appreciate all the help.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

That's why you never start a kickstarter before dealing with that. You should contact people like  weeks before the kickstarter, getting contact etc...
The campaign looks professional, but this kind of game is kind of niche i suppose. I never played spaceship related games, and from the video i have no idea at all how you play this game, not even what a 4x space strategy is.

blasted 150+ emails

I hope those 150 mails weren't 150 copy paste mails.

You still have +30 days , i don't think it's going to fail.

[AleHitti]

The way it has worked for me in the past is to write PERSONALIZED emails to editors. I go through every website and check out articles from similar games and check out the name of the person that wrote the article. If you do this for a little bit, you'll start to see a pattern emerge (someone who likes space games maybe?) and then email that person specifically. I usually start my email with "Hi NAME" and then write a couple of lines explaining that I read so and so articles and that I think my game is pretty similar to those, so he might enjoy it. Then I dump all the info from the game.

As for KS, I was going through it and I saw a few things that worry me. First, KS and Amazon fees are around 10%, but you said that you were going to use $5k towards Models and $2k for 2D assets I believe. 10% for KS + Amazon will not let you do that. Also, I think the price of the game is a bit steep as an entry point ($25). It should have been around the $15-20 range in my opinion, since people on KS don't like spending too much money on people that don't already have a track record.

Just my 2 cents

[joe_eyemobi]

Yeah I have to agree 150 emails is not much.  I think for my latest email campaign for our Steam EA launch, I sent out about 2000+.  Some were personalized, but most were mailchimped.  I got probably 20-30 responses out of all that, so it can come down to a numbers game, and prioritization.

[Peltast]

One thing I've learned is that no matter how many people you feel like you've contacted, there's still a thousand more you could/should have.  You may feel like you've expended all the outlets you can reach, but you probably haven't.

A couple things:

1) You're writing about a Kickstarter/Greenlight at a time when both are kind of becoming passe.  I've heard people explicitly say not to talk about Greenlight in press releases, because people are getting tired of hearing about them and the press isn't crazy about it.  Idk how else you would try to get votes there, though...

2) This was four days ago, so you don't know for sure that no one has picked it up.  I've seen some articles go up a couple hours after my email, and some go up a couple weeks after.


As tiresome as it sounds, I'd just...keep sending out emails.

[JohansenIndustries]

Do you or your game have a hook that would inspire new sites to talk about the game, other than it and you existing?

If not, I guess its about make sure it gets to the eyes of those interested in the type of games which is a mixture of quantity, but also when it comes to larger operations sending it to the correct particular person.

[xier]

I agree with everything said so far, seems like you need to target your niche audience more. Find out where they hang out online and try to get more personalized emails out to them.

Do you have something playable? Find people who stream / cover 4x stuff on youtube and get them excited about your game. Why is it better than all the others out there? Getting one key influencer on your side will make or break your project.

[darkhog]

The worst thing you could do would be to cancel Kickstarter before it runs its course. Sure, try contact press, I'll also tell about your game to few of my friends as it seems cool, but NEVER quit. Quitters never win.

Just watch following video: It's about two campaigns that had quite some time to get their funding goal, but canceled weeks before campaign's end:

(gosh I wish you could embed videos here)

[GroZZleR]

Thanks for your responses guys -- it's reassuring to know that at least the campaign doesn't look like utter shit.  I'm definitely not giving up, not by any stretch of the imagination, just want to steer the ship to better waters on day 4 rather than day 28.

I'll keep hustling and contacting more editors directly.

Appreciate all the advice.

* * *

@bakkusa

I did reach out to some of the strategy game websites before launch and got some quick coverage there.  I'm struggling to get in touch with the bigger sites that are a little more difficult to reach out to.  The genre is definitely niche, which I thought might help make it easier to be noticed, but also seems to be harder to make people care about it.  Double edged sword.

@AleHitti

Great advice -- I've reached out to quite a few editors on Twitter and they seemed very responsive and gave out their e-mails.  Hopefully I can parlay that into coverage.  I'll clarify the budget section the best I can, since I've already put up some money, I didn't want to complicate the breakdown with processing fees.

@joe_eyemobi

I enjoyed the postmortem on Phantasmal's kickstarter that you wrote.  I even reached out to some of the New Zealand contacts you listed in that media coverage Google Doc, not that I'm from New Zealand, but it doesn't hurt to try.  If you still have the list of all the sites you contacted, and are willing to share, I'd love to take a look and absorb it into my own.

@Peltast

A few sites do explicitly say no Kickstarter / Greenlight, you're absolutely correct.  I'll keep on hustling.

@JohansenIndustries

It definitely has some unique features, like the espionage system, but that doesn't translate well to pretty pictures that can grab attention.  I'll definitely focus more on specific editors, as that seems to be the theme of the thread.

@xier

Unfortunately without a nice UI, I'm hesitant to ship out a preview build for a genre that's entirely driven by UI.  It's a bit of a catch-22 in that regards and I would definitely budget differently if I could do it over.

@darkhog

I'm definitely not quitting - no way, no how.  If the funding isn't successful, I'll just have to slow development, not stop it.  Appreciate your support and helping spread the word.

[DanglinBob]

To put the quantity of work you've done in perspective. My email list is about 4,000 editors/personalities. About 200-300 of them I will write a personalized email of some type (some simply a single sentence, some entirely custom).

That's just the initial launch work. From there I try to begin conversations with anyone who replies/shows interest or I feel SHOULD be interested but wasn't. Using that conversation I attempt to open new doors to other people they know who may be interested/can offer assistance.

Additionally I'll also reach out to anyone with any pull in the industry, such as other developers, who can offer aid.

It's basically a full time job to promote any product. I've been doing it professionally for 12 years now.

So good work so far, keep it up! It takes time and persistence!

[Chris Koźmik]

The problem is probably lack of "story" behind your game (or at least behind the current representation of it). What should the news site write about? That is has avesome graphics and there are ships shooting at each other? No genious journalist can make a story out of it I suspect (and journalists sell interesting stories, that's their job). You withold all the goodies

For example, the game takes place in one solar system (super interesting and original!), why you don't write something about it (how you colonize these, who live there, is there one race in the system, is there some invasion from another system going on, or is it some sort of civil war in the system)? Why don't you explain the mechanics?

I will plug here videos about my game:


(explanation of hierarchical fleet mechanic - never done before in 4X)


(explanation of late game - again, quite unique selling point)
Sure, it's far, far, far uglier than your video but it gives something to talk about to the player who sees it.


I suspect you sacrifaced too much in an attempt to be "professional". All you have is this sad lone video with super graphics... Don't be afraid to make crappy videos (as long as these are interesting), you are an indie not AAA studio. Or at least write it down if you hate bad graphics (just give the story/mechanics to talk about).

[darkhog]

I'm definitely not quitting - no way, no how.  If the funding isn't successful, I'll just have to slow development, not stop it.  Appreciate your support and helping spread the word.

Good to know. Anyway yo struggle to get reviewers talk about your game, I struggle to even get people to post in devlog of my game or like its Facebook page