There's been some discussion elsewhere and I feel it's time I posted an update about my various forms of paid advertising.

On Facebook, I've had some more success tweaking the wording of my ads, and adding new targets (like Ireland which I had completely forgotten).  However, visitors from Facebook ads don't seem to convert into paying customers as often as they should and do from other sources.  Facebook advertising seemed to work much better when I was just using free credit to attract people to my page!  Anyway, my current strategy is to leave my bids low so that I can still expect a profit, but I only get a tiny trickle of traffic as a result.

The Google Adwords Display Network is working best for me at the moment.  There's a tricky game to be played setting bids right for different countries - depending on the going rate and my conversion statistics.  Reaching the US is particularly expensive but I've had better luck finding customers in various parts of Europe.  I've also begun to find favourite sites and create manual placements based on them.

On the other hand, I haven't had much luck with the Google Adwords Search Network.  I set up some ads and keywords but they aren't being shown in many searches, even after attempting to tune my landing pages and upping the bids a couple of times.  I wonder if I'm doing something wrong or if this type of ad just isn't suitable for what I'm trying to do (it probably works much better if your product is something functional people know they want, like clothes or computer parts).

I haven't tried Reddit ads again.  They worked out a bit too expensive the first time and I don't have a clear idea of what I would do differently.

I am thinking of trying Project Wonderful at some point, possibly after releasing the expansion.  I'd love to hear your experiences with that!

I think developing a game is the easy part, marketing and everything else... not so much.

Well I'm not sure I strictly agree with this given how much time and effort we put into our development skills, game design, code, tools, art and polish ... but yes, marketing is a world most of us aren't very familiar with and to begin with it can feel like learning to walk all over again.

Good luck with your release - and do share your experiences!

Conversions aren't as much of an issue as for some games since all of the income is from banner ads.

Then your conversions are banner ad views or clicks or whatever you get income from.  For example if I go play your game all the way through over several sittings, you probably make much more money than if I only played for 10 seconds.

Does anyone know where to get those coupon codes? I couldn't find any that weren't expired.

I just ran a Facebook page for a few months and they sent me one.

I can't find the thread anymore but someone around here used it to promote his trading card game (similar to Magic: The Gathering I think) and found it very efficient.

That would be me, and you can find my DevLog here.  I can't say Facebook advertising has been 'very efficient', because it looks like hits from Facebook may be converting into sales at a lower rate than other sources of traffic to my site.  It's actually quite hard to connect sales to their source, unlike hits and demo downloads which I can measure quite accurately.

If you get a free coupon I definitely recommend you use it.  Bid lower than the recommended levels, as it's better to have a few hits per day that make a profit than hundreds of hits which cost you on average!  Also pay a lot of attention to which regions you're advertising in as well as the message itself, and remember that conversions are your goal, not click through rate (which is Facebook's goal).

I should probably write another post about this stuff on the DevLog!

if possible make a landing page specific to that ad, so you can precisely know how many of the people who bought the game found it through that ad.

Alternatively you can specify ?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=[whatever you like] on the end of your URL.  Then you should be able to identify this traffic in Google Analytics.

But really -- it makes no difference -- traffic from IndieDB is shitty anyway. Maybe it makes some sense for the top games, but on average it's not worth losing your nerves over.

That may be true, but the demo I put on there has probably got me a few extra sales - for me demo downloads are actually more valuable than driving traffic to my site.

This week I've made a solid start on the expansion, codename 'Megamort', which will contain:

• 8 new story levels
• 2 new challenge levels
• possibly new music?
• a few small bug fixes
• some number of new cards

The last point has been a particular nuisance, as there are now enough cards to require a scroll bar on the deck builder screen.  This was quite fiddly to implement, it helped to think of the bar as being made up of four distinct components - up button, down button, track and thumb.  There are still quite a few dependencies between them though, and various types of mouse input to capture correctly (click, drag, wheel).  The scrollable area itself is clipped using Direct3D's 'SetScissorRect'.

Other than that it's been fun going back to do some actual development this week!

[http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-TTWR/the-trouble-with-robots]

Just a quick note to say that The Trouble With Robots is now on GamersGate:

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-TTWR/the-trouble-with-robots

All of my numbers suggest that GamersGate is the biggest digital shop I've worked with so far so obviously this is great news!  Also their site looks nice and I'm pretty sure Cynical Brit recommended them at some point.

---

Those of you who've been following this thread for a while may have noticed that I said TTWR would be on ArcadeTown and it isn't yet ... don't worry, this is still happening, the process has just taken a bit longer than I expected.  Though the game wasn't designed for casual portals I can see why they approached me (cute graphics, really easy to get into, addictive) and I'm really curious to see how it does there!

[To address the second point I've decided to make some extra content]

A pattern has emerged in all of the feedback I've had for The Trouble With Robots from customers, friends and reviewers alike.  Nearly everyone has enjoyed the game, finding it addictive and well designed.  That's great!  I'm also pleasantly surprised to find that so many have also enjoyed the humour, after discovering in development how difficult it is to get this right.  But two criticisms that have reared their ugly heads again and again, and if this isn't the place to discuss them I don't know where is:

• The price
• The length of the game

Notice that these are really two sides of the same problem, that is value for money.  I've already addressed the first point by lowering the price to £9.99 (in retrospect I do now think the initial price of £12.99 was a mistake).

To address the second point I've decided to make some extra content, which will be distributed via an updated game installer, and a free patch for existing customers (which will also come with a few minor bug fixes).  Obviously this is great if you've bought the game, but for me it's definitely an experiment - I don't know if directly addressing people's criticisms is going to increase my sales or if people have already made up their minds one way or the other.  We will see soon enough.

I haven't yet decided how much extra content I will make, so now would be an excellent time to post if you have any suggestions!

[TeeGee:]

Thanks for the nice comments, I'm glad you enjoyed my demo!   

TeeGee: Your 'look and feel' looks great, good luck with the game!

[Farmergnome:]

Farmergnome: very nice and stylish
Claw: I'm not sure how your lighting works, but if you make the background brighter near your light sources if would probably look even better.

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The Trouble With Robots

I added the capability to take HUD-less screenshots, mainly so that I can take clean images for use as promotional material.  I'm actually pretty pleased with the results, here is a night-time scene of some menacing looking heavy 'compliance' bots:



And here's a rather comical one of a horde of dwarves defeating the weakest enemies in the game:



Check out my DevLog and Demo!

sorta reminds me of the boardgame space alert from what i'm reading here. is that an apt comparison? because if it is, i'm VERY interested

It probably would be if you never use the pause button!

I almost wish it didn't have the pause feature, as it's a little too useful. Takes some of the pressure and intensity of combat away, but that's mostly just the purist in me talking.

Perhaps they should offer a mode where you can't pause then?  Personally I'd hate it, I like being able to think about my decisions when I'm playing a strategy game.

I'm looking forward to the demo.  Hint, hint.

I'm definitely looking forward to all the token copying shenanigans.  I'm actually quite impressed with this design-wise, they could have easily made Selesnya just like it was in original Ravnica and all the new players would be happy, whilst us oldies would be bored still.

Here's a nice solid target for those populate triggers which is also very powerful in it's own right:

I want to say something about posting on gamer forums - not gamedev forums like this one, but the ones where normal gamers hang out and talk about Call of Duty and Minecraft.  We all know that building up a community is important, but this could be a controversial topic because the difference between posting and spamming is somewhat subjective.  Before I start, I will say that if you think that simply spamming links on the biggest sites is going to get you tens of thousands of eyeballs ... you've got a lot to learn.

The reality is that the most popular forums are well moderated, so there's no point posting anywhere but the most appropriate place and there's no point posting on sites where you aren't going to be welcome.  Look for other indie game announcements and see what has gone down well.  You'll have to spend time writing something worthwhile and descriptive (this was my best attempt) and format it nicely, because simple links are quickly ignored.  You'll probably find you get more interest on forums where you're already part of the community and it's much easier to write for sites you're familiar with.

To be honest though, don't make this a big part of your strategy.  I get far more and higher quality traffic from indie game review sites - this was probably not time well spent.

Wow, the lighting looks good already.

Screenshot of a cutscene in my game.  Sort of inspired by a dream I had a few years back that I think about from time to time.

It reminds me of an early episode of The Outer Limits involving time travel and someone being pushed off a pier.  Anyway, great use of colour and detail!

[KopanoGS]

KopanoGS: Great animation.

Hypnohustla: I like the characters, but the repeating background tiles stand out a bit too much.

Eigen: Nice old school look.

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Here are a couple of screenshots of The Trouble With Robots I took today.  In this level the foolish Colvin is getting his comeuppance:





I'm really pleased with how the weather effects add visual variety, and in this case reinforcing the slightly dark mood of this level.  But tell me what you think!

I also made a wallpaper earlier this week, which went down pretty well on Facebook.

Demo
DevLog

Thanks, that's really good to know (except for the last bit).

i've never seen a minecraft trailer video :\

True, but there are thousands of videos fans have made playing Minecraft.

To be honest I don't really understand what made Minecraft so successful, apart from the momentum effect - 'loads of my friends are playing Minecraft, I guess I'd better check it out so I don't get left out of conversations!'.  This effect is real but it could apply to any game, it doesn't depend on any property of Minecraft in particular.

(personally, I enjoyed Dwarf Fortress a lot more)

OK, I'm a little bit unclear what you mean by 'distributor' as opposed to 'publisher' (the two terms are pretty muddled to me), but here goes...

I've heard that Steam offer royalties of around 60-70% on profits (after deductions for returns, taxes etc).  My experiences with other sites are roughly in line with that, though I think a few indie focused sites do offer a little bit more (and casual portals generally offer much less!)

As for exclusivity, I would not sign an exclusive deal with anyone except Steam because they're your largest potential distributor and they often pick up games that are doing well on other sites.  Steam don't offer exclusive deals, so basically, I'd say no to an exclusive offer unless maybe it was for a very short time span (a month at most).

Does anyone have any experience working with Alawar Entertainment?

A quick google shows that they're a Russian casual portal, they appear to be legit and quite large - but I've never heard of them before so I've no idea about their reputation.