next »

[namre]

I've just read this old article on Gamasutra regarding Wolfire's approach on marketing. Basically, what they do is that they are very open to their community, revealing every step of their development through videos and articles.

So far, everything seems to be doing great for them as they seem to be getting a lot of pre-orders because of what they are doing.

However, here are some questions that I have regarding this topic:

• I am wondering what downsides there is to their marketing method of "open development"?
• Why aren't other devs doing the same thing?
• How much do you reveal regarding your game when it's still in development?

Looking forward to your opinions! Cheers!

[Christian Knudsen]

The Wolfire guys have often talked about "going dark" when they start working on the story and campaign for the game. I think that's wise. You want to give people enough insight into the process for them to get a good idea what the game/engine is about and capable of, but not so much that they'll feel they've already seen everything when the game is finally done. So my approach is to have the development of the engine be as open as possible, but keep the campaign and story details secret (the setting and overall point of the game shouldn't be secret, of course). Not all games have an engine that's interesting to follow the development of, though, which is probably why all devs don't follow this approach. Also, it takes effort to create the blog posts and build the community that makes the development process interesting to follow.

[namre]

The Wolfire guys have often talked about "going dark" when they start working on the story and campaign for the game. I think that's wise. You want to give people enough insight into the process for them to get a good idea what the game/engine is about and capable of, but not so much that they'll feel they've already seen everything when the game is finally done.

Very interesting. I guess it's only wise to keep the story and campaigns a secret otherwise what is there left to experience aside from gameplay!

Not all games have an engine that's interesting to follow the development of, though, which is probably why all devs don't follow this approach.

Hmmm... I think a game developed on Game Maker, for example, can still be interesting enough to be followed. At least to non-devs who just want to learn how game development works, or to those who are aspiring to enter development. For those more experienced devs, I don't think they would care much with the development of a Game Maker engine.

Also, it takes effort to create the blog posts and build the community that makes the development process interesting to follow.

Yeah. I agree. And I admire Wolfire in their efforts. It looks like it's paying off great.

[ANtY]

Not all games have an engine that's interesting to follow the development of, though, which is probably why all devs don't follow this approach. Also, it takes effort to create the blog posts and build the community that makes the development process interesting to follow.

this 

[Falmil]

I would think the effort in describing your processes would be worth it, if not for building a community and teaching new devs, then at least for cementing your own understanding of the system you're still building and practicing explaining such systems to others.

[ANtY]

I would think the effort in describing your processes would be worth it, if not for building a community and teaching new devs, then at least for cementing your own understanding of the system you're still building and practicing explaining such systems to others.

I think it's more important thing:

Not all games have an engine that's interesting to follow the development of, though, which is probably why all devs don't follow this approach.

Not every game have great physics engine, or awesome graphics (of course 3d). What more u could show to ppl?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I would think the effort in describing your processes would be worth it, if not for building a community and teaching new devs, then at least for cementing your own understanding of the system you're still building and practicing explaining such systems to others.

keep in mind that wolfire has one guy who does full time marketing; that's his full time job. not all indies can afford that. they put out a lot of promotional materials, for instance, a new video each week describing what they did for the game that week. they probably spend more time and effort marketing their game than most indies do making their game.

so basically i agree that it's a good idea but you have to consider context and opportunity cost

[Falmil]

Well, I didn't mean all that, I just meant blog every couple days or something.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

yeah, i agree with that, that's easy enough to do (i do more than that already).

another thing though is that if nobody read your blog or heard of you, it's kind of a wasted effort. for instance i post what i did for my game each day, and occasionally post screenshots, but i doubt more than 3 people even read it.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I didn't know Wolfire had a dedicated marketing guy. Interesting to know. I've read a few things they've written about marketing strategies, and they seem pretty astute

I try to be open about developing my game, but writing blog entries and stuff can be time consuming, so I've shied away from it. Since working on my game as a full-time commercial project I've found marketing a lot tougher and more important than I'd anticipated, and I guess you can't do everything all the time. The blog is a nice comprehensive archive to have if people ever take an interest in my work, though, so I try to keep it up-to-date.

Recently I've been posting concept art on my blog, twitter and facebook pages for feedback, and it's been quite helpful to hear what people think. I benefit from the feedback, fans enjoy helping out, and I engange followers as friends, which could lead to good press and word-of-mouth in the future - so everyone benefits

As with revealing details about the game and the progress of the engine, it's hard to do for my game because the premise is very simple. The best human interest story so far has been in the concept art, so that's what I've been able to talk about in a meaningful way.

Perhaps I have more to share about development than I think, though, and the subtle programming lessons I learn could make for interesting reading for interested people - I just always think it's hard to explain and only interesting to myself 

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I guess my short answer is that I think it's a great idea to be open about how your game is being developed, and I wish I could do more of it.

[LemonScented]

Wolfire's approach is interesting, and in general I think that more openness is good (unless it's about specific plot-points and things you want to leave as a surprise for the player), but for me at least they've been missing a few tricks. The thing that got me reading Wolfire's blog in the first place was the design breakdown of World of Goo, which I thought was brilliantly insightful. They did Gish and Aquaria and another one as well, I think. Then they stopped with that. The updates seem to be mostly "hey, we did this awesome thing to make our shadows slightly more shadowy", all tech stuff. What I don't know from reading the blog is why they're focussed on that, what their schedule is, when they plan to release the game, how they organise their working practises...

It mostly reads like advertising for a very very long feature list of clever graphics and physics tricks. Which is fair enough, but for me it's not a reason to keep going back to the site. If they're that committed to being open about their development, I'd like to hear more _about the development_. How they work, how they think, how they make the decisions they do. Design, and production, stuff they've learned, opinion pieces. Maybe that's just me, though.

[Konidias]

yeah, i agree with that, that's easy enough to do (i do more than that already).

another thing though is that if nobody read your blog or heard of you, it's kind of a wasted effort. for instance i post what i did for my game each day, and occasionally post screenshots, but i doubt more than 3 people even read it.

I wouldn't consider posting a blog that nobody is currently reading as a wasted effort. You've gotta start somewhere, and people who stumble on to your blog will be able to read back and learn about the development process more.

I've been considering starting blogging about my current game in development. I actually already have a website and means to do it, but I'm not really sure my game's development would be that interesting to read about. (as mentioned in above posts)

Though I do worry about giving out too much info to the point where either A: someone uses that info to create a clone or B: people see everything there is to see and are tired of the game before they even play it.

[Evan Balster]

I'm dipping my toes in the warm waters of a player community for the first time with Infinite Blank, though it's a free project.  I'm enjoying it a lot.  Of the few thousand people who've tried the game, a small fraction have registered on my little forum, and a smaller subset of those have been incredibly helpful with bug reports, feedback, and "wishes" that help me to unify my own vision of the project with the community's.

Right now I'm toward what I hope is the tail-end of a two-month-and-counting downtime, and I'm nearer Paul's boat, probably: A handful of faithful readers to see me through.  I could name them if I wanted to, and their little hints of encouragement go a long way.  Validation for one's ongoing work is something that's incredibly helpful in small doses.  (But OH GOD IS ATTENTION DISTRACTING)

Anyway.  Back to work.  I've got people waiting on me. 

[Richard Kain]

Some people think that they need to keep their development process secret, so that no one will "steal" their ideas. This has been pointed out many times, by many people, but "ideas" aren't nearly as valuable as some people seem to think. More often than not, keeping your entire development process under wraps is a mistake. Being a bit more open about your game during development can help you to drum up interest and exposure early on, so that you don't have to work quite as hard on advertising and promotion when the game is ready for release. Developing a community of fans for the game ahead of release will give you early customers to rely on, and who can help spread awareness of your game by word-of-mouth.

There are plenty of tools to help you with this. Get a WordPress blog and post to it once or twice a week, just to document your progress. This is good even if you aren't trying to build a community. (helps to track your progress and keep you motivated) You can also use Facebook to keep screenshots from your project, providing a centralized location for people to browse them.

[Hamletz]

you shouldnt reveal too much. untill you release it LOL

[moi]

You should stop revealing when some hair can be seen.

[I_smell]

I just reveal totally everything about my games. The people who read the devlogs forums on Tigsource are like 0.1% of the people who're gonna play it, so I wanna put the information out there for anyone who's interested enough to look for it.

EDIT- Oh wait, this is the Business forum... You should probably be really open about a couple o steps, but then be completely dark on the rest. Just keep reminding people that you're only showin a small part of the game.
I find it really pandering when someone says HERE'S THE FIRST CHARACTER- COME BACK NEXT WEEK AS WE REVEAL MORE!