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[Capntastic]

If you have stories and experiences you would like to share about publicists, promoters, press release groups, etc, I would like to hear them and accumulate as many as possible and get a general idea of the playing field, so to speak.

Thank you in advance.

[matwek]

Rising Star Games - Absolute shit show.
Worst offence - Telling me not to go and buy my own lunch at an expo because "they've got me covered"... 3pm, I get one slice of cheese pizza.

[Capntastic]

Rising Star Games - Absolute shit show.
Worst offence - Telling me not to go and buy my own lunch at an expo because "they've got me covered"... 3pm, I get one slice of cheese pizza.

That's terrifying

[Capntastic]

Still looking for more stories

[Schoq]

I nagged rinku on irc to write about a (free) thing a friend made and he kept saying he was busy but I kept nagging for months and he finally checked it out and liked it so he wrote a review for the tigs front page and it really helped (apparently hundreds of blogs in different languages check tigsource for what to write about)

I tried making indiegames.com cover the same thing (it's genuinely very good and would be a nice fit on what the site was at the time) but I think you need to sleep with or have dirt on the publisher

[ProgramGamer]

I've gotten various PMs and emails from a couple of marketing firms or whatever you call them. They all seemed to have seen something I'd made, either a devlog or a ludum dare game, and emailed me about it saying that they'd promote it. The problem is, if they'd done even an ounce of research, they would've been able to see that the "product" in question was nowhere near finished.

The only time I've acted on impulse from one of those emails is when I decided to find out how to make a business, since I figured I'd be making games at some point and would want to have one by then.

Overall positive, but not because of what those firms offered I guess.

[Superb Joe]

i was asked to attend an event for normal people to pitch policy ideas to shadow chancellor ed balls and after a long deeply personal and passionate explanation of why it's bad to spend £80 billion to build £11 billion worth of shitty hospitals that lack basic features like kitchens and come with unbreakable 38 year contracts on services that do not work and harm patients he offered a weak kneed defense of them on the basis that the lifts work now but before the deals were even worse. some years later after much intense focus grouping they came up with a giant stone with vague meaningless phrases on it, losing the election and his job in the process. now he dances on television and i work in medical research.

[Superb Joe]

but if you want something about games:i have astro turfed for resident evil 5 and Transformers: Devastation for no reason other than personal enjoyment

[spacetoadsmayhem]

I've considered using some PR services, but haven't got round to it just yet.

Currently I'm doing everything myself, from artwork & coding to building hype.

I'm positively surprised with the results of my social media efforts, especially Twitter and Instagram ( including liking loads of appropriate messages / hashtags by potential audience ) - apart from other indiedevs, I got some streamers and non-industry people genuinely interested in my game (retrogaming fans typically). Facebook takes 2nd place in terms of building interest for me. I haven't gained much traction with the likes of Reddit, IndieDB, TIGsource etc though - but that's understandable I guess as due to my commitments I'm unable to participate in the communities as much as I perhaps should. So I mainly self-promote on each of these (within reason). Also, I always look around for any opportunities for extra exposure and try to reach out to people whenever it seems to make sense.

Other than getting a little dev interview, I haven't really dealt with any websites or press that could potentially give me some coverage, so it's one of the things on the horizon. My game is still at a pretty early stage of development, not on Greenlight yet, doesn't even have a presskit at the moment etc etc - I'm moving things forward bit by bit. All things considered I'm happy with where I'm at for the time being. I'm having fun, I've made some cool contacts and I've even landed a little spot at a big UK gaming event.

But, like Captntastic - I'd certainly love to hear more about people's experiences with press and PR / marketing companies. Any good stories?

[Capntastic]

But, like Captntastic - I'd certainly love to hear more about people's experiences with press and PR / marketing companies. Any good stories?

I don't have any personally which is why I am trying to accumulate them here.

There's some other threads that had been popping up about this sort of thing so I wanted to give a home base for people to share their info while gathering datums for my own schemes.