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[Nandrew]

I looked a few pages into this subforum and haven't found any particular discussions about communicating with people when promoting your game, so I'm going to start this thread and hope that I'm not overlapping any recent topics. 


What I've always been curious about is how all the TIGers out there package their games when it comes to e-mailing to review sites or posting announcements on forums. I think we all agree that if you're not shacked up with a games portal (or maybe even if you are!) there's going to be a fair amount of legwork and correspondence involved with all sorts of people in an effort to get your game seen and played. Whether doing it for money or not, people wanna put their best foot forward when advertising their products!

So how do you put yourself across -- what would you consider the DOs and DONTs of your game's writeup?

I, for one, cannot abide the cliché "promo-speech" that indies sometimes adopt: you know, rattling off bullet-point feature lists, capitalising words, saying tired rubbish like "(x game type) WITH A TWIST!" or "available now for the low price of", and throwing in lots of exclamation marks. While it may seem professional or the "in-thing" to do, it reeks of ... well, a lack of confidence and a lack of inspiration -- looking at stock-standard corporate marketing tactics and hiding behind those while hoping that the masses buy into it. I generally find that I'm more tempted to play indie games that have an honest or refreshing approach to their promo: I consider, for example, A Reckless Disregard For Gravity, and the brilliant use of humour in promoting their alpha. It sincerely grabbed my attention far more than the endless sea of "OH LOOK HERE" titles which tried to take themselves too seriously in advertising.


Do you agree/disagree? Do you have your own special tactics when selling yourself to that Game Reviewer / Influential Person / Fellow Forum-goer? Do you have a long and involved expert article that you can link to on the matter to blow everybody else's opinions out of the water?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there is a ton that could be said about this, this is almost as much of an art as making a game itself is. there are several parts to your question: what you write on your site, what you write in press releases, what you write on forums, and what you write when attempting to suggest the game to people to review, and what you write when attempting to suggest a game to portals/publishers. each of which has to be addressed differently.

site: one thing i've found that works okay is not to say anything yourself, but only to quote reviews. for instance, if you go to the immortal defense page, you'll notice i don't actually say anything on the front, i just quote reviews. braid does the same thing, as do many other games. that way you can kinda praise your own game without really praising your own game. other than that, letting people know what the game is in objective terms also helps. before i buy a game i want to know how long it is, how many levels it has, and so on. so a 'fact sheet' list of features (without hyperbole) can be useful to people in that way, and should also go on the site, along with system requirements and all that. the first part of this can't actually be done until your game has been reviewed though.

forums: this can depend on the forum, but basically i just say 'here's a game i made', show some screenshots, perhaps summarize it a bit, and that's it.

press release: *here* is where you need some of the hype language and list of features. it's almost required here just due to the format press releases go by; if your press release does *not* have a list of features or at least an explanation mark or two, people are just going to skip it, since they aren't going to be very excited by it.

emails to journalists: i've had no success with this. usually they contact me asking for a review copy -- i've never actually suggested my game for review to a journalist and had them review it, with the exception of a game tunnel review a long time ago (and they specifically had a 'suggest your game here' thing). so i can't give much advice here.

emails to portals/publishers: i just link to them to the game's site and ask if they're interested, and tell them to contact me if they've any questions about it.

[Oddbob]

And in stark contrast to Paul, I have most success with emailing journalists. I'll admit that perhaps I have a rather erm, unique(?) style though.

Here's an old one for reference:

Unfortunately, I can't put it's name in the subject because it'll head straight into the spam trap. In fact, there's a good likelihood that this email will end up as spam regardless. I guess that's the price you suffer when the game is called War Twat.
 
You see, I got bored. Bored of games being all nice, tidy and glowing. Beautiful and attractive with HD resolutions. I got bored of games leading you by the hand, I got bored of games fibbing to the player with false promises of nice things, good things and happy thoughts. So I wrote War Twat. And it's not fair.
 
Yeah, yeah, I know I'm big enough and old enough to know better but lets face it, there's not nearly enough games that combine swear words with war without trying to be all macho, manly and featuring space marines. So I went out of my way to write something that could never in a million years be construed as fundamentally effecting, powerful or cinematic. War Twat is thick. Stupidest even. It's dumb, you'll die repeatedly. (In the game obviously, I'm not going to come round to the office, shoot you in the face, perform some sort of arcane magick ritual, resurrect you then rinse and repeat till I get bored. For a start, that sounds like far too much hard work and I can't be bothered right now).
 
Lets face it, who needs space marines, giant enemy crabs, portals or zombies when you've got a double decker bus that fires lasers? Sssh, you're not meant to argue the point, you'll make the piggy balloons angry. You don't want to do that now, they've probably got lasers to. Now I think on, everything has lasers. Even the alien spaceships have lasers. Don't worry though, you've got a laser too. I'm not that cruel.
 
People have been very nice about it so far. They're probably lying but you can't tell via the internet. Not even with smilies.
 
Mr Keiron of Gillen described it as "…a Minter shooter with the finesse removed and the volume turned to Bruce Forsyth screaming with the force of a nuclear explosion", which I'm going to assume is nice. Ok, he also said "I HAD TO RUN OUT OF THE HOUSE" but I'm sure that was just for some shopping or something. As the last quote was never published, we can pretend it didn't happen, right?
 
Some nice people on Rock Paper Shotgun commented too. "I played this sitting five feet away and squinting but the damage is still done. I think it gave me epilepsy." said a certain Lunaran. I don't know who he is, but if he's in hospital - IT WASN'T ME.
 
A chap on RLLMUK verbally guffed this: " Part of my brain still feels a bit odd 20 minutes later" - I don't know which part of his brain. Probably the bit that forces him to count spoons. He won't be needing it for mainstream games anyway. I've done him a favour.
 
Apparently, some German chap on a site called EA Play lasted a whole 26 seconds. Whether that's in the game or I'm going to be billed for treatment at some point remains to be seen. I hope it's the former because I'm poor and I made this game on 50p and a packet of Rolos anyway. I've ate all the rolos.
 
There were some other comments, but they mainly involved lots of swearing. So I won't quote them.
 
If you haven't ran away yet, I've got some links in my pocket where you can download the game. Two tics. Ah, here they are...

Mainly, I tend to follow the rough outlines of Kieron's article on courting the games press with the basic tract of "say something interesting". I don't mass mail, some turn out better than others and some more successful than others but generally, I get a pretty good hit rate out of it for sites picking it up.

I figure if you're reading 500 generic press releases a day then the last thing you want is another one, so if nothing else I can at least entertain you for 30 seconds

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm sure i'd have more success at it if i tried it more often, it's more that i haven't done it very much. i've sent perhaps 3 emails requesting reviews total or something, and since those three didn't work i stopped doing it. most of the people who want to review my game just contact me first, usually asking for a review copy. i'm not actually sure who to send such things (review requests) to. there's no master list of people who review indie games afaik.

another thing i find is that getting the first few reviews is slow and difficult, but once you get those, other people review it just as a matter of course, since if site x and y did it, site z wants to cover it as well. journalists tend to go with the herd instinct sometimes, and think 'all those sites reviewed it, so we have to too or we'll be missing a story'.

that said, i don't actually think reviews are that important. most of the traffic to my site comes from search engines and people randomly clicking on mentions of the game on forums or blog comments, not from reviews. i don't even think the majority of the gaming public even reads reviews anymore; i don't read them myself.

[Oddbob]

i'm not actually sure who to send such things (review requests) to. there's no master list of people who review indie games afaik.

I should add that I rarely go looking for or begging for reviews when I send stuff out. It's boring and I tend to mail anyone who I think might just be interested in looking at the game even if they won't cover it. If that makes the slightest bit of sense.

For me, it's not *just* about soliciting for copy - although I find that's rather easy to come by with a little grunt work, it's about getting noticed. They might not cover your current title, perhaps it's shit, perhaps it's bad timing and landed in the middle of major E3 coverage or something but if someone can make a mental note at the back of their head somewhere about you or your game, it's a win. Next time round, you might just need that y'know?

another thing i find is that getting the first few reviews is slow and difficult, but once you get those, other people review it just as a matter of course, since if site x and y did it, site z wants to cover it as well. journalists tend to go with the herd instinct sometimes, and think 'all those sites reviewed it, so we have to too or we'll be missing a story'.

Oh aye, never underestimate the old adage of once you've got coverage, it's easy to get it to snowball - on the proviso that you're doing something or saying something interesting enough for folks to cover it in the first place.

I think it's really about as difficult as you make it, rather than being an especially difficult or slow thing to do. It's a bit of a game and worth treating not just as work but a bit of fun to boot. It's not really that hard to get coverage, and by no means should you isolate yourself to whether someone covers indie games or not - yours might be the one to break the mould! What is difficult is coming to the realisation that it's not difficult. Scary barrier at first but once you break it down, walk in the park.

Aside from wot I do, I also get a fair few review requests and solicits a week. And you know what? Most of them I find it fucking hard to care about. They're dull. It's either some kid in his bedroom crafting a near corporate level of press release (why, Lord, why?) or someone just mailing me a short message along the lines of "Hi, I'd like it if you could review my game. Here is a link." only sometimes without the link. Just for bonus points.

Or my personal favourite "perhaps you'd like to interview me?" - umm, why would I want to do that? At least if you're going to ask give me good reason to want to!

Given my time is finite and I've got a ruck of stuff to get through, that's not going to get anyone to jump the queue to the top of my list. It's not going to make me run off and say "wooh, I've gotta check this out NOW!". Which is what you should be aiming at doing if you want me to review your game.

Prime example. Nathan Fouts of Mommy's Best. One of only a couple of devs who contact me through my personal email on a regular basis. I'll cover pretty much most things he sends my way because he's interesting. He's got interesting things to say and well, even if I'm not the worlds biggest fan of Weapon Of Choice, it's a damn site more interesting to discuss with him and write about than most of what I get in my inbox. He's got an automatic win by that very virtue.

Interviewing Cliff a few years ago was an absolute pleasure. It was a bit of a promo piece (and sadly lost from the net now although I'm sure I've got it around somewhere) and y'know, my aim was to get the word out a bit to an audience that wouldn't normally notice him and he's a great person to interview. Regardless of whether you agree on his stance on stuff, he's fascinating. He's a character and he's not afraid to be himself in interviews. Brilliant!

My advice here to folks is to have some faith in yourself and your own skills and most of all, convey that to me or whoever you're contacting. Make me truly believe I need to see this game now. Sitting on both sides of the fence both as someone who does reviewing and someone who gets reviewed, I can see the value. Don't hit me with generic hyperbole, bullet points or whatever, make me believe in you.

that said, i don't actually think reviews are that important. most of the traffic to my site comes from search engines and people randomly clicking on mentions of the game on forums or blog comments, not from reviews. i don't even think the majority of the gaming public even reads reviews anymore; i don't read them myself.

Other people are eternally fascinated with other peoples opinions! There's more of a spread now with the internet but reviews are still a valuable tool, perhaps if only to have something a little bit extra to use in your marketing canon.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i don't think i've seen that cliff interview, sounds fun to read. if you find it, link me?

[Oddbob]

It was for WotR (now pretty much existing as DailyRodent), unfortunately it got lost when they got hacked a year or so back and went the way of a number of brilliant articles over there into the internet void.

The interview itself wasn't anything special as when I write for Rodent I tend to write differently to what I'd write on here, on xnPlay or on my own sites. My brief was to get interesting indie folks with interesting games and sell up Indie.

What was great for me about Cliff was I contacted him, got a "yeah, I'd love to". Laid out what I was hoping to achieve from the article (nothing more than pushing traffic his way), sent him some relatively generic but open ended questions and like the consummate pro he is, I got utterly perfect material to wrap an article around back. He made it easy.

I sent him the copy to check over (which I don't do generally, but given it's a promo piece I wanted to ensure he was comfortable with what was going out) and we both went away very happy bunnies. I got my story, he got his promotion.

[Nandrew]

that said, i don't actually think reviews are that important. most of the traffic to my site comes from search engines and people randomly clicking on mentions of the game on forums or blog comments, not from reviews. i don't even think the majority of the gaming public even reads reviews anymore; i don't read them myself.

Other people are eternally fascinated with other peoples opinions! There's more of a spread now with the internet but reviews are still a valuable tool, perhaps if only to have something a little bit extra to use in your marketing canon.

My own opinion straddles the lines here: I don't always read game reviews, but the fact that a game is BEING reviewed tends to get me interested in it. Possibly related to the snowball effect that has already been discussed: with Glum Buster, for example, I didn't read any reviews for the game before playing it. What I did see, however, was the game cropping up in several of my RSS feeds with people mentioning that they were reviewing it. A single notice may have passed me by, but the fact that several other sites were looking at this thing made me think that this was something to get excited about.

I feel that getting one's game reviewed is quite useful, even if it's ... er, in a roundabout sort of way.

Aside from wot I do, I also get a fair few review requests and solicits a week. And you know what? Most of them I find it fucking hard to care about. They're dull. It's either some kid in his bedroom crafting a near corporate level of press release (why, Lord, why?) or someone just mailing me a short message along the lines of "Hi, I'd like it if you could review my game. Here is a link." only sometimes without the link. Just for bonus points.

Not me being at my most intellectual here, but: I lol'd.