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Re: share marketing that has worked
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 The Shape of Games to Come: Huey:
I think if you want to be a nobody then sure, forget the website and stick to making flash games on here.
Tell that to 2DBoy, whose only web site is a blog. That doesn't seem to be stopping anyone from buying World of Goo, which I'd be willing to bet has been more profitable than the vast majority of AAA games.
The format of the website has little to do with its presentation and professionalism. Its a blog style site... Tons of sites are blog style these days. His site is awesome.. just look at it. It has beautiful graphics, it flows nicely and its full of content for visitors to read. He has a nice splash screen set up for World of goo and he's got a forum and the whole thing looks professional.
Now compare 2dboy.com to xona.com
No difference? ...Cause to me one of those looks like the css file didn't load.
"Here's a simple idea for a game-only website, that shouldn't take anyone that long to make:"
Matthew, your game has awesome visuals, great dynamic... Its a nice idea, but why would you want to save time on making the website. You have put months and months of work into a game and then you'll go cut corners on its promotion? Make a website for it in 10 minutes? <body bgcolor="black"><center> copy paste youtube embed tag ... throw in 4 hrefs with a BR </center></body> and ur done...?
Don't you want to tell me all about the ship classes? The types of weapons? Showcase several enemies? Give me some detailed screenshots with captions? Get me excited about the game?
Btw your pictures aren't loading cause you got the wrong slashes in the <img src="" tags. Change them to forward slashes and it'll work.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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The difference between 2dboy.com and xona.com was the former was a gaming blog/site right off the bat, and the latter was a tech article and software website until we started making Duality ZF last year: xona.com/tech, xona.com/web, and xona.com/ware. I would like to change the layout of the site to be more about gaming, but the truth is the site still gets the majority of hits through it's tech-based content. Maybe this warrants Duality ZF to have it's own website? And for what it's worth, we have spent very little effort the design of xona.com, but it worked for tech-based information, as it got right to the point. Imagine if you wanted to read about the smallest floating point values: xona.com/2006/07/26.html You can see it was pretty clean and to the point, which was good enough at the time. (Not anymore.) I am confused as to what to do with xona.com design now, seeing I will be getting hits to tech pages and to my game as well.
(I can't believe I put the wrong slashes in. I obviously did not load it in Firefox. IE will fix such little bugs and load the images. It's now fixed.)
And for more details on the game, the ENTER button on dualityzf.com takes you to the official site, xona.com/dualityzf, which lists tons of details. But you meant I should have it on the dualityzf.com? And the purpose of my post was a dot-com website of your game with a trailer is easy to do (per my example) and it is the least anyone should do. By no means did I think it was all you should do.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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I had no idea how easy it was to create a solid looking site/blog until I tried. Blogspot is quick/easy and looks pretty good in my opinion. Any game that's underway should have some content to display and decorate the pages with. I set this one up in about 15 min ( www.ophidianwars.blogspot.com)
At a minimum you could set one up with the just very basics (like game name, contact info, logo, etc) at let it sit there so it catches Google searches and people can reach you.
Matt, you must have some slick stuff to show beyond the trailer (which is quite nice). You could easily link over a nice game-only blog from your current site that's a better landing page for your fans.
My Game: Ophidian Wars XBLIG Reviews: Small Cave Games What I am working on: Dev Blog
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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I wish it were easy to do that, but I don't think they are very compatible.
Just recently, I reached a point where I think I want to start to get feedback on development. Until now, I just wasn't far enough along to bother. So what I did was have the "news" section on my original site ( www.ophidianwars.com) link to the blog, which is basically news but with all of the fun 2.0 features.
It would have been a huge headache (and costly) to make my original website have all of the fun blog features. I don't want to ditch the other website content, so that was my 'middle ground' solution.
My Game: Ophidian Wars XBLIG Reviews: Small Cave Games What I am working on: Dev Blog
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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CVO, can you move your ophidianwars.com content to your blog, and then point ophidianwars.com to load your blog? Or is that completely out of the question to redesign a google blog to the likes of your current web design?
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Yeah blogs don't have that much flexibility unfortunately. There is no way to duplicate my website in blog format. You might be able to code it to handle some features, but definitely not all.
I can certainly transfer much of the content/pics (which I will do over time maybe), and the news items (it works better for news, because that's sort of how blogs are meant to be used). But I would not be able to organize the content/pages the same way.
Basically what you see on my blogs is what I am able to accomplish.
My Game: Ophidian Wars XBLIG Reviews: Small Cave Games What I am working on: Dev Blog
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Ok, here is my 2 cents on marketing / advertising.
Unless it is FREE, don't bother!
When someone complains their game failed, 1st thing people tell them is: "You need more marketing".
Well I have tried a LOT with my several games that are published and let me tell you, it is not worth it! Unless it is free (posting your game trailer to You Tube or sites you can upload your game trailer) don't bother! It isn't worth it.
For xFart I did some marketing but saw no change or effect from my marketing efforts. The game did well the first 2 months and dropped off the Most Popular and is back down with the 90% that is doing hardly nothing. Once it went off the Most Popular we spent close to $1,000 doing a marketing blitz on it's success on Community Games... but seems all was for nothing. The PR to all media outlets (cost like $360 for the distribution) had no impact at all. Adwords advertising got lots of click thrus, but for cost of advertising and the cost you make per sale... you'd be losing LOTS of money using Adwords. I tried finding advertising space on game web sites, but it isn't worth it as you are only competing against the big boys like EA, etc.
So, the last two games I released we did ZERO marketing. No Game trailers, no PR distributions, no contacting game web sites, etc. And those two past games are doing very well and one actually was #2 most popular and has stayed in most popular for a while.
So, my experience for XNA Community Games.... no marketing needed. I assume Microsoft probably has about 10,000+ users that visit Community Games per day. So they will either SEE your game in New Releases or Most Popular... or else you won't be found.
So why spend those LONG hours marketing when you can simply be making games! Make games that you think will fit well with Xbox Demographics and hope they buy. Not much more you can do. Take it for what it is worth.... this was just our experience and our opinion.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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arcarocket, what were the other games you made?
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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He may have some point - for the most part it's harder to control the traffic to the XBLIG portal. But you can still help create awareness - creating a good game and letting people know might drive more people there (especially if we all do that). Also, most of what we're talking about is relatively cheap, or free (albeit time consuming).
Games that standout are certainly going to bring more and more people to the XBLIG portal - especially genre-busters like Clover, Light's End, etc - that's a whole other crowd that isn't well tapped but is probably growing.
My Game: Ophidian Wars XBLIG Reviews: Small Cave Games What I am working on: Dev Blog
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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According to Google Analytics YOU ARE READING MY MOST EFFECTIVE MARKETING RIGHT NOW!
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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arcarocket: For xFart I did some marketing but saw no change or effect from my marketing efforts.
surely, its xFart...no matter the marketing, youve already called it. This isnt the XNA version of Civ, or a homebrew World of warcraft. its a fart machine. yeh, they worked on the iphone - but thats a portable platform, more suited to random crap and it would have been half the price.
i think the phrase 'you cant shine a turd' is rather appropriate here. if your game is good - market it so people can see its good. if its not, marketing wont help u.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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madninjaskillz: 'you cant shine a turd'
Clearly you don't watch enough Mythbusters.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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madninjaskillz:
i think the phrase 'you cant shine a turd' is rather appropriate here. if your game is good - market it so people can see its good. if its not, marketing wont help u.
That's simply not true. If your game is so bad that only 1% of people who hear about it buy it, you're going to do okay if a million people are aware of it! But if you've made an awesome game, so much that everyone who hears about it buys it, it does no good if only a thousand people know about it!
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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I think you might be mistaken a bit. xFart was #1 most popular for a week back in Feb. It remained in the Top 20 Most Popular for 2 months. This "app" has done VERY well (in my opinion). Of course it didn't have the iPhone success, as no game on XNA will for a few years. There just isn't enough "users" that visit CG's. Where on iPhone a #1 game will make you $10,000K per day at only getting $0.70 per copy sold. That is a HUGE difference in actual users compared to Xbox CG's which probably only gets about 10,000 visits a day.
The point is, Marketing did not improve the performance at all. And from viewing everyone elses threads/posts, marketing for a CG is pointless (unless of course you can do it on the Dashboard somehow in future).
My two past programs published is Illusions 360 and A Morons Challenge. I have spend $0 advertising and spend 0 Hours promoting. Illusions 360 went #2 Most Popular and has stayed in top 10 for entire 1st month. A Morons Challenge has recieved reviews from gaming sites, picked as IGN.COM #1 Pick, and was as high as #3 Most Popular.
That being said, you don't have to market at all to have a successful application. You just need to create a good application that people want and the reviews and marketing will occure on their own naturally.
Again, this is just experience. But do what you wish as I am sure different games and different marketing will have difference results.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Hey Arcarocket, thanks for your information on this subject. Even if it is not everyones tastes. I like the fact that you have told us what happened in your experience.
So far mine is exactly the same. No better with m oney spent than without. No idea why, and does it even matter... i am not sure.
I do have one question that comes to mind however. You have written two titles i am familiar with from the iPhone, are you the writer for those versions as well ? And if so, did advertising your product for the iPhone work ? I am just curious if they both work the same etc.
thanks
Da Voodoo Chief
www.SorceryGames.comSorcery BlogAceball a Modern bat and ball arcade game. Pellmell An Original Side Scrolling Shooter.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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From my experience with iPhone development, yes you do need to advertise your iPhone apps to get downloads.
BUT, you do it differently. You have to do Mobile Ads and maybe target apps similar to yours. You need to do some FREEBIE games and then advertise your paid products within those free apps.
Basically, your advertising is via the mobile device they are using.
It could be the same with Xbox, but there is no way to advertise on the xbox (currently). There is no way to offer free games to use as advertising.
You got to remember though, there are MILLIONS of people who checkout the iTunes App Store daily. There might be 10,000 that checkout CG's daily. That being said iPhone has 30K apps in 1 year. CG's has 350 apps in 1/2-3/4 year... so it is easier to get noticed on CG's then on iPhone... but if you get noticed on iPhone some of the top $0.99 games make $10K A DAY!
They are totally different markets and should be treated as such when it comes to business development (advertising).
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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As many of you may know, we put up a 4th ad on XNA Roundup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIo8a9EeoFs
Turns out Nick had an ebay auction for it, that was ~$30 with 30 minutes left (when I first found out about it). I won at ~$60, with no one coming close to my top bid. It feels like nobody is trying. Most of us are not willing to risk advertising the games we make that we expect others to buy. We might be doing overkill, and it can feel that way being the only advertiser on the XNA Roundup show, but I take some pride in making the mistake of doing "too much" than the mistake of doing "too little". Too often in my previous projects, upon hindsight, I did not try as hard as I should have. I still have a feeling I will learn the same lesson from Duality ZF in a year's time.
(Also, I would just like to put in a disclaimer that had we known about the ad spot earlier, we would have prepared better material. So far we've done four ads, and it would have been better to showcase different game elements in each.)
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Hahaha you're kidding! I was wondering where you got the money for all those ads ;)
I would have totally bid on that auction if I knew it existed.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Maybe I shouldn't* share my competitive advantages! But seriously I think it would help to have a variety of ads on the show. We knew it existed from our extended involvment in this stuff, but I was 30 minutes away from missing it, too.
*typo, i meant shouldn't (as a joke)
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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The more I read this thread, the more I realize that marketing is a VERY hard thing to get right. The only time I ever hear about your game Matthew is when you post in here and when you guys twitter about it. I buy a lot of XBox Live Arcade games and I'm really active in this community but I'm not stumbling across any ads for any of our XBox LIVE Indie Games out there (and I have google search feeds setup for most XNA related keywords). So I can't even imagine how hard it is to reach gamers who are even less involved in our world than I am (and I always thought I was VERY involved! Lol, I guess not because I still haven't listened to a single episode of XNA Roundup).
I stumble across new XBLA games by word of mouth and the occasional post or ad on Kotaku (or some similar game sight I might be casually browsing). XLIGs I typically find by word of mouth (friend recommends it, I know the developer or I'm seeing it talked about by people I follow on twitter). I do use the top 10 lists a lot for browsing, but I just as often randomly browse through games in both XBLA and XBLIG.
I'm not sure how to reach me better and I'm really not sure how to reach someone who doesn't even know what XBLIG's are but plays a lot of XBLA games.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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My reply wont be nearely as well thought out as the others, but it is rather important. You need to ensure that visitors coming to your site have a community, so a forum or IRC channel is essential. Also, videos/trailers are always a plus. Little promo games done in online or downloadable creators also attract people (such as a jigsaw puzzle of your logo, or using another free program to make an arcade style Java game). Try to add a social aspect to your site, so also attempt to give them some personalization like a profile or avatar (preferably both).
Good luck! Please note that these havent neccesarily worked for me, but for one of my freinds it has remarkably well.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Matthew Doucette: Maybe I shouldn't* share my competitive advantages! But seriously I think it would help to have a variety of ads on the show. We knew it existed from our extended involvment in this stuff, but I was 30 minutes away from missing it, too.
*typo, i meant shouldn't (as a joke)
I'd love to have ads all over the place but my game made $175 so far :/ Even if I'd won that ebay auction I'd probably end up with a net loss. I got a good review on XNARoundup and while it seemed to increase sales they didn't exactly go through the roof.
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Re: share marketing that has worked
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Harald Maassen: I'd love to have ads all over the place but my game made $175 so far :/
That's too bad - I loved your game!
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