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Great insight for marketing.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by JovanD, Apr 19, 2014.

  1. JovanD

    JovanD

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    So apparently let's players are the new Gamespot/IGN.
     
  2. Deleted User

    Deleted User

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    In short : Either make a generic game which is going to one among thousands and You have small chance of getting popular as You'll be fighting among other big companies... or make what You want and You might succeed.
    Also YouTube marketing through Let's players is more than viable option. Prepare buckets full of currency and bribe those people!
     
  3. Wind waker

    Wind waker

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    Except very few let's players are willing to do work for money.

    Let's think about the situation this way. When you make a generic game, then yes, you have a googolplex number of other generic games and as small a chance to hit big than you are to win the lottery. Some people do win in the lottery, but 99.9999 % of people don't.

    I'd like to introduce Seth Godin into this conversation. He's a succesful entrepreneur, who has seen a lot. His main principle is not to scale a product, but to scale trust. Meaning that if you are producing something worth talking about, you'll gain people's trust. And when you've earned their trust, they're willing to talk about your product. How amazing and cool it is! The next time you'll release a new product, you'll have a tribe. So in the long run, it's more profitable to build a loyal following and to keep innovating than try to make a quick money grab, because the odds are better for a win at some point than the 0,0000065 % chance of winning in a lottery.

    So let's start flexing our brains. We have customers waiting!

    P.S. Here's some [url="http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/free_stuff.asp]Free stuff[/url] from Godin. If you're low on cash, try to look for summaries from his books. I've read many of them and I feel like per book they have only a couple of worthwhile ideas, after which the rest of the book is spent justifying its existence by telling dozens of different examples for the ideas presented in the book. Meaning you'll read a lot of fluff. Linchpin is kind of a good book to read from him, though even that book can be summarized as "make yourself so indispensable that a company or customers can't live without you".

    P.P.S. I'm referring to that Game Theory -episdoe, when I say that I don't consider Pewdiepie being an innovator. The majority of his games are quite mainstream. There are some indie channels that try some really strange stuff and they ought to be considered innovators.
     
  4. Deleted User

    Deleted User

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    So... thanks to your post I've read this : http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/downloads/knockknock.pdf
    It really is looking like an useful bit of knowledge, which will come handy eventually.
    Personally I've never paid attention to books like that because it seemed like a scam thing : "How to become a millionaire" etc.
    But skimming through that PDF made me change my mind a little, but as You've said there's too much fluff for a small amount of actual idea's.
    I bet this author probably does have a book titled "How to write 40 pages of text with only 3 lines of content - Guide to endless examples".

    On the other side I think we could use a sticky thread with general ideas and tips about how to increase the chance of our games becoming popular.
    Like a list of factors, qualities and features which can make or break your game.
    I personally think that key qualities in a game are :
    - First 10 minutes of gameplay, we should keep it interesting instead of playing some dull cinematic or forcing player to sit through dialogues
    - Skippable tutorials / dialogues / cutscenes - That feels like a must for every game.. maybe except visual novels.
    - Good and consistent learning curve - Look at super meat boy here, level design practically always prepares player for the next level.
    - Easily recognizable characters, levels or items - Create something "iconic" in your game and it'll never be forgotten.
    So... That's about it from me, I think if we've built a list like that the quality of all games would improve greatly.
    We could call it "Games Designer 50 commandments" or something like that.
     
  5. JohnnyA

    JohnnyA

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    My list would run something like:

    1. If you want to make money approach games development like a business not like a painting.

    2. See 1.
     
  6. Wind waker

    Wind waker

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    Tredding carefully is a a good strategy, because there truly is a boatload of scammers around. It's best to look for the renowned entrepreneurs for their advice on how to be successful. For example, Seth Godin, Richard Branson, Brian Tracy and Robert Kiyosaki are all guys, who've really hit a homerun during their careers. And in my humble opinion, getting rich is much about the mindset than it is about the actual steps to build something. Robert Kiyosaki's Rich dad, poor dad is a great book to drive that idea. Another great book is Gary Vaynerchuck's Crush it!

    However, I'd also like to stress that sometimes aggressive marketing isn't a necessity. I believe it depends on the style of the person AND have they created a remarkable game or not. Nowadays social media and word of mouth is a powerful tool that brings attention as long as – again – the game itself is worth talking about. Tom Francis did very little marketing on his game 'Gunpoint' and it became a huge success. Stressing about marketing and making a huge effort on it just brings too heavy a burden on some game devs.

    So to truly clarify my idea, look at your game and ask yourself "is this game worth talking about?". Then ask someone else – preferrably a total stranger – to reply to that same question. The game itself is the best marketing tool.

    "If you do something and it turns out pretty good, you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next" –– Steve Jobs


    Pixel Prospector has an extensive list of articles to read about. Gamasutra too has really great articles. If you want to learn how to polish your games to be great, Extra Credits is a hypnotically awesome YT –channel. I'll start watching one short episode and all of a sudden I've watched several hours of them!
     
  7. Gigiwoo

    Gigiwoo

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    Read The Dip by Godin? Here's what I learned from that. I learned a lot, really fast, and got pretty good, like 10,000 others. Then, the learning REALLY slowed down and became very difficult, to the point where I want to quit. At that point, I can stay at that level, making use of what I've learned, or, I can keep pushing myself, until, in the immortal words of Steve Martin, I "become too good to ignore".

    Gigi
     
  8. Wind waker

    Wind waker

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    Gigi: Haven't read it yet, but I'm aware of the main idea behind it. For those, who don't know I borrowed a summary from [url="http://www.amazon.com/The-Dip-Little-Teaches-Stick/dp/1591841666/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398099488&sr=8-1&keywords=seth+godin+dip]Amazon[/url]

     
  9. Wind waker

    Wind waker

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  10. Aiursrage2k

    Aiursrage2k

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    Well thats interesting, i wonder how many other games the youtubers can make go viral. The games that they are making popular are mostly stupid games that will appeal to there viewers. I was watching eyeballs video on krunch a game i never heard of before and it actually looked pretty good, unfortunately he doesnt have the millions of viewers that a pewdiepie has.

    I would definitely recommend KRUNCH over the other games.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2014