Not signed in (Sign In)

Vanilla 1.1.9 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.

Welcome Guest!
Want to take part in these discussions? If you have an account, sign in now.
If you don't have an account, apply for one now.

Games and Gaming: INDIE GAME DESIGN COMPANY GAME DESIGN CHALLENGE: CONCLUSION

Bottom of Page

1 to 39 of 39

  1.  
  1.  # 1
    This was an interesting game, although I think it would have been more successful if I had better players.

    With any luck, it helped people learn to work together, brainstorm, collaborate, meet deadlines, manage time and schedules, adjudicate responsibilities and make better games. At the very least, we have some more games.

    So, without further adieu...
  2.  # 2
    THE WINNER

    But first, some more adieu...

    Out There started strong with good sales and a webpage that didn't make me want to claw my eyes out. Even better, they kinda sorta explained how the game worked in the marketing text. But really, an investigation game? I did like that they had some independent actual play posts. Getting hit by the Wizard's Basement fiasco slowed them down a bit in the sales department but ultimately, even those lost sales would not have saved their foundling company.

    Sexy Deadly was doomed from the outset. Feminist action heroes. This is the kind of game that makes me want to claw my eyes out. It's... it's anti-pandering. Now, either the creators knew this and were trying to fuck with me or they were oblivious to my misogynistic tendencies. The website did not help. I re-read it recently and noticed nothing about a game, just some marketing text about "strong women" and "relationships." OHHHhhhh. THAT indie game about relationships. That said, Sexy Deadly recovered from the public "meh" of low sales and knocked out an 8-page supplement (plus additional material from contributing authors...) and racked up a meaty sales figure for the end of the contest.

    The Norigins Award for 2008 Game of the Year goes to... Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 1 for Sexy Deadly.

    Congrats, guys. You've won a meaningless award that some say is cursed. Now watch as your sales drop to $0 and even children dare not look you in the eyes without bursting into tears.

    The Wrinkles...
    It's not enough to have Yet Another Stupid Game Design Contest. Why not make it into a game? The Wrinkles simulate real world circumstances in the game industry. Wrinkle 1 is modeled after Wizard's Attic's spectacular nose-dive as it crashed and burned, taking tens of thousands of dollars worth of unpaid invoices with it. The morale of this wrinkle is: you didn't make any money until it's in the bank and your expenses are paid up. Wrinkle 2 is all about the supplement treadmill. I have no idea if releasing a supplement helped in Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 1's upward sales spike but they ended on a pretty decent note. Having a free, official supplement can't hurt. It's interesting to note that Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 1 may have under-declared their sales, making them immune to the Wizard's Basement scenario. Whether that was a display of flakiness, business savvy or maliciousness I leave to the audience to decide.

    Wrinkle 3 is representative of... well, you guys. Since 2000-ish the small press "indie" crowd has been throwing down with the larger companies, showing that in terms of output, quality and sales, there's not a lot of difference between Us and Them. And although they don't have as many resources (in this scenario, time) as larger companies, the small guys can still put out interesting materials (and are also relatively safe from fulfillment house implosions, supplement treadmills and cursed trophies... most of the time).

    Wrinkle 4 was a call for off-site marketing and a tiny resource management game where the companies had to place an imaginary budget into promoting their games' sales (making more money for retailers) or its visibility (primarily online, to RPG fans). Both companies chose to promote their games to the fans. But as the Norigins is a tool of the Game Manufactures and Retailers Association (GAMERA), a popular game that doesn't make those guys any money is not going to win. Higher sales trumped the "Oooo Shiny!" factor and Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 1 won the trophy.

    The last Wrinkle dealt with community. Can you mobilize your fans to get out there and promote your game? A good way to do this is with a review and Out There had a strong showing (actual play post) in this department, both receiving reviews and having one of its creators author a review.

    In the end, there can be only one. I was disappointed that only four games came out of this nearly 2-month process. The requirements of the initial part of the contest were a bit tough, but once the indie Wrinkle opened up the playing field, I thought there would be a dozen games, easy.

    What's funny is that the game that ended up winning was created in a short period of time by a team of three. Not only was it the game with the highest sales (by a fair margin), it had lots of exposure, a great website, lots of discussion tangential to the game itself and the winning team did this while pandering to a target audience of one: Me. It was also the one game in the contest I bought and one of the two I sat down and read through.
  3.  # 3
    Observations
    Companies that created a logo for the contest: 0
    Companies that did not feature a game sample or character sheet:2
    Companies that did not feature their company name or logo on the cover of the game: 4
    Companies that did not feature one or more of the creator's names on the cover of the game: 2
    Companies that posted about their game one a news site or in RPG.net's Ads/Open Promo forum (that I saw): 0
    Companies that turned out vaporware: 3 (?) plus more that never seemed to congeal past a vague interest in participating
    Companies that were mentioned on a podcast (again, that I heard): 0
    Games I played: 0
    Games I bought as a paying customer: 1
    Games I received as a promotional item: 1
    Games I read through: 2

    Conclusions
    Overall, a good experience. Here's how I broke down the four companies:

    Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 1 is a third-generation Forge game. Card-based mechanics, feminist themes, relationship-centric and marketing that talks about the kinds of stories it creates rather than the type of game it is. Still, a supplement could help flesh out the existing game and with some flash-bang artwork and graphics, it could be the indie Exalted.

    Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 2 is more like a second-generation Forge game. It stands on the shoulders of games that came before. Probably see a lot of plat at conventions, where the simple setup and situation will appeal to one-shot gamers. A quiet, modest success and may lead to bigger, better games.

    Please remember that I haven't even looked at either of these games and my observations are based solely on what I've seen online and my own predilections and prejudices, of which there are bucketfuls.

    Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 3 graciously provided me with a free copy of its game, an art-house game in the classic Paul Czege mold. Unsurprising as it was done by Paul Czege. A worthy addition to Paul's collection of games, but not my cup of tea. Great character sheet though. This game company arose from the diaspora of the Forge and I suspect its subsequent designs will be even more avant garde. This company is like the web-only publishers who only sell PDFs or just give their works away. Probably in Finnish.

    Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 4 went right for the juglar and did not let go. They even had music. This company came out of nowhere with the best marketing, graphic design and general theme. It also had the best sales. I do not think this is a coincidence. The domino system might put people off but I was into it... we'll see what happens in the future but if they can keep up the momentum I'll place them as a Burning Wheel-style small press dynamo. Most likely to be acquired by Mongoose.


    And the winner is (finally)

    Best company award: Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Game Company 4
    Best RPG award: The Five

    Peace out.
    • CommentAuthorjaywalt
    • CommentTimeFeb 2nd 2009
     # 4
    Congrats to The Five. Well deserved!
    • CommentAuthorDavid Berg
    • CommentTimeFeb 2nd 2009 edited
     # 5
    I guess Wrinkle #5 (the 24hr remix) was kinda its own thing?

    I invite all fans of Sexy Deadly (and maybe the haters as well) to grab Chicks With Disks (free). It has less flavor, but also less search and handling time. I'd particularly like to hear from the Sexy Deadly guys themselves. Trash talk completely welcome.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMatthijs
    • CommentTimeFeb 2nd 2009
     # 6
    Congrats to you all. I liked IGCGDCGC3's game, but then, I like Finnish stuff.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJohnstone
    • CommentTimeFeb 2nd 2009
     # 7
    Jared, thank you for pulling this crazy stunt on us. The supplement was like pulling teeth and reminds me why I never want to publish a game, but working on Sexy Deadly with Joe, Lance, and Tony was an absolute blast, I learned a lot, and now I have a game I am really proud of.

    Congratulations to Paul and the Out There guys for getting your games finished. I think they look good, hope I can get to play them sometime soon.

    Congratulations to The Five for kicking all our asses in such a short amount of time. Nicely done.


    David, I grabbed CWD and skimmed real fast, but I haven't had a chance to actually read it yet.
  8.  # 8
    Sales of Thy Vernal Chieftains by Indie Game Company Game Design Challenge Company #3 prior to midnight, January 31st, PST, were 68 units. If the deadline was midnight, EST, sales were 67 units. How about you guys?

    Paul
    • CommentAuthorThor O
    • CommentTimeFeb 3rd 2009
     # 9
    Wow! Thanks guys. And thanks Jared!

    Paul, we sold 78 units by midnight PST, or 76 by midnight EST.
  10.  # 10
    Sexy Deadly sold 46 units games. I am amused, however, that we inspired three works that were twists on Sexy Deadly.
  11.  # 11
    I should also add that the requirement that contestants sell their entries was part of the challenge. Even chargin $.01 is a barrier to people reading your game, but an important one that filters out casual collectors (who might not ever open the PDF). I am very happy to see that some if not all of the games will be developed further into full games.
  12.  # 12
    Hey Jared,

    You thought there would be easily a dozen games submitted once the indie wrinkle opened the playing field; the crazy high participation level in Game Chef would seem to suggest this. But I think there were two other barriers to participation in the Indie Game Design Company Game Design Challenge beyond the not insignificant December requirement of collaborating as a Developer+Designer+Writer+Artist team:

    1. The wide open lack of constraints on the actual creative and mechanical details of the games. The content constraints imposed on Game Chef participants are creatively empowering. When you can create anything, it's a lot harder to know what to create.

    2. The requirement of charging money for it. When you submit a Game Chef entry you leave it up to others to decide its true merit. When you charge for something, you assert it's worth money. "You decide" is an entirely different interaction paradigm than "I assert," and one that's much much harder to exert for your creative work.

    Paul
    • CommentAuthorjaywalt
    • CommentTimeFeb 3rd 2009
     # 13
    Also, I think many solo designers had already mentally checked out of the contest by the time it was open to them to participate. Plus, there's a lot more involved in getting ready to sell something: webpage, info on the game, Paypal button, promotion, etc. That may seem pretty easy, but not if you don't already know how to do it and it places yet more obstacles to participation. Also, this is just a slow time of year for folks in general; not as much participation period, compared to the fall or pre-Dec winter period.
    • CommentAuthorThor O
    • CommentTimeFeb 3rd 2009
     # 14
    Paul, your points are well taken, but I think those two things were also quite deliberate decisions on Jared's part. I suspect that Jared viewed this as a game publishing contest and not a game design contest at all.
  15.  # 15
    Considering how I judged the entries, Thor, well... duh.
    • CommentAuthorjaywalt
    • CommentTimeFeb 3rd 2009
     # 16
    Considering our ratio of designers to publishers, I think the numbers probably make sense, then.
    • CommentAuthorDavid Berg
    • CommentTimeFeb 3rd 2009 edited
     # 17
    Out There sold a mere 36 copies, despite me littering the internet with actual play posts, including from an independent playtest.

    My theory was that if I could interest people enough to click through to the web page, they'd be willing to pay a buck to learn more. Thus, I didn't update the web page from the original state I was able to get it into by Dec. 31. Alas, I didn't set up a click tracker, so I have no idea if my theory was right or not.

    Questions:

    Perhaps actual play posts are a shitty way to advertise when you aren't already a well-known name? Perhaps my specific posts weren't well suited for grabbing customers? Or perhaps people did check my site, but didn't find enough there to entice them?

    It could also be a matter of market niche: maybe there are already a ton of games out there that you can use to do an X-Files episode, but few you can use for hip-hop battlin'?

    After several conversations about Out There, I've realized that one of its most unique aspects is randomizing character presence per scene. Even though this might turn off some people, maybe it would have been wise to play that up, on the theory that novelty grabs more initial interest?

    Answers?

    Those who consider themselves to know something about these dynamics: what do you think?

    Also, I am curious about how the other contestants got their games out there.

    P.S. I saw this contest as a chance to test my ability to market to strangers. As such, I didn't email any of my friends & relatives. I'm sure I could have racked up a few more sales that way, though still not into Paul's and The Five's territory.
    • CommentAuthoredheil
    • CommentTimeFeb 3rd 2009
     # 18
    Congratulations to everybody. :)
  19.  # 19
    If your friends won't buy your games, neither will your enemies.
    •  
      CommentAuthorGraham
    • CommentTimeFeb 3rd 2009
     # 20
    David, if you start a thread called "Why didn't you buy Out There?", I'll tell you why I didn't (and so will others).

    Graham
  21.  # 21
    Best of all, every "Why didn't you buy ________?" thread comes with a pacifier and a rattle.
  22.  # 22
    Good idea, Graham, I will. That'll cover the S-G crowd.

    I'm still curious to hear others' takes about reaching out beyond the S-G crowd.
  23.  # 23
    Posted By: Jared A. SorensenBest of all, every "Why didn't you buy ________?" thread comes with a pacifier and a rattle.


    Ouch.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMarhault
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009
     # 24
    I don't know about the rest of the potential designers, but for me it was less about the time crunch to get the game itself finished and more about not having enough time to be competitive in sales after the game was finished.
    • CommentAuthorPaul Czege
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009 edited
     # 25
    Hey Jamey,

    Atul Gawande, in his book Complications, writes about research by Harvard Business School on the functioning of cardiac surgery teams:

    Posted By: Atul Gawande...researchers found striking disparities in the speed with which different teams learned. All teams received the same three-day training session and came from highly respected institutions with experience adopting innovations. Yet in the course of fifty cases, some teams managed to halve their operating time while others failed to improve at all. Practice, it turned out, did not necessarily make perfect. Whether it did, the researchers found, depended on how the surgeons and their teams practiced.

    Richard Bohmer, the one physician among the Harvard researchers, made several visits to observe one of the quickest-learning teams and one of the slowest, and he was startled by the contrast. The surgeon on the fast-learning team was actually quite inexperienced compared with the one on the slow-learning team--he was only a couple of years out of training. But he made sure to pick team members with whom he had worked well before and to keep them together through the first fifteen cases before allowing any new members. He had the team go through a dry run before the first case, then deliberately scheduled six operations in the first week, so little would be forgotten in between. He convened the team before each case to discuss it in detail and afterward to debrief. He made sure results were tracked carefully. And as a person, Bohmer noticed, the surgeon was not the stereotypical Napoleon with a knife. Unbidden, he told Bohmer, "The surgeon needs to be willing to allow himself to become a partner [with the rest of the team] so he can accept input." It sounded perhaps a little cliched; but then again, whatever he was doing worked. At the other hospital, the surgeon chose his operating team almost randomly and did not keep it together. In his first seven cases, the team had different members every time, which is to say that it was no team at all. And he had no pre-briefings, no debriefings, no tracking of ongoing results.
    When the ashes of Thor's effort as Developer in December left me with game mechanics and Wrinkle #3 offered me an outlet for them, I knew the one hurdle I probably couldn't clear myself in the allotted time, along with everything else, was the cover art. I'd worked well with Ed in the past. So I threw money at him. There was no proscription in the Wrinkle against hiring someone.

    My recommendation to you would have been to partner with or hire someone who could do marketing for you in parallel to your designing and writing, someone who you've worked well with in the past.

    If you look at how and why Thor's team, and other teams failed in the December phase of the Challenge, and why the team behind The Five succeeded in January, the reason is clear from the Gawande quote above. Teams who were formed from folks who hadn't worked well together in the past, failed. John, Thor Olavsrud, and Kevin, however, have been gaming together for some time now.

    Paul
    •  
      CommentAuthorjenskot
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009
     # 26
    Posted By: Paul CzegeIf you look at how and why Thor's team, and other teams failed in the December phase of the Challenge, and why the team behind The Five succeeded in January, the reason is clear from the Gawande quote above. Teams who were formed from folks who hadn't worked well together in the past, failed. John, Thor Olavsrud, and Kevin, however, have been gaming together for some time now.

    And given what Kevin threatened to do to Thor and I if we failed... we didn't have a choice! He certainly knows how to motivate someone! Damn!

    Strong project management, diversity of skills, familiarity with each other, time availability, resources, and connections all played into our favor. We spent a good amount of time figuring out what we were all good at, exactly how much time we had to realistically contribute with those skills, and brainstorming many game ideas before doing any work. It was important to set expectations properly and stay in constant communication. We met once a week but kept each other updated multiple times a day via Google Docs and text messaging. It also helped that people kept missing our Thursday D&D game. So we had extra time to brainstorm! And Kevin's threats of violence. His demonstration of what he would do to us was something I couldn't stop thinking about. Thanks Kevin!
    • CommentAuthoredheil
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009
     # 27
    RE: shilling to friends vs selling to strangers.

    I was not on Paul's team, right. I was a hired gun. Paul was Paul's team, period. When I offered to buy a copy of TVC (it's a buck!) despite getting a comp copy, Paul shoo'ed me off, since he didn't want to win the contest by any shady means; I wasn't hired to help the game win, just to illustrate it.

    So I was hesitant about going off myself and promoting the game to my friends and contacts.

    However, I have a *financial* interest in Paul doing well, since he's paying me out of the proceeds from the game.

    I decided that it was in my interest that Paul sell as much as possible, but it was not particularly in my interest that he *win*. So I relentlessly pimped *all three* (eventually four) games via facebook and another BBS I'm on and a mailing list and I think Twitter. As long as I was promoting everybody, I wasn't overreaching my part in the contest.

    And I bought a copy of Out There and Sexy Deadly (never got around to snagging The Five), cause they're a damn buck, why the hell wouldn't I?

    So thanks to me Paul did benefit from some shilling to friends, but hopefully so did everybody else.
    • CommentAuthoredheil
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009
     # 28
    The thing that mars this whole contest for me is the way Jared relentlessly censors himself to avoid hurting anyone's feelings.
    • CommentAuthorDavid Berg
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009 edited
     # 29
    Yeah, if I ever meet Jared I'm just gonna go give him a big hug.

    Paul, thanks for sharing that study. I was already super jealous of John/Thor/Kevin, and now I can better articulate why. My own team came together as a result of my desparately grabbing for anyone to help. I didn't know Alexander, Jason, Jaume, or their strengths. I actually view it as quite miraculous that Out There was made at all.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAdam Dray
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009
     # 30
    Posted By: David BergYeah, if I ever meet Jared I'm just gonna go give him a big hug.


    Careful. He wears one of those spiky collars to keep creeps like you away. He also might pop a cap in your ass.
    • CommentAuthorThor O
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009 edited
     # 31
    Posted By: David BergAlso, I am curious about how the other contestants got their games out there.


    Hey David,

    We had a plan right from the outset. While I was writing and Kevin was creating the layout template, John was putting together a mailing list of gamers that he knew and researching the elements he wanted for the Web site.

    When we launched, John sent out an email blast. We posted to Story Games. John started a thread at NerdNYC. Kevin posted to his blog. I started a thread at the Burning Wheel forums.

    We knew from the beginning that we would want to make a more polished version of this game once the contest was finished, and we also felt a little uncomfortable charging money for something that we had not rigorously playtested yet. We decided to eliminate those issues from the equation by making it clear, upfront, that all profit from this version of the game would be donated.

    In fact, we turned it into a marketing opportunity by deciding to donate the proceeds to nerdnyc.org (thereby catching the interest of nerds) in order to print bookmarks to help people who pick up games through the Cafe Game Exchange find people to play games with (thereby catching the interest of people interested in supporting Indie games). We also threw a wider net by offering anyone who bought this version a $2 discount on the final version.

    We had a list of gaming sites to which we planned to submit a press release, but ultimately decided not to do so, as we didn't want to push the early version of the game too hard to people who might mistake it for a finished, polished game.

    Since we had less than a week between launch and the end of the contest, we knew actual play, and thus substantive conversation about the game, was unlikely. But the game allowed us to have interesting conversations about things peripheral to the game (i.e., the awesomeness of East Coast hip hop), that would catch attention and encourage folks to contribute. (Note, that sort of thing only works if it's of genuine interest to you. People can spot shills from a mile away.)

    I'll be the first to tell you that we had a number of advantages out of the gate.

    One, as Paul said, we're friends, play games together, and got to meet in person at least three times while working on the game. We had to figure out how to collaborate remotely as well, but we had the ability to get together to grease the gears.

    Two, we know Jared. In fact, Jared was one of the players in the Thursday night group that didn't show up one night, which is why we created The Five in the first place. I don't think Jared extended us any special treatment because of this. However, we knew that what we were making was going to catch his eye.

    Three, we're "established." Kevin has made a number of interesting games, John runs nerdnyc, and I've worked on some pretty popular games. People recognize our names, and that makes it more likely that someone is going to check out what we're offering.

    Four, I think music, and especially hip hop, is underrepresented in RPGs. This hobby draws from all sorts of other media, but music is uncommon. I think our choice to make hip hop front and center tapped into something and gave people permission to get their geek on with a subject that doesn't come up as much in RPG circles.
  32.  # 32
    Thor,

    Thanks! That is very useful.

    I had the exact same hang-up about pushing an unfinished game. Even now, I feel queasy that people might associate my name with this unpolished thing. I really, really wanted to say, "This is the first version, and there WILL be another!" in big letters to any prospective buyers... unfortunately, it wasn't true. I still haven't finalized any agreements with my collaborators on what happens post-contest. If Alexander decided tomorrow, "I don't want you using my system for future projects," that would be that.

    With the adrenaline high of the scramble to meet the contest deadline worn off (presumably), how's your own motivation level for putting more work into a game you haven't even played yet?

    Personally, I'm motivated to fix things that I view to be clearly defective (mostly a sentence here, a phrase there), and I want to make Out There be the most playable game that I can... but I'm not sure I care about putting in the work to make it pretty, and get it out there, and support it.

    Anyway, I consider your donation idea a brilliant strategy that's perfectly suited to this contest. I wish I'd thought of it myself. I would have been much more willing to push an unpolished game on folks if it was for a cause.
  33.  # 33
    Here's how I marketed Thy Vernal Chieftains:

    • I hired Ed to do a compelling cover illustration, and leaked it here at Story Games.
    • I leaked the character sheets here at Story Games.
    • I created the page with the PayPal button and posted announcements that the game was for sale here on Story Games, and in the Half Meme Press forum at The Forge.
    • When someone ordered the game, I told them what customer number they were, and asked them to let me know what they thought of the game. My thinking was that knowing what customer number they were might draw folks in a bit, might invest/enlist them in the game's race for the finish line. The only time I didn't give out a person's customer number is if I thought there were possible "competitive intelligence" consequences to informing that specific person how the game was selling.
    • In an IM conversation with Rich Rogers I told him I thought Mick Bradley would like the game, from things Mick had said about his game preferences in a recent episode of Canon Puncture.
    • When Mick emailed me and told me he mostly had what he needed for a set of special tokens, I encouraged him to post a photo here at Story Games. And on the assumption he'd follow through, I went to a local metaphysical shop, bought myself some tokens, and had a photo of my own ready for a reply post to him.
    • When Steve Hickey, who has emailed me in the past about his successes running My Life with Master, emailed to say he was committed to playing Bacchanal this year, and that he'd downloaded Thy Vernal Chieftains at 6:00 a.m., intending just to flip through it, and that in fact he'd read the whole thing, I encouraged him to write and post a review at RPG.net.
    • And I posted in the Half Meme Press forum at The Forge about my design goals for the game.

    And that was pretty much it.

    Probably I dropped the ball on a couple of marketing opportunities. Ralph emailed me some comments about the game's foundation of political catharsis which would have made for a good public conversation and may have generated some interest; I should have encouraged him to start it. But one consequence of being a solo entry is that I didn't have the same personal bandwidth for promoting the game as the multi-person teams. So some stuff I'd have liked to do didn't get done.

    At no point, however, did I email any of my friends and suggest they buy it. I didn't really want to leverage friendship for sales. When I had more sellable copies of the Acts of Evil ashcan after Gen Con 2007, I did email some friends to ask if they wanted to own a copy, and many of them did. But I only did that because I knew I wouldn't be printing any more copies of it in that form. With Thy Vernal Chieftains I wanted the game to sell on its merits, and I only really wanted to sell it to folks with current interest in narrativist gaming. And I have a number of friends who aren't currently active in their interest. (However, if I'd known how close my sales were to those of The Five, I may have succumbed. I might have emailed Victor Gijsbers, John Kirk, and Scott Knipe. I'm surprised Jamey Crook didn't buy it. He'd have received an email. A bit of combing of my contacts and I think I would have generated another ten sales from maybe 45 minutes of emailing. Thankfully, the team behind The Five wasn't informing me of their sales numbers.)

    So, what's the take-away of comparing my marketing against that of the other teams?

    Paul
    • CommentAuthorThor O
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009
     # 34
    Posted By: David BergWith the adrenaline high of the scramble to meet the contest deadline worn off (presumably), how's your own motivation level for putting more work into a game you haven't even played yet?


    Things are definitely less frenzied than before the contest ended, but I think the overall motivation level is fairly high. We've playtested it a little and already have some revisions in mind. We're still seeing subscriptions to our mailing list, so that's nice encouragement. We also got a nice plug from Will Hindmarch today, which helped.

    Right now, we're aiming to have something a little tighter with which to play some pick up games at Dreamation.
    •  
      CommentAuthorWolfe
    • CommentTimeFeb 4th 2009
     # 35
    Joe, Tony and Johnstone may chime in, or may not. Here's what happened with SxDy:

    Once it was created, I shilled it on LiveJournal.

    This resulted in absolutely no sales that I'm aware of. The only people on my friends list who bought the game probably heard about it elsewhere. None of my friends outside of the indie community made a purchase.

    I created the product on Facebook, but I had no bloody clue what to do with it, so I did nothing.

    I mentioned it to some friends and co-workers who were gamers. Some expressed interest in purchasing it. None did.

    Basically, the only sale that I'm reasonably certain *may* have been related to my efforts was Ron Edwards, because I made a Sexy Deadly character for his on-going color-first discussions.

    Oh, and Jason Petrasko bought a copy to "balance" my purchase of Out There. I suspect he'd have bought a copy anyhow, as I know I would have, as well.

    Also, Paul: You said "Teams who were formed from folks who hadn't worked well together in the past, failed."

    This is not true in our case. I consider Sexy Deadly a success. It's playable, and has produced fun play. It needs work before I'd call it a finished product, and I think the rest of our team agrees. Prior to this contest, I basically had no clue who Johnstone, Joe and Tony were. We were almost entirely unable to discuss this game in any sort of real-time format, except for Joe and Johnstone. All other communication was via e-mail. Though we weren't in the top sales, we did respectably for a game made in a month and sold for money, something all of us have expressed doubts about.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRafu
    • CommentTimeFeb 5th 2009
     # 36
    Posted By: WolfeBasically, the only sale that I'm reasonably certain *may* have been related to my efforts was Ron Edwards, because I made a Sexy Deadly character for his on-going color-first discussions.

    I'm sure you got some more sales from that endevour as well... I'd say half the reason I bought SxDy myself was that discussion on the Forge. The other half being, of course, a strong curiosity to see such untonydowlerish artwork by Tony Dowler. ^__^
    • CommentAuthorPaul Czege
    • CommentTimeFeb 5th 2009 edited
     # 37
    Hey Lance,

    Posted By: WolfeAlso, Paul: You said "Teams who were formed from folks who hadn't worked well together in the past, failed."

    This is not true in our case.

    I didn't say all teams formed from folks who hadn't worked well together in the past failed. It's too bad the dataset is so limited, but my sense is that teams formed from folks who hadn't worked together in the past had a lower incidence of success and a lower degree of success than teams who had prior experience working together.

    (Your counter argument is that Kevin, Thor, John, and I brought our personal name recognition to our game entries, accounting for the higher degree of sales success despite only selling for six days. So, yes, my contention that having worked well together in the past was the key factor is essentially unprovable.)

    Paul
    •  
      CommentAuthorWolfe
    • CommentTimeFeb 5th 2009
     # 38
    My intent wasn't really a "You're WRONG Paul!" as just that I didn't want the statement to stand unchallenged. I personally went into it looking to join up with people I didn't know, which is why I didn't latch on when Lx, a good friend of mine, expressed interest in the contest. I felt it was more in the spirit of the contest to work with strangers, so as to have to build a working relationship under the time pressure.

    ...which supports your general point, I guess. I was deliberately looking for the more difficult path.. And difficult means that the chances of success are lower.
    • CommentAuthorDavid Berg
    • CommentTimeFeb 5th 2009 edited
     # 39
    Thanks for the info, guys.

    Posted By: Paul CzegeSo, what's the take-away of comparing my marketing against that of the other teams?

    As far as I can figure:
    - featuring visuals helps, especially good ones (pretty cover, character sheet w/ neat wheels & arrows)
    - when in a contest, it can't hurt to try to involve folks ("help me win! whee!")
    - peripherals that might grab someone are good; when they do, invite conversation! (a la Thor's threads on east coast hip-hop)

    The first two are things I obviously could have done. The third wasn't inherent to my game as submitted to the contest, but we could have come up with something (in fact, Jason did, but his health prevented him from following through).

    There are some other takeaways if you already have fans and regular audiences for your thoughts and work, but those don't apply to me. :)

    My single biggest takeaway from this specific experience is "find a way to market the product for what it is," and accordingly, "don't get too wrapped up in what it isn't."

    -David

    P.S. To elaborate on that last thought:
    I have all sorts of strategies I'll be employing to market my first real game when it's done, strategies that simply didn't apply here. Half of the difference is about time, and the other half is about passion -- when Delve is done it is going to be so fucking awesome that I will feel no compunction about saying so wherever and whenever I can. As opposed to Out There, which is, y'know, neat, and does some cool things, and might benefit from more rules and guidelines, and man I really want to reword that paragraph on page 5, etc.

1 to 39 of 39

  1.