Garry hire me for market please pm me and I will send my resume thanks
The only way booths are ever useful is for showing off to the press, which is really only relevant for announcements or for larger companies
[QUOTE=darth-veger;47735699]A booth is not completely useless though. On Gamescom for example there are tons of developers who also just want to hear what you have to say about their game and for the people who work on the game its fun to be around with some fans.
Developers from Wildstar used their booth as a good place to introduce you to their game by having a dev on your side who quickly explains the game to you.
But yeah i guess on the marketing side its not that useful.[/QUOTE]
Gamescom is about showing your game to the press and the showfloor is for people with big marketing budgets.
[QUOTE=SEKCobra;47737022]Gamescom is about showing your game to the press and the showfloor is for people with big marketing budgets.[/QUOTE]
There are a shitton of indie booths though, someone from Facepunch also has a booth there so its not just for people with big marketing budgets.
[QUOTE=VintageCat;47735731]After reading that article I can't help but imagine Garry at university saying things to students like "Don't be a shit videogame company" or "Remember, launch is not a cumshot"[/QUOTE]
he has a remarkable way with words
Star Citizen's going to Gamescom, but they're specifically setting up an event for their fans, so setting up a booth and demoing the game to press and randoms that may have never seen it is sort of the thing they do for the rest of the time they're there. SC also has $82 million in the bank for their development budget, of course, so they're not your average small indie studio trying to break out.
Cities: Skylines is pretty much a textbook example of what garry's talking about. They did virtually no ad-based marketing at launch, and instead just handed keys out to some big streamers/youtubers and lifted the embargo a week before game launch. They also made a pretty solid game, and the combination of good game and press keys to streamers hit the jackpot. That they were tapping the demand for a SimCity 2013 as it should've been probably helped, but Skylines is Paradox's best-performing game yet.
[QUOTE=darth-veger;47735699]A booth is not completely useless though. On Gamescom for example there are tons of developers who also just want to hear what you have to say about their game and for the people who work on the game its fun to be around with some fans.
Developers from Wildstar used their booth as a good place to introduce you to their game by having a dev on your side who quickly explains the game to you.
But yeah i guess on the marketing side its not that useful.[/QUOTE]
Speaking from a completely non-financial perspective:
Gamescom is great for seeing people approach and play your game. If they stay there for a minute you've caught their attention, if they stay there for half an hour just playing the game then there's sorta a big chance they're having fun and that's a delight to see.
And one thing to mention: on the internet, you only see the numbers, and if you aren't careful you get used to those numbers and it only pains you when they start going down. Seeing people play the game in person is a different thing though. Imagine 50 people downloading your game and 50 people standing next to your booth waiting to play the game. Chances are you'll be more excited about the latter.
Of course, it all depends on the person. If you're garry, I guess your own satisfaction is enough to keep you going and striving for more. Then again, he already got his money hat.
quality alternative: sleep with journalists in exchange for positive coverage
[QUOTE=Murkrow;47737380]Speaking from a completely non-financial perspective:
Gamescom is great for seeing people approach and play your game. If they stay there for a minute you've caught their attention, if they stay there for half an hour just playing the game then there's sorta a big chance they're having fun and that's a delight to see.
And one thing to mention: on the internet, you only see the numbers, and if you aren't careful you get used to those numbers and it only pains you when they start going down. Seeing people play the game in person is a different thing though. Imagine 50 people downloading your game and 50 people standing next to your booth waiting to play the game. Chances are you'll be more excited about the latter.
Of course, it all depends on the person. If you're garry, I guess your own satisfaction is enough to keep you going and striving for more. Then again, he already got his money hat.[/QUOTE]
Generally companies don't fly to the other side of the world to do QA
[QUOTE=Cold;47737967]Generally companies don't fly to the other side of the world to do Q&A[/QUOTE]
Nobody said anything about doing Q&A. Besides, smaller companies would obviously just attend the closest games convention (and likely the most affordable). There isn't just Gamescom and E3 in the world.
[QUOTE=Murkrow;47738002]Nobody said anything about doing Q&A. Besides, smaller companies would obviously just attend the closest games convention (and likely the most affordable). There isn't just Gamescom and E3 in the world.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, i meant QA(as in, playtesting) instead of "Q&A"
[QUOTE=KillerJaguar;47735649]This works for small indie devs who haven't invested millions of dollars into their game[/QUOTE]
It works for anyone. If you wonder why the industry is having the issues it does, the place you should be looking is "why" a AAA game needs a marketing budget 30-60% larger than the actual design budget.
[sp] they don't, and if you wonder you're repeatedly paying shit games, here's part of the answer[/sp]
Seriously? The guy who ripped off JBmod and DayZ is trying to tell us about originality?
Those two graph images are pretty amazing. "Oh wow, that launch.... oh wow... that's the launch?"
[QUOTE=27X;47738754]It works for anyone. If you wonder why the industry is having the issues it does, the place you should be looking is "why" a AAA game needs a marketing budget 30-60% larger than the actual design budget.
[sp] they don't, and if you wonder you're repeatedly paying shit games, here's part of the answer[/sp][/QUOTE]
The issue with AAA games isn't the marketing budget, if anything that's one of the reasons it still works. It sells it to everyone that aren't "core gamers".
The issue is that they can't and won't afford risks. They want, or rather, need, their games to be sellable to anyone and everyone, they can't afford betting on a project being good enough with no statistics or numbers standing behind it.
The people that spit money into AAA games expect it to come back. That's the problem. Marketing budgets are merely a reflection of that unwillingness to have it flop.
They prefer a [I]safe[/I] 5 million sales than a [I]successful[/I] 10 million sales. What matters is that they make the revenue they intended to make, not that they made a great game.
[QUOTE=27X;47738754]It works for anyone. If you wonder why the industry is having the issues it does, the place you should be looking is "why" a AAA game needs a marketing budget 30-60% larger than the actual design budget.
[sp] they don't, and if you wonder you're repeatedly paying shit games, here's part of the answer[/sp][/QUOTE]
if it worked for everyone Alan Wake would be getting a sequel! but it turns out that AAA game sales don't necessarily correlate good games with good sales because the demographic that asks for Good Games are dwarfed by people who merely consume games like a simpl
[editline]17th May 2015[/editline]
it's also probably why a part of "making a fun game" can either be "making the game you want to play" or "devote market research to find a proper demographic to serve or keep slapping out prototypes to see what sticks" depending on the games you like
[QUOTE=dgg;47739312]The issue with AAA games isn't the marketing budget, if anything that's one of the reasons it still works. It sells it to everyone that aren't "core gamers".
The issue is that they can't and won't afford risks. They want, or rather, need, their games to be sellable to anyone and everyone, they can't afford betting on a project being good enough with no statistics or numbers standing behind it.
The people that spit money into AAA games expect it to come back. That's the problem. Marketing budgets are merely a reflection of that unwillingness to have it flop.
They prefer a [I]safe[/I] 5 million sales than a [I]successful[/I] 10 million sales. What matters is that they make the revenue they intended to make, not that they made a great game.[/QUOTE]
This is why I'm hoping so hard that Star Citizen delivers with a fist in the jaw of the big risk-adverse AAA studios. It's not going to be able to fulfill every single backer's dream (because of mutual conflicting wishes), but if they make good on their promises while also releasing a genuinely good game, it will be such a validation of the model it's pioneering and might shake up the big guys.
If the model can work this successfully for more than just a Chris Roberts game after a 10-year absence, the future could be very awesome.
[QUOTE=Hamsteronfire;47735669]dutch auction?[/QUOTE]
The Dutch auction combined with the proliferation of keys around here and other places (IRC I think at one stage?) were an actual stroke of genius IMO. It got people talking about it before they even had a chance to play it. The amount of (and I hate this word) hype that was built just by people trying to get a rust key must have been insane.
[QUOTE=Jsm;47743352]The Dutch auction combined with the proliferation of keys around here and other places (IRC I think at one stage?) were an actual stroke of genius IMO. It got people talking about it before they even had a chance to play it. The amount of (and I hate this word) hype that was built just by people trying to get a rust key must have been insane.[/QUOTE]
The real thing that spun up the hype machine into unstoppable territory was the window between garry stopping keys for Golds after we started seeing one-post Golds who just showed up [I]expecting[/I] a key, and the start of the auctions.
During that time, [I]no[/I] new keys were being handed out, and streamers were streaming the game, feeding the demand with tantalizing but unapproachable gameplay. People started sharing accounts, and then scamming people by "selling" them their accounts (really, rental, because the original email address could always recover the account and couldn't be changed). Nothing makes someone want something cool-looking than there being no way to get it (not even pirating, since at the time, the entire game had to download from garry's server to the Unity browser plugin, eliminating unauthorized access except via sharing accounts).
The initial rounds of the auction were for very low numbers of keys, and that drove the hype as well. Also, some people paid >$50 for Rust so they could have it first. At least one key was purchased for $250.
[QUOTE=garry;47735569]Your target audience should be you
Time and time again I see people making games targeted at someone else. This is always an issue because they’re assuming a lot about the target audience, and they don’t enjoy the game they’re making.
Make a game that you want to play. Make the features you want to see.[/QUOTE]
Thank god someone finally said this. My respect for you has shot up.
[QUOTE=saintsim;47743513]Thank god someone finally said this. My respect for you has shot up.[/QUOTE]
It astounds me that it even needs to be said. I might look at game development different from others though because game dev for me has always been about having fun making it and having fun playing with it afterwards.
[QUOTE=MadPro119;47743617]It astounds me that it even needs to be said. I might look at game development different from others though because game dev for me has always been about having fun making it and having fun playing with it afterwards.[/QUOTE]
Who is "you" in a AAA production team? Who is "you" amongst 50-100 team members, sponsors, company and a publisher?
How does 50 people make the game [I]they[/I] want to play together? Stripping down the team to just the designer there is still the company itself, the publisher they have a contract with and the people sponsoring that publisher.
Just in a group of 5 you will have 5 different views on what the game should be.
It's easy to say for indies, it's harder to say for big companies.
I know quite a few one man dev teams who have made games that are on iOS/Steam that they wouldn't play, their friends wouldn't play, and pretty much no-one plays. This advice was mainly aimed at those type of guys. Not Ubisoft.
[QUOTE=garry;47744299]I know quite a few one man dev teams who have made games that are on iOS/Steam that they wouldn't play, their friends wouldn't play, and pretty much no-one plays. This advice was mainly aimed at those type of guys. Not Ubisoft.[/QUOTE]
That makes sense. It is interesting to read people's stories on /r/gamedev who talk about cloning bejeweled like games and what not. They have to realize that if they aren't doing anything new, filling a void, or making a game better that no one will have an incentive to play their game, including themselves.
Hell, the whole reason I made Unlimited Golf was because wanted to play a golf game when I had time to kill between classes but the current games didn't do it for me. Even if no one else ever plays it I won't care because at least I have entertaining toilet times now.
Aren't booths still fun because you get direct and better contact with fans/other devs?
Like, it's a totally different communication line than the Internet. It's less filtered.
Sure you're not reaching a lot of people but that's not the point of a booth, is it?
[quote]You don’t have to be a faceless, heartless corporation. You can communicate like a human.[/quote]
Very funny garry who wrote this for you.
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