Hot answers tagged marketing
22
Make your game framerate independent, so you can set it to play with a fixed timestep. Play your game, record the input. Replay with fixed timestep, recorded input and write every frame to a file - since you replay with fixed timestep it doesn't matter how long writing out a frame takes.
That way your source footage is uncompressed and you can decide on ...
21
The main models I can think of are:
Charge per copy - the traditional "software licensing" model, you charge your customers a retail price to "buy" a copy of the software and the subsequent right to install or play it. This is still a dominant model for software of all kinds including PC, console and mobile device games, even after the introduction of ...
19
One industry-sponsored study claims that only 22% of customers had a positive attitude toward social media advertising, and 8% of consumers abandoned an SNS (Social-networking sites) because of what they perceived as excessive advertising[1].
Schlosser, Shavitt and Kanfer reached the conclusion that users who "actively contribute content" view online ...
16
The concept hasn't really died, it's just changed a bit and been given a new name. In fact, if you have an iPhone you can see it in action right now! Many 'free' or 'lite' games offer a sampling of gameplay and allow you to purchase DLC to promote it to the full title.
On the PC use has declined, but I believe part of the reason for this is the lack of a ...
16
Angry Birds matches the iPhone market very well.
Short gameplay sessions match the phones usage patterns
High art production values
Setting/Characters that are appealing to both sexes
Very simple mechanics that offer mastery potential in time
This make it a game well suited to the platform and it can appeal to the full range of iPhone users. This is ...
12
The Zero Budget Indie Marketing Guide is a great read. Besides that, definitely start building buzz as soon as you have anything to show, and do your best to keep the buzz up. Demos, trailers, articles, blog posts, whatever you can get to drive traffic and interest. From what I've heard, paid advertising is not very effective for indie games, so you may ...
12
I agree with Ef Es, get a couple of people, parents/friends whoever, and watch them play through it. It's the worse to launch a game only to find it really hard because you were use to the game mechanics.
I suggest maybe making a blog of the launch of your game, just go over the details, any updates can be listed there as well.
If money isn't a concern, ...
10
Hiring somebody to do your PR sounds very "non-indie." And it's certainly not likely to be good from a budgetary standpoint -- most indie games do not sell nearly as well as, say, Minecraft has.
For an indie developer with a small (or nonexistent) budget, you probably have to work the grass roots angle more than anything else. Promoting your game on ...
8
This article on Pixel Prospector may be what you need:
How To Record And Edit Gameplay Videos
The game used in the video is NeonPlat 2, which also uses vector graphics.
The article covers everything, from capturing to editing.
8
No feedback is feedback; it could mean that your testers simply don't find the game engaging enough to feel like investing time in crafting reasonable feedback for you. Obviously it will be tricky to figure out why, but it's possible the people you are putting the game in front of are not the ideal demographic (or are not ideal testers). Or it's possible the ...
8
For some actual stats, here is a detailed survey conducted on Flash games in 2009: http://wiki.mochimedia.com/w/page/15156195/Flash%20Games%20Market%20Survey
You' probably be only interested in some of the slides like below though (slide 18).
8
Have a look at some similar questions under the marketing tag.
Here are some things to do:
Make the game worth playing (see comment)
Get friends, family, colleagues, anyone to play it and tell people about it. This kicks off your initial word of mouth campaign.
Social media. Facebook site, twitter account, blog, there are loads now. This will increase ...
7
Nothing wrong with a donate button, but don't forget ads. You should include other options than Paypal like Amazon or Google Checkout since some people don't use Paypal.
Good answer of ads in android applications:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2471417/embedding-ads-on-android-app
6
I'm the creator of Trainyard for iOS. It's a puzzle game, and when players solve a puzzle, they can share their solution on Facebook, Twitter, or directly on the Trainyard site.
I don't do in-app analytics, but I can tell you that players do use the buttons. You can do a simple twitter search to see the people that have tweeted from the game in the past ...
6
It's a decision made by the developers/publishers. In markets where a price-tag is an obstacle (eg. Apps), a lot of developers choose to go with a free-to-play game and get their revenue from ads or in-app purchases.
This business-model is also very common in browser-games. I'm not aware of any browser game that you actually buy before you can play it.
...
5
It's still around. We just no longer call it Shareware. We call it the "freemium" model: free to play but with premium content available for cash. The only difference between now and the old days is that we have better ways of accepting payment today: accepting credit cards over the internet (no more "mail a check to this address and we'll send you the full ...
5
I don't know how effective this idea is (I haven't tried it yet) but for my current project I am going to advertise on Facebook. Let me explain.
Essentially I am going to create a fan page, and run an ad campaign on Facebook. What I figure is I can spend like $30/mo (or what ever you want) for advertising. As people become a "fan" of the page, a lot of ...
5
Virality is usually measured by it's K-Factor. The two links in the wikipedia article there are helpful as well - the article on viral app objectives lays out things, and Jon Radoff's spreadsheet can be interesting to play with to figure out some of the interconnections between various factors.
K-Factor represents the lifetime number of infections that a ...
5
If you are playtesting early builds, it's good to test in-person. You can actually observe players getting frustrated, discovering exploits, or having fun in real-time, and it's easier to ask them questions immediately after they are done testing. For indie games, simpler solutions are often better.
Put your game on a laptop and go to a place where people ...
5
With Angry Bird Seasons, they have a really good ploy to keep you playing the game. They are only releasing one level every day. This keeps users coming back every day to play the next level. For the Android market, this is a fantastic idea because that means people are going to be coming back every day to see your ads.
5
There are a number of iPhone publishers who will submit your app for you under their name, for a percentage of your profits. One that comes to mind is Chillingo (their other company, Clickgamer, published Angry Birds). If you look around, you'll most likely find one that fits your needs.
There are also companies who promote your app, but I don't know much ...
5
For your game, I have some suggestions.
Interesting idea, but scrap it and start again. Okay, not completely scrap it, but it needs some work :D
(0) rebrand it as an edumacational - pitch it at kids - target the home school market
(1) The music seems kind of repetititve
(2) The music cancels the user's music which might have been playing in the ...
5
I think the Sword & Sworcery is a great example of how to effectively implement social media posting into a game. In this case it was strictly twitter, but I think they owe a large portion of their success to this feature.
Instead of posting scores or progress in a traditional sense, all of the story in the game is broken into 140 character chunks, ...
5
Although it is meant for software selling in general and not just only games, I found this book very useful and clear (and it's free!): Don't just roll the dice, by Neil Davidson (He also has other free books which may be worth reading).
4
Because people played the Shareware version of the game and then when it was done. They stopped playing and did not buy it.
So the turnover rate was very low.
The old shareware model you speak of "died" when the internet came to be popular, since a large part of the old shareware model was the shareware distributes and the copy/delivery fee you had to pay ...
4
Just because a game is "free" doesn't mean you can't monetize it. See this question: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/297/what-are-some-common-ways-to-generate-revenue-from-a-free-game
In short, "freemium" (namely, releasing a game for free to build up a user base and relying on microtransactions to build up revenue) is one of the better ways ...
4
For recording your game footage, you could try CamStudio, which is free. I find that it doesn't work with games in full screen mode though, so you'll want to run your game in a window.
As for making the actual trailer, you'll want some video editing software. There are several expensive commercial options, but if you're looking for something free, your ...
4
Well I agreement with wkerslake I think other strategies which matter are visibility of your app... Like you need to set up a social networking account that can keep tabs on bugs being reported and updated real time... Helps a lot if people who get the app feel like they are being listened to and also helps with your word of mouth spreading...
4
http://ibetatest.com/
Have people play test your games before sending them off for submission. You'll get great feedback from the people there, and it's really cheap. I usually pay $5 to a beta tester and they offer a lot of constructive feedback.
It's better to have a polished game that you want to market then to have an unpolished one.
3
My best experience is with Fraps but I used the full version (it seemed like a small one-time prize to pay for a great utility) which has no limits or logo. You can set the framerate beforehand, as David Young suggested in his comment. Like many video capturing tools, Fraps uses a low-cost compression during while it's recording which then can be converted ...
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