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21 October, 2009 |
GBGames: Generating Buzz for Indie Games
pPaul Taylor of Mode 7 Games, creators of iDeterminance/i, wrote an article for Gamasutra called a href=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4117/building_buzz_for_indie_games.phpBuilding Buzz for Indie Games/a which I think ties in and expands upon Christopher M. Park#8217;s a href=http://gbgames.com/blog/2009/10/advice-for-aspiring-indies/advice for aspiring indies/a that I wrote about last week./p
pHe starts by emphasizing marketing, quoting Tim O#8217;Reilly#8217;s message that obscurity is a bigger problem than so-called piracy./p
pMost marketing books and articles will tell you that marketing should start with product creation, that if you created a product before finding out if anyone wants it, you#8217;re going to fail. Taylor and Jeff Tunnell will argue that the nature of the video game industry makes it harder to predict what people will want to play. Who would have thought that iWorld of Goo/i would have been the success it is? /p
pThe bottom line for Taylor: if you are passionate about something, it will be easier to develop, but you#8217;re going to need to find a way to get it in front of people. The more mainstream the product, the easier it is going to be, but the wackier it is, the more work you#8217;ll need to put into marketing. And given that you#8217;re an indie, you#8217;re probably not trying to make something pedestrian or mainstream in the first place. /p
pHe talks about the importance of building your presence early on. All you have is simple concept art or a crazy programming demo? Post them up! SOMEONE is bound to care about them. Look at a href=http://www.dejobaan.com/Dejobaan Games/a for an example. I remember seeing early videos of iAaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity/i before I even knew what it was. a href=http://www.wolfire.com/Wolfire Games/a has a development blog that constantly gets updates with technical details, concept art, videos, and general information about the business of making games. These two indies give their fans a place to rally for them./p
pTaylor wrote a four page article with marketing tips, taking you from concept announcement all the way through to post-release. Read the entire thing, and check out the links at the end of the article for more information./p