KickStarter and Greenlight and Bears Oh My

Posted on November 19, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So it has been a bit since we launched both Greenlight and KickStarter . It has been interesting so far. I am encouraged by Greenlight and blown away by the severe lack of KickStarter wanting to make money.

Let’s start with Greenlight. We launched that thing and we blew up with traffic. We got votes by the bucket load. We unfortunately had some improvements to make and had a lower than what we had hoped yes percentage of 37%. It was still fantastic and that percentage is nothign to be sad about. Since then we fixed the wording on our page to better explain the game. So for the past 8 days our yes percentage is 62% on average which is more like where we thought we should be.

So Greenlight is rocking forward and people are really liking Violent Sol Worlds and would like to see it on Steam in the future. We have a lot more votes to go though, your vote would help greatly in promoting our title. Please head over to our Greenlight page and login to vote it up.

Now for KickStarter. We expected more from KickStarter than what they offered. I know you should not rely on somebody else to drive traffic to you, but the difference between Steam on launch day and KickStarter was like the difference between a Saturn V rocket and a rubber band. Both fly, but one gets somewhere substantial and quickly.

I’m just saying that They can make a ton more money if they actively improved their own traffic and pointed more people in an active way to new projects at least for a day or two to see if they catch or not. The truth that we did not know is that your first day will be the exact same as your sixth day. They did not seem to do what Steam did and drive people to you for a few days. They simply provide you a website and that is it.

Really we have learned a ton about game development in the past few months and have really gotten a ton more fired up about our Title Violent Sol Worlds. Mathematically all our current adventures are proving very good for us. All signs still point to people loving the idea of Violent Sol Worlds and the development is going forward full steam. With all that being said let’s go vote on the Greenlight and promote the KickStarter, let’s get this thing rolling.

Thank you all for your support.

Steam Greenlight, It Can Be Fun

Posted on November 12, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I’ve been live with the Violent Sol Worlds team on Steam Greenlight for a few days now. It is fun, and stressful. We are really enjoying it so far. The first few days we hit hard and were at a great trajectory and traffic was massive. Now it is slowing down right as I expected it to. So now comes the slow climb to the top 100.

The thing is we really wanted to get to at least 50% of the way to top 100 in the first high traffic time, and we did. Now I would like to see about 2 percentage points a day go up, not sure exactly how hard that is to get. The amount of traffic after about 3 days on Steam Greenlight goes way down. You really need to drive traffic there yourself after that it seems.

So I am pushing a bit of Twitter today to see if I can get more voters there in that manner. It always boils down to marketing. If anyone tells you anything about indie game development it should be about marketing. Get good at it and you will be fine. If you are shy or think everything you do is not interesting you are doomed.

Anyway, Greenlight is going great so far I just hope it does not take 6 months to get there. One thing I noticed is a lot of people really want only completely or near finished games on Greenlight. This kinda stinks because that is the reason why a ton of games never even get to take advantage of things like Workshop, or acheivements etc. They get so far in to their design, then here comes valve 90% into their project, with awesome things to integrate that everyone wants and they are hard if not impossible to integrate in.

We want to be greenlit early, so we can have that working relationship with Valve and their APIs early as to have a tightly integrated experience on Steam as soon as we can and not have people having to wait on or never get things like Workshop mods. To get there We do need your vote so please do come by our greenlight page and join the cause to get Violent Sol Worlds Greenlit.

Validation, Get Your Validation Here

Posted on November 7, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Everyone has ton of ideas. Ideas come so often that it is mind blowing that there really isn’t a flooded market for games. The issue is really how do you refine those ideas down in to the one you want to make.

To do this my team has done a fairly simple process. We take a meeting or two and brainstorm all the crazy ideas out on the board. During this phase there are no dumb ideas. Throw everything on the board. Violent Sol Worlds came out of a combination of a destruction derby top-down game and a top-down survival game. You never know what saying one idea with another will do to your head and what will come out.

Once you have your list simply start eliminating, for now, the ones that either you don’t like or cannot do. The list should get smaller and smaller until you get down to a few. Talk about them, see what you love about them all. One will jump out at you as something that should be created. To me this is not enough. Just your idea is not enough to say it should be made.

You need opinions. So what I do is simply start marketing it. Go to social media and start talking about it. As you are creating your POCs, you should POC everything, be telling people about it. If they react well to the idea you will feel it. Show concept sketches, Show game-play POCs. Show everyone anywhere about the idea. The people of the internet will tell you if you can sell the game.

To me at this point you have the two vital questions answered. Do you love the idea, and will people respond to it. If the answer to both those questions is yes then your idea is validated and should be created. If one of those answers is no then go back to the brainstorming stage and find one that will work better. Remember if this current idea is not good there are 500 million more in your head waiting for you to get all excited about.

@magicrat_larry – Join me on Twitter

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

Facebook – join the conversation

Tutorial to Quickly Make Images for Twitter and Other Social Network Posts

Posted on November 6, 2015 by magicrat_larry

It is proven statistically that images improve viewing and interactions of social posts. So to help you get those images made there is a, completely amazing, and simple to use tool on the internet that will help you improve your social media footprint. Meet Pablo…

By default Pablo will load with a quote. So The first thing you will want to do is edit that. To do that you simply double click the text. You should then see that you have a few options to edit both your text itself and the formatting of it.

Here is an explanation of each of the functions that can be done when editing the text.

This is a drop-down that will allow you to select a font type
Choose to bold your text or not
choose to use italics or not
Select font size
Choose alignment of the text
Choose Font color

If you want to move the text around the image you can do that by simply placing the cursor over the text and not double clicking. You can then hold the left mouse button down and drag the text block around until you get it into the best position for your image.

On the left hand side of the page is a list of available stock photos along with an option to upload your own image. The stock images are nice but there is not a ton of them so using google images search to find great photos and such is a great option here to keep this tools life-span going far beyond the use of the stock photos.
Above the image you have chosen is an effects bar with a few options to make it even more unique. Contrast will help with some images to make the text standout even more. Blur is good if you simply want to get a good color behind the text with a blurred form. Black and white is just that, it will turn the image into a black and white image and give a dramatic feel to it.

On the right hand side there are even more options to customize your image. There is a shuffle Quote button to get another default quote populating the text. There is a secondary text toggle to turn on another text block on the image. Here is an example of the Secondary text in action.

The secondary text has similar options as the main text and can be drug around as well to get a great layout. The custom logo option allows you to turn on another image to overlay the current one with. You can see here that I put my profile photo in the corner of the image.

As you can see you can use the two sliders to change how the logo looks. One changes the size, the other rounds the corners. This allows you to make images that are very complicated and interesting looking without having to install any editing software at all. But wait, there is more!

At the bottom right there are option to choose different shapes for the different social networks that work best with different sized images. They are labeled well and are very much self explanatory. Really use these to your advantage, it will make the image look better for the social network you are posting it on.

There are also options to share your image right now, and download the image to your computer. Both are great. I tend to use both depending on if I want to do any more processing on an image or not. Usually Pablo produces images that are good to go right off this page so really feel free to post them from this page.

As you can see, Pablo makes creating images for your posts so easy that there is no reason to not have more images in your posts. It will help you look better and be seen more often. Good luck and happy posting.

Math, it Tastes Like Chicken

Posted on October 22, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So, I am going to throw this out there, I hate math and statistics. With that let me tell you how important they are to understand. Without math and statistics on your side you are doomed.

So with this mindset, I live in a world that math and stats matter. I hate it, but it is true. For example, if you want to be successful with you kickstarter, or Greenlight you can start throwing down simple math to see how you get to victory. I won’t go into the math, but trust me the numbers are all on the internet just start making equations and get a good understanding of what needs to happen to make your goal possible.

I think my most recent mathematical observation was on Twitter. I noticed that, women are the fastest growing demographic for gaming. With that I dug up statistics of how many males vs. females I had following me on Twitter. It was bad. I only had 3% women following me. So obviously I was talking simply to a male audience, either where I was talking, or how I was talking.

So I started trying to do several different things to see if I could get that number to increase. I changed one thing to start, I started putting more images in my Tweets. That started the number of women rising. I also started adding more, what I call mental content, like relate-able quotes etc. Both those changes increased my percentage drastically. Yes it is true, it looks like women are more intellectual than guys. 🙂

All of that was possible through statistics and math related to an actual situation in reality. With information and data you are able to make changes and see the trends. You are able to see mistakes that are not readily apparent in your current successes. You can change subtle things and see how the numbers change and better position yourself in the community you are in. Don’t overlook math and statistics, they are powerful and useful bits of information. I suggest obsessing about them at least once a week.

I’ll leave you with this statistic – 4,869,900 page views per day on Kickstarter

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

Facebook – join the conversation

@magicrat_larry – Join me on Twitter

Indie Games – Mobile vs PC

Posted on October 21, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I know this is not a battle, or a war. I’ve just noticed that Indie game developers are kinda stuck reading articles and finding information that is not all that clear as to which area the writer was talking about, mobile or PC.

See this makes a huge different on the information that is presented, as for mobile, different things will work for marketing, and being successful. I read all the time that the market is flooded, but no real information that tells me which market is flooded. I’m making a PC game and read tons of articles about terrible things in the industry that are completely false.

I think that we, as indie game developers and writers, need to start being better at telling people the area we are talking about. If I look at Steam for example, it only has 4500 products on its store. That is far from flooded. The App store
though seems so full of junk, I even stopped looking for things to try on there. So let’s just be clearer about which parts of the industry are harder than which other parts.

If you are coding an app that happens to be a game, I think you are in for a hard road. If you are coding a PC game and think you can market it and get it in to Steam, I think you are fine. There are major differences. There are major differences in definition of the word ‘game’ on the two platforms too. There are also differences in many vocabulary words for each platform.

Everything that I have written is through the eyes of PC development and marketing. I hope that we can all get to be a bit clearer in the future. There are two different industries here with similar skills and tools needed to create the product, but still two different areas of the economy that are drastically different than each other.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

Facebook – join the conversation

@magicrat_larry – Join me on Twitter

7 Ways to Effectively Promote Your Indie Game

Posted on October 18, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Promoting an indie game is an interesting thing to accomplish. I am in the midst of learning it myself. Here is the rundown of what I have so far that is of major help to begin to build a community and get interaction with potential fans.

1 – Website

Most people do not try to get through life without a home, and neither should your game. You need a location to drive people to and a website is where you want them to land. This is a place where you are in control, it is your world, your happy place. It is filled with why they should love your product. It should be the goal to get everyone in the world to here.

What should you setup? It should look like your product. Right now we actually setup a WordPress site with a theme that we could customize and make look like Violent Sol Worlds. It does not take much and you have a good location for your potential fans to begin to hover around learning about your game.

To make it look like your product you will need a logo, screenshots, and important content that makes people feel a part of the game. This is where the real work lies. It takes time and effort to generate good stuff for the website. It pays off to do it though, and the earlier you put this together, the longer is sits on the web gaining momentum for your eventual launch. Create your webpage early and update it often with new and exciting things about your game.

2 – Personal Blog

This one is not as intuitive and making a website for your game, but is incredibly effective in driving people to it. Start blogging as yourself, not as your game. This is completely separate from your game, this is you talking about your life, your loves, your hobbies, your work. What this does is it allows you to put out things that people can relate to. It widens your net beyond your game.

Why do you need a wider net? Well it is simple, if you want to be successful, YOU have to be successful, NOT your game. If you are truly serious about your game, you will have many opportunities to plug your content in your personal blog and suddenly you are linking people to your website to see your game by talking about coding a physics engine, or AI.

This also allows for you to change pace, and blow off steam. Often times in-game development you will get frustrated. It is amazing how just writing about something will make you feel better. Plus, many others that are trying to do the same thing will relate and turn to potential consumers of your content, which, in part, is your game.

3 – Twitter

This is like the Doom shotgun, it is the finest utility you have for marketing to actual people on a steady basis. Sure the content lasts like 8 minutes, but it is quick, clean, and targeted. You should create Twitter accounts for yourself, and your game. Each one should be tweeting things that attract people. You need a personal one that is different from your games because you should be promoting your blog as well as your game content with that one. Your games account should be tweeting only about the game.

The key to twitter is consistency. Don’t just tweet like once a week. Spend the 15-30 minutes every day to queue up like 6 tweets that will go out throughout your normal work day. You can use Buffer for that, it is nice, simple, and easy to use. Get in to a good habit with Twitter and you will be amazed what you accomplish.

If you are interested in more things I learned about Twitter during my first year of game marketing go check out – 5 Things I learned About Twitter in a Year

4 – Facebook

Facebook might seem dumb at first for a game, it did to me. But it is like a happy medium between a website and Twitter. It does get a slightly different crowd and it is easy for people to share your content just by clicking a button. Our Facebook page for Violent Sol Worlds was created late in the marketing game so we missed this boat a little, but it is a location people will engage in and promote your game socially. Do not ignore the power of Facebook to drive shorter, quicker content for longer periods of time than Twitter.

5 – Reddit

Here is a simple, quick, and easy driver of people to anywhere and everywhere. Take a second to go to Reddit and see what it is, a simple link to a site and an up/down vote. Yes, you choose a sub-Reddit and simply post links with a nice title and it does the work. People will come to your link and it has the shot of going viral on Reddit.

This is a somewhat of a hidden gem for me. I ignored it for many years then just recently tried it for game traffic and was amazed how it worked for us. It is again, not the golden arrow of marketing but it does allow for you to at will get some form of traffic to new content about your product when you want and need it.

6 – IndieDB

IndieDB is a large community of indie game developers with their studios and games posting there to promote their products. The interactions there seem light, but the traffic that shows up to news, or new images cannot be ignored. You should create a landing page there and join that community. It is just another way to cast a larger net and does not take an amazing amount of effort to maintain.

I found that images are powerful, videos are not so powerful. So simple screenshots and a news article can drive you up in the rankings and get more people to care your game exists. We started our IndieDB site early thinking it could be the home for Violent Sol Worlds, but it is not a good spot for that. It is a great addition to your marketing campaign though and should not be left out.

7 – Kickstarter/Steam Greenlight

These two are the elephants in the room. They are awesome marketing machines. They both have a community that is massive. They also are customer oriented events. The thing about these two is that they are events. What do I mean by events? They will take up a massive amount of time to get up and launch. Ours is in the planning stage now and nearly ready to launch for both Kickstarter and Greenlight and we have worked on them for about 2 months now.

They are worth it. Once you get something you want to market on a scale larger than your own website and blog you should put these together, but remember schedule out about 2 months of work here.

Conclusion

There are many more things you can do to market your game, no doubt. The one thing to remember is that you should cast a large net. Don’t just market your game, market yourself. This allows for you to say much more than my game is awesome. Your game is simply your product, and often times people need more than that. If you can show that you are an awesome person, that is enjoyable to listen to and read about, people will be more likely to buy your game. People like to connect and support others who seem like real, quirky, people. Be yourself and good things will happen.

Are you Not Entertained?

Posted on October 2, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I have a theory. If you are going to make a game, you should entertain from day 1. Not just when the game is released.

What does this theory do for me? I strive to release content daily that entertains, helps, and energizes people. If you realize that game development is entertainment then things like marketing and game design become one and the same. If you are dull and drab in your development of the game chances are that will show in the game itself. If you move in a direction of entertaining game development you will inject a life into your game that will be felt while playing it.

This also helps you create a community. It drives me to write blogs, to tweet about our progress. If you give yourself the need to have the development cycle be just as fun as playing the game itself it is highly motivating to you and your fans.

I always tell myself – Always be entertaining

You’ve played games that feel dead inside, and you’ve played games that feel like they were made with love. My theory is that the energy that the developers had trickles in to the product and without a feeling of entertainment during the development cycles there is just no life to the product. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Worst case here is that it makes the hard work more enjoyable and keeps me motivated.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

Facebook – join the conversation

@magicrat_larry – Follow me on Twitter

5 Things I Learned About Twitter in a Year

Posted on August 26, 2015 by magicrat_larry

If you have not used Twitter, where have you been? It is a high paced social media site that allows for you to essentially voice out your ideas, observations, and general propaganda in 140 characters or less. It can be used for socialization, marketing, or general enjoyment. It is a powerful tool to get short bits of information out to people on a larger scale in short quick bursts. I have been on Twitter for close to a year now an have been using it to market and tell people about my general game development cycles. Here are 5 of the main things that I have learned about Twitter and how to get things done on it.

1. Tweet Every Day

The average life-span of a tweet is near 0 minutes, especially early on. You cannot expect to gain any real following of people about your product or movement if you simply tweet once every few days. Take the time to make sure that you have a consistent and scheduled tweet pattern and get into a groove of it. I use Buffer myself to make up 6 scheduled tweets a day.

Using a scheduling tool you can take 15-30 minutes in the morning and get them all out of the way and throughout your normal work day it will seem like you are tweeting to the world at a consistent pace. You will also be able to them reach more of the worlds population more regularly because you can schedule tweets at times that you are sleeping or generally not able to stop your life and use Twitter.

2. Be Yourself

People like other people. Keep that in mind. Twitter at it’s core is a game and a marketing engine. If you have a purpose do not hide it, and do not try and be something you are not. I am a game developer and I want to market myself as that, so I do. I tweet out mostly about that stuff and I attract mostly people who enjoy that content.

Don’t just create a Twitter account for marketing your product, truth is, on Twitter, people could care less about your product at first. You have to grab people with personality, which believe it or not all humans have. It is often the tweets that come from the heart, that are odd and unpredictable, that gain the most momentum on Twitter. So do not be afraid to stop and say something that you would normally just drop on your friends. It will gain peoples trust and those kinds of tweets are very entertaining.

3. Don’t Be A Serial Follower

What is a serial follower? If you follow everyone you see that says anything remotely interesting you could be a serial follower. If you follow everyone back that follows you, you are a serial follower. Make sure you hand out your follows to people that you really are interested in. If you notice somebody more than once or see that their feed is full of great content follow them. Make sure you are using Twitter for good reason, not just to gain followers by following others. If you see that your number of followers is almost the same as the amount of people you follow you are probably following too many people and fall into the serial follower category. You are OK when you are new to Twitter to follow more people than follow you, but as you get a presence start to deviate from following more than follow you.

4. Images, Images Are Your Friend

It is all over the internet that images help your tweets get noticed. It is true they do help, but not everything needs an image. You can feel free to throw together images for everything using things like Pablo and they do work well. I noticed that images in large quantities do not necessarily get you what you are looking for. they seem to attract people outside your followers, but your own followers don’t really care too much if you always use them. I try and use them 2 or 3 times out of 6.

5. Give Back

Be more than a person that talks about themselves. Help others get their stuff noticed. Retweet good content, ask interesting questions that are not about your project. Learn to be outgoing and converse with the community. Be a part of the larger Twitter universe not just a sole voice yapping about your project 100% of the time. You can have a strong number of your own content tweets, just make sure that you include the rest of the world in your conversation or it just ends up like a bad date.

I have lot more when it comes to Twitter, just thought that 5 would be enough. Keep at it and Twitter is very rewarding for you and you project. Enjoy it and try new things and in the end tell us all your tips and tricks so we can all keep making Twitter a better place to market and socialize.

If you have not checked out my current project…

Violent Sol Worlds home

IndieDB

Facebook – join the conversation