Marketing | Gamedev Brain

Tell Me What You Want!

Posted on August 23, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Business or not business, that is a good question. This seems to be something people struggle with in game development on the indie scale. Why are you doing it? I’m doing it because I love it, but that does not mean you should not do it as a business right? I tend to think that people make themselves have a harder time with things they love because they put strange walls up that would not normally be there if you were just trying to sell something.

If you just were selling spatulas, you would post adds everywhere. They would be the cheapest adds you can make, and you would repeat them as many times as you could to an audience so that your spatula brand would come to mind first when you think of spatulas. That seems reasonable to us all I think. It is done by nearly every company in existence today of any size.

So why is it when it comes to indie games that the development teams think that advertisement has to be different? Are people different when it comes to games? I tend to believe they are not. I don’t think people really mind hearing about an awesome game many times. Plus if you are talking twitter and social media, the amount of times a post is missed by nearly everyone in the world is astounding. I don’t think putting a strange limit on your marketing is the most wonderful of ideas. If marketing works for Disney, it will work for your indie title.

There are proven things that work with human beings. Use them to your advantage. To try and think of ways to covertly get people to see your call to action is not the most effective way. If you want them to buy spatulas, tell them, and tell them often. Don’t just think because you are making a cool spatula that the people will know what they need to do to make you a success.

Come see my spatula…

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ViolentSol.com – Homepage

IndieDB – Indie Games Community with news, screenshots, and video

Problems Generated By Successful Actions

Posted on August 20, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I used to think that game development was this glamorous, fun, coding, experience that was intense but just a blast. I know better now. The truth behind game development is that it is a lot of work. It still is fun, but there is no glamour.

What do I mean? Well Let me tell you my story. I used to do this as a hobby. I loved to make cool things render to the screen. I would play around with it for a few hours a week. Then it turned into a few hours a day. From there I gathered people, they wanted to make games. So it turned into 20 hours a week. At that point I mostly coded, still seemed like my vision of what I though game development was was true.

I then started to think, if we get a game to the finish line, how do we sell it? Then entered marketing time. I started about 5-10 minutes every day. That turned into 30 minutes. Then it turned into and hour. Before I knew better, it was my entire 20 hours a week. Is that bad? No. I am driven by success, so as I got feedback and validation from people, like you, I spent more time doing it.

Now, I reach a problem. The fans, followers, and generally great people that I strove to entertain are pushing me further. I am out of time. Eventually I need to code the game, keep up marketing, and innovate in both areas. We have to get this to be a full-time equation soon or things have to be cut. Problem is you cannot cut either development or marketing because you’d be cutting your own projects head off.

I love this problem, can’t really have a better one. I just have to solve it and continue to grow. Love all you people out there that drive me, keep it coming and I do pass it on to our team that is working on the game. Problems generated by success mean you are participating in life and not just along for the ride.

If you have not seen the game I am a part of here are a few links…

Facebook – Like us on facebook

ViolentSol.com – Homepage

IndieDB – Indie Games Community with news, screenshots, and video

Wish I Had More Time

Posted on August 13, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So I have been busy as can be. We are speeding up toward Kickstarter and Greenlight and it is a lot of work. I hope it is all worth it. I just wish I had more time to do this blog better justice. It is fun writing to the world and seeing if people are listening the the ramblings.

I spend most my time now marketing and such for the push. the blog just kinda falls off because it takes time. It is sad that some of the most quality things you do take a lot of time and often do not get as much bang for the minute as other less quality interactions. People are interesting, I suppose they have little time too, so places like Twitter and Facebook are easier and quicker, but there is still something about having something larger than 140 characters to read and not just clicking a like button on a photo.

The world is getting so fast that even our interactions are fast and less meaningful. Sometimes I wish we had to slow down and do things a bit differently. Well, I am off now. Gotta interact with people in 30 seconds or less. 🙂

If you have not seen the game I am a part of here are a few links…

Facebook – Like us on facebook

ViolentSol.com – Homepage

IndieDB – Indie Games Community with news, screenshots, and video

You, Yes You, Never Stop Amazing Me

Posted on August 3, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I used to get up as an indie game developer and start coding my game. Now I get up and start marketing my game. When did that happen? When did marketing win as the leading task of the day? Seems like it was a smooth transition because I did not notice it until now. I think the community might have fueled the move though.

Let me explain. I get some awesome responses from people about our game that is in development – Violent Sol Worlds. I think that feeds the want for my brain to get more, so I have slowly turned into a marketer first and a programmer second. Never in a million years would I have seen that coming. It is wonderful though.

Before now, my interactions with people over the internet has been basically them yelling at me about my mother. You know, the XBOX live crowd. But now that we are building a community around a title we all love and want to see built the interactions are much more loving. I truly hope we keep this up and you all keep motivation high for me to keep engaging on this level.

All your praises, follows, and general encouragement have been amazing. You all blow me away, and make me feel like I can do anything, even knock out a shark.

If you have not seen our game – Violent Sol Worlds check it out.

Let Me Tell You Where to Go – ViolentSol.com

Posted on August 1, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Don’t get me wrong there are many places I would like to tell many people to go, but ViolentSol.com just launched. What is it you ask? It’s the web site for the game I am a part of. We are proudly moving forward with a site dedicated to it. You can see a nice little blurb about our team, and get a great description of our game.

We started off thinking our IndieDB site was good enough. But, we rethought that and created our own cool little place on the internet. I hope you enjoy it and please do comment about the game and the team. We are a very interactive team once you give us a try. Anything you want to know about the game or our team we will freely share.

Enjoy the site and I am going to go get back to working on the game. It is nearly 6am. 🙂

One of Those Days

Posted on July 27, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I got up late today, and everything is taking a lot longer than it normally feels it does. So this will be a shorter one today I am sorry.

The past week has been fun though. We finally got the game announcement out the front door. Our hope is we can have some validation of the idea through a few means. Once we get validation then we will pour ever ounce of energy into it and knock it out. If you are interested in the game pleas do go check out one of these places and leave us feedback.

Violent Sol – Worlds Forums –

Game Features

Dev Forums

Violent Sol – Worlds Home –

OST Games Studio

Violent Sol – Worlds

I’m sorry this post is not more witty and interesting but it is kind of an off day.

How to be Better Than a Wild Monkey

Posted on July 26, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So, I am the king of saying things that make people cringe so here it goes, making a game is easy and takes just a small amount of talent. BOOM! Yup, just about anyone can throw down a game, game jams are a huge example of that. Don’t get me wrong, people who code games are some of the best programmers out there and anyone in business should hire them as coders. When it comes to problem solving a game programmer is tops, but it’s not that hard to make games.

So why isn’t there 5 billion different people throwing games out like wild monkeys? There are, the key is that you have never seen most of them. Yup, WILD MONKEYS! Truthfully, people throw down games like nobodies business, but hardly any of them take on the roles they need to from day one to get it out the door better than a wild monkey could.

Step 1: On your first day, define something and market it.

Step 2: On every other day, define more things and market them.

Step 3: When you hit problems market those too.

Step 4: When you take a break market that.

Step 5: When you mow your lawn market that.

Step 6: When you take a nap, market that.

Get the picture? Nobody buys games from an indie development studio. They buy the people behind it. Be alive, be engaged, be you, and tell everyone about it. Others are out there that believe in your dream so give them the information, from ground zero, on how it is you are perusing that dream. Market everything you do. Even if you don’t have a game idea yet, market the process to get one. Really, sooner or later you will be finished with something and find yourself in a sea of wild monkeys and wish you did.

Our Game Project – Top down, survival, Action, Shooter with vehicles, crafting, and an AI overlord.

Posted on July 24, 2015 by magicrat_larry

We are so close to explaining our title and unleashing it on the world. We have been painstakingly putting together the feature list and starting to commit to what we will develop for the title. It is fun, but it is a process I cannot wait to be done with.

I wanna tell you that our game vehicles are amazing physics modeled action joys to drive, and our character runs around and shoots laser guns at enemies. I want to tell you that We will have an AI overlord that will continually keep your game interesting. I want to tell you that you will be able to do all of this with your friends. There is so much I want to tell you, but can’t.

Well, the truth is all of this is speculation and rumor, but it would be cool if I could tell you. What if I could tell you tht you could craft weapons, cars, and possibly even planes? What if I could tell you about the game and start to get you fired up? That would be awesome wouldn’t it?

I wish I could tell you something about it, but I hope you will stay tuned to hear more from me about it in the future. I wish I could say building too.

Take care.

No Pressure, It’s Just Your Dream

Posted on July 20, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Well, we are getting very close to the moment where we actually unleash what our project is to the world. It is not done or anything, but up until now we have just been talking in general terms. We will be posting our full list of features and description of the game.

We think it is a wonderful idea, but it is our baby. What if the world hates it? Or worse, what if nobody ever sees it? The latter is my biggest fear. I have taken it upon myself to get the word out about our work. I’ve invested a lot of time building a foundation to help us get the word out. I would be crushed if we still couldn’t get anyone to notice that we are making a game. The pressure is on, I hope my creativity and time pays off.

It would be far better to be told that our game idea is terrible and the concept looks bad than to have it just sit there with no interest at all. At least if you hear the truth you can move on. In any case, please wish me luck in the coming days and months. I’m excited and nervous all around.

Twitter, the Best Mobile Game Ever!

Posted on July 17, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I’ve said it to many people and I get the same response of laughter every time. “Twitter is the funnest mobile game ever! ” Why does everybody laugh? To me it is really true, Twitter is a very addictive and fun mobile game.

Why do I call Twitter a game? I think it has all the elements of a game. It has a large open world to explore, multiplayer, goals, rewards, and even disappointments. Twitter takes the game to the next level, where Facebook just touched the surface. Twitter made it fast paced, exciting, and very interactive in nearly real-time. Twitter turned the social networking experiment into a very huge Social MMO where everyone is attempting to contact everyone else and get as many interactions as possible in like 8 minutes or less, how exhilarating.

Let’s take all the game-play elements and explain them.

Open World

Twitter is a massive world, you can sit there and search many different areas of it and see nearly endless content that is quick, and entertaining. You can find anything and not have to read for hours, but just 140 characters at a time, or even just look at pictures. So this world is vast, diverse, and tailors to many kinds of peoples mindsets for gaming.

Goals

Twitter is very much goal oriented. You are motivated to create content, and try new things to reach the rewards that we detail in the next section. It is highly likely that you will end up putting a lot more thought into your 140 characters than you ever imagined.

Rewards

It will tell you in real-time when somebody noticed you and the part of the world you are creating. They can favorite you, which is like telling you that you rock. They can retweet you, which is like broadcasting your content to their part of the world. The holy grail though, is the follower. If they follow you your empire grows in power and strength.

Multiplayer

It is social, every bit of the world was created by another person. So every interaction you have in that world rewards another player, or disappoints them. There is not single player mode on Twitter. You cannot help but reward anotehr player with either a good interaction or a terrible one. You choose what you do to them and how. You can follow others, or gain a following yourself.

Disappointments

Twitter has its highs and its downs. This makes for a great story, not a conventional one, but a great one none the less. Followers bring you great joy. But the negative comments from some can hurt you. The posts that get no interaction what so ever really are a downer. Plus the dreaded unfollow. Oh man there is nothing worse than somebody leaving your tribe of followers.

Conclusion

When using Twitter make sure you see it for what it is. It truly is one of the greatest games created of all time. It is pure, simple, and genius. Play it and enjoy. Join me @magicrat_larry