Indie Game Movement Promotion..

[tagged]

Ok, as I continue to market my new game I've been tossing around different ideas to make it stand out. One thing that's come to my attention is competitions, sites and magazines are always promoting the chance to win a free copy of 'generic commercial game #22234'. I doubt that a free indie game would really be something a site/magazine would promote, but then I thought what about a dozen of them?

Has anyone tried, or would people be interested in gathering together games from different developers (maybe 1 per developer to keep it fair?) to have a large(ish) pool of indie games. Then go out and market this to a few popular sites/magazines, where we each give a free copy of one game to each place for them to use in a competition of their/our choice? I haven't put that much thought into it, so it could be a flawed idea, but basically something to help bring more attention to us struggling indies ;) With the "street value" of the prize being a few hundred dollars this should gather some interest/backing!?

So come on, has this been done/tried before and it crashed and burned? Have I consumed too much Vegemite today? Opinions please!

[jcottier]

This might work, count me in if you are interested by my games.

JC

[princec]

We're always interested in exposure, even if it means giving away a bunch of free games (recently gave away 70 copies of Ultratron for a compo as runners up prizes).

Cas :)

[cliffski]

in a lot of industries, (not sure about games) competition prize suppliers actually *pay* for the privilege of their game being the prize, as its considered a form of advertising, and there are no shortage of offers ;(

[tagged]

Firstly, thanks for the interest jcottier and princec!

in a lot of industries, (not sure about games) competition prize suppliers actually *pay* for the privilege of their game being the prize, as its considered a form of advertising, and there are no shortage of offers ;(

ahh.. Hadn't thought of that being the case :( I'm still liking the idea though, perhaps I'll try to see if there's any interest. Gamespy and Fileplanet seem to have little bits of encouragement for indie games, I know fileplanet still has a spotlight and Gamespy had a brief indie segment for a few months.

If more are interested in the idea, I will get better organized and prepare a statement/text and send it off to a few places, maybe call up some local gaming mags to hear their reaction. I'll see if there is any interest at all and determine if the idea can go forward. I feel that this would be something more unique than a typical gaming rig/commercial game offering. Aim for the innovative side of indie games, "The best games you've never played" sorta thing...

Worth a try :cool:

[lennard]

A radio ad. guy used to call me up - he wanted a bunch of $ to give away my stuff. Didn't work out for him.

Feel free to give away a copy of Battle Castles and Real E$tate Empire. You can contact me for details, lennard@RustyAxe.com

[Pallav Nawani]

I am interested too, and I have no problems giving away a bunch of free copies to get exposure as well. I agree, its worth a try.

[Adrian Cummings]

tagged: It's a great idea, so you can count me in - I have game related plush toys and vinyl bumper stickers too to give away as potential prizes also! :)

[ChrisP]

Sounds like a great idea to me. I'm interested, if you'll have me. I have no problem giving away free copies of Mayhem Intergalactic in return for exposure. In fact I should be doing that more often.

[tagged]

Great, thanks for the interest. Seems like I have some work to do now! :D

Well Distribution is something I have to think about, I guess a direct download wouldn't be very elegant. So a CD/DVD with all the games on there would be an idea, include a nice auto-run application that lists the games with screenshots and blurbs. I'm also thinking instead of offering just 1 copy (cd/dvd) it may gain more acceptance to offer 5, maybe 10.

If the CD is a go, it has to have a nice face rather than writing done in texture.. I'll stay on the safe side and say we get one contact interested, so I'm not aware of any companies doing a handful of cd presses? Does anyone have access to a high quality printer that prints on cd's? I haven't seen the quality of modern ink-jet's? I can always ring/email around and try to strike a deal. That's if we go with the CD idea, which I personally feel would be better.

I guess it'll be easier to focus on the windows side for now, restrict the contacts to those that deal with windows gaming (not exclusively of course). I don't want to rush ahead and make contact without being prepared, so I'll give myself a month to prepare everything. I'll make sure to post here when I believe I'm ready, but any input is welcome. Also to give time to those that wish to be involved, so I can sort out the list of games.

I'm thinking each game that is submitted will need a screenshot(s), demo link, contact email, official website and possibly a 3rd party review. That way it will allow the contact to quickly see the game's are legit (and fun!) by various means. I can list the games along with a few links for each in an email, and have a webpage link that's a graphical layout of all the games involved, as I doubt overloading the email with screenshots/information would be a good thing. Are people happy with that, see anything else that should be added?

I'll start PMing everyone that's interested once I know exactly what I need, it'll save going back and forth if I figure I need something else. And I'll probably post here a few times as I get things sorted...

[ChrisP]

Sounds fine to me.

The directly-inkjet-printed CDs I've seen have been pretty awful. Grainy and with very bad colours - I had a bright yellow show up as a sickly green. Eww. Maybe there are better ones that I haven't seen, maybe there aren't.

You can get sticky CD-shaped labels which are stuck to pieces of A4 paper and can be printed using ordinary printers. They work quite well, if the printer is decent.

[tagged]

I remember using one a few years back that was terrible as well.. I've seen some recent canon printers that sound like they do a far better job, but haven't had hands-on experience with. I'll go to a few places and see some in-store demo's so I can decide if it's up to the job, I'm due for a new one anyway. If none of them impress me I'll look into other options.

I've also laid out plans for a public website that:
1. People visit to look over the games and download their demos, to encourage them to enter the competition/try to win.
2. Bring notice to the games involved, bringing potential sales to those that didn't get a CD.

I'm also thinking instead of sending an email, I should send off a physical copy of the CD to the gaming contacts along with a letter, and printed screenshots and brief summary of all the games. It will lend more weight to the deal having the actual product there to test rather than just talk about it. I'd also grab an image of the site/magazine title (ie. Fileplanet) and have that on the auto-run, to personalize the CD and help their decision.

Back to it...

[Qitsune]

I don't think giving free downloads + registration key is so bad if your target demographics is computer savvy enough but if you want printed cd's:
http://www.createspace.com/ prints cds on demand, with jacket and all. They are owned by Amazon and you can even set up to sell the stuff you print there on Amazon, they don't say anything about printing software but I'm quite sure that after a few emails they would get the point and add it, it's not harder than making dvd's or music cd's. I own dvd's printed by these guys and they look great.

Also, you can try smaller events who are grateful to have sponsors give prices, I'm thinking to smaller events like this one:

http://www.myspace.com/drsketchymontreal
We are looking for sponsors for our art contest during Dr. Sketchy Montréal.

For example, we would like donations of gift card, prizes, rebate in your stores... sky is the limit!

In exchange, we will promote your company during the event and link you back via our MySpace and website. Not to mention you will get our eternal love!

Contact us for more details via MySpace or by email at drsketchy at hotmail dot com.

The point would be to find smaller events with a demographic close to your target and keep the prizes small in proportion to the audience.

edit: there is also Lulu for self publishing:http://www.lulu.com/en/products/digital_media/

[tagged]

I don't think giving free downloads + registration key is so bad if your target demographics is computer savvy
I'm thinking more of a prize that requires the winners to download 100+mb isn't going to be as attractive as a single CD. If the target is an online site it may be alright, but for a magazine? Thanks for the link though, I'll place them on a possible contact list if the printer option doesn't work out.

The point would be to find smaller events with a demographic close to your target and keep the prizes small in proportion to the audience
Yes, I believe people should be seeking out smaller competitions to give away their games for exposure. Although the purpose of this idea is all about getting exposure in BIG markets. From what I've read on these forums, if your game is featured on a popular site (fileplanet, apple.....) it gets a sales spike that puts all previous marketing efforts to shame. So I believe a few weeks of part-time effort and a couple dollars is worth a try to get that exposure :)

[defanual]

Hey tagged, if you can pull it together (as I'm sure you can) you can count me in too:cool:

Sounds like a great idea to me:)...