Refer a friend to buy the game, earn a price

[Tertsi]

Have any of you had an in-game or website campaign like; "Refer a friend, earn X % of the game's price and/or free stuff?"

To me it seems that this could work a lot better than those "tell a friend" buttons and the community nature of it insipired me to open this thread.

I know that this has worked for some webhosts fairly good, but I don't think I've seen this used by an indie game developer lately.

[luggage]

interesting idea. Only problem I can see is you'd have a *lot* of small payments to handle. Maybe doing something like generating a discount code might be easier but it would lose the attraction of getting "real money" back.

[Midnight Synergy]

I'm not sure if extra levels etc. are enough to entice someone to get a friend to buy a game. I think if someone really likes a game, they will tell friends/family about it. If not, then I suspect (hope?) that most people would not "sell" a game to their friends that they didn't really like, just to get something in return.

On the other hand, these types of extras could entice players to (a) buy the game for themselves (the old Dexterity ploy - buy RIGHT NOW and get TEN EXTRA LEVELS - even though you get those levels either way) or (b) sign up for mailing lists (this is what I did with my Wonderland demo - the original, not Secret Worlds - and it still generates about 4-5 new mailing list signups a day without any extra demo promotion on my part).

[Tertsi]

Of what I've read somewhere and seen on some webhosting forums, this has typically "enticed" some people to refer others than just friends also. Normally they propably wouldn't tell every friend, but this gives them some more benefit if they do.

[Robert Cummings]

I would not want to refer my friends if it wasn't multiplayer. Multiplayer has to be the single biggest referral factor involved.

[svero]

I think it could help because sometimes you generally like something and you might mention it, but you forget or you're just too lazy. A little incentive, if properly applied could be good. How helpful it is sales wise overall is pretty debateable though.

[Martoon]

Cognitoy did something like this when they first released Mindrover, and I think it worked pretty well for them (it worked on me, anyway :) ).

They priced the game at $45 (which was reasonable, since it was a physical shipment on CD with a manual). When you ordered the game online, there was a webform that allowed you to enter the email addresses of up to 6 "friends." It showed you the email that would be sent. The email appeared to be from you, with your name and reply-to address. For each email address you provided, they discounted the game $5, so if you filled all 6 blanks, you could get the game for $15.

Essentially, they were selling the game for $15, but you felt like you were getting a $45 game for $15. They had a schedule on the website, where they allowed 6 email addresses for a couple weeks, then only 5 for a couple weeks, then 4, etc. So they had a nice combination of viral marketing, time pressure (buy now, it'll cost more next week), and perception of value (you get a $45 game for $15).

[Tertsi]

The big difference with that method is that they only gave email addresses and many propably gave fake ones. When the people referred need to buy the game for the referrer to get something in return, you won't give discounts for fake or otherwise maybe useless emails. :)

I'll likely try this method in one form or another with our upcoming game.

[ErikH2000]

I think one invisible bad effect you won't see when you add in the "tell a friend" incentive (whatever it is) is that certain people who would have tried to help you out will no longer want to. You've just cheapened the value of their contribution by suggesting a bribe. So some people will use your system to tell a friend, and that will help you, but others will be turned off by an attempt to influence their behavior. In fact, the more thoughtful and mature players will be the ones that get turned off, and these are the guys you really want on your side.

One of my fans got a friend to write about my game in his school newspaper, silkscreened t-shirts based on game art, and dressed up as a game character for Halloween. If I ever suggested some cheap little kickback scheme he'd be extremely hurt. This guy, Clayton Weiss, I nicknamed the "#1 fan" because of all the nice things he's done over the years, but other players have done similar things and share the "on the same team" mentality. Make a good game and keep talking to your players as a real person. I think that is the best way to get the word-of-mouth thing going.

-Erik