IGS Session > Marketing for Indies

[cyrus_zuo]

I'd had several requests for my slides after my session and have *finally* put them up on GT for anyone who'd like to look through them.

Notably I make powerpoint slides with the intent of them being additional/supplementary to what I say when I'm doing a presentation and not a repeat of what I say. If you remember me talking about many things that are not on the slides...there is a reason for that .

Enjoy! If you have any thoughts I'm happy to chat.

Browse online - http://www.gametunnel.com/images/2007igsslides
Download (~.7MB) - http://www.gametunnel.com/images/200...s/2007_igs.zip

[Red27]

Damn - wish I could have attended the session....shame you didn't record it as a podcast......or did you!?

Either way, nice work & thanks!

[TimS]

The audio is available for just about everything from GDC.

Yay!

-Tim

[cyrus_zuo]

Originally Posted by Red27

Damn - wish I could have attended the session....shame you didn't record it as a podcast......or did you!?

Either way, nice work & thanks!

Would second going to CMP on audio...they of course have the rights, so I didn't record anything. It was day two of the IGS.

[bignobody]

Just wanted to say thank you for this. It was a nice read and had a few points I hadn't considered.

* Note to self: Stop being a bonehead *

[soniCron]

Thank you very much, Russell! This is quite helpful! Now, can someone troll through the 6 hours of the IGS Day 2 recording and tell me where his presentation starts? D'oh!

[KNau]

Excellent point about stealing traffic back from portals. It's one of those "so simple it's brilliant" things that I wish I had tried ages ago.

[zoombapup]

Nice one Russell, definitely taken in some of the points you mentioned. It felt a little portal-centric (ok, given where you are, I can kinda forgive that )

Useful advice though.

[Andy]

I'm so happy to meet all points for list of Clueless Clyde!...

Russ! Why Clyde btw? Why not Andy? This "mistake" left me dissappointed a little bit.

[cyrus_zuo]

Originally Posted by Andy

I'm so happy to meet all points for list of Clueless Clyde!...

Russ! Why Clyde btw? Why not Andy? This "mistake" left me dissappointed a little bit.

Saving that for my next presentation... j/k!

...and it is a bit portal centric...the driving point on that was working within the current framework that exists. 8 years ago it would have been more focused on download websites. Things have changed, and I think for indies to succeed you have to take advantage of where the traffic is...but the key point is getting the traffic!

My other key point is on doing a press plan...a game release press release is just one thing to do, and probably not the most effective (from my experience).

Thanks for the comments, I hope to see more indies grabbing traffic wherever they can . (Don't forget to put something in your game that makes people look for you!)

[Andy]

Russ is in really tricky position. And everyone should respect this. From one side he votes for really independent spirit of game development from his tunnel. Yay.. From another side he should stay somehow portal centric due his current position at some of portals.
Thanks God Reflexive's one isn't stuck to plain casual titles only.

Fun presentation really. I disagree with most of points but who cares really. I believe it should be useful for amount of younger developers from here.

[jcottier]

Would portals really let you put a sentence like:

- search the web for more levels...
- find the level editor on the internet...

I would have though they will request those to be remove? No?

JC

[cyrus_zuo]

Certainly you will have to be careful with what you say...however the portals will let you put in something if you aren't directing someone directly to your website.

If you look at slide 12 it is a snapshot of our game on a portal. It says "to access more rounds you must download them from the internet."

You'll find similar statements in Big Kahuna Reef 1 & 2.

I think you could use something similar, such as:
"to get special tips and extra levels you must download them from the internet"
"look for more 'game title' adventures online"