Viral Marketing Ideas

[Acord]

Hey hey - this seems like something a lot of folks on here are interested and partake in frequently, so I think it's worth giving it's own thread to see what kind of ideas people can come up with. I'll start the list with the few little things I've thought of.

• Links - Google has a tendency to pick up links to games and sites from forum posts and blog posts. They aren't the only game in town of course, but they're the big one. Most of the SEO tools and information out there seems to get outdated rather quickly, since search engines obviously want quality content, not just something that tricks users into visiting by taking advantage of the way the engine works.
  
  
• Forum Posts - Forums come in a lot of different forms, including myspace groups. Awareness can be spread quickly through forums in which the poster is an active poster or, better yet, a respected member. This works well if you have several people involved in a project and they all have a stake in seeing it do well.
  
  
• Email - getting email addresses is, IME, tricky. Most people do not want spam in their inbox. Some folks even allow a checkbox to opt in to a mailing list, but I think this works better when there's a checkbox to opt out. It is possible to simply take email addys and add them to your mailing list, but you have to have a good opt-out mechanism in the email that makes it an automated process.
  
  
• Tell a friend - Ultima Online was probably the first game I saw that did this. If you could get a friend to try it for a month, you got little perks in game that didn't cost the company a dime. The same is possible in the case of indie games - maybe a free bonus level demo, or an unlockable item or ability, or a certain percentage off. Of course, this requires a referral system. The same could be done with email addresses, just so long as there was a good way to check their validity.
  
  
• Demo discounts - Offer a discount coupon code as a reward for beating the demo that is valid for the purchase of the full game.

Other ideas?

[berserker]

Idea #1:

Create a game worth talking about.

[KNau]

That's like saying "you need talent". Few people will admit they have no talent and most developers assume their game is worth buying. And they aren't wrong. If there's a sustainable market for interactive fiction then there's a market for anything, you just have to find it.

Incidentally an RSS feed is a good sidestep into people's in-boxes and is generally seen as less intrusive than a newsletter.

[Maupin]

Originally Posted by KNau

That's like saying "you need talent". Few people will admit they have no talent and most developers assume their game is worth buying. And they aren't wrong.

Some of them are wrong.

If there's a sustainable market for interactive fiction then there's a market for anything, you just have to find it.

There's a market for good interactive fiction, not all interactive fiction. (Actually, is there even a market for the good stuff? I thought most IF Inform/TADS games were free.)

Yaroslav is right. The best way to get your game to spread virally is word of mouth. If it's not particularly noteworthy but fun then you can still promote it with incentives.

[Maupin]

Originally Posted by Acord

Other ideas?

Of the list you mentioned, I think only "tell a friend" is an actual viral marketing idea. In fact, that's what viral marketing is. You want to get players/customers to do the marketing of your game among their contacts, hoping those contacts will in turn advertise the game, etc. Sending out mailing lists and posting on forums doesn't count, because you're doing it.

Use Facebook. It was built for this kind of thing. Make an official fan page for your game and try to get as many fans as possible. Whenever someone becomes a fan, everyone in their network will see a message like "Jimmy Joe Johnson became a fan of Blood Castle III: Bloodmare" with a link to your fan page.

[Cevo70]

Not to stick my nose up in the air, but I tend to dislike these types of marketing approaches. They need to be done very tastefully to not annoy me - and I generally ignore them. Or even boycott them if they are particullarly annoying.

The exception is "refer a friend" promotions which I think a pretty solid and fair idea. Not sure how that would work logistically, not have I tried it before, but maybe some others have.

That would be the idea I would run with - maybe some sort of extension of referring.

I had another idea that was a little more wholesome, but it never picked up steam (I think I'll need to show the community I am worth a crap first ) It involved the various indie devs on this site actively promoting the other games/projects/dev that they like or think have potential. (some do this already, but the idea was to concrete/formalize it)

Nearly all of us have websites, so why not encourage people to link around a bit? (I equate this is bands touring together to share their audiences - it's how they wake up the mainstream by creating a larger following that snowballs)

PS - Is there an INDIEGAMER YouTube page/club yet?

[Nexic]

So uh, forum posts, newsletters, discounts, tell a friend and links are your idea of viral marketing? Just about every indie already does these and yet most of them still have terrible sales...

Bezerker is 100% spot on, none of the above works unless you've got a game worth talking about. Of course, most indies think their game is worth talking about - so the real skill is knowing what is actually worth talking about.

[Cevo70]

I think we can all agree on that success depends mostly on the game actually being good (aka worth talking about). So...hopefully we're not talking about sneaky agressive promotion of a game that even the dev thinks is terrible.

I thought Acord was just on brainstorming session, and looking to expand off the list..

Viral marketing to me actually means more like what Cloverfield or Lost did. But I guess it can also mean any sort of infectious campaign.

[KNau]

But to some people Dwarf Fortress is very much worth talking about. To others it's a horrible waste of time. That you can develop the ability to predict a hit (what is worth talking about) is a myth, so you have to go on delivering the best you are able and then finding an audience. If predicting a hit were real then there'd be no flops.

[vjvj]

Originally Posted by berserker

Idea #1:

Create a game worth talking about.

You are right, but that's not related to marketing or viral marketing.

[CousinGilgamesh]

I came out with a marketing idea for a game a while back that involved an elaborate network of planted forum posts and "leaked info", along with a forum-posted security flaw in a site containing interesting-yet-ambiguous content from the game that "wasn't supposed to be public yet." The whole idea, I guess, was to fake the leaking of information for a game, "leaking" content that was compelling and interesting, yet ambiguous enough to keep people guessing. There would be all sorts of speculation in the forums, and if anyone contacted me for more information, I (and anyone else working on the game) would refuse to comment, And all of this was supposed to generate some sort of planned viral interest in my game, which would later be revealed in its full entirety.

I ended up deciding that it would be too complicated and uncontrollable to pull off successfully and convincingly. The upside would have been that even if it was proved later that I staged my own leaked content, that would just give me more coverage. Another problem would be that if you let people speculate too much, the game you finally unveil might not live up to the one they came up with in their heads (since ideas can always be cooler than actual products in theory). Anyway, I can't do it anymore now, since I brought it up in a forum.

[berserker]

Originally Posted by vjvj

You are right, but that's not related to marketing or viral marketing.

That's related to marketing way more that links/e-mail/rss feed.
You have to think about marketing before even starting the game - think about target audience, features that will make this game outstand others, that will help this game gain momentum in the minds of players - that's marketing from day one, not submiting links to the crap noone cares about.

[vjvj]

Originally Posted by berserker

That's related to marketing way more that links/e-mail/rss feed.
You have to think about marketing before even starting the game - think about target audience, features that will make this game outstand others, that will help this game gain momentum in the minds of players - that's marketing from day one, not submiting links to the crap noone cares about.

Of course I agree with this, though that's not exactly what you originally said

But the point I was trying to make is that if the marketing discussion is about "how to get the reach the target audience", it's generally assumed that you have already made a game of high quality that is worth talking about. Especially if the topic is about viral marketing, in particular.

Besides, like a few others have already said, none of us can really claim to make games "worth talking about" with any predictability, since a lot of it is subjective. You just have to trust your instincts and keep pushing yourself. Just don't ignore post-ship marketing efforts

[berserker]

Originally Posted by vjvj

But the point I was trying to make is that if the marketing discussion is about "how to get the reach the target audience", it's generally assumed that you have already made a game of high quality that is worth talking about. Especially if the topic is about viral marketing, in particular.

If you have a game really worth talking about - it will blow no matter which route you will take to bring it to the public. There is no silver bullet - all generic means to bring exposure can work extremely well for a great game or extremely bad for a poor one.

Focus on game in the first place

/thread

[Nexic]

I've done games which essentially nobody wanted to talk about, and no matter how hard I worked the marketing side of things it barely made a difference. I did all of the above things mentioned and more, but it made only the smallest of impacts. Almost to the point where it wasn't even worth having done the marketing at all.

On the flip side, I recently made a game that practically markets itself. On the odd occassion I spend 5 minutes sorting out a tiny bit of promotion it instantly brings in a significant number of players and the word of mouth continues to circulate for months. It's true, good games do sell themselves.

To put it mathmatically:

Game A has a 10% chance of each player telling a friend
Game B has a 90% chance of each player telling a friend

You market both A and B to 10,000 people

Game A total visitors:
10000+1000+100+10+1 = 11,111

Game B total visitors:
10000+9000+8100+7300+6600+5900+5300+4800+4300+3900 +3500+3100+2800+2550+2300+2000+1800+1650+1500+1350 +1200+1000+900+810+730+655+590+530+480 (going to stop here since it's going to go on forever) = 94,645

And would probably end up over 100k.

Now let's assume 1% of those are bloggers or game reviewers who bring in 1000 new players each:

Game A:
11111/100 = 111 * 1000 = 111,000
Game B:
100000/100 = 1000 * 1000 * 10 = 10,000,000

(since we know game B has a 10 fold word of mouth multiplier from all new traffic generated)

Continue the simulation you see that game A ends up falling away into obscurity compared to game B. The developer of game A could spend forever getting the odd few 1000 players but game B can pretty much do a little marketing in his spare time and easily get 1000 times the impact or more.

The fact of the matter is, a good game is viral marketing, and way more effective than any gimmicks.

[Jamie W]

Originally Posted by berserker

Idea #1:

Create a game worth talking about.

Indie mistake #3. The belief that making a game worth talking about, negates the need to do any other marketing.

[tolik]

I'll testify that Nexic and berserker are right ;-)

[Nexic]

Indie Mistake #4: Wasting several months trying to market a game that's never going to sell.

[Cevo70]

"Runaway train, never comin' back..."

What an odd, circular, thread. I feel like we're all talking about different things.

I could have sworn we started off talking about marketing ideas .

Well, at least I learned that good games sell better than bad games. That concept blew... my... mind.

[Kif]

Indie Mistake #5: Believing his own game is never going to sell and hence not wasting several months trying to market it, because of the previous assumption

jokes aside, i realised i was unintentionally pulling some traffic from youtube, whom (i have never used that word correctly) i only used to host demo videos to show on other places. So just to expose your game at places where there is room for discussion can prove rewarding.

[Promaginy]

To be viral means that the game must be infectious. Infectious gaming is only found in well designed and fun games.

But being fun is not enough. There is lots of great competition out there. There are easily dozens of fun distractions released every day including games, movies, etc.

This is where viral marketing can help one game to rise above the others in terms of sales and reach.

To me a successful viral marketing campaign means to find those individuals who will infect and influence the opinions of many others. This is why it is important to create fans of popular critics, bloggers, etc. Word of mouth is fine, but word of mouth from somebody who has the ears of thousands is worth so much more.

[vjvj]

Originally Posted by berserker

If you have a game really worth talking about - it will blow no matter which route you will take to bring it to the public. There is no silver bullet - all generic means to bring exposure can work extremely well for a great game or extremely bad for a poor one.

Focus on game in the first place

/thread

/thread? You're actually missing the point to this thread. This thread is about post-ship marketing methods. Your advice to "make a good game" is not only a different topic, but it's blatantly obvious advice that everyone on this forum knows already. Do you think we're all a bunch of idiots?

Indie mistake #3. The belief that making a game worth talking about, negates the need to do any other marketing.

Or the need to even DISCUSS marketing, apparently.

I could have sworn we started off talking about marketing ideas .

Well, at least I learned that good games sell better than bad games. That concept blew... my... mind.

I'm sorry, Dude. I really tried to steer this thread back on topic. *sigh*

[berserker]

Originally Posted by vjvj

/thread? You're actually missing the point to this thread. This thread is about post-ship marketing methods. Your advice to "make a good game" is not only a different topic, but it's blatantly obvious advice that everyone on this forum knows already. Do you think we're all a bunch of idiots?

Probably it's not so obvious as we have this thread here.

[ducridah750]

Originally Posted by Nexic

I've done games which essentially nobody wanted to talk about, and no matter how hard I worked the marketing side of things it barely made a difference. I did all of the above things mentioned and more, but it made only the smallest of impacts. Almost to the point where it wasn't even worth having done the marketing at all.

On the flip side, I recently made a game that practically markets itself. On the odd occassion I spend 5 minutes sorting out a tiny bit of promotion it instantly brings in a significant number of players and the word of mouth continues to circulate for months. It's true, good games do sell themselves.

To put it mathmatically:

Game A has a 10% chance of each player telling a friend
Game B has a 90% chance of each player telling a friend

You market both A and B to 10,000 people

Game A total visitors:
10000+1000+100+10+1 = 11,111

Game B total visitors:
10000+9000+8100+7300+6600+5900+5300+4800+4300+3900 +3500+3100+2800+2550+2300+2000+1800+1650+1500+1350 +1200+1000+900+810+730+655+590+530+480 (going to stop here since it's going to go on forever) = 94,645

And would probably end up over 100k.

Now let's assume 1% of those are bloggers or game reviewers who bring in 1000 new players each:

Game A:
11111/100 = 111 * 1000 = 111,000
Game B:
100000/100 = 1000 * 1000 * 10 = 10,000,000

(since we know game B has a 10 fold word of mouth multiplier from all new traffic generated)

Continue the simulation you see that game A ends up falling away into obscurity compared to game B. The developer of game A could spend forever getting the odd few 1000 players but game B can pretty much do a little marketing in his spare time and easily get 1000 times the impact or more.

The fact of the matter is, a good game is viral marketing, and way more effective than any gimmicks.

Your 100% correct that the good game will carry itself to becoming a viral. But the marketing aspect of every game is still vital to get that initial 10000 players.

I agree...forums and facebook are great tools for spreading. One of the best aspects of facebook is that it encourages people to be nosy in their spare time, which is ideal for spreading a game. People are wasting time looking at what other people are doing....so why not try a game out that one of your friends is wasting time playing.

[JGOware]

Viral means, like a virus it spreads on it's own. To get a game to go viral in today's media savvy market, there's a few ways to draw attention:

1) Innovation combined with a good game. (World Of Goo.)
2) Political humor seems to work well.
3) Shock value. (gross, horror, bloody, sexy, etc.)
4) Humor, comedy, etc.

I've had discussions with devs in the past who swear by a 2 punch method. Combine a shock value game with a "real" game advertised on the same site. The shock value product hopefully goes viral and brings in attention to the "real" game.

But yah, it's almost useless to try to get 99% of the games out there to go viral regardless how good they are. Another thread titled "marketing techniques" would probably be more useful.

[Spore Man]

Whatever happened to "guerilla" marketing?

[Acord]

All marketing is really viral marketing.

A virus is simply information of some kind. The entire purpose of marketing is to promote the spread of information about a product or service.

The real trick is in making something as virulent as possible. The idea needs to spread outside of it's initial infection vectors if it's going to do well. In order to do that, it does need to be able to take root in a person's mind and be easy to pass on to others, either to infect them or to use them as carriers.

[Cevo70]

This is a viral forum thread.

[Grey Alien]

I say you need to do both:

1) Create a game worth talking about.
2) Do some marketing for it as well.

Then you are covered.

[Maupin]

Originally Posted by Acord

All marketing is really viral marketing.

No, it's not. That's why there is a specific term for it.