Free copies for schools or students

[Sillysoft]

I'm thinking about giving away free copies of my games to schools. Schools are usually strapped for cash, so I figure I wouldn't lose that many sales. On the good side, it could expose my games to lots more people.

My game American History Lux is somewhat educational. It's also a smaller then the big Lux, so giving it away still isn't giving away the Sillysoft crown jewels.

I've been thinking about the various possible ways to go about doing this. I think including students in the program would be good, since they are generally poor and I've seen some games spread like wildfire through students (like Snood). I don't want to have to deal with emailing tons of individuals though.

So I'm thinking free copies will be given out when requested by a school administrator, librarian, or student government as long as they have a supporting website. The school would then be allowed to distribute the installer to its students if it wanted to.

What do you think?

[Ryan Clark]

An interesting idea, but I'm trying to see where you end up making money out of this. You'd get a lot of word of mouth from it, but since the students are getting it for free, wouldn't they then just give the installer to their friends (who would also be students)? If so, you wouldn't profit at all. You would profit, however, if people enjoyed AHL so much that they purchased Lux.

If it were me, I think I would give it to the schools for free, but if the students want it at home they can ask their parents for it.

Either way, though, I agree that you don't have much to lose from this.

[Red Marble Games]

I've done a number of steeply discounted deals for schools, rather than giving the game away for free; schools are strapped for cash but not so strapped that they can't pay you anything. I had the same thinking, that kids might play at school and get hooked and go buy the game for themselves. But that's really hard to track, obviously, so I have no way to know whether it works or not. Instead, I just try not to think about the number of computers running the game in the school, and then I can look at it as a number of additional sales, and sales are good.

Also I generally inquire before offering the discount about the school's ability to prevent students from just copying the game and taking it home, and they've been surprisingly reassuring about their ability to prevent that from happening. So all around I think it can't hurt, and it's extra sales, and maybe, just maybe, a good form of advertising.

[Curiosoft]

Hi,

First a couple questions...what age group are you targeting? Are you going to go after elementary school, middle school, high school, or college?

With college, you may be able to get the professor to have their students get the game for part of a course.

I think Mr. Cliffski got a good recommendation from a professor at a university and maybe it helped him in a few ways (good recommendation, more sales, etc.). Ask him to be sure.

Also, there may be another strategy entirely....work closely with some teachers at a school. See how the game is working for them. If you can get a good recommendation or even advice on how to integrate it into the curriculum, that could work out well.

I know you are open to giving out free copies *if* they request them...but I'm thinking that first you need a critical mass (and buzz) in the school domain before folks will take you up on that offer...and by that time, you might be able to charge them

So the question is...how do you create that buzz? Can you work with a few schools at first to get them totally using it in their classroom? Can you spin it off as a serious game? Is this game appropriate for their social studies curriculum? Along the lines of the Googlebot thread....can you add specialized content to your site that makes your game appear relevant to teachers? Are there keywords that Social Studies teachers use when searching for content online? Can you optimize for those keywords...so teachers find your site and the special information you provide also?

Anyways, those are my thoughts. I hope they work for you.

Take care,
Curiosoft

[lexaloffle]

I'm working on a similar project, but more stingy and geared towards creating direct relationships with schools rather than stimulating viral distribution activity.

I'm going to offer a single free license for any school. I've only dealt with a handful of schools, but the ones that have contacted me seemed pleasantly surprised that I was able to offer discounts for classroom licenses. Proactively offering a single license would advertise this fact and might make the journey from seeing the demo of a game to buying multiple licenses of it easier (try-before-you-buy on a different scale).

A single school purchase is worth so much that I think this is one case where directly contacting individuals might be worthwhile. I'm a bit reluctant to start cold-emailing people though - I have to overcome a small company identity crisis first.

Anyway, this is just for comparison. I think using schools as a source of exposure is a good idea. Determining the exact effect of such a move often requires a lot of hand waving and speculation, but I think in principle any form of viral activity is a good thing as long as you have some way of leveraging it (which you clearly do). Also, giving schools stuff for free is kind of a cool thing to do.

[Sillysoft]

Good clarifying question Ryan: where do I end up making money from this? I'm not expecting any big immediate return, but in the long run I would hope to get an increase in sales of Lux Delux and our future games. I'd like to be in business for the next decade, so I think doing something like this could help Sillysoft grow long-term. American History Lux has a link back to the Sillysoft website in it, so there is a direct path from it to our other wares.

Giving steep discounts is another approach to this scheme as Red Marble and Lexaloffle say. I really feel that the power of 'free' is a much bigger driver of volume though, by an order of magnitude. The difference between 0$ and 1$ is a lot larger then the difference between 1$ and 2$ if you get my meaning. I'm hoping that with a 100% free game I might be able to get whole school districts to take American History Lux, and really get it in front of LOTS of people.

Originally Posted by Curiosoft

what age group are you targeting? Are you going to go after elementary school, middle school, high school, or college?

I'm thinking mostly of high school and college/university levels here, although elementary schools would work too. I don't want to restrict it it, I'm going for wide exposure.

Working with schools to integrate it with their curriculum is an interesting idea, but honestly I don't really want to spend my time doing that. I like the packaged software business model of putting in the initial time and effort to create a finished product and then letting computers do the rest of the work copying the bits. American History Lux was designed as a game, and not a learning aid. While it does have some educational aspects in it, fitting it into a proper curriculum might take a lot (and might not even be possible). So I think I'd rather stay away from trying to customize it for schools.

Thanks for all the comments so far guys.

[Tom Ohle]

As shady as it might sound, it could just be a good publicity stunt. Contact some schools and offer the software up. "Game developer entertains kids and educates them in the process." Contact a couple of local papers, maybe shoot an email to a handful of lower-tier games outlets (i.e. not GameSpot, IGN, etc.)... and you should be able to get at least a couple hits.

[Curiosoft]

Who said you would be spending your time doing it. You have a user community...they may want to contribute....you can probably set up a WIKI pretty easily Or...Have the teachers contribute the content on the WIKI...you're just the software guy

The great thing about the WIKI is that you are having other folks add content ...and it grows into a better and more useful site over time.

Take care,
Curiosoft

[Sillysoft]

I'm going ahead with this. Here's the webpage I put up:
http://sillysoft.net/schools/

I also tacked on a program for CS, math and engineering students/schools to get Lux Delux. I want to spread interest in the Lux SDK, and I think this will help with that.

Most schools (that I know of) start in September which isn't too far away. I don't know how early they start gearing up, but I will send out an announcement now. Do any of you press release guys have an educational list? Or anybody know a good way of contacting schools?