Marketing

[michalove]

This is not really a bug/issue, but it might be good to gather information in one place.

I was thinking about marketing. We agreed, that we want to publish the game as free software (this can still be discussed, in case we think we can make money out of this). I personally would like to have as many people play this game as possible. How can we get the word spread? Here is a random list of things that we could do (I am not saying we should do all of this. This is rather a starting point for discussion):

• Devblog (is doing fine at the moment)
• Twitter. I don't have an account and this is totally new for me, but it might be a possible way to get in touch with other developers and to get noticed by people.
• indieDB. Can we create a page on this site?
• Steam (greenlight). As far as I know it is possible to have free games on steam. Getting there, however, is a lot of work and them we'd have to deal with all the compatibility stuff and steam API.
• Youtubers. We could ask youtube-indie-game-reviewers, to play our game (once it is finished)
• ct. Trainsported was featured there. Maybe they want to show Bandana, too.
• Announcing the game in forums/on reddit. Do you know specific places, where we could post about the game?
• Getting the game into Ubuntu. That, again would be a lot of work. We'd have to make a .deb package out of the game and then go through a rather complex process of publishing the game into the official ubuntu repository.

I am bringing this up now, because for some things, it is good to start early (for example twitter). Do you have any additional ideas how to get the game out there? Or comment on these suggestions?

[Germanunkol]

First, the things you already mentioned:

• Twitter: I don't have an account, either. But I think this is a must, yes.
• IndieDB: trAInsported is on IndieDB and I found it to be quite a good way to keep people updated. There's a great community there, and it's a great way to get in touch with many potential players.
• Steam: No clue how the process works. Keep in mind, getting on Greenlight costs. Not much, if you get payed after, but for an entirely free-to-play game, it might not be worth it. On the other hand this is a huge community and I'm sure many people would play it.
• Youtube: This would be especially fun if we had some very difficult levels. Seeing others perform the easy levels might not be all that interesting, but seeing them fail again and again on a hard level would be fun. Either way, this would be great publicity, I think.
• c't: I never wrote to them. Instead, I wrote to indiegames.com, they're usually very nice. I think magazines like c't won't pick it up directly from us, if they do write about the game, then probably because they heard from others about it, or noticed some hype. IndieDB seems to be a great place for getting people to know your game. When they wrote about trAInsported, people all over the internet started reporting on it, and my visitor count made somersaults... (Side note: I just noticed safety blanket, another Löve game has been featured on indieDB as well :).
• Forums/reddit: There's many great pages for indie games. When publishing trAInsported, I just wrote to as many as possible: Quite few of the large ones responded, but we might be more lucky with bandana, since it might be good for a better audience.
• Ubuntu: I heard this is really hard. Making a .deb should work, and we can distribute that ourselves, but staying in the official repositories is said to be very difficult. I think we should start with the AUR (Archlinux), it's less strict. I don't mind going for Ubuntu, but we'll probably need to do a lot of support, more than we might want to do. On the other hand, it's a great way to get the game into people's hands.

One thing that I'd like to add: If we make a homepage, I think we really need to add social-media-buttons to it (facebook-share, google+, twitter, reddit etc).

[michalove]

Okay, good. Let me arrange these ideas in three groups: (1) should be done before release (2) should be done on release or shortly after (3) will probably not be done Should be done before release

• create twitter account
• get the homepage running
• link these together with the blog so that everything can be found
• Add social media buttons to homepage

Should be done on release or shortly after

• IndieDB and other websites that write about indie games/free games
• Write to forums and to reddit
• Ask youtubers to review the game

Things we will probably not do:

• Steam (submitting a game costs 90 Euros. I don't think it is worth the effort)
• Ubuntu (seems to be too complicated. Also many Ubuntu users are smart enough to install LÖVE).

[Germanunkol]

Are you going to create a twitter account? I think we should do this soon - the plan is still to release in a few months, right? We should definately start building a website and start spreading the news. I have and indieDB account, so I could add the game there and administrate it. But I think it's best if you also make an account and we both add content - It will be easier to administrate...

[michalove]

Thanks for reminding. I will create a twitter account. How shall we name it? Something like "bandanagame" ?

And I will also make an account on indieDB.

For the website: What do we need technically? I have no experience. We need to buy/rent the URL and then we need a webhoster where the data is stored, right? In the long term it would be good to move the dev-blog to the website, too. Then we need a design (maybe one of us make a mockup in inkscape?).

I was thinking of submitting some screenshots to the screenshot saturday on http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/ For that we should have finished a basic home page so that we can refer interested people to that.

[Germanunkol]

Yes. If you can come up with a basic mockup, I could try to create the page. As long as it's simple, I can do it.

There are a few options: 1) We buy a domain now (bandanagame.* seems to be open, bandana.* all seem to be taken). This costs a few bucks a year if you get the right site (I can recommend http://contabo.com/, I use them for my webserver, they have great customer service and the uptime was great so far. Click on the "domains" at the top right and you'll get prices and can check availability of domains. Another, relatively cheap alternative seems to be GoDaddy or 1and1.com, though I don't know them well.) 2) We buy webspace and a domain. Often, when buying webspace, you get a free domain with it which you can choose. If we buy the webspace later our problem is that we'll have already payed for the domain. Again I can recommend contabo.com, though there are tons of options here. Before ordering we should ask the providers if the server can run Lua scripts - otherwise we could also rewrite the level verification script in php.

Either way, I think you should register domain and/or webspace/server. I'm not sure about financing it yet - if we don't want to pay from our own pockets, we could make the game "pay what you want", or add a "donate" button to the page and hope for the best.

[michalove]

I am okay with paying the domain from my own pocket. This is my biggest game project so far and I am ready to commit to it financially. You can contribute, but that is up to you. I don't expect you to invest money in this project. You have already invested so many hours of work.

And why not having a donate-button. If someone donates and we can pay the domain from it, even better.

[Germanunkol]

That sounds good. Then I suggest that we start looking around for webservers. Migrating later would work, but it might be more work later on and if we buy the domain separately, then we might "waste" a free domain which we might get with the webspace.

What we need:

• Webspace with webserver (apache?) and php (That's the standard webspace you usually get). Would be nice if it's running Linux. I have no idea how much space we need. 10-20 GB is probably plenty.

Nice extras would be:

• Lua (will probably be hard to find if we use a simple webspace - if it we decide to go with a server with root access/installation rights this is easy)
• FTP access
• Email Adresses

[Germanunkol]

Posting for reference: This script claims it can now create .deb packages from a Löve project automatically. We should definitely keep that in mind. I'm sure the average Debian/Ubuntu user would rather get a .deb than a .love.

[michalove]

Hey, just so you know: I made a post on reddit here: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/2clis0/the_rgamedev_quarterly_showcase_1_8414/

I hope that post is okay with you.

[Germanunkol]

Nice!

There's a lot of good games in that list, too. Kinda drowns ours :P We should definately create some gameplay/trailer thing so we can post that also next time...

[michalove]

That's true.

They have the marketing monday there. And the screenshot friday. We should participate, if we have the time.

[Germanunkol]

Isn't it screenshot saturday? :) But yes, we should definitely participate.

Should I open up a game-entry on indieDB? I think it's a great way to get into touch with players. Then when you find the time you can also create an account and I'll add you as author of the game, then you should be able to modify the page it as well.

[michalove]

Please go ahead with indieDB. I will join then.

I admit I am terribly behind in all the plans we had for marketing. Next week I will be on holidays. Hopefully then, I will find the time for some marketing and account-making and stuff.

[Germanunkol]

Hi Germanunkol,

Thank you for submitting (Bandana) to Indie DB, your game has just been authorized.
Indie DB is one of the largest game development sites on the internet with over 1,000,000
members and is 100% dedicated to helping you get your game publicity and support, via
our huge community of gamers and developers.
Your games url is below, we recommend you add your Indie DB link to your official site
(awesome logos await http://www.indiedb.com/mediakit), as it helps us spread the word
and grow the game development scene:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/bandana

To help you get the most out of Indie DB we recommend you check out all of the links below:

- Edit Game: http://www.indiedb.com/games/edit/bandana
- Add News: http://www.indiedb.com/games/bandana/news/add
- Add Downloads: http://www.indiedb.com/games/bandana/downloads/add
- Add Images: http://www.indiedb.com/games/bandana/images/add
- Add Video / Audio: http://www.indiedb.com/games/bandana/videos/add
- Forums:
http://www.indiedb.com/forum
- Mediakit: http://www.indiedb.com/mediakit

To control the emails you receive from Indie DB, follow the link below:
http://www.indiedb.com/members/edit/germanunkol

Thanks,
The Indie DB Team
http://www.indiedb.com

I also created a "company" on indieDB. Once you've made an account, let me know, then I'll add you to the company and you'll be able to admin the game as well: http://www.indiedb.com/company/bandana-developers I had to create the company because that seems to be the only way of having multiple users administrate a game.

[michalove]

Nice, thanks. It's good to have many screenshots.

[michalove]

I finally made an account on indieDB. Please add me to the "company". The username is "michalove".

[Germanunkol]

Done. I've never done this before, so once you accept the invite, can you make sure you can update the game? If there's a small 'plus' icon to the right of "Latest Screens" on the bandana page (http://www.indiedb.com/games/bandana) then it worked and you can modify/add to the game.

[michalove]

There is as 'plus' at the downloads, but not at the screenshots.

[Germanunkol]

Hum. All right, I tried modifying your access rights. Please check again. If that doesn't work, I'll ask on the forums...

[michalove]

It works now. Thanks.

[Germanunkol]

Happy new year! Just so you know, I now have a twitter account and will start tweeting new updates we make...

[michalove]

Happy new year!

Sounds great. Is it a Germanunkol-account or a Bandana-account? And what is the name?

[Germanunkol]

Hi, @Germanunkol I wanted to leave the creating of @Bandana (or similar) to you, so you have control over it...