Things have been pretty silent in the past couple of months (except for two releases ;-) ) and we still are not on Steam. The reasons as usual are varied but we now finally are very close to the release as can be seen by the issues to be fixed that still are on our list. We expect one more public release for stability testing and barring any more important problems then should be ready to go.
One of the issues concerns press related stuff (press kit, etc.). I recently was wondering if any of you out there have had experiences with Indie PR agencies (or heard about such experiences). There seem to be a couple of companies out there that specialize on handling public relations for Indie Games and I'm pondering whether this might help the Steam release given our limited time in 2015. Visibility always is good and I might be tempted to invest some bucks in such an agency... does anybody have knowledge about costs, effectiveness, etc?
Thanks for any pointers!
Thomas
I am not sure about agencies, but (famous) streamers in twitch.tv sure can give you visibility. Maybe some arranged streaming event during steam release would be helpful? Helps to have some youtube videos about game available as well. People are generally interested to see some gameplay videos or streams before they buy gaming titles they don't know so well.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've heard Youtubers are especially good for roguelikes, because of the emergent gameplay. You might want to reach out to a few other roguelike devs for contacts.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of web-site coverage I've heard only Rock, Paper, Shotgun makes a real difference for roguelikes, and Adam there is already a big ADOM fan so it should be easy to get coverage there. Other sites like Eurogamer and PC Gamer don't generate as much interest in niche games.
A PR agency would take off some of the burden, but I wouldn't trust them as a magic wand, especially for roguelikes. I get a lot of mail from PR people because of Roguelike Radio and most of it is very badly/bluntly done. It's usually better when a developer reaches out in person.
Sounds like we'll have to cover that part. If I just could find that Caves of Qud article... and time to cope with this stuff ;-)
DeleteOut of Youtubers may I recommend One F Jef. He has played some roguelikes in the past and even those videos get like 50k+ views. https://www.youtube.com/user/jefmajor/
DeleteI can't comment on actual PR firms, but minute long trailer showing all the wonderful new features and tiles + hitting all of the major roguelike hubs (reddit, RPS, retweets from other RL devs like the DoomRL guy, etc) will do you more good than an article in any mainstream game publication. I also recommend giving away steam keys to the top youtubers and getting them to make review and Let's Play videos.
DeleteRaffle solution:
ReplyDeleteHandout of half a dozen ADOM Deluxe Steam keys to users who fervently tweet about the game for seven days:
https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d6803aa83/?
Antharion had 71 entries = individuals. I suspect ADOM could have much more entries = people.
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