Have we already reached everyone?
Jake Richmond:
Quote
But one might have to conceed that its possible a majority of people that could be reached easily may have been reached for a particular single venue.
I think that's true. I think that just publishing a game, talking about it on your blog, hanging out at a few different community sites and going to a few conventions can only get you so many customers. If you want to move beyond that then you must try a new approach to find a new audience.
greyorm:
Quote from: Jake Richmond on December 01, 2008, 04:16:48 PM
I think that's true. I think that just publishing a game, talking about it on your blog, hanging out at a few different community sites and going to a few conventions can only get you so many customers. If you want to move beyond that then you must try a new approach to find a new audience.
While that is true, I don't think it is true in this case. That is, I don't think we've completely tapped the venue. Especially small presses such as the one I indicated above, who think the market has dried up when they haven't even penetrated the existing small-press gamer market (let alone the larger gamer hobbyist market).
I think "moving beyond" is a slippery slope that should be avoided in the "we've reached everyone" discussion, because it is too easy to say, "we aren't selling well, so we must have reached everyone in the current market, we should expand" when that is likely not the problem.
Valamir:
I don't think the current "indie-market" has been saturated. But I do think its become more discrimenating.
I've been saying for the last few years that the "If you build it they will come" era of indie design is over.
The "holy cow I've never seen that before" effect now requires something a hell of a lot more than it did back when Universalis, Dust Devils, and My Life with Master were new.
guildofblades:
>>I think "moving beyond" is a slippery slope that should be avoided in the "we've reached everyone" discussion, because it is too easy to say, "we aren't selling well, so we must have reached everyone in the current market, we should expand" when that is likely not the problem.<<
I'm not so sure its a matter of "expanding" per se, but rather trying to market to a "different" group of people or venue instead. For instance, when we first began our Empires of History line of games we marketed them aggresively at players of Axis & Allies, since the games were essentially A&A variants. In reality, the games were sort of a mixture of games like A&A and more traditional hex and counter wargames. They made some in roads to the A&A player base, sure, and they made some inroads to the hex and counter players as well, but they never did a whole lot more than scratch the surface of either consumer group. Not crunchy enough for the hex and counter group, no fun plastic minis and toys for the A&A crowd. Was there a market there within each group for the games? Sure. But was it the most fertile ground for them. No. That proved to be a broader base of consumers who were interested enough in history to be interested in historically themed games, yet not yet wedded to either of the above mentioned formats.
So, a "different" venue proved the better venue for us. That is not to say we now ignore the wargamers or Axis & Allies players, but we know where to focus the bulk of our energies for continued growth. It could very well be the publisher in question made some inroads with the indie consumer base, but to really hit their stride they might have to keep searching a bit to find a different venue they may be both more fertile ground and a larger park to play in.
Going to sell your product where all the other small companies have trodded before might seem like good common sense on the surface and it likely is, at the start. Its tried and true. But if all 500-800 companies are hitting that same target, as you might imagine, no matter how fertile ground, that's a lot of noise in the pipe to compete with.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
Jake Richmond:
Quote
While that is true, I don't think it is true in this case. That is, I don't think we've completely tapped the venue.
Of course. And we all do a lot more then what I described to promote our games.
Quote
I think "moving beyond" is a slippery slope that should be avoided in the "we've reached everyone" discussion, because it is too easy to say, "we aren't selling well, so we must have reached everyone in the current market, we should expand" when that is likely not the problem.
I think what I'm trying to say is the opposite. Not "we aren't selling well, so we must have reached everyone in the current market, we should expand", but " the current market is a great place to sell our games, but it's not where our target audience lives. We need to find our audience and market to them directly". This is truer for some games (mine for example) then others. Matt and I never really tried to market Panty Explosion to gamers. We focused all our energy on pushing the game to anime, manga and j-cinema fans. And that payed off. Panty Explosion sells really well. It sells well in the traditional gaming market as well, but that was never our priority. This wasn't a case of Matt and I trying to break into a mainstream market (or, I guess, a different hobby market). Instead we identified where our customers where and went directly after them from the beginning. If we had just stuck to the gaming market Panty Explosion would have never been more then a marginal success.
Now what you're sayiong is that the gaming market definitely has sales in it, and it's foolish for us to think there's nothing hear and try to move on to greener pastures, right? I agree with that. Totally. But there are plenty of games which are going to find a much larger potential audience outside the traditional gaming market then in it.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page