Yes they even got coverage of upcoming projects at least in UK magazines (since they are based in the UK).
“Help him! Help him!”
“Help who?”
"Help the Developer! "
“I’m the Developer, I’m all right.”
“Then help HIM, help HIM!”
Just watched that movie last weekend. Could be a good pick for the next QT3 movie.
Their newest programmer showed up at our offices in a human-sized Darwinian costume, spewing other, smaller foam Darwinians through a slot in its mouth. They certainly got our attention, but it’s hard for a company that small, based in the UK, to catch they eye of every major American publication.
Except by making great games, which doesn’t seem to be working on all of them.
I wonder if some are holding off because Multiwinia is to be part of Darwinia+ on Live Arcade, and they plan to review that version?
Hire a PR rep/agency/freelancer. That’s the way this sort of thing gets done; you need a constant PR presence. Particularly with indie(ish) games you need a constant stream of screenshots, videos, interviews, etc. to build up excitement. It took us two years to start getting more attention for Stardock’s stuff, during which I was constantly pestering every writer who would listen.
And as has been mentioned previously, you can definitely get by without having to rely on GameSpot, IGN, etc. – there are a lot of smaller sites and blogs out there that will talk about your game if you give them a chance. If you’ve got your game available digitally, PR is by far the cheapest way to get the word out – send lots of info while you’re building up to launch and then send review copies to EVERYONE. I’ve said it before: if a site gets 1 reader a month and that one person buys a game I worked on, it was worth my time. All it takes is putting that site’s email address on a press list and sending them a free digital copy. Pretty easy.
Edit: Me, biased toward PR? Never.
Well, there’s part of the issue they’re facing. No matter how much they fight and try to convince people otherwise, most outlets will just see it as a multiplayer patch for the original. We ran into similar (though obviously different) issues with Witcher Enhanced – particularly in North America, a lot of sites/mags just felt it wasn’t worth their time to review something that was “basically the same”… despite that “basically” making a world of difference.
Thats freaky. I watched it on DVD last weekend too. Awesome film. Major Danby is the best character by far :D
Getting press attention as an indie is a nightmare. For those who don’t know, I am one. One new problem is that a lot of the big magazines and websites seem to have moved heavily onto console gaming, and I guess they don’t see much demand for PC reviews of games they haven’t heard of.
What does get on my tits is the way sites will print “no news” about a AAA game rather than even mention that an indie game, with a demo you can try NOW, is actually released that day. Apparently “Triple A game set to announce collectors edition sleeve notes next week” is a bigger headline than “Indie studio releases brand new game today”.
That sucks…
You would think games site editors would be crying out to cover games that their readers didn’t already know about.
Major thumbs up for Kieron, Tim and stardock who do great things for indies.
They do have a PR person, and they did release a steady stream of screenshots, info and even cool explanatory videos with specially rendered animations to illustrate how the game works. They also did a series of interviews with IGN, released in a steady trickle leading up to release.
They’ve done this before, and effectively, but this time it’s not working. Again, I’m inclined to suspect it’s the nature of the game itself. It looks like Darwinia, and I’m sure some people are mentally classifying it as an expansion pack to an old game that was only just on their radar in the first place.
Edit: Meanwhile, you’ve made just this point.
ah yeah did’t realize they had a PR rep… I did see a fair bit of coverage, but honestly didn’t know that the game was out :(
This is a really tough time of year to get reviewed. sucks.
I had this idea of showing up at some key PR spots with radioactive gravel in a bucket and then sand blaster shooting it all over the place. I got sick collecting the stuff so I just gave up. The concept is fundamentally sound though I think. :)
I’m surfing the long end of the tail now on AE at a year plus after release. At this point if somebody hasn’t covered the game it probably isn’t going to happen. Luckily I have enough of a war chest to keep going until the next big gamble when I release game number 2. Hopefully that will be a whole new opportunity to expose people to AE when they come looking for the new game… so if you stack up enough long tails they should amount to something. Theoretically that is.
I would agree with what was said already. A high conversion rate for a game that sells not very well so far might just indicate that those who know about the game and intended to buy it anyway just tried the demo before buying.
I wrote that already, but I found the Multiwinia demo terrible for an MP game (especially in comparison to the great Defcon Demo).
While I’m but a single voice my personal opinion is clearly that most of those “converts” were going to buy it anyway.
That doesnt change the problem of lacking publicity of course, but it does question the conclusion the Introversion posts seems to draw (good conversion rate of a small amount of demo users = good game = good conversion rate with a large pool of demo users).
If there REALLY should be A SINGLE PERSON on this board not already knowing I would be surprised, considering that you manage to mention that little fact in EVERY SINGLE post here and EVERY SINGLE comment of yours elsewhere. :P
This is my situation. I’m just not interested in a multiplayer Darwinia.
Pity, because Multiwinia is fast, fun and chaotic. I really like it.
That just shows how great he is at PR!
I’m surprised to hear that. I always think its better for people to state who the fuck they are now and then, because I honestly have no idea who most of you are or what you do.
Its easy with people like Tom Chick or KeronGillen, but as most Qt3 people have nicks like D3athSp4nkMonkey75 I have no idea who you are.
Just saying :P
Besides, indie devs are allowed to tell everyone constantly who they are. I certainly don’t get a series of interviews on IGN for Kudos 2, so clearly I NEED PUBLICITY MORE THAN THEY DO!
For like a week, back when I first joined, I thought you might be Cliff Bleszinski.
I posted this over in their comments, but will repeat it here because that’s way I roll.
There’s a bit of irony here that print magazines could’ve been the saviors here, except most print magazines are dead. In print, I would always cover obscure games because my reviews were already late anyway, I had the space, and I figured people might get a kick out of reading something they hadn’t read about elsewhere. Since my magazine was crushed by ones that focused almost exclusively on ginormous AAA games, I was probably wrong.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t track what people read on a per-article basis, which is why I was willing to make that decision. For a website, they know what articles are being read, which makes it an easier decision to kill low-performing reviews. If indie game reviews have low traffic, it isn’t cost-effective to pay someone to do them. Much like you wouldn’t except publishers to keep funding developers who make games that don’t sell, why keep paying for articles no one reads?
Bloggers could help a lot, and if I was Introversion I’d probably focus as much attention as humanly possible not on the IGNs and Gamespots of the world but on every single blogger on the planet. Since few get attention from mainstream publishers, they’d probably be ecstatic to write about their game. Send out some freebies, get some underground buzz. If that reaches a certain fever pitch, perhaps the mainstream will come around.
Reminds me of savage 2, they were never happy with their # of reviews, and the game has remained low pop but positively received. FWIW, I doubt I will even try multiwinia, addicted as I am at the moment with warhammer, left 4 dead upcoming, with king’s bounty sitting unplayed.
I could have played it earlier, but their description is “great multiplayer sequel to darwinia”. I read it and thought: oh multiplayer for a game I never played or even really heard of. Seems like most people that liked the original thought: ok I like darwinia, but not multiplayer. By tying their game so closely to their previous, but changing the audience from sp to mp, I think they painted themselves into a corner.
I’ve got too much to play at the moment because of the backlog and gaming tsunami that’s about to hit us over the next month or two. Multiwinia is the right game at the wrong time for many, I think. It should’ve been released six months after Darwinia at the latest, if not at the same time, and then become Darwinia Gold.
They like to play the Indie card, but their games are in shops, and widely available online, and they always get positive coverage where coverage is available to them. Their games are Indie in quality but simultaneously competing with heavier hitters, and they kind of pale next to what I see in my gaming queue. I loved Uplink, “appreciated” Darwinia, but wasn’t interested in Defcon. I’m probably not even going to play the demo of Multiwinia, let alone buy it.
I do like what they do, but I’m hoping they come up with something more substantial next time.
I haven’t heard of Multiwinia actually being out the door as of until reading this thread and I usually hear about things out of my reach that I don’t even want to know and could care less of.
So I believe there is quite a merit in their outcry.
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