App promotional services.. Do you use them?

[DaVeF101]

Does anyone developing for mobile use any kind of paid promotion service, review sites or marketing tools?

[zombiegorilla]

Heh, not really. We just do our own marketing.

[DaVeF101]

@zombiegorilla

Heh, not really. We just do our own marketing.

What do you include in your own marketing and how do you go about it, what media avenues to do you use?

[zombiegorilla]

I apologize, I was being a bit silly. We own three major tv networks, produce tons of huge movies and tv shows, Broadway shows and have our own music and book publishing. My last game launched on Good morning America followed by spots on ESPN. And the big screen in Times Square. My next game may have ads in theaters on some of the most anticipated movies in a long time. In short, we the largest entertainment company in the world (history) and the largest marketing force on the planet. So, my advise would be useless. I build game and our other shows it to the world. sorry I haven’t directly marketed in over a decade.

Just hang on, member with useful info will show up soon.

Chees.
zG

[longroadhwy]

@zombiegorilla

I apologize, I was being a bit silly. We own three major tv networks, produce tons of huge movies and tv shows, Broadway shows and have our own music and book publishing. My last game launched on Good morning America followed by spots on ESPN. And the big screen in Times Square. My next game may have ads in theaters on some of the most anticipated movies in a long time. In short, we the largest entertainment company in the world (history) and the largest marketing force on the planet. So, my advise would be useless. I build game and our other shows it to the world. sorry I haven’t directly marketed in over a decade.

Just hang on, member with useful info will show up soon.

Chees.
zG

That is pretty amazing marketing support!

[DaVeF101]

@zombiegorilla

I apologize, I was being a bit silly. We own three major tv networks, produce tons of huge movies and tv shows, Broadway shows and have our own music and book publishing. My last game launched on Good morning America followed by spots on ESPN. And the big screen in Times Square. My next game may have ads in theaters on some of the most anticipated movies in a long time. In short, we the largest entertainment company in the world (history) and the largest marketing force on the planet. So, my advise would be useless. I build game and our other shows it to the world. sorry I haven’t directly marketed in over a decade.

Just hang on, member with useful info will show up soon.

Chees.
zG

Wow!

[Samuel411]

@zombiegorilla

I apologize, I was being a bit silly. We own three major tv networks, produce tons of huge movies and tv shows, Broadway shows and have our own music and book publishing. My last game launched on Good morning America followed by spots on ESPN. And the big screen in Times Square. My next game may have ads in theaters on some of the most anticipated movies in a long time. In short, we the largest entertainment company in the world (history) and the largest marketing force on the planet. So, my advise would be useless. I build game and our other shows it to the world. sorry I haven’t directly marketed in over a decade.

Just hang on, member with useful info will show up soon.

Chees.
zG

How much would you say it would cost to have Disney market my game

[Kiwasi]

@longroadhwy

That is pretty amazing marketing support!

@DaVeF101

Wow!

You get used to him after a while. I hear there is even a little movie coming out soon that is entirely promotional material for his games.

Edit: In practical terms I have no useful advice on marketing either. I simply put a post or two on Facebook. My total revenue from Unity related products is less then $1000.

While that is still up from the 22 cents I used to throw around. It’s still just pocket change considering the time I’ve thrown at it.

[zombiegorilla]

Part of the reason I moved away from indie development was because I really only enjoy making games. Marketing, promotion and all the other elements that aren’t actually making games, just bug me. So, the only practical advise I can give is, get someone else to do it.

[Kiwasi]

@zombiegorilla

Part of the reason I moved away from indie development was because I really only enjoy making games. Marketing, promotion and all the other elements that aren’t actually making games, just bug me. So, the only practical advise I can give is, get someone else to do it.

This. Everyone I know that spends all day working on games they love works for someone else. Even most successful indies around here use marketing and PR firms. Marketing is an industry of its own with specialists of its own right.

[longroadhwy]

@Kiwasi

You get used to him after a while. I hear there is even a little movie coming out soon that is entirely promotional material for his games.

Edit: In practical terms I have no useful advice on marketing either. I simply put a post or two on Facebook. My total revenue from Unity related products is less then $1000.

While that is still up from the 22 cents I used to throw around. It’s still just pocket change considering the time I’ve thrown at it.

I knew where he worked but it always interesting to hear about how a game launches are done by various companies.

[zombiegorilla]

@longroadhwy

I knew where he worked but it always interesting to hear about how a game launches are done by various companies.

Our marketing is not directly handled by our team, though we are involved. We typically keep things quiet through geobeta. Usually not even announcing the game until right before launch. The downside of big ip is determining if people are downloading and engaging with it because it is Star Wars or Marvel or because they like the game. So we launch in smaller, but similar, countries quietly without marketing to so see how it does on its own organically. We do this for a few months to see how it does, and adjust if needed. If it does well, the marketing team goes into full swing. Though they are making plans prior to that. If it tanks during geo or has too many problems, it quietly goes away.

In that respect, it is very different than our AAA console games. Which are announced early on and marketed heavily a long time prior to launch. With mobile titles, download are important, but more important is in engagement. If someone downloads a game and plays it once, it doesn’t help build a larger pool of players, and they aren’t going to be a potential paying player. The game has to be good and engaging. Marketing can’t make up for that. Console/PC titles can still do well if the game isn’t good by marketing. Buying a console game and never playing it, still generates revenue. Mobile (f2p) games can’t hide a crappy game with marketing, as the player gets to play it before they decide if they want to pay anything for it.

So that is largely how we market our mobile titles. If they are good, and can prove they have traction, the Disney marketing machine takes it from there. We also cross-promote with our other games and media. Commander just added some exclusive content for some movie. My new game will be tying into and adding to, a different property. A big part of what makes what we do work on a larger scale, is that internal games like ours, aren’t designed to just take advantage of an ip. We are expected to move the ip forward and add to it. Characters/planets/vehicles we created for Commander are now part of the cannon. They recently appeared in a SW novel, and may well show up elsewhere. A concept designed for upcoming game significantly changes the universe of another property (which kind of kicks ass). All this results in additional marketing and cross-promotion, but that is a side benefit. We love the ip, and getting to involved in creating it (not just using it), shows in love and care we put into our games. And a huge pressure to not drop the ball.

[theANMATOR2b]

@DaVeF101

Does anyone developing for mobile use any kind of paid promotion service, review sites or marketing tools?

JamesLeeNZ mentioned using a company one time - specifically for mobile. I can’t remember the name. Check his posts. He gave some positive feedback about it.

Edit: I believe it is mentioned in his Hardkour thread.

[JamesLeeNZ]

http://www.androidb.com/110-app-review-requests/

Android only. I believe there is an iOS offering as well though.

[DaVeF101]

@JamesLeeNZ

http://www.androidb.com/110-app-review-requests/

Android only. I believe there is an iOS offering as well though.

Thanks, I’ll take a look at that

[LMan_1]

Make sure you do your homework- it sounds like you’d be taking all of the risk in that sort of thing.

Reviewers need your product for content for them to make money- I’d be distrustful of anybody asking you to provide both the content and the funds.

[JamesLeeNZ]

I would happily go on record saying that $100 I spent was the BEST money I’ve ever spent on game dev.

[hippocoder]

It’s not a good idea to use app promotion services on account of them never actually proving they made any difference.

[dogzerx2]

@JamesLeeNZ

I would happily go on record saying that $100 I spent was the BEST money I’ve ever spent on game dev.

You mean the guy who sends a press release to 100+ game review sites, that you’ve mentioned in your game’s post mortem? That one’s a great tip man, I had no idea someone did that, I really want to try it. I know barely 4 or 5 game review sites and I’m not very sure how to best approach begging for some attention. Hopefully I’d get more views on my next trailer with the help of that

[longroadhwy]

@zombiegorilla

Our marketing is not directly handled by our team, though we are involved. We typically keep things quiet through geobeta. Usually not even announcing the game until right before launch. The downside of big ip is determining if people are downloading and engaging with it because it is Star Wars or Marvel or because they like the game. So we launch in smaller, but similar, countries quietly without marketing to so see how it does on its own organically. We do this for a few months to see how it does, and adjust if needed. If it does well, the marketing team goes into full swing. Though they are making plans prior to that. If it tanks during geo or has too many problems, it quietly goes away.

In that respect, it is very different than our AAA console games. Which are announced early on and marketed heavily a long time prior to launch. With mobile titles, download are important, but more important is in engagement. If someone downloads a game and plays it once, it doesn’t help build a larger pool of players, and they aren’t going to be a potential paying player. The game has to be good and engaging. Marketing can’t make up for that. Console/PC titles can still do well if the game isn’t good by marketing. Buying a console game and never playing it, still generates revenue. Mobile (f2p) games can’t hide a crappy game with marketing, as the player gets to play it before they decide if they want to pay anything for it.

So that is largely how we market our mobile titles. If they are good, and can prove they have traction, the Disney marketing machine takes it from there. We also cross-promote with our other games and media. Commander just added some exclusive content for some movie. My new game will be tying into and adding to, a different property. A big part of what makes what we do work on a larger scale, is that internal games like ours, aren’t designed to just take advantage of an ip. We are expected to move the ip forward and add to it. Characters/planets/vehicles we created for Commander are now part of the cannon. They recently appeared in a SW novel, and may well show up elsewhere. A concept designed for upcoming game significantly changes the universe of another property (which kind of kicks ass). All this results in additional marketing and cross-promotion, but that is a side benefit. We love the ip, and getting to involved in creating it (not just using it), shows in love and care we put into our games. And a huge pressure to not drop the ball.

Nice. Marketing can save the day sometimes. It does make it interesting handling the branding and IP creation. With so much IP in one company doesn’t that make it even harder to make unique IP that is not a subset of some existing property?

The IP handling is interesting compared to tech or manufacturing where you have really need to crank out the patents so you have something to trade around with other large companies.