ID:406359
 Feb 29 2012, 3:45 am
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So, a lot of times developers will post screenshots, videos, information, and other things regarding projects that never seem to go anywhere. Not only that but people don't seem to care too much, unless it's some amazing new feature. So I ask you, BYOND: When is too soon to begin posting information regarding a game? What kinds of things are even worth posting about?
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Feb 29 2012, 4:08 am
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OrangeWeapons
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Unless you're close to releasing and you show screenshots, please don't show us anything. I don't want to waste my time reading about products that will never be complete. If I do think that your project will never see the light of day, I'll leave the page and think nothing of it.
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Personally, I don't feel there's any point 'pre-marketing' - the best test of your advertising is playing the game, so until there's at least a playable concept demo, it's all just hype.
Once your game is a joinable world, even in a closed beta, then you can start posting screenshots and advertising it. | |
It depends on why you're posting about the game. Most people are posting to get feedback. You can be looking for feedback about an idea, icon, video, story, or anything, so it's hard to say what "too soon" is. If you want feedback about an idea, once you've formed the idea, you're ready to post about it.
If you're posting to generate interest in a game you plan to complete, I don't think there's such a thing as too soon. If you post too early*, people will still check the game out when it's released. It's not like our projects are competing with commercial games. It's not likely that you'll ever hear someone say "I was really excited about this BYOND RPG that was in development, but it took too long to complete and Skyrim came out first, so I'm not going to bother checking out the BYOND game." * There are people who would prefer that you post early. This gives people the opportunity to be involved in the game's development (indirectly, at least). If you kept a game secret until it was ready, you might have people log in, realize the controls are terrible, and log out immediately. If you had posted about the control scheme earlier, people have the opportunity to voice their concerns (or, if there's no way to avoid the complex control scheme, your posts serve as a warning so people aren't surprised when they try to play the game). The only risk is your reputation. If you frequently make posts about new projects but never finish them, people may start to ignore your posts. Ultimately it doesn't matter. People will still check out the finished game even if they ignored its development posts. Also, for a game to be successful, you're going to pull players in from outside the community. When you make posts to build interest about a game, you're talking primarily to the BYOND community. Even if you drive the whole community nuts with your posts, for a good game they should only be a small percentage of your potential players. | |
Promoting an unreleased game is fine, but the best way to go about it is to wait until you actually have something playable. You don't have to be ready to release it or anything, but the game should be far enough along in development that if someone were to play it they'd see an actual game. You need to be at the point where you can tease screenshots of actual working gameplay, and not mockups or shots of an interface that doesn't function yet.
My general rule of thumb for the types of topics you should cover in sneak peak blog posts is this: Is the information something that you would be interested in if it were someone else's game? Other Dos and Don'ts:
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I'd imagine that, on BYOND at least, people will look at screenshots of a game they can't play, go "cool," and then basically ignore it until they can play it/the forget about it, Silk.
I'm pretty sure that any of the big-business franchise-cyborg releases don't -really- need much advertising; people will but a Modern Warfare 4 regardless of if it has advertising everywhere or just a poster in the window of the Game store. On the other hand, I bow to someone who did a better job than most at advertising his game. :P | |
Deathguard wrote:
I'm pretty sure that any of the big-business franchise-cyborg releases don't -really- need much advertising; people will but a Modern Warfare 4 regardless of if it has advertising everywhere or just a poster in the window of the Game store. Sure, but then there are games (like SW:TOR for me) That the more they teased me, the more I wanted to run into the studio and demand a release at gunpoint. I don't think there's any denying that proper pre-release marketing boosts initial sales. | |
Well i guess i should stop showing my progress then :(?
Aww ok lol. | |
Maaayyyybe a bit of a necro post, but I didn't feel right making a new topic about something we discussed less than two weeks ago.
I have some progress I'd like to show you guys, but it's essentially a movement and combat system with a rather basic AI (all it does is walk towards you and engage in combat). Would you like to see what I have so far in a video, or would the masses rather wait for more to be done? | |
In my opinion, when you have finished your core, or never. If you do it before you're done with your core, people will wait for a long long time. However, you can get people excited by advertising a week before releasing the game more than having it a month before releasing it.
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