Introduction
This marketing report is not only for Infinite pew pew or Cubito Morado. It's a report that explains this whole bunch of new experiences that i've made in this new magical journey.
The process of marketing the game began since the moment i finished coding it. So far, working with Microsoft platforms has been a really big challenge, and i can tell you now that Windows Phone isn't completely ready for indie game developers, in fact, it's light years away from it, and the lesson learned is: If you want to start to sell your first game and use Windows Phone as a starting platform, just don't do it. Forget about it!.
Contacting press people
Reaching the press people was not the difficult part here, in fact, it is pretty easy, but i lost a lot of press coverage thanks to the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Since mid december to now i have been investigating in how to get press coverage of the game, so i read some books, dive in some blogs and even watched tons of youtube videos. It was , and still is, a fun and exciting topic. Man.....i'm having a blast!. Learning about marketing has been a delightful experience.
I ran out of budget (actually i should be looking for a job now) and decided to put away some points from my marketing plan, like the landing page and the new trailer. Why?, well, the trailer that i wanted to make was really difficult to create in Blender and it had consumed me a lot of time and paying a Adobe After Effects mothly license was something that simply couldn't happen. So happens the same for the landing page that's why i decided to use the old trailer and made a humble landing page in my blog.
After some research i found 30 press contacts for Latin America and almost 60 presss contacts from Germany, USA, Spain, England, India, Rusia, France, Italy and Portugal. The press kit was ready but there was no way to send the game to the press, so i kinda did a trick here. As a developer it is easy to install and send applications to other developers so they can try them out in their phones. But press people don't know a shit about developing an app and that's okay, they don't have to. In order to play the game they have to download a whole bunch of tools, install those tools and use special applications to install the game that i compiled for them. It's messy and way to complicated. The only way to install applications in a not developer-unlocked Windows Phone device it's via the Windows Marketplace but it was too risky to upload a free version of Infinite pew pew because other people that might not be press could download the game. So, after some research i found that the marketplace has a way to download the game in form of a .xap file so you can put it in your phone and manually install it by yourself with a tap of a button, but this only works with Microsoft certificated applications and to get the certification for my newly coded free game i had to send it to Microsoft so it can be in the Marketplace. So i did this; i sent the press version that i compiled so it can be certificated and be in the Marketplace, after the game got certificated i downloaded it from the marketplace, afterwards, i removed it from the store so nobody can put a hand on it. Now i have a certificated application that can be only obtainable via me. I tested the application in my phone and a couple of my friend's phones and everything worked perfectly, i was so happy. I guess i found a flaw in the Microsoft's certification process.
Well, Everything was now ready so i made a manual of 3 steps in how to install the game in the phone, a .zip file with the game, put it in dropbox, wrote the letter and send the package to all my Latin American contacts. I decided to start only with Latin America because, somehow, i felt that a problem will show off in the last minute. I think that my guts now have the capability to predict misfortune and caos and oh boy!!!!.The shit just didn't stopped raining.
The next days, the bad news started to fall. I received a mail from a mayor gaming site in Mexico explaining that they had trouble installing the game. They were so kind to sent me pictures about the problem that was being displayed on their phone and i tried to solve the problem. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 corrected games were sent to them a none of it could be installed!. I was about to put a bullet in my head!. I was so lucky that the guy that attended my mail, was a gamedev rookie (like me, yay!) and like any other gamedev, he was commited to put a hand on that game because he was excited just by watching the game trailer. I told him that the problem might be with the mail account configured in the phone's marketplace then he did some background check and he agreed with what i had told him. The next day i received a mail from him explaining that he couldn't be able to install the game. I threw myself in fetal position and started to cry. I just lost press coverage with a major gaming site in Mexico. After i finished to cry i decided to not lose that coverage; So i opened Visual Studio and quickly coded a PC version of the game, sent it to the same guy, crossed my fingers and voila!. The guy replied to me in twitter the next day: "Dude, your game it's amazing!!!". I just can't explain how much i love that guy now, he's an awesome human being. I'm still waiting to know if he wrote about the game or not. Maybe he's just too excited and is still organizing his thoughts to describe the experience.
That was the last contact with the press i've had. At first, i thought that the other 27 press people might have had the same problem installing the game, so i sent them again a mail with the PC version of the game. So far, they haven't replied to me yet. The results?!. I fucked it up in Latin America. From 30 press people, only 3 wrote about the game, that means that now i have a 10% probability of being press covered in other countries. That's just so low.
What am i doing wrong?
Firstly, being so stupid and naive to think that press will help me to do most of the promotion of the game, and not promoting the game by myself the right way. I have multiple accouts in Twitter and Facebook: 2 for me (Alan Sosa) and other 2 for Cubito Morado. It has been really messy to publish on this 4 accounts, because my Facebook account it's like the social connection with my friends and people close to me in Mexico, and the Cubito Morado's Facebook account works good to start building a fan base in Facebook on the other hand we have Twitter: Nobody of my relatives or friends is in Twitter, so mostly, my Twitter account it's like my social promotion in there, and the Cubito Morado's account it's useless. So i'm gonna delete the Cubito Morado's Account in Twitter and use my Account (Alan Sosa) to promote the game.
Other thing is the market segmentation. In Facebook, mostly of my followers are Latin Americans or Spanish speakers, and in Twitter are from all around the globe. So that means that i have to use english and spanish to promote the game in Facebook, and only english in Twitter. I'm not sure of using multiple languages in the same accout, it just does not look professional.
Before coding Infinite pew pew, i did a market research. I didn't had enough budget to hit the shelves of iOS, Android and Windows Phone at the same time. Microsoft's mobile platfom looked like the cheapest and most viable option. In other words, Windows Phone looked like a big blue ocean; It didn't had enough competition and had a very small difference from users who buy apps and use the platform over iOS. Now i have to solve the bad market research i did back then. Everything looks way too different from what i found when i was "researching". My distribution channels are so damn limited. So, my only choice is to expand the market to another platform that doesn't cost a lot and that i can be there in less than a week. Good thing i'm working with XNA, so doing that is not a big deal,. It will take me like 2 days to make a full port of the game for Windows Desktop and sell the game using ITCH.IO or even DESURA.
Further strategy
I will make use of social networks to promote the game; Facebook groups and Twitter in order to keep the game alive. I'll publish highscores and game screenshots everywhere, also using the #screenshotsaturday in Twitter is a good idea. And, i'm gonna write about my adventure in Reddit. Prepare the PC version in 2 days so it can be in itch.io in less than a week. and investigate how to put it on Desura. Send the mails to the other countries, but this time incluiding the game for PC, this means that i have to expand my contacts list and do some research again.
Well, Everything was now ready so i made a manual of 3 steps in how to install the game in the phone, a .zip file with the game, put it in dropbox, wrote the letter and send the package to all my Latin American contacts. I decided to start only with Latin America because, somehow, i felt that a problem will show off in the last minute. I think that my guts now have the capability to predict misfortune and caos and oh boy!!!!.The shit just didn't stopped raining.
Caos and Misfortune
On the first day, i heard back from 2 contacts. I was surprised, because us , Latin Americans have a tradition called "the arrival of the 3 Wise Kings" that celebrates in January 6th, and i sent the mails in January 5th. Most people don't tend to work on this day, so yeah. This contacts told me that they wrote about the game and it ran perfectly on their phones. After a couple of days another kind soul sent me an email explaining that he wrote about the game. I was thrilled!
The next days, the bad news started to fall. I received a mail from a mayor gaming site in Mexico explaining that they had trouble installing the game. They were so kind to sent me pictures about the problem that was being displayed on their phone and i tried to solve the problem. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 corrected games were sent to them a none of it could be installed!. I was about to put a bullet in my head!. I was so lucky that the guy that attended my mail, was a gamedev rookie (like me, yay!) and like any other gamedev, he was commited to put a hand on that game because he was excited just by watching the game trailer. I told him that the problem might be with the mail account configured in the phone's marketplace then he did some background check and he agreed with what i had told him. The next day i received a mail from him explaining that he couldn't be able to install the game. I threw myself in fetal position and started to cry. I just lost press coverage with a major gaming site in Mexico. After i finished to cry i decided to not lose that coverage; So i opened Visual Studio and quickly coded a PC version of the game, sent it to the same guy, crossed my fingers and voila!. The guy replied to me in twitter the next day: "Dude, your game it's amazing!!!". I just can't explain how much i love that guy now, he's an awesome human being. I'm still waiting to know if he wrote about the game or not. Maybe he's just too excited and is still organizing his thoughts to describe the experience.
That was the last contact with the press i've had. At first, i thought that the other 27 press people might have had the same problem installing the game, so i sent them again a mail with the PC version of the game. So far, they haven't replied to me yet. The results?!. I fucked it up in Latin America. From 30 press people, only 3 wrote about the game, that means that now i have a 10% probability of being press covered in other countries. That's just so low.
What am i doing wrong?
Firstly, being so stupid and naive to think that press will help me to do most of the promotion of the game, and not promoting the game by myself the right way. I have multiple accouts in Twitter and Facebook: 2 for me (Alan Sosa) and other 2 for Cubito Morado. It has been really messy to publish on this 4 accounts, because my Facebook account it's like the social connection with my friends and people close to me in Mexico, and the Cubito Morado's Facebook account works good to start building a fan base in Facebook on the other hand we have Twitter: Nobody of my relatives or friends is in Twitter, so mostly, my Twitter account it's like my social promotion in there, and the Cubito Morado's account it's useless. So i'm gonna delete the Cubito Morado's Account in Twitter and use my Account (Alan Sosa) to promote the game.
Other thing is the market segmentation. In Facebook, mostly of my followers are Latin Americans or Spanish speakers, and in Twitter are from all around the globe. So that means that i have to use english and spanish to promote the game in Facebook, and only english in Twitter. I'm not sure of using multiple languages in the same accout, it just does not look professional.
Before coding Infinite pew pew, i did a market research. I didn't had enough budget to hit the shelves of iOS, Android and Windows Phone at the same time. Microsoft's mobile platfom looked like the cheapest and most viable option. In other words, Windows Phone looked like a big blue ocean; It didn't had enough competition and had a very small difference from users who buy apps and use the platform over iOS. Now i have to solve the bad market research i did back then. Everything looks way too different from what i found when i was "researching". My distribution channels are so damn limited. So, my only choice is to expand the market to another platform that doesn't cost a lot and that i can be there in less than a week. Good thing i'm working with XNA, so doing that is not a big deal,. It will take me like 2 days to make a full port of the game for Windows Desktop and sell the game using ITCH.IO or even DESURA.
Further strategy
I will make use of social networks to promote the game; Facebook groups and Twitter in order to keep the game alive. I'll publish highscores and game screenshots everywhere, also using the #screenshotsaturday in Twitter is a good idea. And, i'm gonna write about my adventure in Reddit. Prepare the PC version in 2 days so it can be in itch.io in less than a week. and investigate how to put it on Desura. Send the mails to the other countries, but this time incluiding the game for PC, this means that i have to expand my contacts list and do some research again.
