KickStarter Consortium: The Tower - now available on Early Access

[Vault Dweller]

With the right marketing...

You can't market much without a marketing budget and/or media writing about you non-stop (Trump, Fargo's WL2 campaign, etc). As the media's obsession with KS is over, it's unlikely that the Consortium will get a significant (if any) free coverage.

 

[LESS T_T]

Likely they'll do a publishing deal with some publisher somewhere down the line, and leaving marketing and distribution to them. (And I guess that will make the estimated break-even point even higher.)

 

[Vault Dweller]

I don't think any publisher would want to touch it considering the investment baggage. Not that signing up with a publisher for any reason, including marketing, is a good idea in the first place.

 

[Infinitron]

I think a good way for games like these to succeed is by having the developers of similar games that are larger and more popular promote them. "Hey, if you want more games like this, well, the next game in our series doesn't come out until 2019, so in the meantime try this!"

I mean, would Square Enix/Eidos Montreal really lose anything by giving these guys a shoutout? I say they might even gain - by promoting the genre their game represents and cultivating a player base that knows and understands that genre.

 

[Mustawd]

The downside is if the project fails. It might work if they wait for games to be funded (kind of like now with Consortium 2).

 

[Vault Dweller]

A shoutout is nice but it's a drop in the bucket. Essentially, marketing is about being able to address an audience, present your game, explain your features, etc. Either you buy it or get it for free if the media loves your game. I daresay that a favorable RPS article will get them more sales than a shoutout from Eidos.

 

[Gord]

Even a comparably small marketing budget can lead to a lot of publicity if you play your cards right. See Swen/Larian constantly showing on youtube channels, gaming sites, etc.
Not that it's easy to achieve, mind.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Larian is an established, well-known and liked studio that's been around for 20 years and had a much stronger reputation than pre-WL2 inXile. They aren't exactly a nobody.

 

[Gord]

No, but they weren't that well-known either outside of relatively small niches. I think Swen being hyperactive, charismatic and very dedicated helped a lot, though.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Larian is an established, well-known and liked studio that's been around for 20 years and had a much stronger reputation than pre-WL2 inXile. They aren't exactly a nobody.

Eh, WL2 was a success based on Fargo's reputation, inXile had fuck all to do with it.

That's what "Brian Fargo presents" gets you.

 

[Vault Dweller]

My point was that before WL2 inXile was a no-name studio despite Fargo's name and past glory.

 

[Excidium II]

They really hammered the Fallout connection during campaign. Maybe Consortium should also ride the wave and spam Deus Ex harder.

 

[Kem0sabe]

These guys are Bros, doing their dream projects, really felt bad for them when their KS failed, as the concept and demo were really good.

 

[DeepOcean]

Love their concept, admire their passion, have zero hopes this will be more than vapourware.

 

[Infinitron]

Love their concept, admire their passion, have zero hopes this will be more than vapourware.

Well, they've already released one game.

 

[ArchAngel]

Love their concept, admire their passion, have zero hopes this will be more than vapourware.

Well, they've already released one game.

shhh, you are breaking Codex narrative that everything is shit.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It is just me or Fig campaigns die right after reaching the goal?

 

[ArchAngel]

It is just me or Fig campaigns die right after reaching the goal?

It died long time ago, it was only alive because investors kept giving it money.

 

[Abu Antar]

It is just me or Fig campaigns die right after reaching the goal?

It'll do a little better the last few days, but it won't be going up much for a while.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

If y'all want to back at or above the 50 dorra level you can use one of those three $10 discount codes:

• https://www.fig.co/ctt?promo=20k7M0CaSMxWIRLBYLY-K1
• https://www.fig.co/ctt?promo=3wLx6oOKpEc5MaTDzMZrG7
• https://www.fig.co/ctt?promo=I-eEfPhgy7LfN_yyEDWUWt

 

[J_C]

Well this is a strange campaign. They reached their 300K goal in a day or so, but then the funding basicly stopped, and they only gathered 16K in 10 days.

 

[Bubbles]

Well this is a strange campaign. They reached their 300K goal in a day or so, but then the funding basicly stopped, and they only gathered 16K in 10 days.

They stopped allowing new inventments when they hit their base goal, and inventments were about 75% of their total funding.

 

[Love]

You can't market much without a marketing budget and/or media writing about you non-stop (Trump, Fargo's WL2 campaign, etc). As the media's obsession with KS is over, it's unlikely that the Consortium will get a significant (if any) free coverage.

But Kickstarter is part of the marketing. It's the pitch they have to present the game with to acquire those funds in the first place. Now since they seem to have found an investor it's fair to say that their Kickstarter was not unsuccessful in this regard but it still leaves a bit of disappointment.

It's not like we are living in the 1950s where you have to find some agency to print your advertisement and buy space to publish them in. We are living in the information age and finding the people that care for games over the net isn't even that complicated. We are not hiding in separate darkrooms but concentrate in online communities you can tackle directly. So why is none of those guys registered here? All they would have to do is open a thread with "The only thing more fucked up than Vault Dweller's understanding of marketing is his understanding of RPGs" and they would have guaranteed replies until Christmas. You already mentioned outlets like RPS and after all they have covered the first game. So why aren't they bothering those guys and their forums?
Giving away the first game for free was a nice gimmick but how about giving the community a heads-up about it? Go into those forums and bribe the moderators and fistfuckers with copies and then let some of those get to the community. "For the next 500 retweets we'll release another batch of copies!"

It's not like there are no freelancers out there and people have shared their experience with Kickstarter already en masse. I like their openness and the look behind the doors they gave us, but those weeks during the campaign don't profit from continued improvement on the game. Nobody sees that progress anyway and the campaign costs so much time you don't get that much done.
They had a perfect trailer and they have had the perfect demo in form of their first game. So either the game was not good enough to garner more interest or they simply asked for too much money. The problem is that they don't fall in the underrepresented gaming niches. We had the boom for RPGs, adventures and now it's digital novels and CYOA stuff. Their competition is Dishonored or Deus Ex. So desperate times call for desperate measures. Maybe there are still some unsatisfied fans of this genre out there only waiting for an e-mail telling them "Want to blow those golden shower faggots in Montreal and their abomination of Deux Ex out of the water? Come and invest to get your war bonds so together we can go to fuck Eidos right up their ass!"

But of course they would have to make it bit catchier.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You can't market much without a marketing budget and/or media writing about you non-stop (Trump, Fargo's WL2 campaign, etc). As the media's obsession with KS is over, it's unlikely that the Consortium will get a significant (if any) free coverage.

But Kickstarter is part of the marketing.

Only if the media loves you. If they don't, you just watch the tumbleweed roll through your page.

It's the pitch they have to present the game with to acquire those funds in the first place...

And without the media support you won't get those funds no matter what you do. That's why their KS campaign failed. Look at any successful campaign, be it WL2, Pillars, that adventure game, or even Sui Generis. It was the media that drove people in waves to pledge not what developers had to say and show (in most cases very little).

All they would have to do is open a thread with "The only thing more fucked up than Vault Dweller's understanding of marketing is his understanding of RPGs" and they would have guaranteed replies until Christmas.

That IS a catchy title, I agree.

Giving away the first game for free was a nice gimmick but how about giving the community a heads-up about it?

I think it was a big mistake that shows a very skewered perspective (no offense). Indie developers should rely on their games' sales to fund future games, not discard them like used condoms and seek crowdfunding again. Mind you, I wish them nothing but the best, but they keep fucking up when it comes to the business end of things: failed KS, silly promises to retain the backers, giving their first game for free, using Fig, which means they have to repay the money, etc.

 

[Love]

And without the media support you won't get those funds no matter what you do. That's why their KS campaign failed. Look at any successful campaign, be it WL2, Pillars, that adventure game, or even Sui Generis. It was the media that drove people in waves to pledge not what developers had to say and show (in most cases very little).

But like we have asserted in so many discussions about Kickstarter it was the names behind the games in those cases that drove in people and with enough interest the press is then continuing to cover such projects. That is why I think it is import to tackle the communities themselves because it is the most effective way to generate interest and they are freely accesiable. All those has-beens are tapping directly into their fan base through their campaigns like with Bloodstained and Yooka-Laylee which both have profited from their incredible community turnout, but iDGi has dropped a first game and basically walked away.
What is the media supposed to cover now? You take a look at the big gaming magazines and they all have short overlook over promising campaigns but this is about it. That is the basic coverage you can expect. Everything else has to come from the developers and the community.

“You need to invite your community to support you in making this thing. It’s possible to just launch and be ‘Everybody! Check this out!’ and to then be successful, but that’s like winning the lottery. Even the smaller indie creators that I have seen, most of them start with a small community of supporters, friends, fans, people that have been watching the game being developed.”
- Luke Krane, head of games, Kickstarter

I think it was a big mistake that shows a very skewered perspective (no offense). Indie developers should rely on their games' sales to fund future games, not discard them like used condoms and seek crowdfunding again. Mind you, I wish them nothing but the best, but they keep fucking up when it comes to the business end of things: failed KS, silly promises to retain the backers, giving their first game for free, using Fig, which means they have to repay the money, etc.

I am totally with you on the pricing since it is a huge problem. Once you start cutting prices you can't put them back on and with the new online distribution sales the major publishers are offering their most recent games at a fraction of their starting price just afew months after release. I don't know where that is going to leave killer B's (not triple-A design studios and not complete one-man shop studios) like iDGi. That is why I was suggesting more of an infiltrating community approach by handing out copies directly to the users and garnering attention that way.
In any case we know that their initial goal of reaching 300.000 $ was not feasible and so I am grateful for any deal they made with whatever devil.

By the way I saw your game advertised in some gaming magazine a few weeks ago. It made me smirk but the full-page advertisement was only the aristocrat drawing or something like it with game's name on it. I am not sure it was very telling to those kind of readers about what to expect from the game especially in those modern magazines where every available space seems to be plastered with mobile game ads.