Marketing advice?

Need some marketing advice.

Basically I'm a little stumped on what to do next.

Tank Universal 1.2 has been out for a couple of months now.

In that time it's had an excellent review at Bytten.com, been included in Gametunnel's May roundup ('call in sick' rating!) and had a halfpage write-up in Australian PC PowerPlay magazine ('excellent' rating!).

I've used a mass shareware site submission programme to sucessfully submit the game to about 300 shareware sites, including download.com.

There's a full review coming up on Gametunnel.com and also on Avault.com

I've signed with a publisher for on-line publication. They are about to launch across a number of portals (I don't know which ones), including their own website. They'll also do promotion in the form of web ads and through their own contacts.

On the negative side, the publisher's retail distributor has rejected the game - so no boxed version.
Interestingly, I have been contacted by Xing Interactive (Alex De Vries) about a boxed copy. I'm aware of the rumours surrounding this company - but at least they're offering a retail outlet.

Valve have also rejected the game for inclusion on the Steam portal.

The www.tankuniversal.com website's getting about 50-80 hits a day.
This is translating into about 2-3 sales a week. This is too low. ideally, I'd be wanting to make that many sales a day.

Interestingly, the game was featured on the frontpage of Fileplanet for a week or so, and this was giving me a steady sales rate of 2-3 sales a day - until it was bumped in favour of new content.

So what should be my next step?

(For those who don't know, the game is an action 3d tank game and requires a reasonable spec machine (2Ghz pentium, 128mb 3d video card), so it's not a casual game and won't run on PC's with integrated graphics or older than say, 4-5 years.)

That doesn't seem right. Are these sites linking to your website correctly? Or are they just linking to the demo download?

For having that much publicity, 50-80 hits doesn't sound right. As for having reviews in magazines, I haven't had much progress from that either. In fact, I have never had a user inform me they found the game through the magazines that it was posted in.

I don't really have any advice but to maybe work on getting valve to rethink their decision, and/or improve areas that didn't match their liking. Valve commercial publication = $$$$.....and a big perma-smile no doubt.

I'm using Google Analytics and that's the stats back from the frontpage. Perhaps I should also check hits on the download page.


I put out a pad file and the shareware sites seem to have picked that up correctly, which includes the website address. Of course they also link directly through to the demo file.


Yes - the publisher's due to have another talk with them shortly. Hopefully that'll at least explain what their objection/s are.

Sales can snowball - 2-3 sales a week can increase if people recommend the game to their friends - the more sales, the more recommendations.

Something to bear in mind is that much of the marketting work may not bear fruit for several months.

Another thing I'd suggest, if you haven't done it already, is to submit your website to as many web directories as possible. This will take several months to really show its true value, but will be worth it in the end.

You can use a tool like http://submiteaze.com/ to speed up the process while still complying with the submission rules for the directories. Create some pages on your site for any recip links required by the web directories, and only submit to a maximum of around 50 directories a day (to prevent getting flagged as a link spammer by the search engines).

Also, make sure your website is search engine friendly. The search engine bots need to be able to navigate your site effectively, and figure out what it is about.

MadJack-

I checked the website, and watched both videos.

1) Can't you embed YouTube videos within the website? This might keep people on the site longer.

2) I must say, I've always been impressed with this game and still can't quite make out why I haven't bought it yet. That being said, I was slightly disappointed with your comments on the second video page (level 8). Comments like "640X480 res. will do a full 1024X768 asap" make it clear that the game's creator is the one posting, and that the game isn't finished yet. All of your other comments sound like you're trying to pretend that a fan posted the video of his/her own accord. To me, this looks like: (a) You're being sneaky, pretending you have a fanbase that you don't, and (b) The game's not done. How about changing the comments to:



...or something like that. Make it sound official and legit. Come up with a game studio name if you don't have one already. I've been all over your website, and it appears that this game wasn't made by a real company, because the company's name isn't anywhere. In fact, the only thing that sounds remotely like a company name is actually a link to a competitor's website (Fanatical Games).

Aside from these pointers, if you'll look at my resume you'll see I have zero experience in this. Perhaps if you aren't getting enough hits, talk to your publishers? If they're in charge of advertising, it would appear they're doing a soddy job. It kind of sounds like they're taking over (which might not be necessarily bad, but I think you should at least know which portals your game is on, so you can check to see whether or not they're doing their job). Remember to demand an active role in the process, so you don't end up like Anthony Flack.

All criticism aside, good luck.

Things have been picking up and I'm sure the upcoming reviews and marketing the publisher has/will be doing will help as well - still I'm an impatient sort ;-)


I didn't know about this - thanks very much for the tip! And thanks for the heads-up on 50 dirs a day tip - I'll check out the linked programme tonight.


Need to look at this - certainly the sites listed on Google, Altavista etc...

Buggy


I'll check it out - I'm not a webdev by trade, so my webskills are somewhat rudimentary - but it is a bit messy to link to a youtube page I expect.


Err - the game is finished - the video is a fan created work. I didn't create it nor post the comments attached with the video! The video was of such good quality that I decided to link to it. However, if the impression is that it's the dev(myself) trying to pull a fast one, I'd better sort it out. Certainly a dedicated trailer would be better.


I've been doing a bit of revising of the site recently - I plan to add an 'about' page shortly which will give more in-depth details about the game.

Regards a company logo, I do have a company name and logo - could certainly include that on the page to add 'street cred' - thanks for the feedback!

Wow...I haven't heard of Xing (Alex) in quite awhile. He was offering to publish a darkbasic title of mine about 6 years ago called Meteor Blast. I opted not to go through with it because Hasbro was trying to sue everyone with an Asteroids clone. I also heard he was shady. That publisher might actually hurt the reputation/quality perception of the game. Just my 2 cents.

I sent you an email, MadJack.

I think GFK had some experience with Xing Interactive, so perhaps you could try talking to him about them, to get the lowdown.

I still need to learn marketing a bit myself but gong to your site made me do the folowing :

Looked at screenshots which looked very good and read through the text from top to bottom...
Arrived at the bottom you promoted someone else his free (Open Beta-)version with multiplayer option and clicked on that link.
That could be one of the reasons that people wo't buy your version.

Reason I didn't buy it yet was because you where first busy trying to get the game on Steam. Redownload all games after a clean install anytime with just 1 tool.

Mark/Buggy

Thanks for the feedback regarding the website.

If you're interested, I've reworked it somewhat - added an 'about the game' page, embedded the videos into separate pages, added a company logo... think it's looking pretty good now...

Alex de Vries is not to be trusted. Posted about him several times already in threads like this so I won't repeat. Older link | Recent link

If your only options are to deal with Xing, or don't have a deal, don't take them up out of sheer desperation. Bide your time and maybe a good deal will manifest itself further down the line.

When I search for Tank Universal ( and bear in mind most people won't be so helpful as to be looking for your game, but you want to grab those that do nevertheless ) I get this :



Now let's try Bullet Candy which probably appeals to a similar audience? It was the most obvious Blitz-created game I could compare it to anyway.



With Bullet Candy, the two line preview Google gives me tells me what the game is, what platforms it works on and how much it is. Yours makes me think I'm going to some kind of news site. Or quite possibly IGN ModCenter.

So I think you need to make sure that the text Google grabs here is short, sweet and on point. It's been a few years since I had to worry about this, so I don't know offhand how it grabs this. It's the first text on the page by default, but there may be some metadata or some other way to define this text. But however you set it, you probably do want to make it more tuned to the game rather than the latest piece of news.

You might want to turn those quoted reviews into text so that search engines can read those too.

Have you put it on any portals yet (the more action oriented ones) like Reflexive, Arcadetown and Retro64 etc?

How many of your hits turn into downloads? You need to get as many visitors as possible downloading (this may mean A/B testing your website layout until the hit/download conversion rate goes up), then it's up to the game itself to convert them into sales (and of course there may be stuff you can do to your game itself to increase conversion).

Website's looking much improved. A few points though.

1) On screenshot page, you don't need "screenshot1" or "screenshot 12" below every screenshot. We have eyes for a reason.
2) When I'm looking at a game, a picture's worth a thousand words. That being said, you have 7:58 of video which, at 30 frames per second, would equate to 14,340,000 words worth of action. Videos are a thousand times better than screenshots. Get rid of those tiny links at the bottom of the screenshot page. I'd make "Videos" its own category on the side, or at least give them big spots on the Downloads and Screenshots pages, as well as possibly on the main page. Also, you might consider not opening up a new window for each video. This is kind of annoying, but it might just be me.
3) While I'm ranting about videos, please change the description of the video found here, as per my previous post.
4) On the main page, above the reviews, it says "About the Game." Not sure if this was intentional or not.

Like Grey Alien said, you may want to try different website ideas to convert more hits to downloads. I like to see a big "Gameplay Video" link just above a big "Download Now" link on the main page, but that may just be my personal opinion.

Also, a Google search for "Tank Game" or something similar never hurts.

Best of luck.

I've been doing some SEO work and from a basic look at it I can say that your web site has some issues. Even without knowing much about the niche you seem to be getting way too few hits for what it's worth.

If you need help with it you can send me an email (on my profile).

GFK

Yes - I've read your posts about de Vries previously ;-) I'm not about to sign up with Xing, just thought I'd mention it. It's quite entertaining researching the history - some very disgruntled posts floating around on the web!

Gabriel

Need to fix this - that's the first few lines of text on the website. This comes down to my newbie status when creating web content. Thanks very much for the advice!

Grey Alien

I've been working with my publisher and haven't approached the portals in any real way - so I'm aware that that's something to be done.

Incidentally, the publisher's let me know that Valve's going to take another look at Tank Universal for inclusion on Steam. Here's hoping!


Buggy

Yes - simpler's usually better/cleaner and they are redundant.


I'm a little hesitant to add another button - there's quite a few there already - perhaps 'screenshots' could be retitled 'media'? I'll have a think about it.


Ok.


Buggy, this is not my video - I didn't post it to Vimeo, it was posted by someone from the Tron-sector.com forums and so I can't edit the description. Honest! It's not me! ;-) However, by embedding the vid in the page, I hope to avoid that misconception.

Spotted! Need to change that.



Thanks for the excellent advice/feedback all!

MadJack, just a few random and maybe even stupid thoughts (I've just had a few 15-years old Single Malts):

- Sell it also on eBay.

- Advertise it on IMDB on the page for the movie "Tron".

- Port it to the Mac (now THAT would be a GREAT thing) and put it on Apple's website.

- When I google for "Tank game" or "Tank Cyberspace" or "Tron tank game" you are not on the first results page; I think that can be improved.

- Join (marketing) forces with Grey Alien and the guys behind Tecno: The Base and the folks that did Eschalon: Book I. You're part of the same community, and together you will sell more units than each of you on his own.

Back to some more Single Malt... ;-)

Really? In that case, I'm sorry. I guess that means you do have fans (or at least one)! Sorry about that. I was so sure that it was you with this: "640X480 res. will do a full 1024X768 asap." That sounds like the poster is in charge of making the game. Oh, wait. I just realized. That's the video resolution. Sorry. Now I feel both dumb and mean after ripping on you like that.

Anyway, have you considered making more YouTube videos? I see a lot of games that have at least a teaser trailer, an official (longer) trailer, and a few gameplay videos as well.

Have you considered things to attract attention? Without discounting your price (I'd strongly recommend against that right now) and without online gameplay to modify, nothing really comes to mind. All I know is that when I found a recent pay-once online game that offers a weekly free people-with-demos-can-play-online-without-buying-the-product hour, I was thinking about that one hour all week long. Since Tank Universal's not multiplayer, this of course would not be an option, but if you could come up with something else, it might spur players that have already bought it to participate more, which would spur more potential customers to buy. Like a best in-game photo contest? With some kind of prize?