We NEED marketing!

(madoule) #61

second that, throughout the time i’m following brink, everywhere ed, rahdo, paul, you name’em all were really nice guys in interviews… just admirable and kind :stroggtapir:

(Slade05) #62

Are gaming magazines that important these days? I had an impression that most purchases are made in uninformed way, maybe after seeing a cool poster with some shooter person dude and listening to salesman, not reading nerd sites like RPS, therefore in-place advertising and best shelf positions are far more important to success of a game.
Then there is that “what whole block is playing” mentality too. Im sure SD would absolutely love to get into that position but I just dont see that happening. On the relatively positive side of things, “block people” never stay for long and tend to be, erm, a bit too juvenile.

(madoule) #63

[QUOTE=Slade05;260711]Are gaming magazines that important these days? I had an impression that most purchases are made in uninformed way, maybe after seeing a cool poster with some shooter person dude and listening to salesman, therefore in-place advertising and best shelf positions are far more important to success of a game.
Then there is that “what whole block is playing” mentality too. Im sure SD would absolutely love to get into that position but I dont see that happening.[/QUOTE]

these discussion are addicting. agreed on POS (point fo sale) advertising, however at least for Germany there are 3-4 major PC, and each 1-2 PS3/XBOX magazines out there. these are quite substantial, e.g. print runs ranging between 250k - 1000k. a good review or even a spot in highscores… at least for Germany (austria/switzerland) the impact of these mags is quite huge…

EDIT: you are absolutely right. but you need as much leverage as possible to create the wave of the initial purchasers. after that the effects you mentioned will or will not take place automatically, depending how big the first wave was. (different scenarios may be likely too but that’d blow the thread)

(Slade05) #64

Hm. Now that you mention print runs, I have to elaborate on my position.
Where I come from, gaming press in general never had a decent professional outlook to begin with and therefore was never considered a feasible job for a professional with a journalistic degree(journalistic degree itself loosing its luster due to prevalence of bribery and bull**** in academia). Without proper work ethics and standards, our gaming press quickly descended into the state when journal becomes little more than an advertising outlet for big publisher capable of throwing a massive presser(with strippers and lots of free grub, no ****). Now editor of a gaming mag finds himself in a situation where his mag survives just on said big publishers advertising orders. Publisher then has an ability to extort good reviews and blowjobs, interchanging whips and cookies by promising some exclusive right-from-developer materials and threatening to cut advertising money flow. Mag run numbers printed on the last page of course mean nothing in this situation, in fact, most of the run gets deliberately pulped right after leaving typography because there is no point in selling it. At all.
Now, there was one magazine(the oldest, with actual journalists in, ethics, principles, truly exclusive materials and A MONSTER of a chief editor, I bow my head to the man and deeply regret all my trolling on their forum to this day; better still, they were a part of a press publishing house themselves, so they could be independent in their judgement) that actually tried to bring up a proper discussion about this whoring in the industry and media, they had round tables with interesting people in important positions and all, but it was a loosing battle. Oil prices were skyrocketing, nobody gave a flying ****, and useless print run numbers grew.
Then this mag got closed, over chief editor being a little too vocal and militant about countrys political situation on the pages, forum and in editorial pieces I suspect. Those were the times! Then 2008 strikes, some publishers close doors and all of them cut their budgets, advertising included. Immidiately mags start to get thinner, paper quality plunges, then they start closing, too. Half-assed "journalists" from those mags sometimes find refuge in publishers advertising divisions. End of story.
Today, mags that are still printing ironically have to make some real content, so one got an exclusive deal with jap mag Famitsu, the other pushes on with it`s video content.

So forgive me when I prefer to read an Alec Meer piece over any gametrailers review. Professional integrity is a bitch to get and incredibly easy to loose.

(madoule) #65

i do not know who alec meer is, but i gotcha. i don’t know bout the biz in the UK but i certainly know the same applies in germany to metal (music) mags. i don’t know if the same is/was happening to gaming mags but most likely it is…

anyhow it doesn’t matter, since the gaming interested masses will read them anyways.

(Jess Alon) #66

I heard about brink in a one page game informer article that was short but informative from 2 years ago. And people read magazines… anyone who has a power up rewards card at gamestop also has a subscription to gameinformer. So I’m sure some read it.

(LyndonL) #67

Heh I got into online gaming via L4D because my mrs n I enjoy playing coop games together. I found Brink on Co-optimus while searching for more similar games about 2-odd years ago. The multitude of obscure ways to find Brink which are out there are all good marketing.

(Auzner) #68

This is like everyone’s story. A few months after Brink is released the buzz alone will promote it. It is standing on its own.

(0xT1) #69

If you open a game page on gamespot [pc section at least] you can find Brink with a “promoted” caption on the related games independently if it is related or not.

(Seyu) #70

[QUOTE=madoule;260738]i do not know who alec meer is, but i gotcha. i don’t know bout the biz in the UK but i certainly know the same applies in germany to metal (music) mags. i don’t know if the same is/was happening to gaming mags but most likely it is…

anyhow it doesn’t matter, since the gaming interested masses will read them anyways.[/QUOTE]

One of the founders of Rock, Paper, Shotgun, a pc-gaming specific site, one of the couple of sites whose editors’ opinions are worth reading.

(madoule) #71

cheers, i’ve been visiting RPS quite frequently these days. i have to agree their articles are quite enjoyable. guess what brought me there, brink and the SD updates…

(Diablo85) #72

Brink should do an original marketing stunt like Bulletstorm did with Duty Calls. That minigame has already been downloaded over one million times. At the end of this minigame a trailer of Bulletstorm is shown so that is alot of exposure.

(DepressedOptimist) #73

Brink had a pretty creative marketing stunt with the Daniel Ilabaca parkour tour.

(Herandar) #74

The who? the who? the what now? :wink:

(tokamak) #75

It’s just that nobody noticed it.

(Ix LP xI) #76

pretty much. but if I didn’t frequent any video game forums (which is like the majority of people), I would’ve never heard of this game. Now my friends know about it and they’ll probably buy it too. This game needs to be showcased to the general public. While being a good developer (according to you guys because I don’t know much about them), Splash Damage doesn’t have a “mainstream” shooter series like COD or Halo so the non-gamers probably never heard about SD and Brink because they don’t have any precedent to refer to. They might have heard of Quake but they probably don’t know much about it (like me lol).

(Jess Alon) #77

One thing though I haven’t seen a single article about brink in OXM at all… but that’s ok because their writing style is pretty immature.

(Zekariah) #78

I’m from OZ and it feels like an uphill struggle trying to get the word out on Brink. A couple of diaries on the PSN and XBL don’t cut it for what is needed to sell this game.

A mate of mine who is Games Manager at JB HiFi hasn’t heard squat on the game when i queried him. Preorders are not even decently promoted!

Now i know we are a small corner of the market, but this game SERIOUSLY needs more exposure. I hope Bethesda gets their act together to promote this because RAGE seems to be their priority and that isn’t due to be released until much later.

And with a game changer like this, with prospects of turning into a cult following…let’s hope it’s not overlooked by the general public.

(LyndonL) #79

Not a real issue. It’ll be promoted well soon on all the sites here… It’ll be promoted well on Steam… and it’s already had about 5 articles on Kotaku.com.au.

(n0guns) #80

[QUOTE=Herandar;259827]Marketing will appear in early May, same time (relative to the release date) as nearly every other video game.

The only current exception seems to be Homefront. THQ needs that game to be a hit, I think.[/QUOTE]

Home Front was a hit on the Game Cube =)