N'Gai Croal
|
May 13, 2008 01:45 PM
Diagram of the influenza virus, courtesy Chris Bickel/Science
In Part I
of Bill Harris' 180 Degrees column, he and Armageddon Empires' creator
Vic Davis discussed how Davis got into game development, as well as the
gamer interest and sales pattern for AE during its first three months
of release. In today's second and final installment, the two examine
the impact of influential journalists and outlets had on AE's sales in
the months that followed. Finally, Harris steps back from his interview
to extract some lessons that are invaluable to understanding how
independent developers must approach their publicity and marketing
campaigns differently from their peers at the big publishers--what
Harris calls "the infection vector." Enjoy.
***
Part Three: Post-Release, Four to Six Months
At the end of October, Armageddon Empires was
selected as "Indie Pick of the Month" in Games for Windows magazine.
With that mention, page views on the website went up sixty percent in
one week.
Yes, it was a real boost. Breaking the downward trend was a huge
morale booster. The sales benefit was not immediately noticeable and
still pretty modest, but it was a definite turning point. I'm still
trying to figure out a model for how customers come to make their
purchase decision for AE. You could probably identify sub-groups of
customers... those who bought within the first 48 hours, those who
spend a week with the demo, those who needed to hear something positive
from a third party, and those who are still on the fence but might
revisit it when their gaming backlog gets whittled down...that type of
thing.
Then, in December, there were three prominent mentions. First, in
the "Tom vs. Bruce" feature in Games for Windows. A week later, Kieron
Gillen posted a highly favorable review at Eurogamer. At almost the
same time, Tom Chick put AE as #4 in his top games of 2007 list.
There was more. In early January, Gamasutra/AIGameDev.com gave
Armageddon Empires the "Best A.I. in an Independent Game" award, and
Bill Trotter posted another highly favorable review at The Wargamer.
Here's what page views and sales look like with the second three months added (the arrow marks three months from launch):
To read the second and final part of Harris' column in full, click on the link below.
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