Making games, like any creative pursuit, is something done primarily for the enjoyment of the process. I mean, it would be a fair argument that I joined my first band in a (failed) attempt to attract girls, but I suppose that’s just one perceivable difference between the indie gaming and music scenes.*
For us, releasing games is motivated by the desire to see other people enjoying the efforts of our creative process. Some people are motivated to make games for themselves (and clearly have excellent taste) but here at Bzzz the underlying drive is to create something that makes other people smile.
But in order to reach this aim we must enter into one of the dark arts. We must begin one of the industry’s most uncertain adventures. Marketing.
As a side note, a friend of mine works in marketing yet hates every aspect of marketing. He calls himself the anti-marketer. I suspect that he’s deeply unhappy with his work.
One of the best pieces of advise I’ve been given about marketing indie games is to start early. In a way, that’s what this blog is – it’s letting people know what we are up to and hopefully providing useful ideas that other people might want to consider using in their own projects. But if this blog is marketing the game, how to I get people to the blog?
Social networking, I must be Social! I’m on tumblr, wordpress, twitter and facebook and always impressed and amazed at the content that people are creating. Whilst there is an honest desire to learn, share and teach (I spend hours looking through the cool things that other people are making, especially around game jam competitions such as Ludum Dare and 7DFPS) I am concerned that my own contributions are interpreted as a machiavellian attempt to self promote through the guise of complimenting others. We’re told at conferences, seminars, and presentations on the subject that this is the way that social media marketing works, and I have always found this idea uncomfortable. I mean who trusts the promoted tweet on twitter? Or a blog post by an Olympic sponsor? Why should anyone listen to anything I have to say?
Well, I just have to make sure I say things that are interesting. More photos, more interactions, more media, more LIKES! This must be what people mean when they describe social media marketing as a long game. It takes a lot of man-hours to produce content and a lot of time to organically grow an audience. In our situation, I would love to share more screenshots and videos with you all but we are unfortunately not at that stage in development yet. This is something that will become more common in the coming weeks.
I should just clarify that I truly enjoy writing this blog and am not suspicious of individual users or other game studios (who are producing sterling content). I guess that after using the internet as a consumer, I am having difficulty settling into my role as using it as a producer and promoter. I care deeply about Bzzz and I want to tell people about our games. I don’t like people who have a hidden agenda and I look forward to talking with you all some more!
If you would like to be social with me, here are a few of my interests outside of video games:
- Animal facts
- Popular science
- Frank Zappa
- Poetry
- Bicycles
- Music tech and gear
*I’m not saying that game design isn’t sexy, just that it’s hard to show off when you’re chained to a laptop every evening for 3-36 months woking on your project. To this day, I feel at my most comfortable behind a drum kit – I get to be loud, yet invisible.
In my next blog on marketing, I will look at some cool uses of social media marketing and discussing how Bzzz can emulate and evolve some of these ideas.
Bzzz 