Is it time to start advertising?

Off-topic
#1

I’m wondering what people are thinking in the way of typical game advertising, as we are closing in on roughly a year of development left. I tell many people all the time about “this cool game I backed on Kickstarter”, but I’m wondering if it’s time to start putting the word on the various markets. Should Warhorse be thinking about trailers tailored to the Playstation Network, Microsoft Store, or Steam Marketplace? Should we be seeing commercials interrupting our favorite T.V. shows announcing this new game attempting to fill “a hole in the market”? Does Warhorse even need this type of advertising, or are we backers going to ensure the sale of millions of copies of Kingdom Come?

Happy to hear your thoughts. :slight_smile:

Why marketing will be uber-important at release
#2

I think that only the biggest publishers can afford to start advertising an year before release and I guess even they don’t do it that early unless it’s some really huge title.

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#3

why would you want to advertise a game a year away? that just means they’re going to forget about it

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#4

Ah, you make a fair point. Now that I think about it, there is a specific game that has done exactly this. I’m only remembering it now that you mention this can happen, but I’m thinking about Quantum Break. It’s supposed to be one of the defining titles for this generation of Xbox, but I barely remember the trailers, and it’s not set to realease until 2015 either.

So, as the release date for Kingdom Come approaches, do you suppose this game will even need such advertising?

#5

Advertising is running … but already the “hot phase” begins with the GC 2015
Think the (cheaper) PR-rail is exactly the right way.

#6

Oh certainly. I word of mouth to everyone. I guess I more meant “marketing” rather than advertising. Commercials, magazine ads… etc.

And I agree with you that it’s a bit early to be thinking of mainstream adverts. :wink:

#7

when the game turns out good it wont need much advertising because of word-of-mouth recommendations and the players search for good games :wink: And less money spent on advertising means more money to make the game better

#8

Look at Witcher 3 if you want to know what happens if you announce and market your game way too early.

I think it’s better to really know the feature-set and final scope of your game before you start marketing on a bigger level. Once the game becomes beta-level or Early Access level for example is imo a good time to start some more intensive marketing efforts. From there you usually have a few months until release which is still a lot of time if you only have a limited budget.

It’s better to start advertizing later to properly time the excitement of the gamers and fans. If you start too early and cannot uphold the level of marketing and news and stuff people will lost interest sooner or later and your early marketing efforts were maybe wasted.

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#9

An excellent example. I agree it’s better to wait until it gets to the beta stage before putting money into hardcore advertising. At the present word of mouth, mentions in gaming magazines/websites, and the Youtube videos are doing a good job at drawing interested player towards the game.

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#10

Plus the fact that KC:D has been selected multiple times over as the best or one of the best kickstarter campaigns, and most-anticipated games from KS is already a huge boon to the game. every month or two they put out vids for the community, which are hardcore with word of mouth. if every backer gets 5 of their friends to buy the game, that’s nearly 215,000 copies sold + the already raised ~2.2 mil. I’ll assume the game will come out at a $60 pricepoint (standard price) then that’s nearly $13 million. and since they don’t have a publisher who’ll take a huge part of that (they do have investors, he’s put several million in by my understanding) so even if half of that goes to paying debts/investors, that’ll be 6-7 for the company, more than enough to pay some bonuses for hard work and jumpstart right into Acts II and III.

obviously this is just a hypothetical but i think you see the point, if we as a community rally around it and get our friends or just other people interested to buy it, they don’t need to do a lick of advertising. that way if they do advertise, they’re just increasing their profit margins to a larger degree. i know i talk about this game with my co-workers and friends, and several of them will probably be buying it when it comes out (mostly because they don’t do the whole kickstarter thing). i showed another friend and he became a backer, which is just as well. i think the entire project has proved that a strong community and support can make up a lot for the lack of a traditional publisher/developer relationship. and that’s always better for the devs :smile:

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