Questioning the Manifesto

Next Generation has a Q&A with Greg Costikyan, discussing the reveal of the ambitious Manifesto Games portal business. From the article: "If you look at almost any other medium there is a way for people to succeed with product aimed at more of a niche audience, with more manageable development costs. But that largely doesn't exist in the games industry because of the narrow nature of the retail channel, which is 'hit big or don't try at all'. My belief is that it possible to be successful with niche product. The technology is there; there are plenty of good games out there; the issue is probably about marketing. The question is, figuring out how to reach consumers and make them aware of it." We discussed the announcement yesterday. Relatedly, Next Gen also has a look at digital downloads from the developer's point of view, and from that of the digital distributors themselves. We took a look at the first part in that series on Tuesday.

Comments

Word of Mouth

[mikeumass]

I would say that word of mouth is the most important issue when it comes to how successful a game will be. Sure some games like Doom III and Halo don't really need work of mouth, but take Snood for example. As any recenet college grad knows, that game is adicting, and you don't find out about if from websites or commercials. It is your peers that expose you too it.

Re:Word of Mouth

[Irish_Samurai]

Kinda, but your peers didn't just "happen" across it. I work real close with a couple of PR guys doing clandestine marketing for them. You can generate buzz for much less than it costs to inundate someone with branding. Not only that, but it's not evil in the sense that we don't make up your mind for you as branding attempts to do. Buzz marketing is all about placing the product in front of a key group of people. People who are the authority on your product type in their social group AND posess the curiosity and intelligence to do thier own research on a product. That way they feel like they "found" something new (which they did with a little help) and will speak about it in a very avangelical manner if they like it. Their friends WILL follow.

Re:Word of Mouth

[Psychor]

FYI, Snood is packaged with known adware/spyware. I'll let the Slashdot audience draw their own conclusions.

Re:Word of Mouth

[ConceptJunkie]

I was referring to the GP post. Someone plugged a game. Now it could be just an honest plug from a satisfied customer. I do that all the time. But it also could be the "stealth marketing" you were talking about, and that's what I was trying to imply. Believe me, I have worked with someone in the game industry and have often resisted the urge to do the same thing for his product. I don't want to call the motives of the GPP into question, but the text did seem a little "marketingy" to me.

The "Retail" channel is also the Internet...

[popo]

Let's not forget that there are plenty of "niche" games that survive via downloads, the shareware model, or downloadable client. EVE Online is a perfect example of a niche game that is distributed primarily (I admit I have no numbers to back this up, so I could easily be wrong) to the best of my knowlege through a freely downloadable client.

IMHO Shareware is still the most successful strategy. I downloaded (and later bought) demos of DOOM, Duke Nuke'm, Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, etc. Of course most of those were available through traditional retail channels, but they also predated broadband. The reality is that if I could have commercially-downloaded the full games I would have.

Tough to break through

[faloi]

It's true, it's getting that little bit of exposure that's tough. I'd like to believe that on-line game reviewers that are part of larger networks would be the perfect way. You write a game, send it to them for review, they devote a little bit of space and if your product is good you're on your way. What's probably closer to happening is you write a game, send it to a reviewer for them to work in. If you catch the reviewer in an off month, you're set. However, if it's the month he just got Doom III, Halo 2 and some other spifftastic game (or some game that takes a long time to get through) your product gets back-burnered for the bigger things.

Maybe some sort of third party site would be good. Basically, indie developers pitch in for time on a site where the reviews are done strictly by non-professional reviewers (i.e. us). You go in, see what's new and the genres you like, download it and give it a shot. If it's good, give it a high mark and inspire other people to give it a shot. I dunno, maybe there is such a site and I don't know about it.

Re:Tough to break through

[Seor Jojoba]

"Maybe some sort of third party site would be good."

This isn't a bad idea, but it's already come up a lot amongst indie developers. The main problem is it takes a lot of work to make the site, maintain the site, and promote it. An indie review site like GameTunnel for example has had thousands of dollars poured into it in order to make it a moderately successful destination for game players. The head guy there, Russell Carroll, will set up a table at shows to promote the site, put out press releases like crazy, and basically work his butt off. To make a review/portal site get traffic, (not just exist and look pretty) you need to put a huge amount of sweat into it. The people sweating want something for their work, so money has got to flow or certain games need to get promoted over others as payoff.

That said, I'm all for more indie game sites and fan reviews are cool too. The closest existing thing I see to that is Home of the Underdogs, which you might want to check out. I just don't think anyone should undertake such a site with the wrong expectations. Like if the person or group's main aim was to make a cool site about games, then they might get someplace. But if they had a business-minded goal to make a place where indie games get a lot of exposure, then that is a long, hard road people have been toiling at in obscurity for years.