PURE - how did going commercial work out? - Page 2

PURE - how did going commercial work out?

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lurker
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Joined: 08 Jan 2007, 06:13

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by lurker »

There was actual proper trolling of his forums, not just a couple joke posts?

Forb, whether people like PURE plays a large role in whether they will give it any support, but just not supporting it doesn't harm it, and you shouldn't get angry over that.
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Forboding Angel »

Lurker, you are right, not supporting it is fine, but actively trolling it (which is what was happening), is not fine.
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Argh
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Joined: 21 Feb 2005, 03:38

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Argh »

what where the most and least effective ways of promotions, etc...
Most effective:

1. ModDB releases with videos and lengthy, detailed articles that convinced them to give me front-page status.

2. News releases to press sources that made their front pages. Certain websites were very helpful, and published just about any story I sent them.

3. Magazine coverage (fleetingly-rare... most of the time, they made promises, but nothing ran).

Least-effective:

1. Trying to get reviewers to cover the game. Didn't work, still don't know why. I offered full copies, no charge etc., tried to follow the few guidelines I could find, but it just didn't go anywhere useful.

I was especially disappointed with the Indie Game 'sites, who seemed to be unable to deal with a truly Indie game made on a budget of practically nothing that wasn't Flash, wasn't small, didn't have whacky gameplay and had fairly conventional graphics, if not AAA. I guess if I wanted Indie cache, I should have redone NanoBlobs with a lot more bells and whistles and weirdness.

KP ought to excite them, though!

2. Local events. We spent money buying people pizza and beer near the end, hoping that would convince people to give online play a try by seeing us having fun, but it was utterly useless as a sales tactic, and wasted money that could have been spent on further time polishing the game, tbh.

3. Various other attempts to advertise without spending much money were a failure.

4. Talking about it here. Forb's characterization is largely correct- the Forums here were very hostile and hard to work in at the time, and it's hard to gain traction when you're getting trolled on a regular basis, let alone multi-page flamewars full of cursing where our valiant Moderators didn't step in until well after the damage had been done.

The biggest issue, though, was time. I was the only person who could build marketing materials, write good copy, and get actual marketing done on a timely basis, yet I was also the lead developer. This turned out to be the real Achilles heel at the crunch.

Either get your promo materials done well before attempting launch, or expect to do nothing post-launch other than promo for at least a month (i.e., don't expect to do bug-fixes, do new videos, build an entirely new website, or try to figure out how to deliver for other OS's on the fly- I did all these things and more, and it was a complete disaster- I simply couldn't do it all).

Now I know why most indie-game crews can't do the often-suggested slow-burn hype strategy that is supposedly the best guerrilla marketing approach- unless you're actually fully-funded (i.e., not really Indie, imo) and have more than one person on your staff, it's extraordinarily hard to pull off. If I could re-do any major part of the game's development and eventual launch, I'd have found a good PR guy to handle the day-to-day marketing. But people like that who have the requisite skills (not just writing, but illustration and an understanding of what works, as well as the self-discipline to Just Do It) are hard to find.
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zwzsg
Kernel Panic Co-Developer
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Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by zwzsg »

Thanks, and yeah, I found out promo is highly time consuming.
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knorke
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Joined: 22 Feb 2006, 01:02

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by knorke »

now this might sound like marketing blabla but I think you are not quite sure what kind of people you want to play pure.
I was especially disappointed with the Indie Game 'sites, who seemed to be unable to deal with a truly Indie game made on a budget of practically nothing that wasn't Flash, wasn't small
People who are searching this sort of games, will not play a game like pure!

Complex RTS with lots of unit are a niche market, notice newer games are more and more dumbed down (age of empires 3) or "more of the same" (C&C)
Still RTS are definetly not pick-up&play.
So if pure is featured on some indy webpage along with casual gamer friendly games like world of goo, plantsVSzombies etc. the people who download will be disappointed. And imo the springengine is too user unfriendly for those people anyway.

On the other hand, the more "hardcore" RTS player does not find enough information how the game plays. He read texts like "epic megapower ultrasuperunits" all the time, that is just fluff to him. He is interessted how the game actually plays. Like, how do you get ressources, how rps is the balance, does one build a base, stuff like this.
The trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUJy57bak8k <- why is there no download link in the video description) does show none of this.
3. Magazine coverage
like, print magazines?
Useless imo. These magazines are only read by people who are interessted in the grahpic power of the latest hype.
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Gota
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Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Gota »

I remmeber PURE on megagames.
That website is visited by many "hardcore" gamers IMO.
It was a good move to put it there.
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knorke
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Joined: 22 Feb 2006, 01:02

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by knorke »

yes, they even updated it and uploaded a newer version.
but it was the freeware version afaik.
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Pxtl
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Joined: 23 Oct 2004, 01:43

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Pxtl »

Moddb seems like the correct niche for Spring mods, at least the more intricate ones. Moddb gamers are interested in more baroque gameplay than indie sites, and at the same time are interested in independently-produced work and are willing to put up with lower production values in exchange for a good game.

Beyond that, though, I don't know where fans of such games hang out, outside of engine-specific sites like BeyondUnreal.com and whatnot.
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Argh
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Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Argh »

it was the freeware version afaik
The Demo's actually quite a bit more game than the "freeware" Release Candidates, and is also 100% free. It has missions and SP, comes with three custom maps (since that seems to be the standard, for demos) and is basically a lot more game than any of the RCs were.

I think a lot of confusion about the game around here would be dispelled if people around here actually, y'know, tried it out, tbh, instead of assuming things. The Demo is not less game than the RCs, it's the other way around.

It's not crippled for online play, either- the full tech trees are in the game, unlike a lot of commercial games. You don't need to pay anything to play P.U.R.E. online, because I don't think that's where the money is, unless it's already so successful that it doesn't matter anyhow. I figured that Spring users, being sophisticated and used to these things, would figure this out and play it online if they wanted to.
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smoth
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Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by smoth »

You know what forb go fuck yourself! I didn't ring lead fuck all, don't fucking count me among your friends. I am disapointed in you, I though you dropped that bullshit issue of yours, I though we were past all of that.

I did raise issue with him going comercial, I also wished him luck because he needed it with such a premature release. Spring is still not stable enough for a comercial project. I did raise issue with the fact that gmn was not mentioned loudly enough but when I asked gmn and he was fine with the widget based credit.

No forb this thread was not about trolling argh pxtl was just asking about pure. Argh has gone pretty quiet about pure so it stands to reason someone would ask what happened.

Ringleader, no not on pure. I told argh in pm long ago I am tired of fighting with him now mostly I stay out of his threads
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Peet
Malcontent
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Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Peet »

It will be a great leap for science when mankind figures out exactly what is wrong with forb.
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Argh
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Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Argh »

Eh. I didn't know that a flame war was scheduled. Not interested in participating in this. Hope the information was useful to somebody.
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MidKnight
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Joined: 10 Sep 2008, 03:11

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by MidKnight »

Argh wrote:Eh. I didn't know that a flame war was scheduled. Not interested in participating in this. Hope the information was useful to somebody.
I believe this post is an example of how a model community member should act in this situation. Thank you.
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smoth
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Joined: 13 Jan 2005, 00:46

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by smoth »

Not really. It is just argh being pretentious. Kinda a jerk thing to do, making a post going, look look they are fighting. Then going but I am not involvedbecause I am better than that.

Standard argh
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
Posts: 14673
Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Forboding Angel »

Argh wrote:Eh. I didn't know that a flame war was scheduled. Not interested in participating in this. Hope the information was useful to somebody.
It was argh, thank you.

Smoth, you are going to have to learn that while people like you, they aren't always going to agree with you. Anyone with enough history here can pull up all those threads, I remember the things you said, and it wasn't right of you or anyone else to do that.

It is my point of contention that none of us moddevs should have to endure what argh did when pure went commercial.
Peet wrote:It will be a great leap for science when mankind figures out exactly what is wrong with forb.
The same could be said of peet's channel and the people who inhabit it
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Gota
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Joined: 11 Jan 2008, 16:55

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by Gota »

Yeah,can this thread be about peet's channel now,and the jerks in it.
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aegis
Posts: 2456
Joined: 11 Jul 2007, 17:47

Re: PURE - how did going commercial work out?

Post by aegis »

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:PURE - how did going commercial work out?
did it make a profit? did it gain an online player base? has anyone heard from it since? Interesting to see how a game made with the spring engine sells..
Argh wrote:Hope the information was useful to somebody.
locking until OP requests otherwise.
Locked

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