If you’re familiar with this blog, you probably have noticed that I’m fond of fighting games. They, as a genre, have very much to offer. However, there are big series like Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat (Guilty Gear, perhaps, as well) and rarely anything else gets covered in the press. That’s a shame because there are many interesting sub-genres and games, which fly under the radar of everyday player and sometimes, the fighting game community as a whole. I believe that one of those games is Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid. I’ve been playing it on Switch for the last few months and it’s been a lot of fun, as the game has pretty much everything a high-quality product should have (aside from some stuff here and there) – good netcode, enjoyable gameplay, nice soundtrack and so on. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of players in the community, it seems. However, when they get engaged, they stick to it and they have a fun time.
Czytaj dalej „Maintaining a grassroots gaming community in a niche game”Indie Games Marketing 101 pt. 3 – P2P distribution model
Indie Games Marketing 101 pt. 1 – figuring out the game itself and its audience
Indie Games Marketing 101 pt. 2 – F2P distribution model
The most obvious thing to do after writing about the F2P model is to write one about the P2P model. This one seems to be way more intuitive and natural since you pay for the product, but everything has its pros and cons. Without further ado, let’s get to the topic.
Czytaj dalej „Indie Games Marketing 101 pt. 3 – P2P distribution model”How to train a Social Media Specialist?
Hi, I know that it’s been a while since I last posted an article to this blog, but I’ve had a ton of stuff to do, including a total rebuilding of my kitchen, helping out my fiancee with her obligations and so on. A pretty dynamic time in my life. But I have some topics which I’d love to talk about soon and here’s a big one. For the last month or so I’ve been training a lad to become a supporting social media and community specialist at TSG and here’s how it happened, why did it have to happen and what needs to be done.
Czytaj dalej „How to train a Social Media Specialist?”How to make your customers hate you. Nintendo’s Melee and Splatoon 2 controversy case study
Oh boy, has it been a rough time to be associated with Nintendo by any means. It took them two extremely poor decisions to be absolutely bombarded by their own players, by the industry and by the entire gaming part of the Internet. How it all happened? Let’s get to the story.
Czytaj dalej „How to make your customers hate you. Nintendo’s Melee and Splatoon 2 controversy case study”High Facebook ad score doesn’t guarantee good ad performance
Facebook introduced a rating mechanism to its ads manager a few years ago (RIP Power Editor, I miss you). It serves a purpose of rating how well your ad is expected to perform and how well it’s going to be responded to. In this post I’ll be talking about one case during which I cared too much about the score and ignored everything else. A story about failure, I’d say.
Czytaj dalej „High Facebook ad score doesn’t guarantee good ad performance”Indie Games Marketing 101 pt. 2 – F2P distribution model
Indie Games Marketing 101 Part 1 – figuring out the game itself and its audience
OK. Let’s say that you’ve decided to make your game. You got all of the mechanics sorted out and your prototype is working well. It has to earn money in order to sustain you and your team, though. You have some budget provided by an investor, but the game will have to be released someday and then it has to be economically viable. How to make money on players, though? I was supposed to talk about two main distribution models – F2P and P2P, however, after putting a few hours into writing about the F2P model, I’ve decided to publish two articles, since it gets pretty long and I don’t want my posts to be bloated. The post about the P2P model will come a few days after this one. Enjoy!
Czytaj dalej „Indie Games Marketing 101 pt. 2 – F2P distribution model”Indie games marketing 101 pt. 1 – targeting your audience
It’s highly possible that you found this article because you’re trying to market your upcoming indie game, but have little to no budget, or you may be looking for some ideas and tips to enhance your marketing process. It’s a beginning of a series which main purpose is to shed some light on what can be done in order to make your title more visible and how to make people buy your game. Let’s start with one of the most important aspects of marketing – selecting your key audience.
Czytaj dalej „Indie games marketing 101 pt. 1 – targeting your audience”How to kill 4 birds with one stone. The case of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core + R’s latest update
Guilty Gear is one of my favourite video game series of all time. These explosive anime fighting games kept me enthralled for a number of reasons – when I first found out about them, there weren’t many PC fighting games and copies of Guilty Gear X2 #Reload and Guilty Gear Isuka were added as free games to a legendary Polish video games magazine, CD Action. The thing is that Arc Sys Works, as many Japanese developers tend to do, seemed to neglect their community outside of Japan and The USA. However, during the last years, they introduced many positive changes and started putting greater emphasis on nurturing their playerbase and the thing they did a short while ago was, so far, their magnum opus. This is going to be a short analysis of their recent actions, their possible motivations and goals.
Czytaj dalej „How to kill 4 birds with one stone. The case of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core + R’s latest update”How to talk to your community, when you don’t have to sell stuff? 5 ideas, 8 case studies
Social media communication is often used to amplify the sales of your product. What about moments, during which you aren’t forced to sell? There’s a bunch of stuff you can post when you’re not pushed to sell? There’s a bunch of stuff which can be done and pretty much all of it may have a positive impact on your produt. Here are some situations during which you may choose to do something a tad bit less money-or-KPI-oriented than usually.
Czytaj dalej „How to talk to your community, when you don’t have to sell stuff? 5 ideas, 8 case studies”Getting your game’s community stars to help you. 2 case studies (+ AUDIO/YT VIDEO VERSION)
It’s mostly true that working in teams makes life easier. You get a broader perspective and you can utilize other team members’ skillsets. However, I’ve mostly been doing my work as a community specialist alone. Well, to an extent. There’ve always been graphic designers, proofreaders, other people to cooperate with, but when it comes to the core areas of my job, I didn’t have many people who’d help me. However, being in charge of communities means that you may potentially have a ton of people who’d be willing to help. In this post I’ll talk about 2 cases in which I was able to find people eager to help me accomplish my objectives, who were in it as players (and often paying customers) simply wanting to lend their hand, as honest admirers of the games. These cases are drastically different from each other, so here I go.
Czytaj dalej „Getting your game’s community stars to help you. 2 case studies (+ AUDIO/YT VIDEO VERSION)”
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