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PixelJunk director: Games marketing “narrowly focused” on NeoGAF

G

George K.

Member
Just saw this on VG:24/7 and wanted to share:

PixelJunk director: Games marketing “narrowly focused” at “the people who read NeoGAF”

PixelJunk Racers and Monsters director Rhod Broadbent has spoken out against current promotion methods, saying the norm is to aim at accruing sales from “the people who read NeoGAF”.

“What I see in the world of gaming is that it’s very narrowly focused,” he said. “And it’s marketing to the same people that are gonna buy games over and over again. And there are very few companies that are pushing beyond those limits – trying to actually get outside the people who read NeoGAF.”

The exceptions prove the rule, obviously.

“I mean, you can do it sometimes; Modern Warfare does it very well, and Halo does it very well. They’re huge games with a lot of money behind them. But still, I think a similar type of person is buying those games,” Broadbent added.

The developer went on to say that “every gamer” wants the “cool things, the little things, to be huge and successful”.
Click to expand...

Full, unabriged article through the link.

Personally, I'd have thought keeping GAF in mind rather than concentrating on mainstream consumer lifestyle media would lead to much more engaging, focussed experiences .

Pitching games to GAF means attracting people who are intensely knowledgeable about the medium - having GAF's acceptance is always beneficial, IMHO.
 
E

ephemeral garbage

Member
FUCK YES

PixelJunk please make an RTS where you ride dogs into battle and the different breeds of dogs affect your stats in battle (huskies = greater attack frequency, great danes = greater attack power, labradors = fuck you who even likes labradors they are like the vanilla of dogs)
 
B

Brashnir

Member
Not A Fur said:
FUCK YES

PixelJunk please make an RTS where you ride dogs into battle and the different breeds of dogs affect your stats in battle (huskies = greater attack frequency, great danes = greater attack power, labradors = fuck you who even likes labradors they are like the vanilla of dogs)
Click to expand...

Labs would obviously be the resource-gatherer/retriever dog.

edit - And to actually reply to the actual topic, I think that it's a tough balance to strike. Some games (and in fact entire genres) can back themselves deep into a hardcore niche by catering too much to the hardcore message-board poster segment of their audience. Eventually this can lead to irrelevance to their original, broader, market.

I think there's room for both approaches, but it can be risky putting too many eggs in the super-hardcore basket unless you know going in that that's what you're aiming for.
 
M

MotorbreathX

Member
Brashnir said:
Labs would obviously be the resource-gatherer/retriever dog.
Click to expand...

They'd be the shit eaters. Wait, their own shit could be the resource. Yes!

Also, I see what he's saying. But can small marketing budgets afford to push in other places other than where the gamers are?
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Not A Fur said:
FUCK YES

PixelJunk please make an RTS where you ride dogs into battle and the different breeds of dogs affect your stats in battle (huskies = greater attack frequency, great danes = greater attack power, labradors = fuck you who even likes labradors they are like the vanilla of dogs)
Click to expand...

And if you manage to breed wolves to ride, you auto-win at everything.

Anyway, he's got a point. People on GAF really don't need all that much marketing directed towards them, as they are savvy enough to find the info they want themselves. The ones who needs marketing info is the average Joe that doesn't read video game blogs or post on video game forums.
 
M

MotorbreathX

Member
Combichristoffersen said:
And if you manage to breed wolves to ride, you auto-win at everything.
Click to expand...

Wolves are the barbarian tribes. They give you heads up where other treasures are like in Civ, however they could be bribed into helping and joining your pack.
 
S

Slavik81

Member
I'd bet that NeoGAF's likely to be the easiest to get interested in a game. There's definitely a balance to be struck...
 
S

stupei

Member
Not that GAF is going to take what he says in the right way, but he's right.

If your game exists and it's going to appeal to GAFers then we already know about it. The fact that most marketing budget goes to getting a game mentioned on gaming blogs and gaming sites rather limits the audience.

Not to bring this dead horse up again, but the fact that all the hardcore Nintendo titles are marketed almost exclusively as a banner here and there on gametrailers or somewhere like that when the market of people who own a Wii is obviously much larger and more diverse than that is part of the problem. If you only market to a niche audience, you are only going to get a niche audience. Marketing to people who are already going to buy your game is just stupid.
 
B

Brashnir

Member
MotorbreathX said:
Wolves are the barbarian tribes. They give you heads up where other treasures are like in Civ, however they could be bribed into helping and joining your pack.
Click to expand...

What about other unit types? English Bulldogs = high defense, high aggro units. Beagles as scouts. Saint Bernards as slow moving healers.

If you teamed up multiple Huskies, they could become a fast transport unit with a sled.
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
MotorbreathX said:
Wolves are the barbarian tribes. They give you heads up where other treasures are like in Civ, however they could be bribed into helping and joining your pack.
Click to expand...

If you get three wolves to simultaneously howl at the moon, you'll be irresistable to all in-game female characters.
 
J

Jackson

Member
George K. said:
Just saw this on VG:24/7 and wanted to share:

PixelJunk director: Games marketing “narrowly focused” at “the people who read NeoGAF”



Full, unabriged article through the link.

Personally, I'd have thought keeping GAF in mind rather than concentrating on mainstream consumer lifestyle media would lead to much more engaging, focussed experiences .

Pitching games to GAF means attracting people who are intensely knowledgeable about the medium - having GAF's acceptance is always beneficial, IMHO.
Click to expand...

He's applying this logic to his own games on PSN and saying the big boys who do this do it just fine, while his games don't get the sales love he wants. But there's many problems besides the kind of marketing he gets...

#1 - His titles are esoteric, indie and sometimes even strange thus mainstream don't care, heck even gamers don't care
#2 - His titles are on PSN which sales wise do far less units than XBLA
#3 - His titles budgets and marketing budgets are far smaller than a traditional gamer game

I saw he recently tweeted on Kotaku about how 3rd party games on the DS don't sell... which, from my point of view of having 3 ips on it and 2 successes is very, very wrong.

Sounds just bitter in general. I like his games, I own Shooter, Eden and Monsters (Racer sucked). But if he wants sales, move to XBLA and go make a mainstream game for gamers.
 
bock

bock

Member
Hello,

I work at Q-Games (and yes, we're liking the dog idea!).

Rhod is a big fan of GAF (and the F5 key) and didn't mean anything negative about you guys, I think if you read the whole interview you'll get a better picture of what he meant about targeting games...
http://www.vg247.com/2010/02/01/q-games-on-piracy-pixeljunk-dungeon-and-a-mistrust-of-marketing/

Don't quote me as Q because it's a personal feeling but the headlines on that interview seems a bit skewed.

He posts quite a bit on the PJ forum actually ( http://pixeljunk.jp/bbs/ ) so if you fancy a chat where he can reply...

Love and pixels,
O.
 
D

Dr Frasier Crane

Member
Not A Fur said:
FUCK YES

PixelJunk please make an RTS where you ride dogs into battle and the different breeds of dogs affect your stats in battle (huskies = greater attack frequency, great danes = greater attack power, labradors = fuck you who even likes labradors they are like the vanilla of dogs)
Click to expand...

Strangely want more of this, I imagine it'd be a DS game and the dogs do their authentic bark when you select them with the stylus. You could pick up the poop and bag it for a mini-game. Collies for scouts, bloodhounds for sappers....

Back on topic, I agree.
 
B

Billen

Banned
I approve of the dog-idea. Thus, What GAF wants are dogs. Fix it, gamecreators. Even PixelJunk Dogz would be nice.
 
G

Garjon

Member
This sort of model makes some sense; a lot of (but not all)games become popular in the mainstream because of their popularity amongst the hardcore, then spreading to the populus. It's only logical that they are targeted by a proportion of marketing resources.

Also, when he says 'people who read Neogaf', I think he means gamers who read gaming news regularly in general.
 
B

Brashnir

Member
ichinisan said:
Strangely want more of this, I imagine it'd be a DS game and the dogs do their authentic bark when you select them with the stylus. You could pick up the poop and bag it for a mini-game. Collies for scouts, bloodhounds for sappers....

Back on topic, I agree.
Click to expand...


Collies are more of a herding dog than a scout. Maybe Collies could have an ability where they repel enemy units and can push them around the battlefield.
 
S

stupei

Member
Station42 said:
and here I was thinking that the pixel-junk games were tailored around gaf's taste more than anything else.
Click to expand...

They are also fairly intuitive quick pick up and play experience. PixelJunk Monsters is maybe the one exception, but it's also a game that's best experienced through couch co-op and a lot of people have done this with someone who is a very casual gamer or almost never games at all and had a blast.

They do appeal to GAF but also have the capability of appealing to a potentially wider audience, which I think is part of his point.
 
R

Revolution number one

Member
bock said:
Hello,

I work at Q-Games (and yes, we're liking the dog idea!).

Rhod is a big fan of GAF (and the F5 key) and didn't mean anything negative about you guys, I think if you read the whole interview you'll get a better picture of what he meant about targeting games...
http://www.vg247.com/2010/02/01/q-games-on-piracy-pixeljunk-dungeon-and-a-mistrust-of-marketing/

Don't quote me as Q because it's a personal feeling but the headlines on that interview seems a bit skewed.

He posts quite a bit on the PJ forum actually ( http://pixeljunk.jp/bbs/ ) so if you fancy a chat where he can reply...

Love and pixels,
O.
Click to expand...

How about he post here if he's a big "fan"? Instead of PR.
 
S

stupei

Member
I was almost going to say something about how maybe Jackson's perspective is slightly skewed considering most games don't end up with as successful a grass roots campaign as Scribblenauts, but:

Jackson said:
I saw he recently tweeted on Kotaku about how 3rd party games on the DS don't sell... which, from my point of view of having 3 ips on it and 2 successes is very, very wrong.
Click to expand...

That is just untrue, what the hell. :lol
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
bock said:
Rhod is a big fan of GAF (and the F5 key) and didn't mean anything negative about you guys, I think if you read the whole interview you'll get a better picture of what he meant about targeting games...
http://www.vg247.com/2010/02/01/q-games-on-piracy-pixeljunk-dungeon-and-a-mistrust-of-marketing/
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone took his comment as being negative towards GAF, as his point (marketing to hardcore gamers rather than the gamers who don't religiously follow vide game news/the video game industry is a stupid idea) is one that's been made quite a few times before :)

Billen said:
I approve of the dog-idea. Thus, What GAF wants are dogs. Fix it, gamecreators. Even PixelJunk Dogz would be nice.
Click to expand...

While dogs are nice, personally I'd prefer cats. Why not have both, like, Pixeljunk CatDog or Pixeljunk Dogz vs Catz? With Armadilloz as DLC.
 
N

Not a Jellyfish

but I am a sheep
There is a balance to be struck definitely but it has to be a realistic balance. Looking at marketing and a most games audiences it is not like the average gamer knows of us at GAF and values it's opinion. So I can see what they are getting at a little bit but at the same time it is hard to make a game that really satisfys the hardcore and does break out into the mainstream without having a Halo like budget.

It is just a very tight rope that has to be walked. The article is a very good read though.
 
V

VOOK

We don't know why he keeps buying PAL, either.
Q-Games promote your DSiWare games more, they're freaking awesome!
 
J

Jackson

Member
stupei said:
I was almost going to say something about how maybe Jackson's perspective is slightly skewed considering most games don't end up with as successful a grass roots campaign as Scribblenauts, but:



That is just untrue, what the hell. :lol
Click to expand...

Ah... ya know what? My bad, Q Entertainment said that. Not Q Games (both of which are Japanese), Sorry. Come on, it was an easy mistake to make at 2am!

500x_q2-1.jpg


But yes, my perspective is indeed skewed to my own experiences though, isn't everyones? My point was it can be done as Q Entertainment was saying it really couldn't, but now it's a moot point because its a different company.

EDIT: Oh and Digidrive was a lot of fun too! Good studio overall. :)
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
I find that Internet marketing is targetted towards the NeoGAF crowd, but that's fine, because they are hardcore and spread word of mouth. I definitely think that word of mouth is a very important part of marketing. It's also a lot cheaper than TV marketing.

TV commercials (and movie theatre commercials) are better though. They reach a much wider audience, although this comes at a greater cost and you can't afford to screw it up since it can also hurt the image of your game much more. However, a good TV commercial can do more for game sales than anything. All the laughably bad Internet trailers for Dragon Age Origins probably hurt it more than it helped, but the TV commercial was solid and awesome and I know it sold people on that game.
 
H

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
Thats even odder, cause Q Entertainment had a third party success early on with Meteos, no?
 
N

Nick Laslett

Member
I hate threads getting derailed as much as the next poster, but the Dog based RTS idea is too good not to comment on.

You'd think it had been done before as it sounds so simple with the different dog breeds having such specific characteristics.

Greyhounds = speed
Jack Russell = tunnel/underground

In addtion to St Bernard (health), Bulldogs (defense), Labs, Huskies and Collies (Scouts) already mentioned.

PixelJunk you need to make this game!
 
bock

bock

Member
HK-47 said:
Thats even odder, cause Q Entertainment had a third party success early on with Meteos, no?
Click to expand...
Meteos was quite an early release, so the situation was well different then. I am under the impression that todays DS requires marketting + huge distribution force to get anywhere. I'm more than happy that Scribblenauts succeeded at that but most decent attempts fail (my previous DS game hit the dust quite miserably in this aspect).
 
S

Son of Godzilla

Banned
This is a very bizarre thread.

I actually agree with him though. Let's take a fun subject: Wii and DS third party games. The abject failures or simply inconsequential titles all seem to be stuff this board laps up like an assman at a jelly symposium.
 
J

Jackson

Member
bock said:
Meteos was quite an early release, so the situation was well different then. I am under the impression that todays DS requires marketting + huge distribution force to get anywhere. I'm more than happy that Scribblenauts succeeded at that but most decent attempts fail (my previous DS game hit the dust quite miserably in this aspect).
Click to expand...

Another good game! but wasn't Soul Bubbles a Toys R Us exclusive? That'll really put a hurt on sales regardless of anything else.

Drawn to Life (our first IP) was a million seller success in 2007 and spawned a bunch of games from it. My point being, Scribblenauts is not a fluke on the market. Every market has it's places where you can have success.

But then, I guess, also Lock's Quest did poorly in comparison at round 300k units lifetime, though I blame the opposite. THQ didn't market the game at all. :lol
 
T

Thunder Monkey

Banned
Jackson said:
Another good game! but wasn't Soul Bubbles a Toys R Us exclusive? That'll really put a hurt on sales regardless of anything else.

Drawn to Life (our first IP) was a million seller success in 2007 and spawned a bunch of games from it. My point being, Scribblenauts is not a fluke on the market. It possible to do it and not just some outlier.

But then Lock's Quest did poorly in comparison at round 300k units lifetime, though I blame the opposite. THQ didn't market the game at all. :lol
Click to expand...
There's a market on any platform.

Finding it seems to be the tricky part.:lol
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Nick Laslett said:
I hate threads getting derailed as much as the next poster, but the Dog based RTS idea is too good not to comment on.

You'd think it had been done before as it sounds so simple with the different dog breeds having such specific characteristics.

Greyhounds = speed
Jack Russell = tunnel/underground

In addtion to St Bernard (health), Bulldogs (defense), Labs, Huskies and Collies (Scouts) already mentioned.

PixelJunk you need to make this game!
Click to expand...

What about Dachshunds and Chihuahuas, could they be included just for shits n' giggles?
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Thunder Monkey said:
And the sexiest man I've ever had inside me!
Click to expand...
i stood, frozen, his eyes locked on my body and mine on his in return.

"this thread's never going to be the same again, is it?"

"only if we let it."
 
S

stupei

Member
bock said:
Meteos was quite an early release, so the situation was well different then. I am under the impression that todays DS requires marketting + huge distribution force to get anywhere. I'm more than happy that Scribblenauts succeeded at that but most decent attempts fail (my previous DS game hit the dust quite miserably in this aspect).
Click to expand...

It being available only at Toys R Us probably didn't help it, though I could understand the potential need for that kind of support. (I assume there was money involved in that decision, after all.) It's just that a lot of the people that would be involved in any kind of word of mouth aren't likely to shop there all that regularly, at least not until they're going there for a buy 2 get 1 and then they usually have a more expensive release already in mind to make the most of the deal. Hard to sell a $30 DS game that way.

Unfortunate too, because the game is great.

Edit: Actually, I'm pretty certain the only reason I knew this game existed at all was because of some diehard fans on GAF hyping it up.
 
B

Brashnir

Member
Combichristoffersen said:
What about Dachshunds and Chihuahuas, could they be included just for shits n' giggles?
Click to expand...

Dachshunds are defense towers. They grow longer and longer the more you upgrade them.

When you start the game, all you have is a single chihuahua. He sits on the lap of your base and directs everything.
 
T

Thunder Monkey

Banned
Rez said:
i stood, frozen, his eyes locked on my body and mine on his in return.

"this thread's never going to be the same again, is it?"

"only if we let it."
Click to expand...
Dude if I wasn't working on some of my DudeBro models I'd totally be up for a rousing game of stupid.

But alas... May will be here before I know it.
 
C

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Brashnir said:
Dachshunds are defense towers. They grow longer and longer the more you upgrade them.

When you start the game, all you have is a single chihuahua. He sits on the lap of your base and directs everything.
Click to expand...

Give the Chihuahua a little uniform to wear (a generic movie dictator uniform), and all will be perfect.
 
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