Marketing Meeting Number 1

[AgentTate]

I agree as well. Nothing to show yet. Those of us who've played Wasteland don't even know what to expect. We won't see a vision document for another 6 months, I believe.

not quite accurate. they said in the latest update that it should be available in a few weeks. if they spent half a year only working on that then i doubt they'd have a game done in 18 months. just saying.

Touche, salesman.

[dmazz]

Although there's almost nothing to put in it at this stage, a separate Wasteland 2 website should get made. I'm thinking if it's slowly designed over time by the fans we'll get a much superior site than the one provided by Brian and team. Developer websites are generally always are kind of lame and barely functional. (current kickstarter page we have now is inadequate)

That we got Brian on the team, Chris and it's a sequel to Wasteland, means that any self respecting Fallout/rpg fan will be hard pressed not to preorder the game. But even when the vision document does arrive, marketing fans will still have to write and sell the game with their own print/video/pictures/audio.

In regards to the hype peak. A publicity peak is only valid when you have the ability to saturate a time/area with ads for your product, that would presume an advertising budget. It doesn't apply in this case as there is no advertising budget, banner ads pointing to a spiffy website (Which doesn't exist as yet) is as good as it gets. Saying that, more sophisticated animated, smart and engaging banner ads should also be developed as they will be the gateway to the website which finally close the deal on the preorder. Right now, the wasteland banner ads or only effective for people who know what wasteland is, otherwise they are not very effective.

[Tesla]

Hi inXile Rangers!

In the April 7th Blog post (a portion is reproduced below), you guys mentioned how a big part of making this game a success is for us, the players, to get the word out. Well, as kickstarter clearly demonstrated, you have legions of dedicated supporters who want nothing more than for this game to be a record breaking success! We basically want to make you all rich. SO, I think you should capitalize on that, and on the huge potential of crowd sourcing.

My suggestion is to work with us on your forum to be your marketers and PR guys, and to start a viral campaign that will bring Wasteland 2 to everybody's notice. You have fans _everywhere_ who are willing to do a little extra to get the word out, but we need direction.

There are plenty of ways to do this, but one suggestion would be to make some flyers that can be printed and posted around town. I mocked one up (but can't post the image here), which was basically the iconic top-down view from the Wasteland cover-art, the "2", and "your mind just exploded like a blood sausage." below and the website below that. The image is amazing and would certainly generate curiosity/interest.

Other ideas might be to make a meme, or have a website where fan-fiction is posted, and fan art... maybe you can get somebody to make a few official pages setting up the background, adding some intrigue. I know you can post fan art on the forum, but it's mixed in with everything, more for those in the know rather than as advertising. How about a trailer?

Lastly, I'd like to point out that if a newbie comes to the website the only thing they see are links to the blog and the forum. Why not put an intro page, for people to be educated and tantalized?

Hoping for the best, and ready to act!




From the Blog:
One thing you will notice in that list of potential jobs above is that nowhere in that list do you see ‘Marketing Lady’ or ‘PR Guy’. That is because we don’t have these positions, nor do we plan to hire them. We want to spend the money on the game, and only the game.

This is where you come in…

All 41,000+ of you are our marketing and PR team. We need your help to get the word out that the Kickstarter countdown is on.

[VaultDwellnChick]

Just an idea... When i tweet to Pc Gamer or Gameinformer that i want to see an interview with a certain developer, my tweet is probably one in a million that will easily get overlooked.

Lets set a date, where we all tweet, facebook, email, call, or whatever to a certain mag/tv show/whatever that we want an interview with Brian Fargo. If they see tons of people asking for the same thing, they will most likely see it and it would weigh heavier on them than receiving feedback from one person.

And if you guys haven't been paying attention to twitter/dont have twitter, Brian and Zack Finfrock (Fallout: Nuka Break) have been chatting about a wasteland short.

[CoarseDragon]

Make up a bunch of Wasteland 2 flyers and hand them out at E3.

[dmazz]

Brian Fargo has become a minor celebrity of sorts recently with his kickstarter success. So it would be cool if close to the release of the game we released a 'developer video diary' of sorts to publicize the game. Things like interviews, concept art and history.

We'll need someone who has some skills with video and who lives close enough. But it will provide content we need for publicity.

[Sub-Human]

We'll probably need to advertise after the game comes out. A (kind of) key point, the whole game's out, people are likely to praise it, lots of interviews, reviews, let's play's etc. Right now, yeah, we've nothing to say or to show, even the vision document isn't out to the public yet. What about some actual demo or trailer (the stuff that most people fall for)?

Also, how do you think a million preorders is possible? There's about 50 thousand backers at the moment. If somehow each one of us (on average) managed to convince two people (which is highly unlikely - if you convinced someone, they're in the backers camp already probably), that's just 10% of our goal. Sure, they might be able to get some other pals on the board, but still...

[spellfire]

closer to the time will certainly hype it on my internet radio show as I did during the kickstart hope got a few more kickstarters for you by doing that

[talkingcrows]

I don't know how to do it,but those quotes and stuff you put on the bottom of your posts,you know,tags or whatever,mention it on your posts on every site you visit,just like the Amsterdam whore idea mentioned earlier.In the vision of enlightened self interest,the more you WHORE,the more you get back......but not in the vd type way,but in terms of actual gameplay you will get in the future from other ,dare I say,even better games to be made,from the small amount of huzza-ing(is that word?fuck it ,it is now)you do today....With the facelessness of the net,whore your heart out peoples.No one will ever know you shamelessly plugged this game for no financial reward,but for the betterment of your own greedy inner sect gamer ass.Spread the cult.