Blog Report: October 21st

Catering To Your Audience: Videogame Direct Marketing
Shawn Deena
October 11, 2009
Set on Stun
http://setonstun.com/2009/10/catering-to-your-audience-videogame-direct-marketing/

Many games over the years have been developed as a radical concept, which becomes so successful it creates its own genre. Look at how role playing games went from a strictly single player experience into massive multiplayer online experiences or how movie licensed comic book games have spawned numerous original stories in a comic book format. It is games being designed for a niche, but still can be played by anyone that is becoming extremely successful. Shawn touches on many examples; Brutal Legend (diverse gameplay / Heavy Metal Music) or Beatles: Rockband (Beatles / Rhythm Game), and I think the main point is that, if you can design a game which appeals to a community or sub-culture that already exists, it will sell. The exception lies in two potential pitfalls: First, the community has to feel the game does justice to whatever sub-culture exists because, if not the game would be ostracized. Second, there must be a certain level of accessibility to the game, so when a gamer recommends a Spiderman game to a comic enthusiast, the new player is not frustrated by some over technical gameplay. If and when companies have achieved cohesiveness between these two elements in a single game, they are typically a success story. That is why more and more games will continue to be developed for these sub-cultures.

Pre-order Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! on UMD Today!
Nao Zook
October 20, 2009
Official U.S. Playstation Blog
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/10/pre-order-holy-invasion-of-priv
acy-badman-on-umd-today/


As a follow up to the previous article I posted from Gamasutra regarding the release of the PSPgo and the inevitable phase away from UMDs (Universal Media Device) to Digital Download only. This article is a perfect example of good PR and managing the two way conversation in such a way that it will benefit your customers, your product and your company as a whole. When Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman was released in the US, NIS America decided to only release the title as a digital download. They felt that for the cost of the actual title to stay low, they could easily put it online over having to manufacture UMDs, but the community wouldn’t stand for it and gamers began to request a physical copy of the game. They used the Playstation Blog to run a poll and see how many consumers were willing to wait for the manufactured copy and the results appeared strong enough, NIS is now offering pre-orders for the UMD and if they reach 1,000 they will go to print. Another thing to note, the price point has not changed, so whether you download it or purchase the physical copy of NIS’s website, the game is only going to cost you $20. NIS should be applauded for keeping an open mind about the whole process, since digital downloads are just starting to become more mainstream. They did an extremely good job of understanding their customer needs and found the price point NIS needed to execute at, in order to fulfill the customer needs. Hopefully, NIS will find their much deserved success here, as well as in Japan.