My only words on this subject:
I have gone to the ends of the earth when it comes to money...
I have gone from rags to riches, without being born, my family comes from a line of noble man from Spain, Germany, and Italy. Great grandfather was a billionaire, monopoly tycoon, cattle, coffee, plantations, and diamond mines, he lost it all to gambling, family moved to the slums in Brazil, my grandfather worked by spit cleaning people’s shoes, and moved up until he was a millionaire, owned multiple cities and provided huge influence to an post-colony-now-country's government. He lost most of what he had because it was too much money for him to handle. I grew up with him being my only father figure, until I had 8 years of age. During that time, my eyes were opened to things larger than common life. My mom got tired of having my grandfather getting loads of cash and her siblings sucking it out of him like blood thursty leeches. She came here to the US, telling him she planned on selling some jewlery and stones, then come back, but she was actually planning on stay here and she did. she worked hard, I stayed at my grandfather's, when I was 8, after two years, her life was stable and I came here to the US, 8 years later, I write this experence to the open public. Guys learn from this!
Simple things:
1) The Open Market:
You can sell anything to everyone, and everything can be sold to anyone. Now a days, this is an absolute truth. Every man in this earth today has a price. I kid you not; even you and I have a price.
To sell: you must make the person aware of your product and create a dependent illusion, make the person think they need it whether they do or not. Set a price, and make an affordable illusion, make the person think that they will be better off giving you what you want in exchange for what you give them.
To sell Demigod:
Expand the public awareness of it – start off by excluding what type of public is it that you want to target, only a fool shoots targets blindly, for he will have no pleasure of know what he hit. And only a true shooter loves to hit what loves him. Now, the type of people that would play this type of exclusive strategy would be those who are well aware of strategy games such as warcraft and such…post ads in those forums or popular gamming sites that display those types of games. Target the virgin (people who haven’t really played pc games such as these) public as well, advertise on social sites that have lots of young people, such as tweeter or facebook. TELEVISON IS THE BEST ADVERTISING UTILITY btw.
Create the illusion that makes people want it – don’t just say it’s there but make people feel like they need it. What is so freaking special about Demigod? If you can answer this question so that it works for every group of person then you can successfully develop a hook to get your merchandize off the shelves!
Set the price – make sure that the public you targeted can afford it! Teenagers don’t have much money, and the adults, who have time to spend with this, either don’t make a lot, or make too much. Either way, games should never have high end prices unless every done is perfect (which is hardly the case here), 30 US dollars would be a good max for this game, for now…
Create the illusion that the price is worth it – I suggest, as it has been mentioned b4, making a trial version that provides online server with those who already have the game, allowing everything in the game to be used but limiting a few things, such as taking out tournaments, pantheon, it sort of a lite version…
2) The Closed Market:
What usually brings down good products is the closed market, that’s the market for the item, that means that instead of focusing how well the game is doing with the public by comparing it to other games, compare the launched version with the basics of strategic game genres and newer version cooperated to the older ones using the basics of strategic game genres as control. If the game doesn’t keep up with the open market hype, it won’t last for too long, so you must observe the item’s closed market.
To keep satisfaction and thus improve credibility: take value customer feedback, don’t be blind and just throw your item out there, you got make sure it doesn’t get thrown back at you, cuz you won’t have the money to pay for the injury to your wallet, no matter how deep it is, lost money is ALWAYS BAD, it doesn’t get canceled out and leaves you with profit, which all good and successful business men know, a successful business doesn’t waste pennies. Carry out customer feedback responsibly, with proper timing. Keep on fixing your product, there is always room to add and to remove.
To keep demigod in the market:
Customer feedback – everything is fine here, so don’t need to teach anyone much here, forums are best for games, just be sure to organize the forums, we need more mods.
Timing – you guys are actually listening to the community, to your customers, that more than what the others do, but you don’t have the balance with in game issues and popularity to have the luxury of taking your time with things. Other games don’t bother much with customer feedback, because to some, their problems aren’t that many or their problems are not of high priority. This is not the case with demigod. Get the major bugs fixed first, AND THEN worry on other things, the game will be dropped from most people if this doesn’t happen. TIME is important. Sacrifice time from less important things, then you will have the luxury to take your time. You must sweat for your business.
Update – keeping your things up to date is essential for today’s rapidly evolving society, make sure your product meets the standards, update it to fit all the new ideas and any new customer population that might be coming in. Be sure to add expansions, and once your product if stabilized, make a sequel!
-organize your feedback center, forum, and keep it active and maintained!!! This is high priority, always.
-fix all the bugs, improve online connections or w/e and be sure to get things done in a timely manner, high priority for now, if you guys get these things done quickly you won’t have to worry about bugs for a long time…
-add new mechanisms to the game, such as a map editor type of a thing, you have already introduced the modifying capabilities to the community, now provide them with all opportunities of moding, take your time, get the bugs fixed first, for now, this is medium priority.
-add new characters, face it, you have completion, and either you keep your game at their level or you do better, one of the things lots of people look at is how the other games have an abundance of characters, you if you meet this basic then most surely you will have lots of people getting your product instead of the other, business is about completion, if not to yourself then to others.
-add new game modes, survival, story, etc. some of these can be added as an expansion and you could try adding game modes with a story with a twist in the end, but the end of the story could be launched with a sequel, think marketing, remember that you should only provide sequels once bugs have been fixed…this is low priority.
Frogboy is a succesful buisness man, but this product is not successful because it has so much potential but it doesnt meet up to its potential. Once it does, it will be successful, and once it goes over its potential, it will be self-rewarding. now, frogboy, I am sure you know not to waste time, and not to let everything up to GPG, be sure to make sure they are actually putting in some real effort. I get the feeling that they never really cared for this game, they just put fancy things in it, threw it out into the market, and said screw it, let's suck the money and slowly change things so we dont work as hard for it. Now, you may say that's not the case, im being rude by judging this, but hey, if it wasnt the case, why would I have a reason to think this? I am tired of hearing that my 40 bucks has falts in it, I want my 40 bucks to get fixed as fast as I gave it to you, be fair, or be poor, cuz even though this is one game, one customer, it is also one trigger for getting rid of two other customer, who each get rid of two more, until it expands to other products of stardock. But I know that this isnt going to happen, because you will make sure it wont, my only issue is all of these complains, and the FACT that this is taking a while now, I dont believe in this "takes to long" BS, they are prob dividing their attention with other things, these bugs are very important, they need more attention, I am getting displeased!
to everyone who reads:
- never waste time, or risk money
- never trust anyone with more than 40% power over what you have control of. be vigilant of everything, and dont depend on others to get information, always TRY to get things observed and done YOURSELF.
ADD: DONT GET ME WRONG, I'M AM ONLY SHARING THIS TO HELP OUT, I AM NOT IMPLYING ANY SNOBNESS, MY FAMILY GETS FINACIAL HELP FROM THE GOV FOR GOODNESS SAKE, I HAVE SEEN BOTH ENDS OF THE DEAL, I KNOW A FEW THINGS, I MAY NOT BE A BUISNESS MAN, BUT THESE BASIC THINGS ARE HONORABLE, THATS TRUTH.
