thread: 2014-04-15 : Cultivating Your Audience with Love
On 2014-04-17, Simon C wrote:
My experience has been that free is not the best way to get people to see your game. Or rather, it's not the best way to get people to play your game.
For example, I released a game called "Tonight We Slay a Dragon or Die in the Attempt", which is probably the best game design I've ever done, but it's only two or three pages long, so it's free. Attention: Very little.
I also released a game called "On Mighty Thews", which was pretty cutting edge in 2004, but not in 2011 when I finally published it. It costs $5.
"On Mighty Thews" has got much, much more attention than TWSADODITA, I think largely because the fact of charging money for a thing denotes a certain seriousness of purpose. Also, when people pay for a thing they're much more likely to invest the time to actually read and then play it.
This makes TR go "Interesting!"
That's something I hadn't considered.
This makes JMMM go "Or maybe it's the title."
There's nothing redeeming about TWSADODITA, no matter how good the game design.
This makes BL go "long titles are less bad than people think that they are"
I still get a far amount of love for &c Beatrice &c which as far as I know has the longest title for any RPG ever.
This makes PC go "Oh, I disagree with JMMM"
I think "Tonight We Slay a Dragon or Die in the Attempt" is a pretty grabby title.
This makes VB go "Me too."
This makes SS? go "Hey, Simon, where does one get TWSADODITA?"
Your dropbox page hasn't worked for weeks.
This makes SS? go "No worries"
It's up again.
