Legacy adventure characters to feature in our web marketing page

[SinanDira]

Greetings, AGS community!

My brothers and I have been working on our commercial AGS-based game for a while now, and want to reveal it to the world as a first step of the marketing campaign.

That is intended to start with a "landing page", a single webpage devoted to present our game for the targeted customers until we launch a full website later.

The things in question, now, are the pictures in the website's header, which are intended to capture the attention of any legacy adventure game fan right away.

This is the page's current design (66.66% zoom): http://grab.by/qv60

The best pictures I could think of were any famous characters from legacy adventure games (remember, the thing is to capture attention), just like the ones in the current design. But these have 2 problems: 1) the copyright problem and 2) the false impressions; our video game isn't pixel art-based but rather features real drawings like the Curse of the Monkey Island.

I am wondering, can the first problem be bypassed by using silhouettes instead of featuring detailed characters? Or will we have to resort to originally non-copyrighted characters/stuff? And what would you suggest in that case?

As for the second problem, that is up to the more devoted adventure fans to solve! What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance.

[Ben X]

My advice would be to absolutely not feature other people's characters on your page, because 1) the legal thing and b) you should be showing off your own characters.

[Snarky]

Just make a proper website, and put material from the game you're actually making up there.

No one is going to look at a placeholder webpage by some unknown team and go "Wooh! There aren't any screenshots or details about the game, but look at those LucasArts sprites! I do miss the good old days of adventure gaming. I just have to know who that mysterious silhouette is! I'll make sure to check this URL daily â€" nay, hourly! â€" until that blessed time comes when I'll be allowed to preorder!"

What will in fact happen is that they click on the link, see a "landing page" that doesn't show off anything that makes this game special, mentally file it away as "a waste of time," close the tab, and ignore any future updates. You just lost a potential customer. Remember: There are dozens of adventure games made by people with Sierra/LucasArts nostalgia every month, most of them free. "Brand new, old school adventure" is not really a selling point in this day and age.

If you want to hook people, what you want is pretty pictures (that you made yourself), or even better, a nice video. A memorable title helps as well. (If you don't have them yet, wait until you do before you start marketing to the public at large. If your game doesn't lend itself to pretty pictures or nice videos, boy did you choose the wrong game to go commercial with! Better come up with a much better plan!)

The worst thing you can do in your marketing campaign is to be uninteresting, and honestly, this is not interesting.

There are all kinds of other things to critique, from the retina-searing color scheme to the mess of different font sizes and shades, but really you should just throw the whole idea out the window.

[SinanDira]

My advice would be to absolutely not feature other people's characters on your page, because 1) the legal thing and b) you should be showing off your own characters.

Makes sense.

Any other opinions?

Just make a proper website, and put material from the game you're actually making up there.

No one is going to look at a placeholder webpage by some unknown team and go "Wooh! There aren't any screenshots or details about the game, but look at those LucasArts sprites! I do miss the good old days of adventure gaming. I just have to know who that mysterious silhouette is! I'll make sure to check this URL daily â€" nay, hourly! â€" until that blessed time comes when I'll be allowed to preorder!"

What will in fact happen is that they click on the link, see a "landing page" that doesn't show off anything that makes this game special, mentally file it away as "a waste of time," close the tab, and ignore any future updates. You just lost a potential customer. Remember: There are dozens of adventure games made by people with Sierra/LucasArts nostalgia every month, most of them free. "Brand new, old school adventure" is not really a selling point in this day and age.

If you want to hook people, what you want is pretty pictures (that you made yourself), or even better, a nice video. A memorable title helps as well. (If you don't have them yet, wait until you do before you start marketing to the public at large. If your game doesn't lend itself to pretty pictures or nice videos, boy did you choose the wrong game to go commercial with! Better come up with a much better plan!)

The worst thing you can do in your marketing campaign is to be uninteresting, and honestly, this is not interesting.

There are all kinds of other things to critique, from the retina-searing color scheme to the mess of different font sizes and shades, but really you should just throw the whole idea out the window.

Thanks for the sarcasm, dude, it's really helpful! (Edit: I did actually mean that your "sarcastic narration" was helpful.)

I forgot to state, but the page is extremely brief because it's meant to be kept up until we officially announce the game, when we will post actual art there and provide more detailed info. Are you saying that keeping such a page up before the announcement is bad by all means?

As for the whole concept, I probably went too loud with the statements of "a brand new old school adventure game", but I still find these to be key facts to begin the page with. What alternatives would you suggest?

As for the colors, they definitely can be improved, but I honestly can't agree with you on "the mess of different font sizes." Dude, don't they capture attention? :O And by that, I mean in a positive way. I have seen that newly-trending method being used a few times on the web now and to me it couldn't get more creative, yet neat.

[qptain Nemo]

I love adventure games of 90s but no I don't miss the days, because there are plenty of modern adventure games that are on par or better. So my advice - stand on your own legs. Besides,

2) the false impressions;

this is inevitable because how the heck can anybody be sure you'll actually live up to whatever classic standards you're claiming to stick to. You basically want to imply you're making something as good as Monkey Island. And even if that possibility tempts me, theoretically speaking, I'd rather see you demonstrate that in any way than simply state you want to.

Thanks for the sarcasm, dude, it's really helpful!

Oh, go fuck yourself. Trying to dismiss somebody's excellent argument for its appropriate use of sarcasm is one of the laziest and most obnoxious forms of moronic behaviour. Yes, it was helpful.

[bicilotti]

As bX1- err...

As bxx41- duh!

As one of the dudes who made "Ben There Dan That" suggested, why showing other characters rather than your own? A very simple page with some screen-shots will do to grab the attention of a potential customer more than a (quite frankly bit stale) marketing claim.
Gamers won't be put off by hi-res stuff!

p.s.: I am not sure whether you are looking for a general critique on the page too; I mostly agree with Snarky (less words, more meat). Moreover, commas seem randomly placed and the font (an Arialish one) has a serifed capital 'i' which looks weird to me.

[SinanDira]

So the bottom line is regarding anything to display is to stick to my own materials whatsoever.

As for the entire marketing approach, that will depend on what the game is like which you have yet to see.

Yes, it was helpful.

That's exactly what I said. I admit that my phrasing implied otherwise, but I am still impressed by the level of rudeness this forum permits. Besides, does it look to you like I have dismissed anything in the rest of the message?

[qptain Nemo]

So you just decided to really awkwardly point out and praise the sarcasm for no reason? Alright then, my bad! Sorry! I'm just a rude asshole and really can't stand when people find sarcastic remarks to be something worth complaining about in itself.

[Snarky]

Thanks for the sarcasm, dude, it's really helpful! (Edit: I did actually mean that your "sarcastic narration" was helpful.)

Was I being sarcastic? Maybe in the description of how people won't react to this placeholder, but I was making a serious point.

I forgot to state, but the page is extremely brief because it's meant to be kept up until we officially announce the game, when we will post actual art there and provide more detailed info. Are you saying that keeping such a page up before the announcement is bad by all means?

I definitely think this is a bad way to introduce your game, because it... doesn't introduce your game! So this is not the first thing you want anyone to see when you're trying to get them interested. I don't think you need a page "before you officially announce your game," because it's better to have people find out about it later, when you have something for them to get excited about, than visit the page now and decide that they don't care.

I think placeholder pages like this are mainly used when there's already some preexisting buzz around a project (because it's a sequel or famous license, or a famous developer or studio). They're not used to create buzz, unless they can hint in a single image or phrase about something people find inherently exciting: "The Hunter Shall Become the Hunted: Jane Jensen 2015" would make people go apeshit because they'd parse it as a teaser for a new Gabriel Knight game. If you want to grab people's attention, you need something like that, which is tough for a first-time team.

However, you might want to start spreading the word within the indie and adventure game communities (like on this forum) ahead of the "official announcement," and you might in fact want to collect email addresses. So having a teaser page with not very much content and a signup form is not necessarily a bad idea. But with less content, it's even more critical that everything you have actually promotes your game effectively. And what is it that gets indie adventure fans intrigued? Like I already said: nice pictures or a video.

Take a project like The Philanthropist. It has a title, a poster, the GIP-forum minimum of two screenshots, and an attempt to sum up the premise in three-four sentences (and that part could be crisper). Not really very much. We hardly know anything about how it will play, whether it will ever be finished and whether it'll be any good, but those pictures were enough to get at least a few people excited (enough that I remember it after two years without any news). For a teaser page, you want at least the title and something like that poster.

[Ben X]

As bX1- err...

As bxx41- duh!

That's it, I'm hassling a mod to change my name!

[SinanDira]

Thanks for the sarcasm, dude, it's really helpful! (Edit: I did actually mean that your "sarcastic narration" was helpful.)

Was I being sarcastic? Maybe in the description of how people won't react to this placeholder, but I was making a serious point.

Of course you were! Don't get me wrong, you have expressed everything in your reply as objectively as possible, which WAS helpful. In fact, it was very helpful. However, people naturally won't get pleased when you make them think that the result of their efforts is absolute crap, even when your sarcasm is 100% valid and even hilarious, so I had to point that out in addition to the first fact (that your comment was helpful), but I ended up screwing up in the spite of my frustration!

However, you might want to start spreading the word within the indie and adventure game communities (like on this forum) ahead of the "official announcement," and you might in fact want to collect email addresses. So having a teaser page with not very much content and a signup form is not necessarily a bad idea. But with less content, it's even more critical that everything you have actually promotes your game effectively. And what is it that gets indie adventure fans intrigued? Like I already said: nice pictures or a video.

That's an important part, that there are stages of announcement, which are accompanied by different versions of the teaser page. My idea about the presented page was to be the "under construction" page before announcing anything or contacting anyone, but I'm now thinking that nobody will visit it in the first place, so that stage is too early to design a page for...

That leaves us with 2 stages; the PR stuff, and the public announcement.

I'll try different page designs then and come back to discuss them.

Take a project like The Philanthropist. It has a title, a poster, the GIP-forum minimum of two screenshots, and an attempt to sum up the premise in three-four sentences (and that part could be crisper). Not really very much. We hardly know anything about how it will play, whether it will ever be finished and whether it'll be any good, but those pictures were enough to get at least a few people excited (enough that I remember it after two years without any news). For a teaser page, you want at least the title and something like that poster.

There's no doubt that the page's ideal form isn't anything less than that, but I'm still not sure how much of that to put in the early PR teaser page (isn't it a good idea to create one for that stage?).

[Andail]

Oh, go fuck yourself.

No need for that kind of language, really.

On-topic:
I agree that ditching the placeholders is pretty much crucial. Also I don't know how much buzz or hype you really need before it's finished - is there a funding campaign or some kind of deadline you need to meet? Huge commercial projects may need a lot of marketing in advance to make sure they get financed, and that the people involved can get paid. If that's not an issue for you, why don't you simply release the game and use in-game material on your site, and do your best to spread the word once people can actually play it?

[bicilotti]

That's an important part, that there are stages of announcement, which are accompanied by different versions of the teaser page. My idea about the presented page was to be the "under construction" page before announcing anything or contacting anyone, but I'm now thinking that nobody will visit it in the first place, so that stage is too early to design a page for...

Reminds me of this .
Admittedly I am not in touch with new fangled marketing methods, but I cannot see the merits of initially going on a more convoluted way than "let's create awareness on a few forums".

[Paul Franzen]

As a side note to the "old-school adventure game isn't a selling point"...point, I have to argue a little bit--it might not be a selling point to people who post on adventure game forums and keep up-to-date with the genre; but to the general population? It totally can be.

When my wife and I were showing off our new game at a convention a couple of weeks ago, all anyone could talk about was how it reminded them of the Sierra and LucasArts games they grew up playing, and how awesome it was that someone was making a new one. We're getting a lot of the same feedback on our Steam Greenlight page, too--people commenting on how the game takes them back and how PC gaming has been "missing this for quite a while". I'm the first person to tell you that the genre never really "died" and definitely isn't "dead" now, but that's still the impression that a lot of people have; unless someone's specifically dropping a new adventure game in front of their face, they don't necessarily know we're out there. (It probably doesn't help that any time a major site reviews a new adventure game, they always, ALWAYS do so with the premise of "you don't see these games much anymore, but...")

That's not to say the "old-school adventure game" selling point isn't overused, because it is--but it's also still pretty effective (at least in my experience).

[qptain Nemo]

I'm the first person to tell you that the genre never really "died" and definitely isn't "dead" now, but that's still the impression that a lot of people have; unless someone's specifically dropping a new adventure game in front of their face, they don't necessarily know we're out there.

Oh, I agree, that's absolutely the problem. I think adventure games have never died as much as adventure gamers.

That's not to say the "old-school adventure game" selling point isn't overused, because it is--but it's also still pretty effective (at least in my experience).

It may be still effective, but I fear clinging to it does more damage than good in the big picture. It makes the whole point-and-click subculture of gaming even more stagnant than it is and needs to be and reinforces what you've mentioned earlier.

[SinanDira]

On-topic:
Huge commercial projects may need a lot of marketing in advance to make sure they get financed, and that the people involved can get paid. If that's not an issue for you, why don't you simply release the game and use in-game material on your site, and do your best to spread the word once people can actually play it?

It's definitely not an issue for us, but why not let people know in advance?

About the “old school” marketing approach, I am not sure. The validity of that description is questionable in the first place, because our game has a more late-90's traditional art style; not pixel in the first place (which is fairly modern, looking at the age of the genre). And as Paul said, this approach is more targeted toward people not keeping up-do-date with the genre, which complicates things a bit.



Anyway, back to the webpage's design, I decided to drop everything upon your feedback (including the "pre-announcement" idea) and begin from scratch.

Goals:
1. The top 600 vertical pixels (web-safe area) of the page should:
A) instantly deliver the fact that this is a point-and-click adventure;
B) and hopefully depict prominent features (the game's humorous atmosphere and late 90's traditional art style).
2. The used phrases have to be accurate to avoid misleading the visitor.

Just to make it clear, the thing we need to focus on right now is the top part of the page, the one that will be visible when the page loads. The body is at its minimum requirement just a flow of information (plot, screenshots...etc).

My first sketch for a replacement of the previous page was this mystery-themed background with the silhouetted protagonist entering the “restaurant”, one of the game's environments.

The shadows are a bit messed up, but that's just a sketch. Everything you see here is actual in-game art except for the protagonist's shadow.

From this point on, I am not sure what to write. Do you think that this background is good to begin with in the first place?

[Cyrus]

No one is going to look at a placeholder webpage by some unknown team and go "Wooh! There aren't any screenshots or details about the game, but look at those LucasArts sprites! I do miss the good old days of adventure gaming. I just have to know who that mysterious silhouette is! I'll make sure to check this URL daily â€" nay, hourly! â€" until that blessed time comes when I'll be allowed to preorder!"

That's funny, you're speaking about me But sadly, we have copyrights, so I have to agree with everyone else.

Do you think that this background is good to begin with in the first place?

I really dig the graphic style, but a location like this could be present in almost any sort of plot. Maybe something more unusual and distinctive?

[qptain Nemo]

I really dig the graphic style, but a location like this could be present in almost any sort of plot. Maybe something more unusual and distinctive?

I fully agree with this. Well, actually I don't really find non-distinctiveness of the picture problematic as long as a sufficient description of the concept follows.