Well besides rule of handshake and word of mouth, my division isn't really known by the rest of the company... which is good in the fact that we normally work on upper end telecommunications systems for the DoD and I actually find working in the civilian area of installation to be a bit tedious with permits and extra paperwork.

Basically I dunno about adds in gaming magazines anymore. I guess I believe that if folks are actually reading CGW and others that they probably own a computer and are coming here once they see the website on the page to learn more. I know thats how I found GC1 in a way, saw the box, looked up the website, than went back and bought the game. Website for GalCiv again for getting to GC2.

So in a way the product sold itself to me, based on information I found online but seen offline first.

In conclusion, the only time I read computer magazines anymore is if one of the kits are in need of a new retired military ID card and if I am behind a huge line in the doctors office. So yes, I would look at gaming adds, but are those two or three times a year for two or three hours I look worth what your paying... for that matter is it worth the time having your accountants work it into your budget and make sure your tax credits are getting back to you?

I did like the spread you showed us all though online.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

For me it was the internet that hooked me on GalCiv 1.
Penny Arcade, actually. All it took was one little link for me to get to your site and get hooked.

I don't read gaming magazines and probably never will, despite the fact that I am a hardcore PC gamer. I don't see the value. I hear about new games through websites such as Penny Arcade and my friends (some of whom may indeed read Magazines, I'm not sure)

I would personally think that web advertising may be more cost-effective, but I have no intimate financial knowledge of your results with either media. I guess that's the problem with print advertising, as you said: No tracking.

Either way, keep up the good work, I love the game.

Are your ads targetted to a different web address or do they in some way help you know for sure that the ads are driving traffic to your products? If so, then good, if not, then you may just be doing as you said - supporting those that may have helped support you.

I think advertising in magazines is a good thing, as it does help generate buzz and demand for your product among people that might not find you otherwise, but I hope you are set up to verify that you're getting your money's worth from your marketing dollars.

Best of luck either way!

I haven't seen a single advertisement for your game. I first heard of it off of a Freespace SCP message board where someone was trying to mod the ships to work in GalCiv2, and I ended up reading about it in your dev journals. I looked for the game in Best Buy and bought it when it showed up.

Commercial Reality is they published the article because they thought it would be of interest to their readers - and therefore add to the drive to boost their magazine circulation.... I doubt integrity came into it.

The Marketing industry has several companies/institutions that make a living generating projected income from advertising in various sources - kind of a black art, especially when you factor in self-interest in terms of companies hosting the advertising wanting to be seen in a good light.

I would search around for a Marketing Pro and take it from there - given that the guy you end up with is not a Shark himself For example the generally accepted hit rate on a totally cold-call campaign on something not in the news is 0.5%. Doesnt seem a lot, but if the cold-call campaign generates - say - 500 hits from 100,000 cold calls on the phone - it can be well worth while depending on the base cost of the offered item/service and the charges made by the CallCentre. A Marketing Pro would give you the best advertising routes and indicative costs/likely success. The latter they get from researching the results of various ad campaigns from customer feedback.

I know the caution that some have over so called Consultants, but in the Marketing world there is no substitute for quality advice. The guy should be able to give you Reference Sites for work done that you can ring and check up on etc

A Flat rate for work is common - but you should negotiate a flexible contract eg if the guy wants $5000, offer him $4000 up front, then the rest by graduated scale based on the campaign results, capped at - say - 150% of his original quoted rate. Incentivise to get them to focus on you, They love flat rate work that they can use as a fill in .....

Regards
Zy

I personally don't subscribe to any gaming magazines. I've bought the odd PC Gamer over the years (when they're reviewing or previewing a game of particular interest to me), but for the most part I start my info gathering at Gamespot and find web resources from there. That's how I found out about GalCiv 2.

My own personal habits regarding magazine ads involve ignoring them. Long ago, I learned that snappy ads can be made for even the crappiest of games (or any other merchandise). For a print ad to get my attention, it would have to hook me on information; it would have to sell me the concept and not the cool. Based on the two-pager that was thrown up on this site a while ago, I'd say you're probably doing ok for ad design. Even with that though, it'd still be 50/50 as to whether I paid any attention.

Sorry double post -...

Another suggestion is Hire a dedicated Marketing Manager. Say $50K salary plus incentives, that would be circa $120K management cost over the FY. Sounds a lot of additional overhead, but as you pointed out $20K for a double spread is a lot, dont take much to recoup the extra manpower overhead from preventing dud campaigns ... let alone generating a successful campaign in house without using Consultants (who in reality will come closer to $50K plus campaign costs not the example I gave above....)

Regards
Zy

I like to get as much info on a game as i can before i buy it. I use a combination of internet previews/reviews, magazine previews/reviews, the game and/or developer's site, and demos.

Avatar Brad Wardell : "Does that $20,000 two-page spread in a game magazine generate 2X in sales of the game?"

Reply : $20 000 ?! Your excellent game does not require a two-page spread! I "feel" that it is a waste of money. One page in the 3 major PC-games mags should be enough.

P.S. Even though the following observation is off-topic, I would suggest that you charge a small fee for the updates which will follow 1.2 (before the release of the expansion). From 1.0 to 1.2, your team will have done more than enough unpaid work (such as during the weekends). Any customer who has updated the game to 1.1 or 1.2 will have had enough return on his original investment (when he purchased the game). GC2 will be in top shape with version 1.2, before the expansion arrives. Consequently, version 1.3 (and other following updates) should be considered super-gravy and should be financed by those customers who really want more. But since I am new to this forum, I am perhaps suggesting something that has already been discussed (and rejected) on the forum and within the Stardock adhocracy.

The update fee idea really goes against the spirt of what they're trying to sell with this game. I'd never buy another Stardock game if they implemented a 'pay for patch' system. Just like i won't buy anymore of the Massive Assault series since they refuse to include a lan option on their games and charge for their internet service. Cheesy nickel and dime tactics turn off customers.

I'm not sure an advert in a magazine would make me buy a game, but i've been playing for ages. But what it does do is Highlight the fact that the game exists. I would then look for reviews on the game from organisations such as gamespot and even IGN if I got desperate enough. I used to like gamesdomain, but they got yahoo'd. If the review was good then I will consider purchasing.

I wouldn't buy a game based solely on a magazine review though. I'm loosing my respect for computer magazines as a whole, they are too prone to promote what I consider to be weak games that have originated from the mega publishers. Even my beloved Edge have lost their love of PC games. It was only after reading your dev journal post regarding reviews that I learned about independent reviewers and the respect they hold, but if you can consider me as a typical gamer, This meant nothing to me as all I was interested in was the blurb, the guy who wrote the piece is just someone who works for the magazine. If the magazine is disregarded then so is the reviewer. But thats my opinion.

I think it would be a good idea for you to do a spread in a high profile magazine because more people will know GC2
exists. But Its gotta be eyecatching. The best one I've ever seen had to be the one for I-war or Independence war. Fantastic. grabbed my attention and even though its a glorified flight sim with guns and set in space, I bought it on the strength of some of the reviews I read.

later

I read PC Gamer (UK) every month and it's probably still my main source of information. However I don't pay much attention to the ad's. They do make me a little more aware of a title but I dont bother to give them much attention as I know they're biased towards trying to sell me something.

I'd say the more effective print strategy is to have multiple part-page ad's over several successive pages. In other words a vertical column running down the edge of the page highlighting a character or feature of the game. Much more chance of getting the reader to notice your game before they turn past it.

Pay for patch? No one else in the industry does that. Some vertical products sell a "support" package that includes customer support and or patches (like Oracle, etc). But, you don't find this in the Game Industry.

I'm an old timer. Been using DOS since 2.0. I used Wordstar, Lotus Symphony, dBase II, etc. I have observed the industry for a very long time. I think that magazine adverstising is much less effective than web advertising. I learned about GC2 from Gamespot. That "Be the first to download the demo" idea was brilliant. Gamespot and similar websites are free. Free=more people see it. Computer Game World is not free. Much fewer people see their ads. Game enthusiasts like myself visit the sites between tasks at work or at home. I visit the sites about 100 times more often than I buy a magazine. This is the Digital Age. Printed Media, whether it be news or otherwise, is dropping in subscribership like theres no tomorrow. IF I ran a software company, I might put one ad in the most read game magazine, and then focus the remaining 90 percent of my advertising budget into Web ads.

But on magazine ads, who knows. Is anyone seeing them?

While I'm just one person, had it not been for the ad in CGW I would have never heard of SD or GCII. (The 1 page ad) Having seen it, my interest had been sparked enough to visit the site and check things out, view forum members comments of the game, etc. After about a week, I talked myself into heading down to my local Wally World and picking up a copy. Me breaking down and buying another game so soon after shelling out nearly 60 for Civ4 (which I was still playing regularly) was virtually unheard of for me. (My game budget isn't much in the way of priorities)

Needless to say, the ad and this community talked me into my purchase. The way SD handled issues that I had with the game will keep me as a customer for a good while. The day the SD crew release 2-3 patches (A Saturday!) attempting to fix the CTD problem a couple of us had sold me on SD. Many a time have I heard from the big game co.'s that "their game was fine, it had to be my machine." and yet only after 100's of complaints would they decide to patch it (if we were lucky that is). Most of my gaming friends are FPS types but I tell them almost daily how SD attempts to take care of customers. I know that not everyone will be satisfied with everything a company does and I will admit that there are things I would like to see in this game that I doubt will show up. SD is a business and they have to make decisions accordingly but their decision to give A+ Customer Service has ensured that this old gamer will be a return customer with future products they may release.

As for knowing just how well the magazine ad works, why not put a “how did you learn of this game” type spot on the registration. Not everyone will fill it in, but a few replies are better than none.

It's no secret that advertising and branding more specifically has been hogging up all the ' value-added' in more recent decades (just look at the shifting trend on the rapid increase in financial capital spent on advertising and the overwhelming reluctance to invest in anything resembling a factory, and again the rise of contracting, sub-contracting and 'home work') since companies started tagging onto the Nike model and advertising strategy (the removal of the product from the advertisement). There is no question in my mind the importance of branding, and how it affords companies 'strategy'.

But the effectiveness of a single advert, i cant be certain. It partly depends on the advert itself and how well its positioned to its target market. One thing is certain however advertising has been passed off as a cure-all.


I would definetly recommend you reading The Consumerist Manifesto by Martin P Davidson (1992)