Marketing and Promotion

dak · Post by **dak** » November 27th, 2007, 3:27 am

I am just woundering how much Basilisk is trying to market this game, I have a lot of experiance with indie games, and many of them sell more after the first few weeks because people begin to know they are out. Are you planing to add the game to any portals or such? My friend added her RPG to a lot of portals and the sells went through the roof!

In order to sell a lot of copies you have to work as hard with marketing and promotion as you did working on the game!

D.s. Just writing this cause I am loving the game, and want you guys to sell a lot.

Also where are the other guys who worked on the game?? never seen them on the forum!

YouTube · November 27th, 2007, 4:56 am

Yes, we are working to get on a few portals right now.

In terms of marketing, we are just letting the game speak for itself for now. Word of mouth has been great and we are going to be in at least 4 European magazines in the next 2 months as well as numerous upcoming web reviews. After December we'll see where we stand and what can be done to further increase our coverage.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if anyone wants to help, keep making noise. The more that people talk/blog/post about the game, the more coverage it's going to get.

Thanks!

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » November 27th, 2007, 12:14 pm

BasiliskWrangler wrote:Yes, we are working to get on a few portals right now.

In terms of marketing, we are just letting the game speak for itself for now. Word of mouth has been great and we are going to be in at least 4 European magazines in the next 2 months as well as numerous upcoming web reviews. After December we'll see where we stand and what can be done to further increase our coverage.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if anyone wants to help, keep making noise. The more that people talk/blog/post about the game, the more coverage it's going to get.

Thanks!

I have been doing my best to keep the discussion on the game near the top of the forums on RPGCodex.

Only thing that worries me about reviews from various websites is that they might judge the game based on it not being "next gen" and the graphics not being good by today's standards. I hope they realize the graphics are fantastic for an indy game on a small budget.

macdude22 · Post by **macdude22** » November 27th, 2007, 12:23 pm

Personally I think the Graphics are fantastic anyway. I don't understand this modern fixation on "3D" and if it's not "3D" it has bad graphics. I think there is something to be said for quality hand drawn and rendered 2D sprites, with a splash of particle effects for good measure. The game looks good nuff said.

To be honest I've found myself to love 2D RPGs significantly more than the "modern" 3D ones. The last RPG I really loved that was a big name game was Final Fantasy VII. Seems like it's been downhill since then for the big publisher RPGs.

mortification8 · Post by **mortification8** » November 27th, 2007, 12:33 pm

Saxon1974 wrote: I have been doing my best to keep the discussion on the game near the top of the forums on RPGCodex.

It's funny because I would have thought that Eschalon would be the absolute dream game for the Codexers, but I think they have become so inbred with their ideal vision of the "perfect" game that they fail to see a good game when it bites them in the ***.

However, I will agree on one point that has been made over at the Codex. It would be neat to see more Choices & Consequences, or a little more depth, in the quest and dialogue system in Book 2. For example, when you get the quest to kill Lilith, it would be nice to be able to tell her about it and let her beg for her life, or reveal the true motives of the assassin so you can go back and kill him instead, or be able to report the assassin to the local mayor, etc. Same deal for the fleshrot victim/evil priest subquest.

It wouldn't take much with the existing engine to allow this kind of thing; in fact, I suspect that the reason more wasn't done with this is simply the time and effort needed to write the additional dialogue and QC all of the dialogue trees. So perhaps we will see more of this in Book 2.

You can't do everything for the first attempt and for an initial release by an indy publisher this game is far better than anything I've ever seen, and I would hope the Codexers of all people could support it.

dak · Post by **dak** » November 27th, 2007, 2:18 pm

Not really the Codex people think that an RPG is about having a lot of choices... while Eschalon is not exactly linear it still doesn't have a lot of choices and consequenses. However it'd cost 10x as much effort to make Eschalon if it had + it is very hard to keep a good story!

chamr · Post by **chamr** » November 27th, 2007, 2:24 pm

Thom needs to hire Steven Peeler of Depths of Peril fame to do his marketing. He got his indie release reviewed on a ton of sites.

Saxon1974 · Post by **Saxon1974** » November 27th, 2007, 2:30 pm

mortification8 wrote:
Saxon1974 wrote: I have been doing my best to keep the discussion on the game near the top of the forums on RPGCodex.
It's funny because I would have thought that Eschalon would be the absolute dream game for the Codexers, but I think they have become so inbred with their ideal vision of the "perfect" game that they fail to see a good game when it bites them in the ***.

However, I will agree on one point that has been made over at the Codex. It would be neat to see more Choices & Consequences, or a little more depth, in the quest and dialogue system in Book 2. For example, when you get the quest to kill Lilith, it would be nice to be able to tell her about it and let her beg for her life, or reveal the true motives of the assassin so you can go back and kill him instead, or be able to report the assassin to the local mayor, etc. Same deal for the fleshrot victim/evil priest subquest.

It wouldn't take much with the existing engine to allow this kind of thing; in fact, I suspect that the reason more wasn't done with this is simply the time and effort needed to write the additional dialogue and QC all of the dialogue trees. So perhaps we will see more of this in Book 2.

You can't do everything for the first attempt and for an initial release by an indy publisher this game is far better than anything I've ever seen, and I would hope the Codexers of all people could support it.

Completely agree, very nice post

Another thing that I don't think Codexer's get is with this game it was intended to be old school and wasn't an attempt to re-invent anything or do something completely new, but many of them seem stuck on that.

But your right, some of them want the perfect RPG, and if they don't support a fantastic effort on a first time indy title like this one, they are only hurting their own cause.

Dragonlady · Post by **Dragonlady** » November 27th, 2007, 5:52 pm

Have you posted the Demo on VersionTracker yet? They take PC and Mac stuff. I look everyday for things for the Mac. I believe they have a large amount of people who check there.

YouTube · November 27th, 2007, 6:26 pm

Not yet Dragonlady. I will try to get that done tomorrow.

Chuck · Post by **Chuck** » November 27th, 2007, 7:38 pm

They are talking about it on the QT3 forums. A good place, since it's mainly populated by gaming industy insiders.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/index.php

chamr · Post by **chamr** » November 28th, 2007, 12:04 am

Chuck wrote:They are talking about it on the QT3 forums. A good place, since it's mainly populated by gaming industy insiders.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/index.php

Yeah, but I find their disucssion pretty disappointing and short-sighted. Bitching about little stuff and expecting creature-comforts from an indie. Blech. I have half a mind to register just to set them straight.

realmzmaster · Post by **realmzmaster** » November 28th, 2007, 12:33 am

BW,

Suggestion: In the future at some point your might consider Game Du Jour to help promote the game. Probably after sales have stabilized or before Eschalon Book II

Brother None · Post by **Brother None** » November 28th, 2007, 6:50 am

chamr wrote:
Chuck wrote:They are talking about it on the QT3 forums. A good place, since it's mainly populated by gaming industy insiders.

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/index.php
Yeah, but I find their disucssion pretty disappointing and short-sighted. Bitching about little stuff and expecting creature-comforts from an indie. Blech. I have half a mind to register just to set them straight.

No, that's about typical for QTT, and there's no point in registering to set them straight.

Despite the fact that there are indeed a lot of gaming industry insiders at QTT, as Chuck put it, QTT is more a place of mass-marketing and mass-thinkers. It is not populated by the niche Thomas made this game for.

That niche has its own sites to represent it, like RPGWatch, RPGCodex, GameBanshee and InsideMacGames, and those sites are discussing it full-on. There's some room for expansion outside of that niche but, let's be honest here, not a lot.

YouTube · November 28th, 2007, 7:13 am

I am hopeful that upcoming reviews in European magazines will widen exposure there. PC Format magazine (UK) is doing a review, as well as 3 other game magazines in Italy, Sweden, and Germany.

I am going to keep hounding PC Gamer until they say yes or just block my email address.