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Tankz is finally out!

Discussion in 'Made With Unity' started by seon, May 26, 2009.

  1. seon

    seon

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  2. Martin-Schultz

    Martin-Schultz

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    Wow, I like it. Off to buy it now. Please keep us posted how the game performs in terms of sale. I'd be interested how tank games perform in general. Good job!

    Edit: Cool game. Bought and played it meanwhile. :)
     
  3. tbelgrave

    tbelgrave

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    Keep rocking Seon! Definitely will check this out a bit later today.

    ~t
     
  4. Train

    Train

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    Cool, i wish you good luck with this game!
     
  5. minevr

    minevr

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    I like the menu.
     
  6. seon

    seon

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    Thanks everyone... Im not sure how I am going to be able to provide sales data is this game is being published by ClickGamer (A division of Chillingo) so I have no idea what sales data I will get and when...

    But I am happy to keep you all updated as I find out more.
     
  7. kaaJ

    kaaJ

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    Hey Seon, nice game!

    What is the mean reason why you brought on a publisher? Marketing?


    Good luck!
     
  8. seon

    seon

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    My main reason for getting a publisher on board is because I am a one man Indie team, my time is probably better spent making my games rather than marketing them.

    As an individual and an Indie, I have no strong relationships with any review sites nor advertising and PR companies, so thats where a good publisher can make a great difference.

    Having a publisher is not cheap, but I look at it this way... if a publisher costs me 30% of my of my sale price, my sales numbers only need to increase by 30% for me to end up the same way.

    A good publisher should be able to double your exposure and sales. My fingers are crossed :)
     
  9. kaaJ

    kaaJ

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    That's interesting! Thanks for the information...

    And you are right... Quality Programming/Graphics AND marketing is a bit too much for one person I guess :)
     
  10. Lka

    Lka

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    Hi Seon, nice game!
    I have some question too about the publisher: 30% of the store price (.99)?
    They provide you QA?
    Can you choose the store price?
    Can you post the sales stats next week compared to your last game stats?
     
  11. HiggyB

    HiggyB

    Unity Product Evangelist

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    Nice work, purchase made!
     
  12. Alex

    Alex

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    Oooh, gonna have to pick this up later. :)
     
  13. seon

    seon

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    Ok, my 30% was just an example in this case. Every publisher has their own rates and offerings, and deduct their own way.

    In my case, ClickGamer (Chillingo) take their cut AFTER Apple have taken their cut. Im not at liberty to reveal my contract details though.

    Also in my case, I can set the price, but the point of having a successful publisher on board is to also learn from them, and they will recommend a plan of attack that includes price points, update paths etc... so we both discussed the pro/cons and set the price accordingly. For me, Tankz was always gong to be a 99c game. With a possible $1.99 price jump when v1.1 comes out.

    ClickGamer also did some final QA to help me get Tankz finished (though it was already 99% there).

    There is no point showing any sales stats compared to Circuit Defenders as they are two totally different genres and wont have any correlation in sales figures.

    I am happy to share with the community how sales go with Tankz, but lets get the first month of sales out the door to see where things really stand.
     
  14. Thomas-Lund

    Thomas-Lund

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    I am also interested in knowing more about that publisher stuff.

    At the recent Nordic Game conference I asked one of the guys behind ZenBound why they had published with Chilingo - and he said it was probably a mistake. None of the stuff they brought to the table seemed to have any impact on sales.

    Was a good talk in general on marketing effect on their sales - absolutely no effect but very very small bumps for 1-2 days. The big thing and only thing with imapct was having a good launch (so there is some pre-launch marketing to create hype) and then being featured by Apple.

    Anything after initial launch that they did had no effect what so ever.

    Just a little FYI
     
  15. seon

    seon

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    Awesome Thomas,

    Exactly what I wanted to hear! :( Well paperwork is signed and game is released, so I guess I will have to wear this whichever way it goes.
     
  16. Thomas-Lund

    Thomas-Lund

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    Yeah

    All games are different and all launches the same. So it might work for you. The secret seems to be to get good pre-launch hype - and forget about marketing after launch really. So get the publisher to make tons and tons of pre-marketing. By the end of the day something that you could have done yourself too. And the various websites dont care about press releases and stuff - mail them directly.

    As was said there - if you got a good game, they will feature it no matter who submitted the material.

    Talked a bit with the European developer manager from Apple after that talk, and he also said more or less the same - that publishers seem to not understand app store is about _removing_ the middle men.

    Anyways - more info from the talk was that they sold 112k units at $5 (I think). Their lite version had negative effect on sales - and was a waste of time for them.

    All price dumps raised the sales with around the same amount - so in the end it only had a unit # sales effect.

    Marketing with banners was a total waste of money in their view. Being featured on the front page of various sites has a small effect for 1-2 days and thats it. Effect was so little than in the long run it didnt matter much.

    Giving away promo codes etc. was also a waste of time. They had sales of 7000 units a day in the first weeks - so giving 5 promo codes to someone with 100 subscribers on twitter.......... :)

    Think that was about it.

    /Thomas
     
  17. seon

    seon

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    Well, I have to admit so far that I am less than happy with the pre-launch hype generated by my publisher for Tankz.

    Pretty much 0 penetration!

    But as I said, it's a done deal, so I will ride it out and see if they have new ways of earning their money.
     
  18. bumba

    bumba

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    hey why you complain? chillingo made a tweet about your game! LOL much work for 30 % i guess
     
  19. seon

    seon

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  20. Tempest

    Tempest

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    Yeah I read that one yesterday :D Congrats.