Visibility the missing component ?

I have writeen several posts in my time about being invisible. Or put another way, not being able to get my game seen or downloaded by a lot of people.

This is a conundrum that all Indies and Big companies alike face when putting out products. In this day and age people are being bombarded with advertisements for stuff all over the place. It used to be simple 20 years ago, now with all the connectivity, it is not simple. there are many choices of where you can advertise your wares, but that does not make it simple, as anyone only has so many dollars or time to spend on the task of getting your product seen. you do not have the kind of money that is put into advertising AAA titles, so you cannot go the way of THQ or EA etc.

Now if your product does not get seen, then there is a lower chance to make any sales at all, never mind making it big! Though i do believe there is a chance you can reach just the right person. That person in turn puts something out on twitter or on facebook and a bunch of people pick up on that and whammo, suddenly you have gone viral.

What if you manage to get seen, get on Kotaku or Joystiq or something like that. Well most likely if you are an Indie developer, you are getting noticed for something bad. I will not go further on that description hower. Still, bad press IS press, so maybe it is good. It certainly paid handsomely for one group i know. Back to the point, if you got your game seen, then you have a lot more chance to reach the viral stage, or the stage below it which is genuine interest. good luck on getting to this stage.

Visibility can be achieved in many ways, but they all seem very difficult to actually get going. Advertise, whell how do you advertise to people only on the xbox? Most xbox users i reckon don't set foot on review sites etc for indie games at least. So instead you have to hope that word of mouth amongst friends on Xbox Live will pick up your game and try to beat each other. Then, through their networks you may get enough downloads to make the creation of the game financially viable.

But back to what you CAN do.
Reviews, get them. as many as you can. These are to start off with are your best chance to get noticed. One of these reviews could possibly spring your game into the light, and i hope they do. I also love reviews because they cannot be bought. They should be unbiased (though some are very biased :( ). some sites use forms to submit for reviews, although not my favourite way to do it, it is certainly a way to weed out the lazy marketing guys. This is a good thing for you now isn't it, cos you are not lazy! Other sites will just take a press pack (Yes, always do a press pack). A Few others you might know and follow already on twitter, be nice. They are fans, and even if your game stinks, being seen is more imjportant than a good review. Oh so onto...

What if my game sucks according to everyone else. Well this has not stopped coutless thousands of downloads of vibrator apps for Xblig, why should this top your game from making money? In all honesty, good and bad games are a subjective thing. Which means that not everyone will find your game offensive. So roll with the punches and kep promoting your title. get more reviews and they will most likely balance out. If they are all bad, that again, is not so bad. People love to watch a train wreck every now and again. But use the reviews and what they say to motivate you to greater hights on your next game.

never Retreat, and Never surrendor.

Try hard, work hard, visibility may come. While your game is out there, you can never ever disount it's chances.

Da Voodoochief