I work at Game Mania, a pretty well known gamestore at Belgium and the Netherlands.
Being a big fan of your latest game, I really tried to sell it to a lot of customers looking for a good RPG. With succes! But the people walking into the store and picking up Div2 just because they already heard from it before I started talking about it, weren't that much at all.
After a while I couldn't order the x360 version anymore! I contacted headquarters about it. Their answer -unfortunately- made sense. It's a very good game, but other RPG's like Dragon Age 2, Fable 3 (as far as that's to be called an RPG..) just walked right over it, despite a lot of people know the quality of those games didn't get close to Div2. There just weren't enough people who knew about the quality of your game.
Problem is, those games have some huge publishers, well-known names, gamesites reviewing those games and usually rating it a 9+..mostly because of the well-known name.
Then, the Witcher 2 came! Part 1 was not THAT well-known, but more well-known than Div2. Cd-project also started pretty small, although their advantage probably also has to do with that the games are based on a fantasy book series.
At Game Mania we received a lot of promotional magazines for the Witcher 2. About 18 pages in length, with screenshots, art and a lot of information. I happily distributed those among customers, which also really boosted pre-orders. I was as enthousiastic about Witcher 2 as I was about Divinity 2, I hope you don't mind;) hehe.
Anyway! I started looking around on the net. CD-project was really doing their best to hype their new game as much as possible. There were a lot of development journals in the form of short videos. About the gameplay, music, battle system, world design, storytelling. It made me want the game even more!
Also, I also noticed they really did their best to come into contact with a lot of gamestore companies. At our website, for over 2 months we had a banner about the Witcher 2 for pre-ordering, other companies also had special pre-order bonuses in Europe and America. I have to admit, I noticed the Witcher 2 from out own website..^^ In the end we had about 15 pre-orders for the normal edition and about 4 for the special edition! Let me tell you that's a lot in our store for a pc game on day one, that doesn't happen too often. Not counting some WoW expansion or basically any other game developed by Blizzard:p
All this made me think about your game. I really think it's a shame Divinity 2 didn't get as much attention, it would've sold a lot more. I understand that making deals with all kinds of gamestores might cost a lot, printing small magazines a few months before release too, but the influence of those media are pretty huge. Also, before release, I think it's great to make some developer videos once in a while, makes fans even more eager to get it on day one;) Youtube, gametrailers, other independent gamesites from all over the world..you name it. I also noticed you're using Facebook, nice! Just keep doing that and try to get as much followers as you can..by linking to it when there's a video to be found, things like that.
I really don't have a clue about how much these kinds of advertising might cost, but it's clear advertising is needed to let the potential buyer know of the existence of you and your games. I'm sure it will make a huge difference, since the problem doesn't lie with the quality of your games, especially after your remastered version of Div2!
I'd be happy to help you as much as I can, if you plan on doing anything with advertising using gamestores;)
One small edit:
I got to know about your game when I incidentally stumbled across a (very positive) review of your game on a gamesite, I don't remember which site it was.Getting into contact with as much gamesites as you can will also make a huge difference. I know it's not always wise to 'judge' a game by the ratings it gets from reviews, but you know a lot of people do just that. And I have to admit..when a costumer asks me about a game I haven't heard about before and I don't have that much time to do research, I look for ratings and basic info:p
You'll have to excuse me if I take my ideas a few steps too much ahead, because you didn't even announce the game. I also have no clue about the costs of all those kinds of advertising. But I've seen too many good games not sell well because almost nobody knew about them.
Last edited by Dru; 10/06/11 09:24 AM.