When is the time to start hyping your game?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by invulse, Jul 30, 2010.

  1. invulse

    invulse Well-Known Member

    At what point in development should you start to hype your games up?

    I have seen games that start posting in the forums and hyping up there game before even in-game screenshots are available of gameplay (which seems is just to get the games name out there in the public), YET I have also seen games wait until they have an almost final build of a game to show off before even announcing they are working on it.

    I would just like to know some developers experiences with the pros/cons of each, as I am struggling with knowing when the right time is to start hyping up my upcoming game. It is currently not ready for a private beta and I don't have a trailer yet, but the graphics and most of the gameplay is in a very mature state. I am considering hyping it up early but don't want to really get it out there before its ready.

    Thanks in advance!
     
  2. steelfires

    steelfires Well-Known Member

    Feb 17, 2010
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    Candy Mountain, Charlie!
    It depends. If your game is a big game, with tons of content and other stuff, it might be good to hype it up for a long time. However, if your game is like most games, it's probably better for at least screenshots. THe longer between announcement and release, the higher chance of the hype dying.
     
  3. Golden Hammer

    Golden Hammer Well-Known Member

    Dec 1, 2009
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    Indie Game Developer
    Boston
    As early as you can get people to pay attention to it? I've done both extremes: right before release (Big Mountain Snowboarding), and 2 years in advance (Bid for Power). BFP got millions of downloads but it was lightning in a bottle. BMS not so much :p.

    I'm trying to figure this out myself right now for our next game. We have a lot of the mechanics implemented but all of the art is placeholder. I'm currently planning on starting with a toucharcade post in upcoming games once it's far enough along to make a video that communicates the core, then rolling the dice with the big sites when it's closer to finished.

    Too late and you run the risk of no one paying attention. Too early or not sustained enough and you run the risk of people forgetting or losing interest, or worse yet turning on you or forming a premature opinion.

    Sorry for posting without having The Answer. I'm very interested in any posts with info about this topic.
     
  4. steelfires

    steelfires Well-Known Member

    Feb 17, 2010
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    Candy Mountain, Charlie!
    look at freeverse's flick baseball. A couple days late and people were screaming at how freeverse is untrustworthy, unloyal, dishonest, stupid, and I'll never buy another of their products again.
     
  5. invulse

    invulse Well-Known Member


    There certainly is no one correct answer to this, but I did read your post mortem on BMS and I hope to learn from some of the mistakes you outlined in the post, one of which was not hyping the game up enough before release.

    My game definitely will cater to the more hardcore of gamers yet I hope it will be accessible for casual gamers to pick up and play, however since I am the only person developing/creating art for the game I don't have a ton of time to make promo material and trailers. My thoughts right now, are to create an awesome promo trailer in the next month, post it along with requests for beta testers on TA and other sites, then really hope that I can build a moderate hype for the game from that.
     
  6. ultimo

    ultimo Well-Known Member

    May 5, 2009
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    Never....
    Just leave details about your game here when its 75%-ish ready
    We all know what happened to EA's NFS undercover & Pixelbites reckless racing.

    Let us like or hate the game, creating a hype has not worked well for games on iOS
     
  7. Foursaken_Media

    Foursaken_Media Well-Known Member
    Patreon Indie

    #7 Foursaken_Media, Jul 30, 2010
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2010
    Here's the thing imo... you can never release info too early (well, as long as you're not trying to release info WAAAY early). Best case scenario you stir up lots of hype even before you have anything good to show... which is great bc imagine once you release a trailer? Worst case scenario: no one looks at the thread and it fades to dust....

    But who cares if the thread fades to dust? You can always release a new thread later with more information or bump the old thread with a name change -- you'll also have a better chance of experimenting with thread titles and how to release your info this way (i.e. if your first thread sucked, why? try to change the title of the thread to something that works).

    On the flip side, if you release info too late, you won't have time to fix your thread or get a second chance to get the word out, or you might just not have enough time to build any hype at all.

    With our first game N.Y.Zombies we release three separate upcoming game threads. The 1st had a trailer with in game footage and got 1500 views -- rather disappointing. The seconds one we released had the same trailer but was a beta thread, which got about 4000 views. Finally, we made a new trailer after beta and released the final trailer in another new thread, which got 10000 views. By the time we released N.Y.Zombies we peaked at the #102 spot in the US without getting featured by Apple and receiving very modest press exposure, basically just from our release thread on this site and from what hype we did generate from the upcoming games threads.

    With our new title Bug Heroes, we've taken a different approach. We released info early because we think we have a very unique idea that is easy to tell people about (you know exactly what the game is about just from the thread title -- while still leaving room for wondering about specifics) along with a cinematic trailer to give a general idea of the game. Even though we have at least 2 months before release, we're already up to 5000 views on the Bug Heroes thread without a single in game pic or video yet...

    Anyway, moral of the story is if you release something early, you can keep adapting and changing things until you have some success with the exposure. If you release it too late you won't have time to tinker with anything. Thats my take anyway ;)

    P.S. all of this is assuming you don't release any unfinished screens or videos that would negatively impact the image of your game. Its one thing not to get noticed. Its another for people to look at your screens you released too early and think the game looks like crap.
     

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