Quote:
Originally Posted by
1stSPIN
I have been experimenting and yes advertising vs posting in forums and hoping that someone is going to get you to the top wins hands down. Here is a solution to get the advertising you need at a substantial lower cost than using google ads etc. Form a syndicate of developers, pool your intended promo dollars and negotiate and buy a game that has a huge following. Then use that game to promote your games and ripple your promoted games to promote your new games. Once you get on the upper rungs of the ladder you will have staying power.
Well this is just kind of how cross promotion works at some big publishers - acquire companies with attractive IPs and large user numbers and then move those users to move among your other games. So it's not like this is something really novel.
The issue is that I don't really think the way you describe it really works.
Where would you even find so many like-minded, equally wealthy developers with significant marketing budgets that want ownership in another studio or a new IP at the same time? I imagine to get a top tier title - one with significant number of users, well known IP, strong retention of users with a broad demographic that would appeal to multiple developers AND that was up for sale - is prohibitively expensive unless you find a significant number of partners.
Even then, the cost per user for you and your company personally, will likely be much higher than simply buying a campaign. (One that doesn't result in scaring off and alienating the users as they get spammed for cross promotion with a dozen different games at once)
Even if you found partners, who would maintain control or ownership? Would you form a brand new company as a partnership among the significant number of developers you'd need to start the syndicate? What happens when your goals differ from those of your collective? Who wants the burden of running this company that you share with so many other people? What do you do about the costs of running a mid size development studio during the times when you don't actually need a marketing push?
Staying power is not even guaranteed long term for everyone involved as that depends heavily on the audience of both their game and the game just purchased.
You might as well have started this 'plan' with "Make a game that attracts millions of users".