[George] Unbelievably Brilliant Way to Market Transcendence

[TVR]

I have a brilliant idea for advertising Transcendence.

Give everyone who has Corporate Command a free download code for Corporate Command, and let them give it to whoever they want.

This - THIS^ RIGHT HERE is what it really means to spread Transcendence by word-of-mouth. Just imagine how many people would learn of Transcendence if a friend sent it to them for free, and how many more people they could spread it to, and how much appreciation there would be for giving and getting this gift. This idea can even be extended further, with further unlock codes for and to each person referred.

Every referral is worth more than anything else. That's Marketing 101. And it is KP's key to success.

Disclaimer: If you think this is a stupid idea, then you suck at business. Because you would rather have $3 than a customer introduced by reference. This is so unbelievably narrow-sighted that I'm ashamed to have to mention it.

[Ttech]

Speaking only as a member of the community. I don't think this is a viable option, it reduces the probably of profit for Kronosaur Productions and runs the risk of losing momentum or incentive for people creating mods.
Additionally referral programs work as well with paid services and there haven't been adverse reactions to many of those in most services.

I am not going to discuss this further until George responds however.

[george moromisato]

Disclaimer: If you think this is a stupid idea, then you suck at business. Because you would rather have $3 than a customer introduced by reference. This is so unbelievably narrow-sighted that I'm ashamed to have to mention it.

I've already tried this on a smaller scale. I offered roughly 10 dedicated players free codes if they wanted to spread it around to their friends. None did. [Their friends either were already playing (and had CC) or had no interest in Transcendence.]

This tells me that less than 10% of the player population would bring in new players (it could be less than 10%, but we don't have enough resolution to know).

The current player population is between 500 and 1,000 players (depending on how you measure "current"). So at best we would gain an extra 100 players (and maybe 10% of those would bring in new players, so we're up to 110 or 111). And that's a *best* case scenario. A more likely scenario is less than 50 new players, or a 5% increase in player population.

The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference but in practice there is. You seem to be very good at theory. Please forgive me if I stick to practice.

[Song]

I'd agree with George. I've gotten people to play T before (but never gotten them to the forums, alas), but at this stage with a well-established userbase most of us have already gotten everyone involved that we can. In any case, giving away too many codes means that there's less money to be made (fair dinkum though, I did get my copy of CC through a giveaway by George). We do need a way to attract a new audience, but it's a new new audience we need, not the same one that's been ignoring our babblings about this space-game witchcraft all these years.

Can also I point out that calling your own idea "unbelievably brilliant" usually means it won't ever be taken seriously. It's even in 'How not to write a novel' as something you shouldn't do when writing fiction. There's nothing wrong with suggesting business stuff (heck, I'd probably suck if I suggested major things since my training is both theoretical, at undergrad level, and in a completely different industry to the one George is in), and if you think it's something special or unique then do say so, but leave the "it's awesome!" to others to write if they genuinely feel that way. This is a little anvilicious, sorry, but there's not really a nice way of pointing it out.

[SpongeJr]

I hope there are no hard feelings about this, but... regardless of how good of an idea it might be, I really can't bite my tongue any more about this part:

Disclaimer: If you think this is a stupid idea, then you suck at business. Because you would rather have $3 than a customer introduced by reference. This is so unbelievably narrow-sighted that I'm ashamed to have to mention it.

This line seems a little inflammatory. Please don't call names =(

I'm certain the spirit and ambition behind the idea is good. I think everyone should keep contributing ideas... whether about the game, marketing it, or anything else. And I like how passionate the community is about the game, and how motivated to spread the word. Let's all keep open-minded and keep the ideas flowing!

[EditorRUS]

That's useless. I've already said why the game seems not interesting to players. Because it's not catchy at it's beginning. The most interesting starts from third part of human space. Moreover - it's hard a little for beginners as there's no any tutorial. Moreover the game doesn't have good balance at the beginning - you EITHER can be easily destroyed by anyone or you can easily destroy anything in a view without even being damaged. It becomes balanced at the last part: there you can be easily destroyed with some Ares ships, but you can destroy them too.
Even if a player overbear boring first and second part and beats the game, he likely will NOT download mods and start again, just because he don't know about mods and a fact the game can be modded. Look at Dwarf Fortress' training curve - here's the same. Many players will just drop the game if they can't understard how to play or it's not catchy.

Howerer, the game is far more interesting if it was modded. The systems become alive(!), many variations of the weapons, sometimes big wars. It stops to be deadlike and uninteresting. So, i think one on a "brilliant" ideas is advertising WITH certain mods, plain vanilla bores even me.

[pixelfck]

Howerer, the game is far more interesting if it was modded. The systems become alive(!), many variations of the weapons, sometimes big wars. It stops to be deadlike and uninteresting. So, i think one on a "brilliant" ideas is advertising WITH certain mods, plain vanilla bores even me.

^This.
I'm not sure about how marketing has been done so far, but I think that advertising certain mods with transcendence could be a very teasing way of introducing potential players into the game and its wealth of mods.

[RPC]

Or at least tell players that mods *exist*, for one :S