![]() ![]() If a gamer saw that Siralim 2 is cheaper on mobile, they’ll buy it there to check it out. But on other platforms, $15 is cheap.”Īs a marketer: this is a beautiful fly-wheel effect. I would get 0 sales if I sold it for $15 for iOS/Android. Regarding the pricing differences, Zack shared, “Overall, it boils down to what the market is. Some played on Steam, then bought a iOS version or an Android version for on the go. ![]() The biggest surprise: Because of Siralim’s cloud save, many fans purchased multiple versions to play anywhere. There’s the belief that pricing based on the platform is unfair. By being in multiple storefronts, Zack is catering to the buyer. In a niche market like old-school RPGs, there no longer is a definite ‘platform’ to play. (Siralim 2 is getting Playstation 4 and PS Vita soon) If you look at Siralim, you can find it everywhere: iOS, Android, Mac, PC, Linux, Windows Phone, PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. ![]() That’s all it took for Thylacine Studios to ship it in multiple platforms. Multi-platform AttackĪ commenter asked Zack, “Why isn’t this game on Mac?” Unless you have the experience and money, you’re better off reinvesting ad dollars on freelancers who can help you market. Other campaigns, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent and became a sunk cost. I’ve lucked out in Facebook ad campaigns that made a profit in the first week. (Can you afford to test ads at $100 a day for two months?) “It’s never worth for an indie developer to invest in ads.” Zack shares.įrom a marketer to indie developers: You need two things to make ads work.ġ) A background in marketing and copywriting to understand what ‘clicks’ with customersĢ) Enough money to experiment. While ads are shortcuts to quickly growing your audience base, it’s a gamble. Ads (or don’t even BOTHER.)ĭuring the first year, Zack invested in Facebook ads, Google ads, and Reddit ads. Struggling to validate with people? I wrote a post about finding hidden communities here. It's ALWAYS a bad idea to spend months/years working in isolation and expecting a fanfare of good results. Others build it slowly, and see if people are willing to pay for it. ![]() Some do it with market research and making projections. Look at that special ability! Screenshot by BadIndieGamer. That’s when the ball started rolling and Siralim acquired it's first hundred fans.Ī view of the monster ranch. It took 272 days from putting the Humble Widget on his site, to getting Siralim on Steam Greenlight. Not a load of fans, but enough to help him validate that this is something worth pursuing. The Humble store initially didn’t even allow Siralim, because, in the words of Zack, it had “Microsoft Paint level graphics.”įrom there, he shared his work on various subreddits, which got him his first fans. There was a gut feeling that there must be others who yearned for a game similar to Gameboy classic, Dragon Warrior Monsters (a monster-collecting side-story based on the Dragon Quest series.)ĭuring development, he set up a Humble Widget on his site to gather his first fans. Siralim didn’t come about because of market research. I asked Zack about the origins of Siralim. The first year and the first hundred fans His newest DLC for Siralim 2, Trial of the Old Gods, is being released for free, adding even more content to this already incredibly massive game. You’re invited to check out Siralim and Siralim 2. Your job is to turn your monsters into an ultimate weapon of destruction, by customizing every little feature of your team. Forget about love, compassion, badges and poke-contests. Instead of cute monsters, you’re capturing the souls of demons - summoning them as part of your personal army to gain favor from the gods (and in the free DLC, even transform one of your monsters into a god). It’s like Pokemon, only instead of being a trainer, you’re a wizard. Siralim is an old-school RPG, with monster-collecting. Feel free to chat with him in his forum or on Twitter.īefore we jump into the highlights of my interview with Zack, I want to share a bit about his games. Since this is more of a marketing post, developers may want to ask him about game development directly. Zack is a super friendly guy, and wicked smart. If you aren’t a brand spanking new developer, you’ll still pick up some gems in this post. You too might be building games on your free time and working a day job. This article is specifically about marketing and growth for indie developers, from an indie developer. So it surprised me in my interview with Zack Bertok of Thylacine Studios, when he told me he works full-time as a game developer on his old-school RPG series, Siralim. Many of these indie developers work during the day, and craft their magnum opus of an RPG in the wee hours of the night. ![]()
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