August 2005
- SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurt the MMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- Marketing Niche Online Games Christopher Allen
As a niche online game publisher, it has not been economical for us
to buy advertising for our games in traditional media, and even web
advertising has not been that productive except at a very limited
number of sites, such as <http://www.rpg.net>. So Skotos has been
experimenting with alternative ways to reach out to the market.
Two months ago we released a comic book based on our first game,
Castle Marrach, at "Awakenings" <http://awakenings.marrach.com/> --
it is available for online viewing, as well as in PDF and available
for Print on Demand via Café Press. Already we have a number of
people creating fun derivative works based on the comic, which fits
perfectly into the storytelling themes in Castle Marrach.
Last month, we released the cooperative board game "Arkham Horror"
<http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/arkhamhorror.html>, which we
licensed from the original 1980s author, cleaned up, and sold it to
noted board and card game publisher Fantasy Flight Games. In every
copy is information on our latest online game Lovecraft Country. The
release has gone extremely well, with great reviews at Board Game
Geek, and many game stores have already sold out and are selling
more. More importantly, we are getting new users for our games.
Today, we've released a new Cthulhu Mythos comic out called "Return
to Arkham" <http://www.lovecraftcountry.com/comic>, also for web,
pdf, or via Café Press. It's set in 1933, and includes beautiful,
moody black & white art depicting H.P. Lovecraft's town of
Arkham. In support of Lovecraft's belief in stories developed by
"Divers Hands" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divers_hands>, this
comic has also been released under a the Creative Commons license,
allowing anyone to create and release their own derivative works.
The author of both comics, Shannon Appelcline, has written in his
regular game design about why we've released our comic under
Creative Commons at <http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT_170.phtml>.
Later this month we'll have a booth at GenCon, the largest paper
role-playing convention in the world. In the past, over 50 of our
players have come to GenCon to meet with us and they've been a huge
help in helping us run our booth and keeping our costs down. This
year we'll be giving out copies of our comics, player manuals,
posters and flyers to our attendees. This makes GenCon far more
productive as a source of leads then any other conference we've
participated in.
I offer this information in spirit of cooperation -- all of us niche
online game publishers can learn from each other. What other novel
ways are there for a niche online game publisher to reach out to the
market? What do you think of what we've done to date? Do you have
any suggestions to share with us?
-- Christopher Allen
------------------------------------------------------------------------
.. Christopher Allen Skotos Tech Inc. ..
.. <ChristopherA at skotos dot net> 2342 Shattuck Ave Ste 512 ..
.. www.skotos.net www.rpg.net Berkeley, CA 94704-1517 ..
.. office 510/649-4030 fax 510/849-1717 main 510-647-2760 .. - SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurtthe MMOcommunity? Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play[was: EmergentBehaviors spawnedfrom...] cruise
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 Adam Miller
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 Pandora
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 3 Marc Bowden
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] John Buehler
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawned from...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] John Buehler
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- SOC/DGN: Reasons the Sexes Play Jaycen Rigger
- SOC/DGN: Reasons the Sexes Play Michael Hartman
- SOC/DGN: Reasons the Sexes Play Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Ilia Malkovitch
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] ghovs
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was:EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Matthew D. Fuller
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Pandora
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Matthew D. Fuller
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Arnau Josep Rosselló Castelló
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Hartman
- DGN: Reasons for play [was:Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] cruise
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Kelly
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Damion Schubert
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Howard
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Lachek Butalek
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviorsspawnedfrom...] Sean Kelly
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- SOC: MUD-Dev, Developers, and DGN: Reasons for play, blah-bity-blah-bity-blah... Jaycen Rigger
- TECH DGN: Story detection Boyle, Paul
- TECH DGN: Story detection cruise
- TECH DGN: Story detection Craig Huber
- TECH DGN: Story detection Sean Howard
- TECH DGN: Story detection Greg B
- TECH DGN: Story detection Max Battcher
- TECH DGN: Story detection Michael Sellers
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection paulmc@syd.microforte.com.au
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection Boyle, Paul
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection John Arras
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- TECH DGN: Story detection John Arras
- TECH DGN: Story detection Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Tess Snider
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Ian Hess
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Thomas Tomiczek
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Soy weiser
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Michael Hartman
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Miroslav Silovic
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Tess Snider
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers David Johansson
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Mike Rozak
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Nesta Stubbs
- DGN: Random questions about griefers Peter Harkins
- DGN: Random questions about griefers lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- DGN: Random questions about griefers John Buehler
- Formulae Generation Ximon
- Formulae Generation Pandora
- Formulae Generation cruise
- Formulae Generation Ximon
- Formulae Generation Eli Stevens (WG.c)
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: Emergent Behaviors spawnedfrom...] Damion Schubert
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 8 Adam Miller
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 8 Sean Howard
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 8 Amanda Walker
- DGN: Reasons for play [was: EmergentBehaviorsspawnedfrom...] Michael Sellers
- MUD-Dev Digest, Vol 27, Issue 9 Dread Quixadhal
- Democratizing MMOs - new business model chris klaus
- Democratizing MMOs - new business model Mike Rozak