Guest:

Mentioned:
* http://chattydm.net/
* http://www.perf.etsmtl.ca/
* http://twistimage.com/
* http://www.paxsite.com/paxeast/

Google Local is important for website traffic for local businesses. If you’ve already submitted your shop, good job. If not, make sure you’re listed.

IDEA: Sponsor game days at the local library. Bring in some games and demonstrate them. Don’t sell anything, just give people fliers with directions to your store (and the website) and a coupon good for a small discount. The flier will remind people where you are and help them get there. The coupon will help you track how many people came to you via the library.

While at the library, put a sheet so that people can sign up for updates from you about future events, both at the store and elsewhere. The important things you want are name and email address. With the email address, you can find out if they are on Twitter and Facebook, and invite them to join your fan page if they are. Don’t spam these people, just let them know you will keep them informed and do just that.

Bring games that are easy to learn and easy to play without a lot of explanation (FLUXX, for instance). You can bring an RPG if you like, but I would focus on family-friendly games. Leave the hard-core stuff for game conventions.

This idea was influenced by a talk I had with Scott Nicholson from Board Games with Scott. You can hear the whole discussion here.

IDEA: Find out if there are game clubs at local schools. Talk with publishers about sponsoring these clubs through you. Ask them to donate a couple copies of their games for this purpose. Put your store logo and website, etc on the boxes (a big sticker on the inside of the of the lid _and_ the back of the box / book would do fine) so people can find you. Treat these clubs like you do the library game days…

Ask the club leader to offer members a special discount card that gives them a small discount at the store. All they need to do is come to the store and pick one up – in exchange for their name and email address, of course (see above).

Keep in touch with the groups. Invite them to parties at the store. If you have two or three, maybe have club-on-club tournaments or competitions. Encourage the members to come in and demo games in the store so that they can breed new gamers for their clubs (and new customers for you).

IDEA: People that live in your area visit websites from time to time. Consider purchasing advertising that is only targeted to people that live in your area.

Victoria Comic Convention (Victoria BC)
http://www.victoriacomicconvention.com/

NeonCon (Las Vegas, NV)
http://www.neoncon.com/

Emerald City Gamefest (Kenmore, WA)
http://emeraldcitygamefest.org/

OryCon (Portland, Oregon)
http://www.orycon.org/

http://ephealy.com/transparentgames005.MP3

http://ephealy.com/transparentgames004.MP3

John,

At some point, we should have a little chat about ‘boring business stuff’—stuff like how we’re going to handle money, whether we’re going to pay for any contributions, or whether we’re going to look for people to share profits. Before we bring someone like Jess on, we should figure out, at least in part, how we’re going to split dollar bills.

Any thoughts on this?

- Ed

http://ephealy.com/transparentgames003.MP3

http://ephealy.com/transparentgames002.MP3

http://ephealy.com/transparentgames001.MP3

Third Eye Games: http://www.thirdeyegames.net/

A companion article to this episode can be found here:
Reviews: The Good the Bad and the Frustrating

The importance of reviews

There are two schools of thought when it comes to reviews. One regards them as an essential marketing tool, though one not without risk, and the other thinks they’re an unnecessary distraction.

Part of the problem is that it can be extremely difficult to correlate reviews with sales. But Adamant’s Gareth Michael Skarka has another perspective on why reviews might be overrated.

We’re a small, niche-market entertainment business. Gamers will pick up stuff that interests them—even if there are reviews that say a product is poor. They’ll pick it up to see what they think of it themselves. They don’t invest much in the “authority” of reviews, preferring to keep their own counsel. Gamers are opinionated and amplified by the internet. If there is a review that says it’s poor, there is bound to be another that says it’s good. Even in the face of ‘internet conventional wisdom’—for example, “this game is nothing but poorly designed power-gaming”—sales of the ‘poor’ products are largely unaffected. Gamers purchase what interests them.

So why do so many companies chase reviews? The most obvious benefit of having your product reviewed is the opportunity to let gamers know it’s out there, and to build buzz. It never hurts to have someone respected in the community endorse your product. Such an endorsement helps to separate you from the competition. Even if the review hasn’t convinced the reader to buy your game, when he comes across it in his local store, it’ll already be familiar—even if the review was less than positive.

For unknown companies with few products and little capital available for marketing, reviews offer a relatively inexpensive option. Thankfully, reviews are also more useful to companies with less brand recognition. As a company grows, and with it their reputation, customers are more willing to take a risk on it’s products, even in the absence of reviews. This is not to say that reviews do not benefit more established companies—only that reviews are proportionally more effective as a tool in the hands of those without an established customer base.

Reviews can benefit companies beyond tracking customer interest; the review itself can tell you a great deal about your product. It is easy to dismiss one bad review as an outlier. It’s a lot harder if the majority have concerns about your product. If this is the case, it might be time to take a second look.

You can also use reviews for marketing in less obvious ways. HinterWelt’s William Corrie uses reviews from retailers to open discussions with other retailers about his products.

Often, the hardest thing about contacting retailers about your product is the opening statements. With a review like those provided in industry magazines, you get a third party resource to reference. You can say things like “Scott Thorne of Castle Perilous said the Squirrel Attack books will sell well” or reference what a customer is saying as an independent reference. It is always difficult to just say to a retailer that your product is good… because. Whether it is a customer review, a retailer review or more informal reference to the comments of another industry professional, it can open doors.

So how do you make the most of the whole review process?

Useful reviews start with the right reviewer

To start, you need to find someone willing to review your products. It’s an accepted practice to offer a complementary copy of the product, and you can usually find any number of willing amateur reviewers. But remember, at the end of the day, you want a useful review, and that means a few things:

First, it means someone who’s going to actually analyze the product. Just listing off the table of contents may tell the reader something about it, but it doesn’t give you any information about what the reviewer thought. Similarly, a review that just says, “It’s great” or “It’s terrible” doesn’t tell you much about what’s working and what’s not.

Second, you need to take into account the reviewer’s audience. Are they the type of customers you’re trying to reach? If you publish board games, a model train forum isn’t likely to expose you to the right audience. More than that, any comments the review generates aren’t likely to be helpful, because they’re not coming from the demographic you’re targeting.

Preston DuBose, from 12 to Midnight, explains:

Seek out reviewers who prove, through other reviews, that they know how to analyze and review a product based on its merits. There’s nothing wrong with a reviewer expressing personal opinion, but good ones back it up with reasons why.

Audience is also important in other ways. Are they the type of audience that typically engages in conversation about reviews? If so, you’re much more likely to get useful information, whether or not the review is a positive one. And then, of course, there’s audience size to take into consideration. As Joseph Goodman says:

’Quality of the reviewer’ takes on a new meaning when it’s a reviewer with a well-read blog.

Finally, you don’t want to overlook the credibility of the reviewer.

…it’s not just his grammar skills, but his stature in the industry. An endorsement from Monte Cook can drive a direct increase in sales.

Once you’ve found a few people you’d like to review your product, setting up a review is very simple. Finding the right person and the right audience… that’s the trick.

What to do if you get a “bad” review

Now, of course, eventually, you’re going to get a bad review. It might be because there’s a problem with the product, or it might be because the reviewer had a fight with his girlfriend. The important thing is how you handle it. The last thing you want to do is to turn a bad review into a bad reputation for you.

Fred Hicks, of Evil Hat Productions, puts it all into perspective:

Thank your detractors. Yes, it may appear that a man possessed of little more than a simian intellect has just reviewed your product in some sort of strange moon-language, but the point remains that he invested time in writing something about your game. He probably has readers, too, some of whom will disagree with his opinion. Let them take on that job. Your job, as a publisher, is to be gracious in the face of any critique. Say thank you, perhaps offer a factual correction or two, stated neutrally and calmly, and make your exit. Exposure is exposure. Leave a link to your product behind, and you’ll probably net a few sales no matter what this joker said.

Besides, your goal here is to get useful information from the review, so in that respect, negative reviews are actually MORE helpful, because they point out ways you can get better. Maybe it’s too late to change this product, but there’s always the next one.

Just remember: many gamers don’t even read reviews

Reviews are just one tool in your arsenal—one you should use in conjunction with other marketing tactics. “Gamers purchase what interests them.” Reviews might help lead gamers to your product, but in the end it helps to remember that they can be more helpful to you than they are for your customers.

RPG Review Resources:

• DriveThruRPG
• Flames Rising
• Game Cryer
• Out of the Box
• RPGnet

A companion podcast to this episode can be found here:
Eloy Lasanta (Third Eye Games)

NOTE: This article was researched and authored with Nick Chase.

Shel’s Blog: http://blog.holtz.com/
For Immediate Release: http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz/

gamerati: Shel Holtz (FIR)

I asked a number of industry professionals to join me for an informal chat about board games. We talked about a number of things, from the apparent strength of the current board game market to ways all levels of the industry can help each other bring more games to more customers.

gamerati

Hans Isaacson: President of Uncle’s Inc, with five retail locations (Uncle’s Games, Puzzles and More!) in Washington State. He started out in the industry in 1990 as a retail clerk (the store’s “game guy”) for the former parent company of Uncle’s (Book and Game Co.) and worked his way into a partnership position when the two founding owners parted ways in 1999. The “Game” in “Book and Game Co.” became Uncle’s Games. He is partnered with Shannon Ahern (founder of Book and Game Co.) and Karen Stephens.

Scott Nicholson: Host of Board Games with Scott, a video podcast about board games, and participant on the On Board Games program. An associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, Scott researches gaming in libraries as the director of the Library Game Lab of Syracuse. His upcoming board game, Tulipmania 1637, is due out from JKLM in 2009.
* Twitter: @snicholson

Jeff Tidball: Independent writer and game designer, and a co-founder of Gameplaywright. He has served as Vice President of Product Development at Fantasy Flight Games, worked on staff at Atlas Games and Decipher, and done freelance writing and design for a cast of thousands.
* Personal Home Page: jefftidball.com
* Twitter: @jefftidball
* Facebook: Jeff L. Tidball

Mike Selinker: President of the game and event studio Lone Shark Games. Some of his recent games include Pirates of the Spanish Main, Key Largo, Unspeakable Words, Link 26, and Stonehenge. Before that, he was a creative director and game designer at Wizards of the Coast, helping to relaunch Dungeons & Dragons and Axis & Allies, and writing such games as Risk Godstorm and the Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game.
* LiveJournal: The Most Beautiful Things
* Facebook: Mike Selinker

Board Games (gamerati)

Jason’s Home Page: http://jasonfalls.com/
Jason’s Blog: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/

gamerati: Jason Falls (Doe-Anderson)

Jason Henderson is the world’s leading expert on search engine optimization for the Miva Merchant shopping cart. We spoke about landing page optimization and email marketing.

Stan! (Super Genius Games) talks about market research, and treating your business like… a business.

Steve Russell talks about how the patronage model changed everything about the way he does business at Rite Publishing.

Related: Atomic Array 023 (Rite Publishing)

War Pig Radio broadcasts great programming 24 hours a day so you don’t have to search for something interesting to play over your store speakers. Industry news, product reviews, and interviews with the people who create the things we love—you can find it all on War Pig Radio.

On March 21st, Gamers everywhere will be playing Dungeons & Dragons and War Pig reporters will be bringing their stories to you live via internet radio.

War Pig: Radio for the Gamerati
Home Page: http://www.warpigradio.com/
POC, Ed Healy: warpigradio@gmail.com