About two & a half weeks ago I launched a survey to try and help us figure out how we can improve our current marketing strategies, as well as look into the possibility of new areas to expand our strategies. There were a total of 12 questions in the survey and we managed to get 24 responses over the two weeks that we were advertising the survey through social media. The survey can still be accessed here if you’d still like to send some feedback through. I thought I’d write up a blog post detailing some of my thoughts on the responses received (which we’re very grateful for by the way).
The first question in the survey was probably the most important as we’ve determined that a majority of people will make their decision on whether or not to buy a game based off the trailer (as well as some other factors for many people). The question was: “What are your initial impressions of Triangle Man after watching the trailer?” The four most common points from the responses were:
1) The trailer doesn’t demonstrate/focus on the multiple Triangle Man aspect enough
2) Referred to as ‘similar to’ on many occasions, i.e. doesn’t stand as its own identifier in the market
3) Footage quality needs improvement
4) The graphics don’t “stand out”
We identified the first point when we were designing the storyboard for our new trailer (which is currently in production) and it’s something we’ve tried to concentrate on a lot so we’re glad that other people have identified this as an issue as well. The second point is causing an issue for me. I would like Triangle Man to stand on its own two feet and not be referred to as ‘Super Meat Boy’ or similar. Admittedly, this is in part our fault as most of us have a habit of using Super Meat Boy to help describe what our game is about. I’m hoping that the new trailer(s) will help to remove that image, but it’s still only a step along the process of removing that image quality. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing to have a game that people can picture to help them understand what your game is about, but I would prefer it if people were saying “Super Meat Boy is like Triangle Man” instead of the other way around. The third point is also being addressed in the new trailer as we’ve developed a proper production line for it.
Now onto that fourth point: this is something that has been plaguing us for a few weeks now. We’re trying to figure out a way to make Triangle Man more ‘badass’ without changing the art style too much as we really want to get it completed and shipped out soon. As one person has pointed out, Triangle Man is taking far too long to complete and we need to get it out sooner rather than later. Well, truth be told they suggested that we should scrap Triangle Man completely and move onto something new which is a completely valid point and is something which I know a couple of us have considered previously. But I don’t really feel like getting into that topic right now.
When we asked people how they’d heard about Triangle Man, the highest response was through the IGDA. To me, this tells me two things:
1) It’s mostly other game developers who follow the progress of Triangle Man
2) Gamers who do check out the game aren’t motivated enough to keep up to date with what is happening with the game
As far as I’m concerned, we simply don’t have enough gamers following the progress of Triangle Man. It’s great to have so many other developers following our game, however they are only one side of the coin and we need to capture that other side a bit better. The next thing we need to do is to try and figure out exactly how to gain more gamers following our company and Triangle Man by asking ourselves questions such as “Do we seem like random amateurs to people?” etc.
Another question we asked was “Is there any particular reason why you decided against purchasing a copy of the game?” The key response that I found here was that several people didn’t know it was for sale or where to purchase it from. To me, this means that we really need to work on our marketing a lot further as we’re clearly not getting the message across to gamers enough. Another common response was that they didn’t want to purchase an unfinished product, which is something I expected entirely. I must admit, I usually don’t like to purchase products before they’re finished, it has to be something truly special to get me to do that.
Many of the other questions in the survey were designed to help us try and understand other gamers more. Whilst we understand ourselves as gamers, what applies to us may not necessarily apply to others so our understanding needs to be as possible so that we are able to better inform our target audience.
All of the information provided to us has been of great value to us (even the parts some of you thought might not be). Thanks again to everyone that helped us out by filling out the survey. If anyone else has any feedback they’d like to send through, please feel free to do so using the same form located here.
