Well Tru Blue are going for the word of mouth track: they haven't the budget and there isn't necessarily the enthusiasm for cricket games that allows for anything else without spending masses of resources on it. The game will get out there, people will love it, talk about it on forums, social media etcetera and get the word out there. More people will walk into shops and want it......whether it is a sound strategy I know not.
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MattW Absolutely. The end net result that is the best for us is that the game is a financial success. Tru Blue have been around for a long time. I am sure they have the strategy and resources thought out that they think will work for them. I cannot believe that they are not akin to what works or not. They will have done their research, used their experiences, weighed up the options. I think we will see a flood of stuff coming very soon.
i disagree with this...
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Ross has mentioned previously too word of mouth as a post release strategy, but also pre-release, stating he would prefer the play sessions to generate word of mouth than e.g. review copies.
the fact is they had one play session months ago... and squandered any buzz they may have generated there by the fact that a)most of matt's videos were played on the buggy build, and b)there was radio silence after.
surely by generating pre-release buzz and word of mouth it's easier to demonstrate to distributors and retailers there is heavy demand and maybe get better deals. instead we get "we don't have the budget to educate the masses"
budget schmudget... nobody is suggesting they advertise at the world t20 or pay KP to get the box tattooed on his back... they have already created a bunch of collateral that they should be tweeting and fb-ing repeatedly, revisiting and re-releasing for anyone who missed it, and occasionally releasing new content, managing a
#dbc14 hashtag and retweeting/sharing sensible relevant posts by others etc. this is minimal cost advertising, smart advertising since it can be easily targeted to generally interested parties and everybody has does it except trublu and bigant because "this is how we've always done it".
worse, they have utterly squandered the possible momentum of actually having a release announcement by following it with radio silence. no re-posting of the trailer, no re-posting of any of the earlier videos or stills... nothing at all.
we keep excusing them with posts like "they've been in business a long time, they know what they're doing etc." when it's clear that they don't understand social media at all, and plenty of business have lasted a long time doing very well, then failed to adapt to a changing environment and suffered.
this looks to be an amazing game, and i can't wait to get my hands on it. the handling of the release and marketing have been very sub-optimal to say the least. and i don't mean the short window, that makes a lot of sense, but the silence before and after have butchered a great opportunity.
i hope it doesn't cost them in the long run because i genuinely hope this becomes a long-running franchise.
