Widening OOTP's coverage

[ukhotstove]

Originally Posted by BradC

RE getting athletes to talk about us: Well, that's hit or miss. Today, someone tweeted about Carl Crawford going 5-for-5 in their OOTP game and included Carl's Twitter account, so I reposted it and asked Carl to check out the game. My guess is I'll get no response to that.

Hitting up baseball players on their twitter and facebook accounts is a good idea specially if it's done by a few OOPTers and not just one like yourself, stuff like "Hey Carl you went 5-5 in a baseball game called OOTP I play" is a free advertisement. He may not respond but someone looking at facebook/twitter may think "hmmm wonder what this OOTP is."

Bill James played/plays the game doesn't he ? Is he on facebook/twitter ? Could you not facebook him or tweet him or whatever you guys call it and say "Do you still play OOTP ?"

Like I say you may not get a response from the actual person your talking to but you may get someone looking into OOTP who is reading what you've posted.

[megamanmatt]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Hitting up baseball players on their twitter and facebook accounts is a good idea specially if it's done by a few OOPTers and not just one like yourself, stuff like "Hey Carl you went 5-5 in a baseball game called OOTP I play" is a free advertisement. He may not respond but someone looking at facebook/twitter may think "hmmm wonder what this OOTP is."

Bill James played/plays the game doesn't he ? Is he on facebook/twitter ? Could you not facebook him or tweet him or whatever you guys call it and say "Do you still play OOTP ?"

Like I say you may not get a response from the actual person your talking to but you may get someone looking into OOTP who is reading what you've posted.

Man's got a point.

[ukhotstove]

Firstly I have no idea how the beta team works or how many are on the beta team, but could someone from there not have done a road to release or posted some screenshots. Maybe a "What's impressed me with 12 so far" post by members of the beta team, you only have to look at the dynasty thread to know we have talented writers on this board could one of those have done a road to release ?

[megamanmatt]

I would have liked a RTR but to be perfectly honest at this point I don't really care anymore. I'm much more excited to see how the game actually works and in the end I doubt I'll even remember the lack of RTR.

[Cryomaniac]

I mentioned this on facebook at like 3am, but I think a community translation project for the PbP would be a decent idea. We've had people ask for Spanish translations before, so that would be the obvious one. The main problem is the hard coded PbP, but we could always post the translations of those and see if Markus could add them.

Adding a language option wouldn't be a huge programming task (since the game already uses an XML file to get the PbP text, that part doesn't change, you just choose a different XML file / use different hard coded PbP based on the option.)

[AC]

Aaron Gleeman is a popular Twins blogger who also writes for the Hardball Times. He still runs a Twins blog and recently began a weekly sponsorship program. Not sure what he charges, but readers of his Twins blog would be an ideal audience for OOTP.

AaronGleeman.com » Aaron Gleeman's Baseball and Minnesota Twins Blog.

[playball335]

Originally Posted by Dr. dru

You could start by updating this forum with some info on OOTP 12. A lot of people are waiting to order until they get some information. It's been about 2 weeks since we got any screenshots. It would be nice to have at least one or two road to releases.

My sentiments as well. With all due respect, I find it disconcerting that OOTP hires a dedicated PR rep and we have the worst (IMO) PR season the game has had.

What ever happened to Road to Release? Or at least some more info/screenshots!

With that being said, can't wait for release!

[The Wolf]

Yes, this year's PR level is not good at all. That said, I'm sure the new guy is doing the best he can with a very difficult situation. I'd hate to be him.

[I miss J.T. Snow]

Originally Posted by megamanmatt

Another thing is, and I'm not trying to be sarcastic or factitious, a picture is worth a thousand words. It's a lot easier to get someone to see what you're talking about if you include visuals that let them actually see what you're talking about.

What really makes a difference is the news hook. If you give a writer amazing visuals and they look into it and 150 people a year buy the game, and the game breaks no ground, they don't care.

Give them crappy visuals and impressive growth figures, or a "OOTP is the first game to provide this impressive and important feature" kind of statement, and they will run with it.

Usage and technology are far from the only hooks, so I don't mean to keep going back to them, but they are common ones and most likely to grab attention.

Another thing is: know your audience. It can be the most interesting thing in the world, but Home and Garden is not running it. Fangraphs has a large shared audience, but how how many game reviews do they do? It might not hurt them to break new ground, but that is a high barrier, and you will have to work even harder to convince them to do it.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by ukhotstove

Firstly I have no idea how the beta team works or how many are on the beta team, but could someone from there not have done a road to release or posted some screenshots. Maybe a "What's impressed me with 12 so far" post by members of the beta team, you only have to look at the dynasty thread to know we have talented writers on this board could one of those have done a road to release ?

The issue with this, I think, is that those guys can't say anything about it without getting permission from the higher-ups (I mean literally; you have to sign a NDA when you work in beta). Markus is still bug-quashing and one of the things about bugs is that there's always the chance, however small, that some bug is going to make the feature unusable to the point that taking it out for now is the best course of action. It's not really fair to the devs, the testers, or the fans to showcase a feature which then gets dumped to a patch or kicked out of the game entirely.

It does, unfortunately, look like the team didn't allot themselves enough time to complete iOOTP and really get going on the game in full force this year. I can kind of understand this; they haven't really had to deliver 2 titles of this magnitude in a long time, and arguably ever. That's a bit disappointing, but in the long run I just don't think that having iOOTP out there will be anywhere near an overall negative. In fact, it would not surprise me if at year's end this was the biggest OOTP year yet.

[Deetrain]

You might want to contact someone at ESPN.com. They have a video game column that talks about upcoming video games.

[AirmenSmith]

Change the name of the website. ootpdevelopments.com is to long, go for ootp.com. Its shorter and easier to remember if you advertise over the radio.

[Syd Thrift]

ootp.com is probably Harry Potter fan fiction.

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

ootp.com is probably Harry Potter fan fiction.

Actually, it's just got some domain squatter on it.

FWIW, ootp10.com, ootp11.com and ootp12.com all redirect to ootpdevelopments.com.

[Donevyn]

Originally Posted by JamesFBishop

DEFINITELY go into Operation SPORTS!!!! They will let you post articles about ANYTHING having to do with sports and video games. Everyone talks on there how good OOTP is and a lot of people don't know about it until they hear us talking about it.

That would definitely be my "go to" site.

I totally second this. Main site for all computer sport games. Highly respected and they've given OOTP good reviews in the past.

Also, a long shot perhaps, Bob Costas is a big, big fan of baseball (of course! He's on MLB network etc., so a 'really'(!!) good guy to have a positive take on your product). A Strat-O-Matic fan, which some YouTube postings of his anecdotal accounts of playing it. Sooo he may have played OOTP. Or at least it should be brought to his attention. He's a busy guy, but I'm sure if made aware of it, would like it and then with his connections?!!!

[playball335]

Originally Posted by BradC

Sports radio is a good thought. I'm in touch with one guy who has a radio show and who has promoted OOTP there in the past.

I doubt we can afford to spend much on sports radio ads, especially on XM. Our ad budget is pretty much non-existent.

RE RTR: I can't control what happened there, and I'm not going to blame anyone else at OOTP for that either. Given OOTP's size, when iOOTP hit some speed bumps, Markus had to take time away from OOTP 12 to work with Sebastian. That's just the way it went. We're not EA.

We realize the best thing would be for the game to come out before Opening Day. We would have preferred that too.

How about contacting (e-mail, tweet) MLB Network or the MLB FanCave?

[jskipper]

You should reach out to Michael Schur (Michael Schur - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), who blogs under Ken Tremendous. Used to run the site firejoemorgan.com...huge baseball stats guy. Could probably get him to mention it on twitter or his blog.

Blog for Ken Tremendous : SB Nation

Twitter

[mike2228]

Perhaps you could have a give away day at some minor league stadiums. You could give out ootp 10 or 11 for free and that would probably get people hooked and maybe end up getting you some sales for future versions.

[neugey]

FWIW, I tried OOTP after seeing the ad on Yahoo while playing fantasy baseball.

[PSUColonel]

I don't understand how there aren't any previews of this game on different sites.