Have to admit - - I'm back because of promised upgrades

[Killing Time]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

I'm not so sure about that. I seem to recall studies which have put the average age of a gamer quite a bit above 24, somewhere in the 30s if I recall correctly.

It's 35, and 25% of Americans over 50 are gamers.

From the Entertainment Software Association's website:

"Below is a list of the top 10 entertainment software industry facts:

1. U.S. computer and video game software sales grew 22.9 percent in 2008 to $11.7 billion – more than quadrupling industry software sales since 1996.
2. Sixty-eight percent of American households play computer or video games.
3. The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.
4. The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 39 years old.
5. Forty percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (34 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).
6. In 2009, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 50 play video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.
7. Thirty-seven percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device, such as a cell phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.
8. Eighty-four percent of all games sold in 2008 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+.
9. Ninety-two percent of game players under the age of 18 report that their parents are present when they purchase or rent games.
10. Sixty-three percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives."

[BMD]

Originally Posted by tigey75

Markus, I know this may seem like a very stupid question but would more advertising be cost effective?

I personally stumbled upon OOTP years ago from a random review online, but it was like an underground community. You should make a cheesy local cable access commercial and throw it out there.

Ah, if only Billy Mayes was still alive.

Originally Posted by Claymore

Just make sure there are girls in the video. In bikinis..


Seriously...

Or maybe convince Chuck Liddell and his girlfriend to play it while naked.

[CD1083]

Originally Posted by BMD

Or maybe convince Chuck Liddell and his girlfriend to play it while naked.

I'm returning my copy if I have to see Chuck Liddell naked...

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by robc

PS - Le Grande Orange. When I made my comment before about you swallowing a baseball history book, I didn't mean it in a bad way. I think it is impressive all the baseball rule and history stuff you contribute to the forums. I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was insulting you if it wasn't obvious.

No worries.

(I didn't consume any baseball history books, but I do have several on a bookshelf conveniently near my computer.)

[bababui]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

I'm not sure really Football Manager (the soccer sim from SI) sells a million copies world-wide, and it is basically the same game as OOTP but just a different sport. The reason is that in Europe management sims are highly popular (FM always tops the sales charts in the UK), while the US seems to prefer action over strategy (the PC game market in the US is tiny compared to consoles, it's different in Europe). If the gamers in the US would share the passion of Europeans for sims, then I'd be driving a Ferrari... *lol*

If OOTP was 'basically the same game' as FM, with even 2D graphics, it would sell much more. Of course, SI could make FM a much better game if it offered the optimization that OOTP does..but they are too big to care.

[Qrusher14242]

yeah i think FM is big is because it tries to one and does it really good. It doesnt try to be everything to everyone. Also it has 2d(and crappy 3d) which helps. Also the media and player interaction is just amazing in FM, i wish OOTP had it.

[Aytumious]

Too late. Gamer info posted. Should have read the thread.

[eMLBCommish]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

We cannot afford ads in big magazines or on popular websites, they cost tens of thousands of dollars. We do advertise using Google, and get a fair share of return on that. Also we contact every possible gaming/baseball website & magazine and ask for the game to be reviewed, but we get ignored 80% of the time Luckily, this year Baseball Prospectus will review us and maybe ESPN will run a piece about us too. Let's see how it works out...

Markus,

In continued support of OOTP, I am more than happy to offer you free advertising space at Total Sports World this year. I am just as committed as you to see the long-term success of OOTP as you are, and will offer this small token in the hopes it can help drive sales further.

PM me if you're interested, and we can talk specifics.

[Stats_Enthusiast]

Originally Posted by Markus Heinsohn

I'm not sure really Football Manager (the soccer sim from SI) sells a million copies world-wide, and it is basically the same game as OOTP but just a different sport. The reason is that in Europe management sims are highly popular (FM always tops the sales charts in the UK), while the US seems to prefer action over strategy (the PC game market in the US is tiny compared to consoles, it's different in Europe). If the gamers in the US would share the passion of Europeans for sims, then I'd be driving a Ferrari... *lol*

marketing, marketing, marketing... you've got the product, now you just need product awareness... have you contacted MLB.com to see if you can advertise on their website? I'm sure it might cost a few pennies, but if you get a few quarters in return, well, you've done well my friend.

really, I think it's only a matter of time before this game becomes mainstream. i just hope when that happens, cuz again, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when... that YOU, good sir, don't sell out.

you've created something incredible and if you stick with it, you will be driving in a ferrari in near future... just sayin.

Cheers.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Stats_Enthusiast

really, I think it's only a matter of time before this game becomes mainstream. i just hope when that happens, cuz again, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when...

Honestly, I've come to believe this point of view. Regardless of the 'what about this' and that 'what about that' exchanges that occur regularly on release and during the year, it's truly amazing just how much detail there is in this game. Seriously, even after a simple season, you could spend a number of hours just perusing all of the reports that are available on the activities that transpired. You may even discover pages you didn't even know existed! On closer inspection, it becomes remarkable. Remarkable.

[battists]

We're always open to ideas for advertising, but of course, we have the problem of having very little available capital with which to advertise. We've advertised on baseball reference and similar sites in the past, but without particularly good results. Google seems to give us the most noticeably positive impact.

However, it's also tough to evaluate, and partly because we're not very sophisticated on the marketing front,. If I run an ad on Baseball-Reference.com, how do I know if it was "worth it"? Even if I have some way of linking it directly to sales (Like a "How did you hear about us?" question on the web site), that can also lead to shortsighted decisions. That is, just because an ad on ESPN.com doesn't lead directly to X number of sales, it could still be bringing in sales indirectly and generally increasing the awareness of the game.

Much of the problem, too, is in resources, as always. I've worked hard to collect and put out the RTR stuff, and do the Facebook and Twitter sites, and so on. Andreas has done a ton of stuff related to SEO, with the result that we have much better placement in Google searches than before. All of this stuff has helped. But, researching advertising and marketing opportunities takes a lot of legwork, and honestly, we're inexperienced at it to boot, and already working too many hours. There's a REASON that people do this sort of thing for a living - it's a specialty!

I firmly believe that OOTP is capable of appealing to many more people than we currently get in sales, perhaps significantly more. We often get notes from customers like, "Wow! I wish I'd known about you before!" When I hear figures like "5-6 million people play fantasy baseball annually," well, even if a tiny fraction of those tried OOTP it would make a significant difference to us!

Like you indicated, it's just a matter of making people aware of us.

Thanks guys!

Steve

[StyxNCa]

Originally Posted by battists

We're always open to ideas for advertising, but of course, we have the problem of having very little available capital with which to advertise. We've advertised on baseball reference and similar sites in the past, but without particularly good results. Google seems to give us the most noticeably positive impact.

However, it's also tough to evaluate, and partly because we're not very sophisticated on the marketing front,. If I run an ad on Baseball-Reference.com, how do I know if it was "worth it"? Even if I have some way of linking it directly to sales (Like a "How did you hear about us?" question on the web site), that can also lead to shortsighted decisions. That is, just because an ad on ESPN.com doesn't lead directly to X number of sales, it could still be bringing in sales indirectly and generally increasing the awareness of the game.

Much of the problem, too, is in resources, as always. I've worked hard to collect and put out the RTR stuff, and do the Facebook and Twitter sites, and so on. Andreas has done a ton of stuff related to SEO, with the result that we have much better placement in Google searches than before. All of this stuff has helped. But, researching advertising and marketing opportunities takes a lot of legwork, and honestly, we're inexperienced at it to boot, and already working too many hours. There's a REASON that people do this sort of thing for a living - it's a specialty!

I firmly believe that OOTP is capable of appealing to many more people than we currently get in sales, perhaps significantly more. We often get notes from customers like, "Wow! I wish I'd known about you before!" When I hear figures like "5-6 million people play fantasy baseball annually," well, even if a tiny fraction of those tried OOTP it would make a significant difference to us!

Like you indicated, it's just a matter of making people aware of us.

Thanks guys!

Steve

I see many comments, both good and bad, on many forums about OOTP. Word of mouth is best/worst advertising. The word is getting out somehow.

[Juiceman612]

I started playing OOTP 8 and I had to dig pretty hard to find it. I was actually looking to see whatever happened with a tabletop baseball game I used to play and somehow landed on OOTP.

FWIW, I am a fantasy baseball fanatic, but I don't think I get my fantasy baseball fix with OOTP or anything like that. At least I don't look at it that way.

Obviously advertising is the big thing and the development team seems to realize that already. The RTR features, in my opinion, are a HUGE step forward for OOTP reaching a wider audience. The other piece is that the game needs to be made more accessible. It's really not. You can't just open the program and get moving with it. A tutorial may help for those without the attention span to learn the game before trying to play it.

And unfortunately, it's just a fact that today people only spend a few seconds on ads and a few minutes with programs and if they get bored they move onto the next thing. We're overwhelmed with information at our fingertips today and you have to capture your audience somehow in the midst of all the information overload. Not an easy task for a video game and even harder for a text based game. I love OOTP, but it's a hard to market product. In the end I think they'll have to find capital and take the pluge to advertise on a bigger site. But the game needs to be more accessible to someone who isn't familiar with text games.

Right now it's very time consuming to learn how to use the program. If you want to advertise on MLB.com, you better have a good demo and tutorial to learn the game quickly because the majority of people are not going to read the manual first. Time is the most precious thing in most of our lives and it's just a fact that many people will not spend a lot of time to learn a computer program. They key is for a product to be intuitive. A very hard task for any company.

[fhomess]

Originally Posted by megamanmatt

Well I can tell you that as far back as 2004 the average gamer was 29 so... speculate from there I suppose.

Let's see... 2004 was 6 years ago, so all those 29 year olds have aged 6 years, so 29 plus 6 is...

Originally Posted by Killing Time

It's 35, and 25% of Americans over 50 are gamers.

BRILLIANT!


On the marketing issue, I really don't think BB-Ref is a good place to advertise. You really have very little idea if your ad is going to get seen unless it's on the front page.

[Stats_Enthusiast]

Originally Posted by battists

We're always open to ideas for advertising, but of course, we have the problem of having very little available capital with which to advertise. We've advertised on baseball reference and similar sites in the past, but without particularly good results. Google seems to give us the most noticeably positive impact.

However, it's also tough to evaluate, and partly because we're not very sophisticated on the marketing front,. If I run an ad on Baseball-Reference.com, how do I know if it was "worth it"? Even if I have some way of linking it directly to sales (Like a "How did you hear about us?" question on the web site), that can also lead to shortsighted decisions. That is, just because an ad on ESPN.com doesn't lead directly to X number of sales, it could still be bringing in sales indirectly and generally increasing the awareness of the game.

Much of the problem, too, is in resources, as always. I've worked hard to collect and put out the RTR stuff, and do the Facebook and Twitter sites, and so on. Andreas has done a ton of stuff related to SEO, with the result that we have much better placement in Google searches than before. All of this stuff has helped. But, researching advertising and marketing opportunities takes a lot of legwork, and honestly, we're inexperienced at it to boot, and already working too many hours. There's a REASON that people do this sort of thing for a living - it's a specialty!

I firmly believe that OOTP is capable of appealing to many more people than we currently get in sales, perhaps significantly more. We often get notes from customers like, "Wow! I wish I'd known about you before!" When I hear figures like "5-6 million people play fantasy baseball annually," well, even if a tiny fraction of those tried OOTP it would make a significant difference to us!

Like you indicated, it's just a matter of making people aware of us.

Thanks guys!

Steve

Marketing mix aka the four P's of marketing... Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Product = Greatest Sim on the market (across all sports titles)
Price = $39.99 (very reasonable)
Place = Distribution pipelines, order processing, etc.
Promotion = Information about the product, advertising, etc.

Once you nail down these four key areas, you establish a "target market" as well...

someone mentioned above, and I think it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyhow... word of mouth is the best and worst form of advertising...

there are a lot of incredibly dumb people out there with very unrealistic expectations... the blame can't be laid totally on them though... it's SOMEONE's job to educate these "dumb" people about whatever it is you're selling (in this case OOTP11)... with the end result being them realizing that this game IS everything they want... and more. blah, blah, blah...

[megamanmatt]

I still say MLB Front Office Manager turned alot of Americans off of Manage Sims because of just how horrible it was.

[Hooray Saturday]

Originally Posted by megamanmatt

I still say MLB Front Office Manager turned alot of Americans off of Manage Sims because of just how horrible it was.

if we could get the graphics from Front Office and put it on the OOTP engine we'd have the most perfect baseball game ever made. Not that the graphics were that great or anything, but if you could get just that much of a visual representation to Markus' engine, man, that'd be somethin.