Widening OOTP's coverage - Page 3

TDO · 06-15-2011, 07:29 PM

what about asking some athletes to mention it on twitter?

opparaics · 06-15-2011, 07:33 PM

A little guerilla marketing never hurt. Send street teams to their local stadiums to hand out flyers.

People seem drawn to causes that are hurting. You guys provide a product that satiates baseball nerds like myself. Create a "Save OOTP" fund where your customer base can donate money to support the OOTP cause, which should also draw attention. Maybe for each first donation, you'll reward the donator with a percentage off a future release (where the price will be increased anyway) You can allocate these funds to advertising; etc..

beeniez · 06-15-2011, 07:41 PM

I would highly suggest advertising on a website such as MLBTradeRumors.com. Everyone from sportswriters, to actual professional athletes, other bloggers, and to the typical fan go to that website - it would hit a huge range of people.

It's really just a glorified blog, only owned by one guy. Send a business quiry, a free game code, and ask if you could put a few posts about the game. It's about to hit their busy season in July. I don't know how much it would cost to advertise but I'm sure it would be worth it.

Advertise On MLB Trade Rumors: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com

Didn't Curt Schilling say he played OOTP? He has a personal website and blog.

BradC · 06-15-2011, 07:43 PM

Thanks for the ideas, folks. Keep 'em coming.

Passing out flyers at stadiums isn't a bad idea, but running off thousands of copies would be expensive, plus we'd have to have a bunch of people at each place. Not sure we have the budget for that, and I don't know if MLB teams want people outside their stadiums passing stuff out.

I've contacted Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I know I've heard of them before. Thanks for that referral.

ctorg · 06-15-2011, 07:52 PM

Here's an idea:

Send free copies of the game to key people with a lot of reach along with a letter explaining what it is. This is a long shot, but I'm thinking some of the more "enlightened" TV analyst guys, and perhaps even some broadcasters. These are exactly the kinds of people who DON'T normally play the game, but if even one of them gets into it and mentions it on the air, that's a big boost.

You'd want to pick people who at least have some chance of playing it. For instance, I know Keith Hernandez is a huge fan of Strat-O-Matic, so he might be more inclined to play OOTP (though I'm betting he plays Strat-O the old fashioned way, with cards). David Cone has has been somewhat outspoken about his affinity for advanced metrics. There are a few out there.

OOTP is a niche game, but it's also a very good game, and I'm betting it's good enough now that it can attract a bit more of a mainstream crowd than it used to.

BradC · 06-15-2011, 07:53 PM

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.

So, I can ask, but what's their motivation for giving us exposure? I'm sure they have tons of people who would love to get exposure for their businesses through those Twitter feeds. After all, Charlie Sheen got big bucks for one tweet. (Admittedly, he had north of 1m followers at the time; Carl Crawford has about 50K.)

On a related note, someone mentioned that Alyssa Milano is a big baseball fan, so I followed her on Twitter and told her about iOOTP. I said I'd send her a code, if she wanted to check it out. No response.

Keith Olbermann is a big baseball guy, so I pinged him too. Nothing.

There just isn't much motivation for them to give us anything, and if they do it for us, they'll have a zillion other people asking them to tweet about their causes, non-profits, products, services, etc. I'm asking them to give me free advertising. Why should they do that?

I'll keep giving it a shot, because who knows, maybe someone will respond. If Doug Glanville checks out the game and wants to talk about it, awesome. Obviously, it helps to build some kind of personal relationship first, even if it's exchanging some chit-chat tweets. But I don't have time to try and do that with every prominent person who likes or plays baseball; OOTP is one of several part-time jobs for me.

SATW · 06-15-2011, 07:56 PM

The two places I'd definitely look are sites like fangraphs and podcasts like Kevin Goldstein's (I know he's a gamer) and Jonah Keri's.

oman19 · 06-15-2011, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BradC

Yeah, I don't see the point in advertising on sports talk radio, especially since it would just be one market. I'm sure XM would be very expensive to advertise on, since it covers the whole country.

I think, though, that if I sent out a pitch to as many sports talk radio guys as I could dig up, maybe a few might bite and check out the game. Hopefully they'll even mention it on their show.

That's what I'm hoping for there.

yup exactly what I was talking about. Do just like magazines do when they want the sports talk guys maybe talk about their magazine on the show. They send them a free copy and hope for the best.

As far as the type of listner that listens to sports talk radio. I think you gotta seperate the callers from the listners. Alot of times the callers are the lowest common denominator. I mean just look at this thread a few of the first responses said sports talk radio.

The Wolf · 06-15-2011, 09:29 PM

IMO the lack of information and lack of any Road to Release is going to hurt OOTP 12 sales, word of mouth, and reviews, almost certainly in the short term and maybe in the long run as well. I wish you guys luck.

Syd Thrift · 06-15-2011, 09:44 PM

...although at the same time having a version for the iOS ought to create at least some synergies.

JamesFBishop · 06-15-2011, 10:11 PM

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.

Dr. dru · 06-15-2011, 10:29 PM

As I mentioned earlier I have never played the game unitl about 3 weeks ago when I preordered 12 and downloaded the 11 demo. However, besides this board one of the things that really sold me was the OOTP 11 road to release series. You can still easily find them online. When I was reading these I really wanted to buy the game, but figured I would wait since it was only a short time before 12 came out. I was really looking forward to seeing this for 12 when I preordered. Having those road to releases online somewhere is like free advertising.

It seems like they wouldn't take that long to do and would probably pay for themselves 5 or 10 times like The Wolf aluded to. It's shame that they are not going to happen.

I think your PR should be a two pronged approach. Yes get the name out there, but people won't buy it just because they see it. If they see it they will google it. If they google it the first thing they will find are these boards and road to release letters. That's what will sell them on the game.

RchW · 06-15-2011, 10:38 PM

I think you guys may have misinterpreted my post. I wasn't suggesting buying advertising. I didn't see anything about advertising in the OP. I was suggesting contact, maybe give an interview on OOTP maybe a free copy if the guy is genuine and will talk about the game to give you free pub. Same with the team blog sites.

You may only get 1 out of 100 or less response but radio still reaches thousands. One lucky break could help big time.

Syd, maybe I'm lucky to live in Toronto. The baseball reporter on Fan590 is very much up to speed and is an acknowledged DMB fan. The callers to post game shows are a mixed bag but do have considerable sophistication. I think that baseball fans listening to sports radio are in a different bag.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Sports radio, seriously? I just don't see that being a big "get". I hate to say it, folks, but the people who listen to sports radio are just plain not the same people who are going to want to play a cerebral, micromanagement-intensive sports simulation. I think that if OOTP is going to spend money on advertising, it needs to be *way* better directed than that. For example, sponsoring a podcast like Baseball Prospectus'. SBNation has a lot of statty subforums on it, although the kind of ads they have (lots of alcohol products, cars, etc.) indicate to me that the ads might run a bit on the expensive side there. Maybe getting on podcasts or websites dedicated to strategy gamers - a really wonky, statheadish sales pitch could make fans of, I don't know, Europa Universalis salivate at the idea of OOTP.

Didn't OOTP run an ad in the back of Baseball Weekly or something a few years ago? And didn't it do basically nothing?

Quote:

Originally Posted by BradC

Yeah, I don't see the point in advertising on sports talk radio, especially since it would just be one market. I'm sure XM would be very expensive to advertise on, since it covers the whole country.

I think, though, that if I sent out a pitch to as many sports talk radio guys as I could dig up, maybe a few might bite and check out the game. Hopefully they'll even mention it on their show.

That's what I'm hoping for there.

KowboyKoop · 06-15-2011, 10:41 PM

I second whoever mentioned reaching out to Fangraphs. That site draws the EXACT same fanbase as people that would be interested in playing OOTP.

I miss J.T. Snow · 06-15-2011, 11:08 PM

If you want the press to pay attention when you contact them, answer one question for them very quickly: Why do I care?

Do a lot of people play this? Give me specific numbers.
Is it growing? Because that would help a lot; again, specific numbers.
What need does this serve that regular video games don't? Be specific. Who plays this game, where are they and why aren't they served by better known products?

Give specific, thorough and interesting answers to these questions before you're even asked, and you will get much more response.

Editors, writers and bloggers are swamped with requests from people who want to be written about. They are looking for a reason to hit delete and move on to the next one, so don't make them figure out why this is newsworthy, tell them.

megamanmatt · 06-15-2011, 11:53 PM

Since I plan on writing my letter to Game Informer I'm thinking of writing a draft and posting it here first for a small bit of community feed back. After all I'm only one user and I tend to gravitate to fictional play so it might not hurt to get a few more points of view from players who enjoy historical play or online play. Anyone willing to do some proof reading and critiquing?

megamanmatt · 06-16-2011, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by I miss J.T. Snow

If you want the press to pay attention when you contact them, answer one question for them very quickly: Why do I care?

Do a lot of people play this? Give me specific numbers.
Is it growing? Because that would help a lot; again, specific numbers.
What need does this serve that regular video games don't? Be specific. Who plays this game, where are they and why aren't they served by better known products?

Give specific, thorough and interesting answers to these questions before you're even asked, and you will get much more response.

Editors, writers and bloggers are swamped with requests from people who want to be written about. They are looking for a reason to hit delete and move on to the next one, so don't make them figure out why this is newsworthy, tell them.

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.

slic1149 · 06-16-2011, 12:22 AM

Last February I went to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and noticed they were selling the Strat-O-Matic board game in their gift shop. It might be worthwhile for someone to contact the HOF. If you check their website you can find their corporate officers and perhaps a quick call and a sample of the game could get you into their gift shop. If so, being able to say OOTP is being sold by the Baseball HOF would look pretty good posted on the front page of your website.

The Wolf · 06-16-2011, 01:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megamanmatt

Since I plan on writing my letter to Game Informer I'm thinking of writing a draft and posting it here first for a small bit of community feed back. After all I'm only one user and I tend to gravitate to fictional play so it might not hurt to get a few more points of view from players who enjoy historical play or online play. Anyone willing to do some proof reading and critiquing?

Matt, I can handle current play and I can proofread and critique. PM me if you want me to.

megamanmatt · 06-16-2011, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Matt, I can handle current play and I can proofread and critique. PM me if you want me to.

Thanks. I'm waiting on a PM from Brad first so I'm hoping to get the first draft written by tomorrow night. I'm thinking of PMing CF76 for some screenshots to demonstrate the moddibility of the game. His Endor League would be good do demonstrate how easy it is to mod files and customize a universe.

06-15-2011, 07:52 PM	#45
ctorg Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Queens, NY Posts: 9,848	Here's an idea: Send free copies of the game to key people with a lot of reach along with a letter explaining what it is. This is a long shot, but I'm thinking some of the more "enlightened" TV analyst guys, and perhaps even some broadcasters. These are exactly the kinds of people who DON'T normally play the game, but if even one of them gets into it and mentions it on the air, that's a big boost. You'd want to pick people who at least have some chance of playing it. For instance, I know Keith Hernandez is a huge fan of Strat-O-Matic, so he might be more inclined to play OOTP (though I'm betting he plays Strat-O the old fashioned way, with cards). David Cone has has been somewhat outspoken about his affinity for advanced metrics. There are a few out there. OOTP is a niche game, but it's also a very good game, and I'm betting it's good enough now that it can attract a bit more of a mainstream crowd than it used to. __________________ My music "When the trees blow back and forth, that's what makes the wind." - Steven Wright Fjord emena pancreas thorax fornicate marmalade morpheme proteolysis smaxa cabana offal srue vitriol grope hallelujah lentils

06-15-2011, 11:08 PM	#55
I miss J.T. Snow Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 27	If you want the press to pay attention when you contact them, answer one question for them very quickly: Why do I care? Do a lot of people play this? Give me specific numbers. Is it growing? Because that would help a lot; again, specific numbers. What need does this serve that regular video games don't? Be specific. Who plays this game, where are they and why aren't they served by better known products? Give specific, thorough and interesting answers to these questions before you're even asked, and you will get much more response. Editors, writers and bloggers are swamped with requests from people who want to be written about. They are looking for a reason to hit delete and move on to the next one, so don't make them figure out why this is newsworthy, tell them. Last edited by I miss J.T. Snow; 06-15-2011 at 11:09 PM.

06-15-2011, 11:53 PM	#56
megamanmatt Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Lakeville, Minnesota Posts: 2,416	Since I plan on writing my letter to Game Informer I'm thinking of writing a draft and posting it here first for a small bit of community feed back. After all I'm only one user and I tend to gravitate to fictional play so it might not hurt to get a few more points of view from players who enjoy historical play or online play. Anyone willing to do some proof reading and critiquing? __________________ "The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles, where there are no lakes; The Oilers moved to Tennessee where there is no oil; the Jazz moved to Salt Lake City where they don't allow music; The Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles and then back to Oakland, no one in Los Angeles seemed to notice." Note to self: Princess Kenny was really off-putting.

06-15-2011, 07:29 PM	#41
TDO Minors (Double A) Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 163	what about asking some athletes to mention it on twitter?

06-15-2011, 07:33 PM	#42
opparaics Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 11	A little guerilla marketing never hurt. Send street teams to their local stadiums to hand out flyers. People seem drawn to causes that are hurting. You guys provide a product that satiates baseball nerds like myself. Create a "Save OOTP" fund where your customer base can donate money to support the OOTP cause, which should also draw attention. Maybe for each first donation, you'll reward the donator with a percentage off a future release (where the price will be increased anyway) You can allocate these funds to advertising; etc..

06-15-2011, 07:41 PM	#43
beeniez Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 8	I would highly suggest advertising on a website such as MLBTradeRumors.com. Everyone from sportswriters, to actual professional athletes, other bloggers, and to the typical fan go to that website - it would hit a huge range of people. It's really just a glorified blog, only owned by one guy. Send a business quiry, a free game code, and ask if you could put a few posts about the game. It's about to hit their busy season in July. I don't know how much it would cost to advertise but I'm sure it would be worth it. Advertise On MLB Trade Rumors: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com Didn't Curt Schilling say he played OOTP? He has a personal website and blog.

06-15-2011, 07:43 PM	#44
BradC All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: northern CA Posts: 1,874	Thanks for the ideas, folks. Keep 'em coming. Passing out flyers at stadiums isn't a bad idea, but running off thousands of copies would be expensive, plus we'd have to have a bunch of people at each place. Not sure we have the budget for that, and I don't know if MLB teams want people outside their stadiums passing stuff out. I've contacted Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I know I've heard of them before. Thanks for that referral.

06-15-2011, 07:53 PM	#46
BradC All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: northern CA Posts: 1,874	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. So, I can ask, but what's their motivation for giving us exposure? I'm sure they have tons of people who would love to get exposure for their businesses through those Twitter feeds. After all, Charlie Sheen got big bucks for one tweet. (Admittedly, he had north of 1m followers at the time; Carl Crawford has about 50K.) On a related note, someone mentioned that Alyssa Milano is a big baseball fan, so I followed her on Twitter and told her about iOOTP. I said I'd send her a code, if she wanted to check it out. No response. Keith Olbermann is a big baseball guy, so I pinged him too. Nothing. There just isn't much motivation for them to give us anything, and if they do it for us, they'll have a zillion other people asking them to tweet about their causes, non-profits, products, services, etc. I'm asking them to give me free advertising. Why should they do that? I'll keep giving it a shot, because who knows, maybe someone will respond. If Doug Glanville checks out the game and wants to talk about it, awesome. Obviously, it helps to build some kind of personal relationship first, even if it's exchanging some chit-chat tweets. But I don't have time to try and do that with every prominent person who likes or plays baseball; OOTP is one of several part-time jobs for me.

06-15-2011, 07:56 PM	#47
SATW Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 45	The two places I'd definitely look are sites like fangraphs and podcasts like Kevin Goldstein's (I know he's a gamer) and Jonah Keri's.

06-15-2011, 10:11 PM	#51
JamesFBishop Bat Boy Join Date: Jun 2010 Posts: 5	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.

06-15-2011, 10:29 PM	#52
Dr. dru All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 647	As I mentioned earlier I have never played the game unitl about 3 weeks ago when I preordered 12 and downloaded the 11 demo. However, besides this board one of the things that really sold me was the OOTP 11 road to release series. You can still easily find them online. When I was reading these I really wanted to buy the game, but figured I would wait since it was only a short time before 12 came out. I was really looking forward to seeing this for 12 when I preordered. Having those road to releases online somewhere is like free advertising. It seems like they wouldn't take that long to do and would probably pay for themselves 5 or 10 times like The Wolf aluded to. It's shame that they are not going to happen. I think your PR should be a two pronged approach. Yes get the name out there, but people won't buy it just because they see it. If they see it they will google it. If they google it the first thing they will find are these boards and road to release letters. That's what will sell them on the game.

06-15-2011, 10:41 PM	#54
KowboyKoop Minors (Double A) Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 141	I second whoever mentioned reaching out to Fangraphs. That site draws the EXACT same fanbase as people that would be interested in playing OOTP.

06-16-2011, 12:22 AM	#58
slic1149 Major Leagues Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 348	Last February I went to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and noticed they were selling the Strat-O-Matic board game in their gift shop. It might be worthwhile for someone to contact the HOF. If you check their website you can find their corporate officers and perhaps a quick call and a sample of the game could get you into their gift shop. If so, being able to say OOTP is being sold by the Baseball HOF would look pretty good posted on the front page of your website.