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Guerrilla Marketing For Zero-K

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I want to put together an ad campaign for Zero-K. I want with something low tech and low cost like hitting the local library system with fliers. It would be measurable because if there is an increase of people coming in from my general area, it is having a positive effect.

I want to hash out a few things before I start. What image do you think would work best on fliers? Do you think the image should be printed in color or black & white? What website is best to link to, flagship site, itch.io, or steam?

I am going to put together the fliers myself, I just want to see if any of you had any opinions first.
+7 / -0

5 years ago
You should put up fliers around your neighborhood.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
On a serious note, i think you have the right idea when it comes to expanding the playerbase.

People currently seem to be more focused on keeping the new players, instead of bringing in newer players as a proper solution.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
It may be interesting to see what like 100$ spent on google or facebook ads may accomplish.
+1 / -0
5 years ago
We all have blogs and / or Facebook pages surely?

What about a synchronised posting on Zero-K?

Something either on the gameplay or the game. If we post a bunch of posts at the same time it may have a better effect than dribs and drabs. A thought.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
quote:
It may be interesting to see what like 100$ spent on google or facebook ads may accomplish.

We used to have ads and they had a pretty horrible return ratio. I think the order of magnitude was tens of dollars per retained person that played at least a month? Licho might have the exact stats.
+1 / -0
I did something similar a few years ago let me find the post

here's the flyer:

https://imgur.com/a/jJl2ki5

[Spoiler]

text for flyer:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1U0yAui0vgvLLRXRGj1x3QkFtVBjQDHIS?usp=sharing

here's stat for bing advertisement: [budget 250$]

http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/22611?page=2

if you want to do it, let me know I will try and do the same in my library or something.
+8 / -0

5 years ago
I made a Flyer advertising the upcoming Tournament.

https://zero-k.info/mediawiki/index.php?title=File:3v3_Tournament_Agust_31st_2018_ANSI_A.png

I probably need to pull request the xcf to https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K-Artwork somewhere.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Btw, if you want to use the same font as the website uses for titles, you can find it here.
+2 / -0
5 years ago
Just fix the few typo's that are in the flyers.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
made some quick alterations to slim it down and fix most of the more glaring typos and grammar
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ggyFAckB3DBeGME0RcZvUFyC6Cc12pMDAGa0ZGXWyF0/edit?usp=sharing
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Who is the target audience here? Keep in mind that RTS is a very niche genre, and even if you're just targeting gamers, only few will understand the meaning of RTS, hardly anyone knows SupCom or TA. That's been the experience with my friends at least.

I wouldn't use the old introduction text. Use or adapt the one from steam or the website:
quote:
Zero-K is a Real Time Strategy game set near the end of the universe. Manipulate the terrain, set things on fire, fight epic battles over land, air and sea. Conquer the galaxy, solo or co-op, in over 70 campaign missions. Hop online for tense 1v1 or massive battles with up to 32 players.

quote:

Commander wanted!


Drive giant robots, build an army of a thousand Fleas, move mountains if needed, bury the enemy at all cost!


  • Real time strategy.
  • Physically simulated units and projectiles.
  • Terrain manipulation.
  • 100+ varied units with unique abilities.
  • Singleplayer campaign.
  • Challenging, non-cheating AI.
  • Multiplayer 1v1 - 16v16, FFA, coop.
  • Multiplayer online campaign.
  • Really free, no in-game currency, no unfair multiplayer.


Talking about open-source outside of an open-source community is fairly pointless. Instead I'd mention that it's free and made by players. That's much more understandable than "GNU GPL v3".
+3 / -0
quote:
Talking about open-source outside of an open-source community is fairly pointless. Instead I'd mention that it's free and made by players. That's much more understandable than "GNU GPL v3".


Not sure if this is the best place for this, but just thought I'd mention the Zero-K listing on Youtube goes on at length about open source in a similar way. If the reader doesn't know about the Spring engine, it's not a very clear introduction to the game. At some point maybe this could get updated too:

quote:
Zero-K is a free multi-platform open source real-time strategy video game. Initially based on content from Total Annihilation on the open source Spring Engine, it was forked and all proprietary content replaced, and evolved into a completely new game with unique features. Among the games powered by the Spring game engine, Zero-K makes extensive use of Lua scripting for interface and gameplay changes/enhancements, as well as unique RTS concepts such as a flat technology tree.


I think the game would also look a bit more enticing to new players if a Zero-K poster / logo was added on Twitch and Youtube's listings for the game, as all they show now are a generic question mark and rectangle.
Edit: It looks easy to add box art on Twitch
+0 / -0

5 years ago


Submitted this three times to twitch already with no response.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
That does sound like they're actively refusing to use it. I tried submitting the art again just now.

The submission page said they had the right to refuse for "quality reasons" so I tested it overlaid on a twitch page, and the only thing that jumped out were the uncropped wings. So if they refuse this one maybe an edit would help. I prototyped a bit with a wingless version to compare and put it on imgur.

https://imgur.com/a/dRBIzb8
+2 / -0
The problem is the retention we had a lot of players post-release but they are all but gone now,we dont really have games during the day anymore its the same evening massive clusterfarts we are used too only now they are a lot bigger.

Ppl where complaining alot about the mm and how borked it was on twitch.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
Open Source and Real Time Strategy get right to the point of what we are offering. It would be counter productive not to use them.

Right now, we need to build up a sustained campaign since already did Steam and Itch.io.
+0 / -0
USrankOflameo you might see that there's no a single mention of "Open Source" on our Steam page. This is deliberate, because there we're targetting (RTS) gamers. Open Source is a niche in software development just like RTS is a niche in game development. The intersection of the two is nearly non-existent. Thus I'm suggesting to cater more closely to one of the two.

If there are many open source enthusiasts coming by your library that'd be interested in ZK, make sure to mention that Zero-K is FOSS. But my personal experience has been a very low success rate with getting FOSS enthusiasts to regularly play zk.

I don't wanna stop you from marketing Zero-K, so please do it either way.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
CHrankAdminDeinFreund people make livings on tiny niches all of the time.

The intersection of the two niches will distinguish Zero-K from others like League of Legends and Starcraft. There are going to be things that Zero-K can do that they can't like be an item in the Library or be on the Library Computers.

I probably want to make the next set of flyers using vector graphics so it can scale to page sizes trivially.

Some difference between Zero-K and $SomeOtherGame pages will help the search engine optimization and make the game easier to find in a query.
+1 / -0
we just need to make malware that spreads zk like a virus,everyone dose it so its okay.
+1 / -0